ASSIGNMENT - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

QUESTION 1-Explain the difference between the following:(a)High level and Low level languages (b)Applications and Utilities (c)Shareware, Open source software , Freeware Answer1(A) Difference between High level and Low level language High Level Language

1. High level languages allow more abstraction. This allows algorithms and functions to be written without requiring detailed knowledge of the hardware used in the computing platform. The compiler provides this interface transparently for the programmer. 2. High level languages are easier to read and program in, but require much more memory due to the generality necessitated in their compilers. 3. In high level languages, you write 1 instruction, and it generates a series of machine instructions. 4. In a high level language, you think about the problem, and write instructions to solve it. 5. EXAMPLES OF HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE:-C, C++, JAVA etc.

Low Level Language 1. Low level language allow less abstraction 2. Low level languages are more difficult to read and program, but are much more compact low level Programs also tend to run faster.

3.

In Low level languages, you write 1 instruction, and it generates 1 machine instruction. low level languages are typically assembly languages, which are 1 step removed from machine language .

4. In a low level language, you think of the problem, and you have to write the instructions to have the computer solve your problem. 5. EXAMPLE OF LOW LEVEL LANGUAGE includes machine language specific to each processor and assembly language specific to each processor.

(B) Difference between Applications and Utilities

APPLICATIONS
A program or group of programs designed for end users are called applications. Application software is divided into two different classes: 1. System software-This includes low -level programs that interact with the computer at a very basic level. 2. Applications software-These includes software which is used to form application based programs

UTILITIES
Utility software is a kind of system software designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain the computer. A single piece of utility software is usually called a utility or tool. Utility software should be contrasted with application software, which allows users to do things like creating text documents, playing games, listening to music or surfing the web. Rather than providing these kinds of user-oriented or output-oriented functionality, utility software usually focuses on how the computer infrastructure (including the computer hardware, operating system, application software and data storage) operates. Due to this focus, utilities are often rather technical and targeted at people with an advanced level of computer knowledge.

(C)Difference between Freeware, Shareware and Open source document

FREEWARE
The difference between freeware and open source is that you do not have access to the source code. Organizationally, this makes a big difference: There is no community and no development infrastructure around "freeware" as there is around open source software. Thus, while you can use freeware "as is," there is no real way to improve upon it or obtain support for it.

SHAREWARE
It is developed and released by someone who keeps full control of the intellectual property. The user does not have access to the source code and cannot modify it. There is also no collaboration or community around shareware.

OPEN SOURCE DOCUMENT

Open source means that the source code is available to all potential users, and they are free to use, modify, and re-distribute the source code. Legally, the "free" of open source refers exclusively to the source code, and it is possible to have support, services, documentation, and even binary versions which are not monetarily free.

QUESTION2- Discuss the relationship between data and information, information and knowledge. Also explain the concepts of cost and value of information by the help of an example?

Answer 2-The relationship between data and information is an interconnected one. Data is raw facts such as phone numbers or addresses, and information is the organization of these raw facts into a meaningful manner. The information may be well organized on a report or table and yet not always be meaningful to all people. There are different ways to arrange data to make it meaningful for different people. For example, one person might be satisfied with information that shows him or her the towns in which their customers live in to help him or her determine where the largest volume of customers are. A

different person might want that information expanded to include those customers street addresses as well so that they may determine a better shipping route. Both of these examples contain the same customers and similar data but the first person would have no use for the street addresses in his search and the second person would not have enough information to create a shipping route from just the towns. The type of data used can also affect the information generated. You can gather a great deal of data on the needs of plants to grow but if you do not put the data in the table correctly or put inaccurate data in you will get information that is basically useless. That is the garbage in/ garbage out theory. It is also a good idea when creating a table to group the like characteristics together to make it easier to gather information from the data. Computers now make it easier to input data into tables in a meaningful manner to create information that might be useful to someone.

QUESTION 3-Explain the major marketing subsystems and enumerate the advantages of the use of
computers in such subsystems?

ANSWER 3-AT THE MICRO LEVEL , THE SUBSYSTEMS ARE1.Marketing Concept. 2. Importance of Marketing to Strategic Management and the Organization Success. 3. Strategic marketing management 4. Understanding the Marketing and Competitors. 5. Marketing research. 6. Market forecast. 7. The importance of knowing Buyer Behavior. 8. Consumer behavior 9. Organizational buyer behavior. 10. Marketing Strategy 11. Strategic market Planning 12. Market Development. 13. Marketing environments 14. Marketing strategies 15. Marketing planning.

Marketing research Market Research is a systematic, objective collection and analysis of data about a particular target market, competition, and/or environment. It always incorporates some form of data collection whether

it be secondary research (often referred to as desk research) or primary research which is collected direct from a respondent. The purpose of any market research project is to achieve an increased understanding of the subject matter. With markets throughout the world becoming increasingly more competitive, market research is now on the agenda of many organizations, whether they be large or small. The Market Research Process To conduct market research, organizations may decide to undertake the project themselves (some through a marketing research department) or they might choose to commission it via a market research agency or consultancy. Whichever, before undertaking any research project, it is crucial to define the research objectives i.e. what are you trying to achieve from the research? And what do you need to know? After considering the objectives, Market Researchers can utilize many types of research techniques and methodologies to capture the data that they require. All of the available methodologies either collect quantitative or qualitative information. The use of each very much depends on the research objectives but many believe that results are most useful when the two methods are combined.

Marketing planning Product specific, market specific or company-wide plan that describes activities involved in achieving specific marketing objectives within a set timeframe. A market plan begins with the identification (through market research) of specific customer needs and how the firm intends to fulfill them while generating an acceptable level of return. It generally includes analysis of the current market situation (opportunities and trends) and detailed action programs, budgets, sales forecasts, strategies, and projected financial statements. See also marketing strategy.

Question 4- Describe the significant features of each of Visual Basic, Java, HTML, Excel and COBOL briefly? Answer 4-

VISUAL BASIC 1. Visual Basic is a Graphical User Interface (GUI) language. This means that a VB program will always
show something on the screen that the user can interact with (usually via mouse and keyboard) to get a job done
2. Visual Basic allows you to quickly and easily develop a bank of visual controls with sliders, switches and meters or a complex form for a user to fill out. It uses the BASIC language which is known to most computer programmers, and which can be learned quickly if it is not already known.

3. Visual Basic is considered good programming practice to modularize your programs. Instead of thinking of a computer program as a single large collection of code, the good programmer writes code so that you never need to look at more code than fits on the screen (or page) at one time.

JAVA
1. Platform Independent The concept of Write-once-run-anywhere (known as the Platform independent) is one of the important key feature of java language that makes java as the most powerful language. Not even a single language is idle to this feature but java is closer to this feature. The programs written on one platform can run on any platform provided the platform must have the JVM. 2. Simple There are various features that makes the java as a simple language. Programs are easy to write and debug because java does not use the pointers explicitly. It is much harder to write the java programs that can crash the system but we cannot say about the other programming languages. Java provides the bug free system due to the strong memory management. It also has the automatic memory allocation and deallocation system

3. Robust Java has the strong memory allocation and automatic garbage collection mechanism. It provides the powerful exception handling and type checking mechanism as compare to other programming languages. Compiler checks the program whether there any error and interpreter checks any run time error and makes the system secure from crash. All of the above features makes the java language robust. 4. Distributed The widely used protocols like HTTP and FTP are developed in java. Internet programmers can call functions on these protocols and can get access the files from any remote machine on the internet rather than writing codes on their local system. 5. Portable The feature Write-once-run-anywhere makes the java language portable provided that the system must have interpreter for the JVM. Java also have the standard data size irrespective of operating system or the processor. These features makes the java as a portable language. 6. Dynamic While executing the java program the user can get the required files dynamically from a local drive or from a computer thousands of miles away from the user just by connecting with the Internet. 7. Secure Java does not use memory pointers explicitly. All the programs in java are run under an area known as the sand box. Security manager determines the accessibility options of a class like reading and writing a file to the local disk. Java uses the public key encryption system to allow the java applications to transmit over the internet in the secure encrypted form. The bytecode Verifier checks the classes after loading. 8. Performance Java uses native code usage, and lightweight process called threads. In the beginning interpretation of bytecode resulted the performance slow but the advance version of JVM uses the adaptive and just in time compilation technique that improves the performance.

9.Multithreaded As we all know several features of Java like Secure, Robust, Portable, dynamic etc; you will be more delighted to know another feature of Java which is Multithreaded. Java is also a Multithreaded programming language. Multithreading means a single program having different threads executing independently at the same time. Multiple threads execute instructions according to the program code in a process or a program. Multithreading works the similar way as multiple processes run on one computer. Multithreading programming is a very interesting concept in Java. In multithreaded programs not even a single thread disturbs the execution of other thread. Threads are obtained from the pool of available ready to run threads and they run on the system CPUs. This is how Multithreading works in Java which you will soon come to know in details in later chapters

HTML 1. The main feature is that it designs the basic frame of any webpage, then, you can enhance the webpage even more by using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and JavaScript.

COBOL
1. The language that automated business 2. Allows names to be truly connotative - permits both long names (up to 30 characters) and word-connector characters (dashes) 3. Every variable is defined in detail - this includes number of decimal digits and the location of the implied decimal point 4. File records are also described with great detail, as are lines to be output to a printer - ideal for printing accounting reports 5. Offers object, visual programming environments 6. Class Libraries 7. Rapid Application Capabilities

QUESTION 5-Define decision support system in your own words. Also illustrate the concept using your organizational context?

Answer 5-A decision support system (DSS) is a computer program application that analyzes business data and presents it so that users can make business decisions more easily. It is an "informational application" (to distinguish it from an "operational application" that collects the data in the course of normal business operation).Typical information that a decision support application might gather and present would be:

Comparative sales figures between one week and the next Projected revenue figures based on new product sales assumptions The consequences of different decision alternatives, given past experience in a context that is described

A decision support system may present information graphically and may include an expert system or artificial intelligence . It may be aimed at business executives or some other group of knowledge workers.