Oct 26, 2010
What is internet?
What is Internet?
The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
The Internet and the World Wide Web are not synonymous. The Internet is a collection of interconnected computer networks & the Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. The Internet consists of the computers and networks that handle Internet Protocol (IP) data packets. The World Wide Web is one of the services accessible via the Internet.
It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet.
The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a “network of networks” that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet.
what is Implementation?
Sep 24, 2010
A Second Life for Old Vehicle Batteries
Major automakers are looking for new ways to drive down the cost of batteries for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. GM and Nissan, which will both start selling electric and hybrid vehicles at the end of the year, have announced partnerships that they hope will find new applications for the batteries after they've outlived their usefulness for powering vehicles.Last week Nissan announced a joint venture with industrial giant Sumitomo. GM followed suit with a similar announcement this week--it's teaming up with ABB, a leading supplier of equipment for the electrical grid. Under these partnerships, Nissan and GM will study various possible energy-storage applications for partly depleted vehicle batteries.
At the end of this year, GM will start selling the Chevrolet Volt, an electric car that can drive 40 miles on the energy stored in its lithium-ion battery and 300 more on electricity generated by its gasoline engine (the car is known as a plug-in hybrid). Nissan will also deliver the Leaf sedan at the end of the year--a battery-powered car with a range of approximately 100 miles (although the range can be much lower if the heater is on and the stereo blaring).
The battery in an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid can cost about as much as a small car--$10,000 to $15,000. This fact, combined with the high cost of developing these vehicles, will make them unprofitable for several years, says Michael Omotoso, manager of the power train forecasting group at J.D. Power and Associates. So finding applications for used vehicle batteries could provide automakers with valuable additional revenue.
Automakers expect that most vehicle batteries ready for replacement will still be able to store between 50 percent and 80 percent of the energy that they could when they were brand-new. That storage capacity could be valuable for a number of applications. The batteries could be used as backup power supplies for data centers or for communities that are prone to power outages. They could also be used to help stabilize the grid, smoothing out fluctuations in supply and demand and potentially storing electricity generated by solar panels and wind farms for use during times of peak demand.There's not much demand for used lithium-ion automotive batteries now, Omotoso says. But demand is expected to grow as more sources of renewable energy come on line.
Mark Duvall, director of electric transportation and energy storage at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, California, says electric utilities are starting pilot projects that use lithium-ion batteries. But they could be ready to use them more widely by the time used batteries become available in large numbers. "The timing of this work in the auto industry is very good," he says.
The new partnerships announced by GM and Nissan will help the automakers figure out how to reap the benefits of depleted batteries, answering questions such as whether the batteries need to be disassembled and repackaged, how well they will work for different applications, and what applications could be the most lucrative. Storing large amounts of energy for hours or days is a very different task from quickly charging and discharging large amounts of power. Duvall says that companies may be willing to pay relatively high prices for batteries for some applications, such as backing up a data center.
It's not clear exactly how much these applications can defray the cost of the batteries. "It's a cloudy crystal ball," says Micky Bly, GM executive director of electrical systems. For now, he says, government incentives will help cars such as the Volt compete, but those incentives will eventually expire. To compete without incentives, the cost of using batteries will have to come down from where it is today--between $500 and $1,000 per kilowatt hour--to $200 to $300 per kilowatt hour.
Bly expects used-battery proceeds to account for "single-digit percentages" of these savings. (The rest of the savings will need to come from other areas, such as improved battery technology, and lower costs that accompany larger-scale production.)
Reaping profits from used batteries "has been a nice vision for many years," says Menahem Anderman, founder of Total Battery Consulting, based in Oregon House, California. But he says he has yet to see a viable plan for doing it. It's hard to predict how long an eight-year-old battery will last, he says, or how safe it will be. And the economic value will be limited by the fact that the batteries will need to be tested, shipped, and supported by warranties, he says. So he expects the batteries' residual value will be "well below $100 per kilowatt hour, probably below $50 per kilowatt hour"--less than 10 percent of the cost of a battery today.
Sep 16, 2010
Yahoo Brings Apps to TVs
As Google readies a new TV service to be launched by the end of the year, rival Yahoo is stepping up its own efforts to infiltrate your television set.
Web TV: Internet-connected apps can be installed on even relatively cheap TV sets from manufacturers working with Yahoo.
Credit: Yahoo:
Some 3.5 million TVs have already shipped with Yahoo's Connected TV platform since its debut in mid-2009. The platform lets users install Internet apps, or "widgets," to do things like watch shows bought through Amazon or rented through Netflix, or browse eBay and Facebook while watching TV. Yahoo announced today that Toshiba will begin shipping TVs with the platform--joining Sony, LG, Samsung, and Vizio.
Yahoo and Google both hope to make advertising dollars through Internet-connected TVs. Such ads would be targeted to TV content. For example, while an app on an Internet-connected TVs could automatically pull up scoring data to accompany a sports broadcast, advertising could show merchandise for the viewer's favorite team.
Google is working with Intel to create a powerful dedicated TV device featuring Intel's Atom processors. Yahoo's approach is fundamentally different--it's making Internet apps that could work on even relatively cheap TV sets, rather than selling a separate computer-like set-top device. Yahoo also started out working with Intel, but then pivoted to focus on the lower-end chips used by TV manufacturers, such as chips made by Broadcom, ATI, and ARM.
"TVs are designed for video performance, not application performance, and have little internal storage," says Russ Shafer, a senior director of marketing at Yahoo. "So we developed a very light, cloud-based platform." Yahoo's platform can be shipped with almost any TV capable of connecting to the Internet, the cheapest being a model available from Vizio for $299.
"Yahoo was one of the first entrants into this space," says Colin Dixon, a senior partner with Frisco, Texas-based TDG Research, an analyst firm specializing in digital media. "Getting into the low end was an interesting strategy that gives Yahoo a good lead in terms of getting their platform out there, although I'm not sure user numbers are high yet."
So far, around 65 TV models running Yahoo's software are available. As a result, Yahoo is one of the first companies to have data on how TV viewers use Internet apps on TVs. "The most popular apps today are video-on-demand and Facebook," says Shafer, who adds that users have shown how TV and Internet content can share the screen. "Users can turn to Twitter to add information not featured in a news broadcast as an event unfolds," he says.
Shafer says that Yahoo's user research supports the decision to eschew adding a Web browser and keyboard (unlike Google TV). "We're not trying to force people to do that because it isn't what people want--Apple is on the same model." When Steve Jobs unveiled his firm's revamped Apple TV product earlier this month, he said that Apple's research had also shown that users want a simpler approach.
Many unknowns remain, though, and only limited lessons can be drawn from the cell-phone app market. "One big difference is that the TV is a shared device, not a personal device; also, maybe 80 percent of phone apps are location-based, which doesn't translate to TV," says Schafer.
Kurt Sherf of Parks Associates, a digital entertainment and consumer electronics consultancy in Dallas, argues that consumers are ready for shared apps. When his firm asked people what apps they would use on a TV, many said they wanted a shared calendar that everyone in their household could update and view.
Yahoo is still working out how to serve up advertising using its TV platform, something that Dixon says is "absolutely essential" to any firm developing a connected TV platform. "These companies do not have the advertising part nailed down at all," he says.
Yahoo's large online advertising network could potentially supply the inventory, while the TV platform provides ample data with which to target and track the performance of ads, says Schafer. "It brings the Web metrics we're used to onto the TV," he says. "You can watch someone's flow as they navigate inside widgets, you can track what they saw and what's on and off the screen. Since our users are all logged in, we also have a good idea of their profiles."
Schafer says Yahoo hasn't started serving ads on TVs, "but we can get demographics and metrics and are testing out the inventory space internally." One type of advertising placement being tested is a banner on the toolbar that provides access to installed apps. The producers of the cable TV show Weeds are testing an app that offers a free streaming episode to promote the new season.
Schafer claims that Yahoo's platform should give advertisers metrics similar to those offered by Google TV. But Dixon points out that it will collect less information than Google TV. "The Yahoo engine doesn't know what's on the TV; Google TV devices can know," he says.
A Google TV device could track whatever content is onscreen at any given moment by monitoring the station a person is tuned into and using the Internet to check TV schedules. However, that's only possible if the cable, satellite or broadcast provider allows it, says Dixon, something that he expects only satellite operator and Google partner Dish Networks to have agreed to so far.
Yahoo's hope is that by establishing an early--if relatively low-powered--beachhead in today's TVs it will be able to ramp up the features of its platform when smarter chips and other hardware appear later. "Awareness of the signal will come over time," says Schafer.
Aug 30, 2010
Taking Over a Car
A. Computerized Systems
A typical luxury sedan contains 50 to 100 computers controlled by over 100 megabytes of code. Most of these computers communicate over a shared internal network. These systems have surprising interconnections that attackers could exploit, the researchers say. For example, in many cars, the door locking system and the crash detection system are linked. That means an attacker who takes over the locks may get access to key internal systems.
B. Onboard Diagnostics Port
U.S. law mandates an onboard diagnostics port, which is located under the dashboard in most cars. The researchers gain access to the car's computer systems by plugging into it.
C. Communications Cable
The researchers used this cable to connect to the car's high-speed communications network, which contains the engine control module, the electronic brake control module, and the transmission control module. The car uses a protocol that enables all these components to communicate with each other. The cable converts data sent using this protocol to a USB signal that can be received by an ordinary laptop.
D. Custom-built Connection
A low-speed network connects less critical parts of the car's computer system, such as the air conditioning, the radio, and the theft deterrent module, which prevents the car from starting without a legitimate key. The researchers loaded their own code onto a circuit board, which was then able to translate between the laptop and the car's systems.
E. Carshark Interface
The researchers developed a custom "CarShark" interface--which can run on an ordinary laptop--to track and control the messages that various computer systems send each other over the car's networks. They executed their attacks through this interface, and in some cases they sent it wireless commands from a nearby car.
Jul 13, 2010
A Turning Point for Genetic Testing
A Turning Point for Genetic Testing:
The FDA plans to overhaul its regulation of the increasingly common diagnostic tests.:
In a prelude to overhauling its regulatory oversight of genetic diagnostic testing, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will convene a public meeting next week to gather input from test makers and others.
The event reflects a turning point in genetic testing, a cornerstone of personalized medicine. Once mainly the domain of rare diseases, scientists have discovered a growing number of genetic variations linked to both the risk of more common disease and patients' response to drugs. The number of genetic diagnostic tests has expanded rapidly, and tests have become increasingly complex, making it more challenging to interpret and act on the results.
"We don't think physicians are going to be able to interpret the results; they are relying on the labs that make them," says Alberto Gutierrez, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Device Evaluation and Safety at the FDA. "So we think a third party should assess these devices."
The early generation of genetic tests was relatively simple, testing for a single cancer-linked gene, for example. The possible treatment decisions or other responses were well-defined. But in the last few years, these tests have incorporated more genes and tackled more complex and common diseases. "The scope of these tests and how they can be used is growing rapidly," says Alexis Borisy, chief executive officer of Foundation Medicine, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, that is developing genetic tests to predict the most effective drugs for cancer patients. More than 2,000 genetic tests are now available through clinical laboratories.
However, tests developed and performed in a single laboratory today face little federal regulation other than that they be performed in a certified laboratory. (Some states, such as New York and California, have stricter laws, such as requiring that a physician order clinical tests.) For these "laboratory developed" tests, physicians collect a sample from patients and then send them to a specific lab. So-called test kits, which are sold to hospitals and other labs so that they can perform the tests themselves, are subject more extensive regulation.
The FDA has made several moves toward more extensive regulation in recent years, but the regulatory issue came to a head in May when Pathway Genomics announced plans to sell its genetic tests in drugstores. Those plans were halted when the agency sent Pathway and other genetics testing companies a letter questioning whether the tests could be sold without the agency's approval. A month later, the agency issued a statement describing its intent to rethink its approach to all laboratory-developed tests.
"These tests, which are becoming more complex and high risk, are playing an increasingly important role in clinical decision-making. As a result, LDTs [laboratory developed tests] that have not been properly validated put patients at risk, such as for missed diagnosis, wrong diagnosis, and failure to receive appropriate treatment," the agency explained in the statement. Because of the lack of existing regulation, little data exists on error rates or misinterpretation of the tests.
"The primary concern was once just analytic validity; does it accurately measure what it says it does?" says Daniel Vorhaus, an attorney at Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, in Charlotte, NC, and editor of the firm's Genomics and Life Sciences blog. "That's still very important, but now there are other issues as well. How are people using the information? Is the interpretation of information accurate? What do I do with the information?" For example, if a test predicts that someone is at greater risk for diabetes, a physician could suggest diet and exercise or a more aggressive approach involving drugs.
The agency says it plans to take a risk-based approach, meaning that tests linked to major medical decisions will be more tightly regulated than those that might predict a minor increase in risk for disease.
The FDA plans to overhaul its regulation of the increasingly common diagnostic tests.:
In a prelude to overhauling its regulatory oversight of genetic diagnostic testing, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will convene a public meeting next week to gather input from test makers and others.
The event reflects a turning point in genetic testing, a cornerstone of personalized medicine. Once mainly the domain of rare diseases, scientists have discovered a growing number of genetic variations linked to both the risk of more common disease and patients' response to drugs. The number of genetic diagnostic tests has expanded rapidly, and tests have become increasingly complex, making it more challenging to interpret and act on the results.
"We don't think physicians are going to be able to interpret the results; they are relying on the labs that make them," says Alberto Gutierrez, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostic Device Evaluation and Safety at the FDA. "So we think a third party should assess these devices."
The early generation of genetic tests was relatively simple, testing for a single cancer-linked gene, for example. The possible treatment decisions or other responses were well-defined. But in the last few years, these tests have incorporated more genes and tackled more complex and common diseases. "The scope of these tests and how they can be used is growing rapidly," says Alexis Borisy, chief executive officer of Foundation Medicine, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, that is developing genetic tests to predict the most effective drugs for cancer patients. More than 2,000 genetic tests are now available through clinical laboratories.
However, tests developed and performed in a single laboratory today face little federal regulation other than that they be performed in a certified laboratory. (Some states, such as New York and California, have stricter laws, such as requiring that a physician order clinical tests.) For these "laboratory developed" tests, physicians collect a sample from patients and then send them to a specific lab. So-called test kits, which are sold to hospitals and other labs so that they can perform the tests themselves, are subject more extensive regulation.
The FDA has made several moves toward more extensive regulation in recent years, but the regulatory issue came to a head in May when Pathway Genomics announced plans to sell its genetic tests in drugstores. Those plans were halted when the agency sent Pathway and other genetics testing companies a letter questioning whether the tests could be sold without the agency's approval. A month later, the agency issued a statement describing its intent to rethink its approach to all laboratory-developed tests.
"These tests, which are becoming more complex and high risk, are playing an increasingly important role in clinical decision-making. As a result, LDTs [laboratory developed tests] that have not been properly validated put patients at risk, such as for missed diagnosis, wrong diagnosis, and failure to receive appropriate treatment," the agency explained in the statement. Because of the lack of existing regulation, little data exists on error rates or misinterpretation of the tests.
"The primary concern was once just analytic validity; does it accurately measure what it says it does?" says Daniel Vorhaus, an attorney at Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, in Charlotte, NC, and editor of the firm's Genomics and Life Sciences blog. "That's still very important, but now there are other issues as well. How are people using the information? Is the interpretation of information accurate? What do I do with the information?" For example, if a test predicts that someone is at greater risk for diabetes, a physician could suggest diet and exercise or a more aggressive approach involving drugs.
The agency says it plans to take a risk-based approach, meaning that tests linked to major medical decisions will be more tightly regulated than those that might predict a minor increase in risk for disease.
Tiny Springs Could Reduce Microchip Waste
Tiny Springs Could Reduce Microchip Waste:
Using springs and glue instead of solder to make electronic connections between computer chips could end one of the electronics industry's most wasteful habits, say researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center and Oracle.
Spring board: Metal springs turn the connection of computer chips to circuit boards into a reversible process, making it possible to replace a broken chip without throwing out the whole board.
Credit: PARC
"The whole industry is based on nonreworkable technology like solder or tape," explains Eugene Chow, of PARC. "If one chip in a module of several doesn't work after you've soldered them down, you have to throw out the whole thing."
Chow and colleagues are fine-tuning an alternative approach. They pattern a surface with microscale springs that compress slightly under a chip's weight, and these form a lasting, secure electronic connection when the two surfaces are glued together. "You can turn it on, and if it works great, do a final bond with adhesive," says Chow. "If it doesn't work, you can just take off the die that failed and replace it."
For now, the collaborators are developing their springy approach for the high-performance processors used in supercomputers or high-end servers. These chips are combined in closely packed groups known as multichip modules. Such modules need the processors to be packed closely together in order to speed the transfer of signals between them.
"I think it's just a matter of course that this approach will get to the lower-end applications, too, though," says Chow. "Eventually this could be in a high-end cell phone--everyone wants to get more chips into everything, and this can help, because the pitch [the horizontal distance between connections] can be so small." The team has shown that their springs can be made as close together as six microns, compared to the tens of microns necessary with solder connections.
The springs are flat metallic strips that curve up from a substrate that a chip is fixed to. "Fundamentally it's the simplest spring you can imagine," says Chow. The spring-building process starts with the addition of a thin titanium layer to the substrate. On top of this, the spring material is deposited in such a way that builds strain into the top layer. Photolithography is used to carve out the outlines of the many springs before the titanium is etched away from underneath.
"The tension makes the springs simply pop up," says Chow. "It's an elegant way of making a three-dimensional structure." The finished spring is coated with a layer of gold for added strength and a better electronic connection. The manufacturers must design the layout of the springs so that they match up to the contacts on the chips. Small sapphire balls or other peg-like structures on the surface of the substrate fit into notches in the chip to ensure the two are positioned correctly.
Last month, Chow and colleagues presented their work at the Electronics Components and Technology Conference in Las Vegas. They showed that their approach works on a test chip from Oracle that simulates the electrical and thermal behavior of a high-end processor. "It's a test vehicle to evaluate the finished module," Chow explains. The test chip has nearly 4,000 180-square-micron cells, each containing a thermometer, sensors to measure the power supplied to that part of the chip, and a heater so that the overall chip pumps out the same heat as a high-power processor working at full capacity.
Another reason to think beyond solder, says Chin Lee, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Irvine, is the fact that it will soon limit the industry's ability to make ever-smaller devices. "Alternatives are needed, because solder is not going to continue to shrink," says Chin.
Manufacturers can position the electronic springs more accurately than solder, and this can boost performance, for example by letting them arrange the chips in more compact groups, says Chow. In the race to make faster chips, he says, chip makers can often overlook the ways that components are connected and packaged. "This isn't a glamorous field," says Chow. "Everyone focuses on transistors and components, but packaging is a real bottleneck for performance."
Bahgat Sammakia, director of the Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging Center at Binghamton University, agrees. "You can have the best technology in the world, but without packaging, you won't get the best performance from them; it is what enables the creation of the finished systems we are aiming for."
Sammakia says that although research into novel approaches to packaging chips is valuable, ultimately the market must decide whether a particular solution will work. "You can always solve a problem, but not always in a way that is commercial."
Jennifer Ernst, PARC's director of business development, says the project is being directly shaped by what is possible at commercial scale. "Our first priority is to get this into manufacturing," she says. She notes that the springs are made simply, using just a few layers of metal and standard deposition and etching processes. "We are currently making these at our own fab, but expect the volume to be cost-competitive at commercial scale," she says.
Using springs and glue instead of solder to make electronic connections between computer chips could end one of the electronics industry's most wasteful habits, say researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center and Oracle.
Spring board: Metal springs turn the connection of computer chips to circuit boards into a reversible process, making it possible to replace a broken chip without throwing out the whole board.
Credit: PARC
"The whole industry is based on nonreworkable technology like solder or tape," explains Eugene Chow, of PARC. "If one chip in a module of several doesn't work after you've soldered them down, you have to throw out the whole thing."
Chow and colleagues are fine-tuning an alternative approach. They pattern a surface with microscale springs that compress slightly under a chip's weight, and these form a lasting, secure electronic connection when the two surfaces are glued together. "You can turn it on, and if it works great, do a final bond with adhesive," says Chow. "If it doesn't work, you can just take off the die that failed and replace it."
For now, the collaborators are developing their springy approach for the high-performance processors used in supercomputers or high-end servers. These chips are combined in closely packed groups known as multichip modules. Such modules need the processors to be packed closely together in order to speed the transfer of signals between them.
"I think it's just a matter of course that this approach will get to the lower-end applications, too, though," says Chow. "Eventually this could be in a high-end cell phone--everyone wants to get more chips into everything, and this can help, because the pitch [the horizontal distance between connections] can be so small." The team has shown that their springs can be made as close together as six microns, compared to the tens of microns necessary with solder connections.
The springs are flat metallic strips that curve up from a substrate that a chip is fixed to. "Fundamentally it's the simplest spring you can imagine," says Chow. The spring-building process starts with the addition of a thin titanium layer to the substrate. On top of this, the spring material is deposited in such a way that builds strain into the top layer. Photolithography is used to carve out the outlines of the many springs before the titanium is etched away from underneath.
"The tension makes the springs simply pop up," says Chow. "It's an elegant way of making a three-dimensional structure." The finished spring is coated with a layer of gold for added strength and a better electronic connection. The manufacturers must design the layout of the springs so that they match up to the contacts on the chips. Small sapphire balls or other peg-like structures on the surface of the substrate fit into notches in the chip to ensure the two are positioned correctly.
Last month, Chow and colleagues presented their work at the Electronics Components and Technology Conference in Las Vegas. They showed that their approach works on a test chip from Oracle that simulates the electrical and thermal behavior of a high-end processor. "It's a test vehicle to evaluate the finished module," Chow explains. The test chip has nearly 4,000 180-square-micron cells, each containing a thermometer, sensors to measure the power supplied to that part of the chip, and a heater so that the overall chip pumps out the same heat as a high-power processor working at full capacity.
Another reason to think beyond solder, says Chin Lee, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Irvine, is the fact that it will soon limit the industry's ability to make ever-smaller devices. "Alternatives are needed, because solder is not going to continue to shrink," says Chin.
Manufacturers can position the electronic springs more accurately than solder, and this can boost performance, for example by letting them arrange the chips in more compact groups, says Chow. In the race to make faster chips, he says, chip makers can often overlook the ways that components are connected and packaged. "This isn't a glamorous field," says Chow. "Everyone focuses on transistors and components, but packaging is a real bottleneck for performance."
Bahgat Sammakia, director of the Small Scale Systems Integration and Packaging Center at Binghamton University, agrees. "You can have the best technology in the world, but without packaging, you won't get the best performance from them; it is what enables the creation of the finished systems we are aiming for."
Sammakia says that although research into novel approaches to packaging chips is valuable, ultimately the market must decide whether a particular solution will work. "You can always solve a problem, but not always in a way that is commercial."
Jennifer Ernst, PARC's director of business development, says the project is being directly shaped by what is possible at commercial scale. "Our first priority is to get this into manufacturing," she says. She notes that the springs are made simply, using just a few layers of metal and standard deposition and etching processes. "We are currently making these at our own fab, but expect the volume to be cost-competitive at commercial scale," she says.
Jun 18, 2010
WIDGETS
DASHBOARD:
Dashboard is an application for Apple's Mac OS X operating systems, used for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. First introduced in Tiger, it is a semi-transparent layer that is invisible to the user unless activated by clicking its icon in the Dock. Alternatively, the user can invoke Dashboard by moving the cursor into a preassigned hot corner, by pressing a hot key, or mouse button, any of which can be set to the user's preference.
When Dashboard is activated, the user's desktop is dimmed and widgets appear in the foreground. Like application windows, they can be moved around, rearranged, deleted, and recreated (so that more than one of the same Widget is open at the same time, possibly with different settings). New widgets can be opened, via an icon bar on the bottom of the layer, by dragging a widget icon out into the layer. After loading, the widget is ready for use.
Despite being a standard and non-removable part of all subsequent OS versions, actual usage of Dashboard is widely thought to be low and development of new widgets has slowed substantially since the application was first introduced.
When a Dashboard widget is built, it usually consists of six files:
Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" includes an application called Dashcode, which is a more user-friendly way of creating widgets. Another new feature of Mac OS X Leopard is called "Web Clips" which lets users easily create widgets from parts of a webpage. During the WWDC 2007 keynote, Steve Jobs made widgets out of the following: the featured news headlines on Yahoo.com, the top ten most searched terms on Google, the Photo of the Day on National Geographic, the Dilbert comic strip, and the box office information from Rotten Tomatoes. The user can also customize the border to further personalize the widgets.
One school of thought came to the conclusion that Dashboard was a "rip-off" of Konfabulator. It points out the visual and functional similarities between Dashboard has been widely compared to Konfabulator (now Yahoo! Widget Engine) and sometimes called a copy of it, due to the similarities between their graphical aspects and the fact that they both use the term “widgets” to describe the objects in their environments.[1] Konfabulator may in turn have been based on Apple’s Desk Accessories, first released in 1984 with the original Macintosh. Desk Accessories, similar to widgets, were small mini-applications that operated on a user’s desktop. After the introduction of System 7 and cooperative multitasking the necessity of creating Desk Accessories was removed and developers were encouraged to create applications instead. The OS continued to support them, for backward compatibility, until the switch to Mac OS X (In fact, the Calculator desk accessory remained in the Mac OS through version 9, 17 years without a significant update).[2][3]
The code bases for Konfabulator and Dashboard are also different: Konfabulator uses XML and JavaScript to generate Widgets, whereas Dashboard uses HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Objective C.[4]
In addition, Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" released in late 2007, includes new widgets. One of these is Web Clips, which allows any user to turn a rectangular section of any webpage into a widget (This, however, only works with Safari). The widget updates as the website does, and all links and other interactive material in the widget's selection of the webpage works as if the website is being accessed from Safari. Another new widget is Movies, which allows users to find currently playing movies at local theaters, view trailers, and purchase tickets directly from Dashboard.
Another option is to use Amnesty Singles or Amnesty Widget Browser, shareware utilities that also allow the user to select which level (desktop, standard or floating) a widget occupies while it resides on the desktop. WidgetRunner is an open-source, freeware utility that also allows you to run widgets on the desktop and control the level at which they appear.
It has been demonstrated by Erica Sadun that installing Dashboard widgets on a jailbroken iPhone OS is possible in theory, but most desktop-oriented widgets 1) are not oriented to usage or interaction on the iPhone OS's multi-touchscreen-oriented interface; and 2) rely on DashboardClient's widget JavaScript object, which is not part of the iPhone OS.
Dashboard is an application for Apple's Mac OS X operating systems, used for hosting mini-applications known as widgets. First introduced in Tiger, it is a semi-transparent layer that is invisible to the user unless activated by clicking its icon in the Dock. Alternatively, the user can invoke Dashboard by moving the cursor into a preassigned hot corner, by pressing a hot key, or mouse button, any of which can be set to the user's preference.
When Dashboard is activated, the user's desktop is dimmed and widgets appear in the foreground. Like application windows, they can be moved around, rearranged, deleted, and recreated (so that more than one of the same Widget is open at the same time, possibly with different settings). New widgets can be opened, via an icon bar on the bottom of the layer, by dragging a widget icon out into the layer. After loading, the widget is ready for use.
Despite being a standard and non-removable part of all subsequent OS versions, actual usage of Dashboard is widely thought to be low and development of new widgets has slowed substantially since the application was first introduced.
Contents |
Creation of widgets
Dashboard widgets are created using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript. Because the same languages are used for creating websites, many web developers can already build them. Widgets themselves are, at the core, simply HTML files that are displayed within the Dashboard layer; they use the WebKit application framework that is also used in Apple's Safari web browser, meaning even users running earlier versions of Mac OS X — where Dashboard is unavailable — can build them.When a Dashboard widget is built, it usually consists of six files:
- The widget's HTML file, which is the actual file that will be displayed in the Dashboard layer
- The widget's CSS file, which is used for styling the widget (but is called on from the HTML file)
- The widget's JavaScript file, although it may be implemented directly within the HTML file if the developer desires
- The widget's Property List (called “Info.plist”), which is what Dashboard uses to load the widget’s properties (i.e.: name, version, HTML file, etc.)
- The background image of the widget, in PNG format
- The icon that is displayed in the menu bar
Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" includes an application called Dashcode, which is a more user-friendly way of creating widgets. Another new feature of Mac OS X Leopard is called "Web Clips" which lets users easily create widgets from parts of a webpage. During the WWDC 2007 keynote, Steve Jobs made widgets out of the following: the featured news headlines on Yahoo.com, the top ten most searched terms on Google, the Photo of the Day on National Geographic, the Dilbert comic strip, and the box office information from Rotten Tomatoes. The user can also customize the border to further personalize the widgets.
Widget functions and capabilities
Dashboard widgets, like web pages, are capable of many different things, often to perform tasks that would be tedious or complicated for the user to access manually. One example is the Google Search widget, which simply opens up the user's browser and performs a Google search. Other widgets, like Wikipedia, grab the contents of web pages and display them within Dashboard. Some widgets can also serve as games, using Adobe Flash (or another multimedia authoring program) to create games just as if they were in a browser. It is also possible for Mac users to create their own widgets using built-in software.Graphics
Dashboard uses a variety of graphical effects for displaying, opening, and using widgets. For instance, a 3-D flip effect is used to simulate the widget flipping around, by clicking on a small i icon in the right bottom corner, the user can change the preferences on the reverse side; other effects include crossfading and scaling from icon to body (when opening widgets),a "spin cycle effect" when a widget is focused and the user presses Command-R or a suck-in effect when they are closed. On sufficiently powered Macs, widgets will produce a ripple effect when they are opened, like a leaf falling onto water. These effects can be taxing and superfluous, consuming CPU resources[clarification needed], but with the help of OS X’s Quartz Extreme and Core Image graphics architectures, sufficient computing power to render them in real time is available. As with Exposé, Front Row and the minimise effect, holding shift down while calling the Dashboard or opening the Dashboard menu bar will display the effect in slow motion.Comparison with Konfabulator
Many people have made comparisons between Konfabulator and Apple's Dashboard, especially after Apple announced the feature while Mac OS X v10.4 was in development. It was a subject of debate in the online community following the few months before Mac OS X Tiger's official release.One school of thought came to the conclusion that Dashboard was a "rip-off" of Konfabulator. It points out the visual and functional similarities between Dashboard has been widely compared to Konfabulator (now Yahoo! Widget Engine) and sometimes called a copy of it, due to the similarities between their graphical aspects and the fact that they both use the term “widgets” to describe the objects in their environments.[1] Konfabulator may in turn have been based on Apple’s Desk Accessories, first released in 1984 with the original Macintosh. Desk Accessories, similar to widgets, were small mini-applications that operated on a user’s desktop. After the introduction of System 7 and cooperative multitasking the necessity of creating Desk Accessories was removed and developers were encouraged to create applications instead. The OS continued to support them, for backward compatibility, until the switch to Mac OS X (In fact, the Calculator desk accessory remained in the Mac OS through version 9, 17 years without a significant update).[2][3]
The code bases for Konfabulator and Dashboard are also different: Konfabulator uses XML and JavaScript to generate Widgets, whereas Dashboard uses HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Objective C.[4]
Included widgets
In the first version of DashBoard released with Mac OS X v10.4 - v10.4.3, Apple included 14 widgets with it. They consisted of:- Address Book (application)
- Business
- Calculator
- Calendar
- Dictionary
- Flight Tracker
- iTunes Controller
- Phone Book
- Stickies
- Stocks
- Tile Game
- Translation
- Unit Converter
- Weather
- World Clock
In addition, Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" released in late 2007, includes new widgets. One of these is Web Clips, which allows any user to turn a rectangular section of any webpage into a widget (This, however, only works with Safari). The widget updates as the website does, and all links and other interactive material in the widget's selection of the webpage works as if the website is being accessed from Safari. Another new widget is Movies, which allows users to find currently playing movies at local theaters, view trailers, and purchase tickets directly from Dashboard.
Widgets on the desktop
To keep one or more widgets on the desktop, the Dashboard "devmode" must be activated. Enter the following into the Terminal:defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES
killall Dock
Another option is to use Amnesty Singles or Amnesty Widget Browser, shareware utilities that also allow the user to select which level (desktop, standard or floating) a widget occupies while it resides on the desktop. WidgetRunner is an open-source, freeware utility that also allows you to run widgets on the desktop and control the level at which they appear.
Widgets on the iPhone OS
Apple has not, as of 2010, announced support for the installation of Dashboard widgets on the iPhone OS. Even though, in June 2008, an unannounced update of Dashcode that was packaged with the iPhone SDK allowed for the creation of iPhone-oriented web widgets, it is unknown if this most recent version of Dashcode would support the creation of AJAX-driven mobile widgets that could be installed natively on the iPhone OS.It has been demonstrated by Erica Sadun that installing Dashboard widgets on a jailbroken iPhone OS is possible in theory, but most desktop-oriented widgets 1) are not oriented to usage or interaction on the iPhone OS's multi-touchscreen-oriented interface; and 2) rely on DashboardClient's widget JavaScript object, which is not part of the iPhone OS.
Jun 14, 2010
SEMANTIC WEB
Semantic Web
INTRODUCTION
In the beginning, there was no Web. The Web began as a concept of Tim Berners- Lee, who worked for CERN, the European organization for physics research. CERN's technical staff urgently needed to share documents located on their many computers. Berners-Lee had previously built several systems to do that, and with this background he conceived the World Wide Web.
The design had a relatively simple technical basis, which helped the technology take hold and gain critical mass. Berners-Lee wanted anyone to be able to put information on a computer and make that information accessible to anyone else, anywhere. He hoped that eventually, machines would also be able to use information on the Web. Ultimately, he thought, this would allow powerful and effective human-computer- human collaboration.
What is the Semantic Web?
The word semantic implies meaning. For the Semantic Web, semantic indicates that the meaning of data on the Web can be discovered not just by people, but also by computers. The phrase the Semantic Web stands for a vision in which computers software's as well as people can find, read, understand, and use data over the World Wide Web to accomplish useful goals for users.Of course, we already use software to accomplish things on the Web, but the distinction lies in the words we use. People surf the Web, buy things on web sites, work their way through search pages, read the labels on hyperlinks, and decide which links to follow. It would be much more efficient and less time-consuming if a person could launch a process that would then proceed on its own, perhaps checking with the person from time to time as the work progressed. The business of the Semantic Web is to bring such capabilities into widespread use
2. MAJOR VISIONS OF SEMANTIC WEB
" Indexing and retrieving information
" Meta data
" Annotation
" The Web as a large, interoperable database
" Machine retrieval of data
" Web-based services
" Discovery of services
" Intelligent software agents
THE SEMANTIC WEB FOUNDATION
The Semantic Web was thought up by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the WWW, URIs, HTTP, and HTML. There is a dedicated team of people at the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) working to improve, extend and standardize the system, and many languages, publications, tools and so on have already been developed.
The World Wide Web has certain design features that make it different from earlier hyperlink experiments. These features will play an important role in the design of the Semantic Web. The Web is not the whole Internet, and it would be possible to develop many capabilities of the Semantic Web using other means besides the World Wide Web. But because the Web is so widespread, and because it's basic operations are relatively simple, most of the technologies being contemplated for the Semantic Web are based on the current Web, sometimes with extensions.
The Web is designed around resources, standardized addressing of those resources (Uniform Resource Locators and Uniform Resource Indicators), and a small, widely understood set of commands. It is also designed to operate over very large and complex networks in a decentralized way. Let us look at each of these design features.
ysics research. CERN's technical staff urgently needed to share documents located on their many computers. Berners-Lee had previously built several systems to do that, and with this background he conceived the World Wide Web.
The design had a relatively simple technical basis, which helped the technology take hold and gain critical mass. Berners-Lee wanted anyone to be able to put information on a computer and make that information accessible to anyone else, anywhere. He hoped that eventually, machines would also be able to use information on the Web. Ultimately, he thought, this would allow powerful and effective human-computer- human collaboration.
Security in Mobile Database Systems
Security in Mobile Database Systems:
The importance of databases in modern businesses and governmental institutions is huge and still growing. Many mission-critical applications and business processes rely on databases. These databases contain data of different degree of importance and confidentiality, and are accessed by a wide variety of users. Integrity violations for a database can have serious impact on business processes; disclosure of confidential data in some cases has the same effect. Traditional database security provides techniques and strategies to handle such problems with respect to database servers in a non-mobile context.
For many businesses applications are going mobile that means using enterprise data in a mobile context, thus using a mobile DBMS. With these new developments the business data of an enterprise can be made available to an even larger number of users and a wider range of applications than before.
To work on business data anytime and anywhere is the major goal pursued by developing mobility support in database context. The confidentiality of mission- critical data must be ensured, even though most mobile devices do not provide a secure environment for storage of such data.
Security requirements that apply to a central company database should apply similarly and in an appropriate manner to the parts of the database replicated on mobile devices in the field. A mobile database security infrastructure is needed to accomplish this goal. When developing such an infrastructure we can benefit from the results of traditional database security work. But we also need to adapt the existing techniques and strategies to the mobile context, and we need to develop new ones that attack certain issues specific to use of database systems in a mobile environment.
Book: Mobile Database Systems by Vijay Kumar
Web resources: Mobile database
The importance of databases in modern businesses and governmental institutions is huge and still growing. Many mission-critical applications and business processes rely on databases. These databases contain data of different degree of importance and confidentiality, and are accessed by a wide variety of users. Integrity violations for a database can have serious impact on business processes; disclosure of confidential data in some cases has the same effect. Traditional database security provides techniques and strategies to handle such problems with respect to database servers in a non-mobile context.
For many businesses applications are going mobile that means using enterprise data in a mobile context, thus using a mobile DBMS. With these new developments the business data of an enterprise can be made available to an even larger number of users and a wider range of applications than before.
To work on business data anytime and anywhere is the major goal pursued by developing mobility support in database context. The confidentiality of mission- critical data must be ensured, even though most mobile devices do not provide a secure environment for storage of such data.
Security requirements that apply to a central company database should apply similarly and in an appropriate manner to the parts of the database replicated on mobile devices in the field. A mobile database security infrastructure is needed to accomplish this goal. When developing such an infrastructure we can benefit from the results of traditional database security work. But we also need to adapt the existing techniques and strategies to the mobile context, and we need to develop new ones that attack certain issues specific to use of database systems in a mobile environment.
Book: Mobile Database Systems by Vijay Kumar
Web resources: Mobile database
Apr 9, 2010
SYSTEM TESTING AND IMPLEMENTATION
SYSTEM TESTING AND IMPLEMENTATION
INTRODUCTION
Testing is a process of executing a program with the intention of finding an error.A successful test is in that uncovers an undiscovered error.If testing is conducted successfully according to the objectives stated above, it will uncover errors in the software. Also, testing demonstrates that software functions appear to the working according to specification, that performance requirements appear to have been met.
SYSTEM TESTING
System testing is a critical aspect of Software Quality Assurance and represents the ultimate review of specification, design and coding. Testing is a process of executing a program with the intent of finding an error. A good test is one that has a probability of finding an as yet undiscovered error. The purpose of testing is to identify and correct bugs in the developed system. Nothing is complete without testing. Testing is the vital to the success of the system.
TYPE OF TESTING
Unit Testing. Module Testing. Integration Testing. System Testing.Unit Testing
Unit testing focuses first on the modules in the proposed system to locate errors. This enables to detect errors in the coding and logic that are contained within that module alone. Those resulting from the interaction between modules are initially avoided. In unit testing step each module has to be checked separately.
Module Testing
Module testing is a process of testing the system module by module,what are all the input given and what are all the output produced & whether they are required.By testing in this method it would be very clear of the bugs occurred. In this system there are six modules namely Administration,Survey Authoring and Design,User management,Survey, and SMS Survey .By going through these modules bugs were identified.
Integration Testing
The strategies for integrating software component into a functioning product include the bottom-up strategy, the top-down strategy and send which strategy careful planning and scheduling are required. To ensure that modules will be available for integration into the evolving software product when needed.The integration strategy dictates the order in which the modules must be available and thus exterts a strong influence on the order in which the modules are written,debugged and unit tested.
System Testing
System testing does not test the software as a whole, but rather than integration of each module in the system. The primary concern is the compatibility of individual modules. One has to find areas where modules have been designed with different specifications of data lengths, type and data element name.
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
Implementation is the stage of the project where the theoretical design is turned into a working system. If the implementation stage is not carefully planned and controlled, it can cause chaos. The implementation involves careful planning, investigation of the current system, and its constraints on implementation etc.
Coding is done in a modular fashion giving much importance even to the minute details so,when hardware and storage procedures are changed or new data is added,rewriting of application program is not necessary.
Implementation involves all those activities that take place to convert from the old system to new system. The old system used much resources and it was time consuming. The proposed system is different from the existing system. A proper implementation is essential to provide reliable system to meet the requirement of the organizations. An improper installation may affect the success of the new system.
The proposed system is implemented as an intranet application system in which the employees can access the application with the link provided to him.Authorization is required to enter into the system for attending and analyzing available surveys.
.
CONCLUSION AND SCOPE FOR FUTURE ENHANCEMENT
CONCLUSION
The project “Intelligent Web Surveyor” being developed is intended as a tool that will help the HR Management of the company in Conducting and Analyzing Employee Satisfaction Surveys. This intranet application system reduced the workload of the HR department drastically.Errors that occurred during manual operation have been eliminated and hence Accuracy and Reliability in conduction and Analyzation of surveys increased.
SCOPE FOR FUTURE ENHANCEMENT
The system developed can be further enhanced. With new ideas, the system can explore technologies that seem promising for survey data collection: speech dialogue systems, video mediated communication, animated agents. The data can be captured directly in electronic format, making analysis faster and cheaper. This again allows more data to be collected than with conventional mailed questionnaires.
DATABASE DESIGN
DATABASE DESIGN
The overall objective in the development of database technology has been to treat data as an organizational resource and as an integrated whole. DBMS allow data to be protected and organized separately from other resources. Database is an integrated collection of data. The most significant form of data as seen by the programmers is data as stored on the direct access storage devices. This is the difference between logical and physical data.
NORMALIZATION
Normalization is a technique of separating redundant fields and braking up a large table in to a smaller one. It is also used to avoid insertion, deletion and updating anomalies. All the tables have been normalized up to the third normal form. In short the rules for each of the three normal forms are as below.
First Normal Form
A relation is said to be in 1NF if all the underlying domain of attributes contain simple individual values.
Second Normal Form
The 2NF is based on the concept of full functional dependency. A relation said to be in 2NF if and only if it is in 1NF and every non-key attribute is fully functionally dependent on candidate key of the table.
The 3NF is based on the concept of transitive dependency. A relation in 2NF is said to be in 3NF if every non-key attribute is non-transitively.
intelligent web surveyor project details
SYNOPSIS
The project entitled “INTELLIGENT WEB SURVEYOR” is an intranet application that enables us to create and deliver online surveys. The program also collects the responses, and provides summary statistics and graphs. Web Surveyor supports many different question types, and it can create multi-page and branched surveys. Most users find Web Surveyor to be easy to learn, and no knowledge of web forms is necessary. While users can export the data and import into a full-featured statistical or spreadsheet program, many users will find the built-in analysis tools sufficient.
This system can be used for conducting and analyzing employee satisfaction surveys. The system has three type of users namely Administrator, Surveyor and Employees of the company. Administrator will have overall control over the system and he decides the Surveyor. Surveyor uploads questionnaire content to the application. Rapid updating of questionnaire content and question ordering according to user responses is also possible. Surveyor creates groups of employees department wise, designation wise etc. and allocates survey to them. For each survey there will be a certain time period to complete. After this time period Surveyor analyses the survey and creates graphs and charts.
Some of the employees of the company are outsourced to other branches. In case of these employees they cannot participate in the surveys conducted by the HR department. For them SMS Surveys are conducted with this application. For this purpose a GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication)Modem is attached to send questions via SMS to the employee’s mobile. This SMS contains a number to send their answers. These answers are analysed by the Surveyor. All the information is managed tactfully for interpretation and analysis of the data to provide actionable information.
1.INTRODUCTION
1.1. ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
Praxiss Technologies is run by a Group of well experienced professionals who have a vast expertise in the field of Information Technology. Managed by professionals, Praxiss provides specialized IT Solutions including the execution of projects .Providing Technologies for a dynamic environment where business and technology strategies converge has been our forte.
· Adaptability ,Innovation and Reliability
· Professionalism and integrity
IT Solutions
Our experienced professionals are striving to achieve and solve the client’s requirements at all levels in providing software and hardware solutions.
Our Vertical Expertise
· Insurance and Finance
· Hardware and Networking.
· Transportation
· Retail and Manufacturing
· Website Building
1.2 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
1.2.1 HARDWARE CONFIGURATION
SERVER CONFIGURATION
PCs: Intel Pentium IV. 512 KB of Cache Memory. 512 MB of RAM for Intel. Logitech Optical Mouse. CRT High resolution monitor. 104 keys Multimedia Keyboard. CLIENT CONFIGURATION
PCs: Intel Pentium IV. 256 KB of Cache Memory. 256 MB of RAM for Intel. Logitech Optical Mouse. CRT High resolution monitor. 104 keys Multimedia Keyboard.1.2.2 SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION
Operating System : Windows XP Tool used : Visual Studio 2005 Language : .Net Technologies ASP.NET(C#) RDBMS : SQL Server 2005 INTRODUCTION
It is a great idea to use web surveys in business because it is a great way to find out valuable information that pertains to business and hence can develop a survey that focus on either customers or employees or both. The results are to keep and use however surveyor like. A web survey is a fast and easy way to learn all the information that might want to know.
One of the reasons we should consider using a web survey is because we can learn so much information from our customers or employees. Knowing what drives a customer is helpful no matter what type of business we run; what gets them into a store and what keeps them coming back. A web survey is a quick and easy way for them to contribute their opinion and they can feel like their contribution can make business better. It is good to use a web survey because the consumer can do it from the comfort and privacy of their own. Another reason why we should use a web survey is because it is a great way to find out how employees are doing. They are more likely to stay on when they are happy and they feel like their opinions matter. When employees have issues to consider like health care benefits, pay rates and other things they can put in their thoughts as comments with this web survey and we can then make changes if we choose to because the results belong to us. We can do whatever we want to with the results from a web survey. By following some of the more common answers or suggestions in the results we can put them to use in an effective manner. The choice is ours what we decide to do with the results. A web survey is a helpful tool in gaining information to help our business and if we are able to implement one in our business we should seriously consider it.
2.1 EXISTING SYSTEM
In the existing system in the surveys are conducted manually. A preprinted format which contain various type of questions is circulated among employees .This forms are duly filled and returned to the HR people and they verify the result. Using this result they create graphs and reports. This is a tedious work and may cause errors .
Multiple surveys for different respondent groups or departments will be more complicated in the existing system.Outsourced employees of the company cannot participate in surveys in the existing system.
2.1.1 Drawbacks
Complexity of preparing printed format of questions and its maintenance. Lack of accuracy in preparing charts. Time consumption is high. Outsourced employees of the company cannot participate in surveys. The proposed system, which overcomes the problem that is present in the existing system.The system being developed is intended as a tool that will help the HR Management of the company in Conducting and Analyzing Employee Satisfaction Surveys. It is a fast and easy way to learn all the information that we might want to know surveys for different respondent groups or departments can be conducted simultaneously with our proposed system and the proposed system is more accurate and reliable in creating charts.Proposed system has the advantage of SMS Survey in which outsourced employees of the company can participate in the survey via SMS.Questions will be sent to the employees mobile number and this message contains a number for sending his reply.These are analyzed by the surveyor.
Whenever the Administrator or the Surveyor want to analyze a particular survey he just select the survey that he want to analyze.He can view the number of hits for each option of a question and can view the pie chart which shows the percentage of each option selected by all employees.Ranking type of questions can be separately analyzed according to the rate given for each option by all employees and can view pie charts for each ranking question.By this we can determine which option has the highest rating.
2.2.2 Features
Surveys can be conducted online and can be efficiently analyzed by the surveyor. No need of preprinted format of questions as all information is stored as soft copies. Allows rapid updating of questionnaire content and question ordering according to user responses. More accuracy in preparing charts. SMS surveys can be conducted for outsourced employees It is a fast and easy way to learn all the information that the surveyor wants to know.2.3 SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION
WINDOWS XP
Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. The letters “XP” stand for eXPerience.Windows XP marks the biggest change to the windows OS since the advent of Windows 95. It combines the stability of the NT/2000 operating system with the user-friendliness and hardware support of the consumer.
Windows XP is known for its improved stability and efficiency over previous versions of Microsoft Windows. It presents a significantly redesigned graphical user interface, a change Microsoft promoted as more user-friendly than previous versions of
windows. New software management capabilities were introduced to avoid the "DLL hell" that plagued older consumer-oriented versions of Windows. It is also the first version of Windows to use product activation to combat software piracy, a restriction that did not sit well with some users and privacy advocates. Windows XP has also been criticized by some users for security vulnerabilities, tight integration of applications such as Internet Explorer 6 and Windows Media Player, and for aspects of its default user.
Windows XP has been criticized for its susceptibility to malware, viruses, trojan horses, and worms. Security issues are compounded by the fact that users of the Home edition, by default, receive an administrator account that provides unrestricted access to the underpinnings of the system.
Windows, with its large market share, has historically been a tempting target for virus creators. Security holes are often invisible until they are exploited, making preemptive action difficult. Microsoft has stated that the release of patches to fix security holes is often what causes the spread of exploits against those very same holes, as crackers figured out what problems the patches fixed, and then launch attacks against unpatched systems.
Microsoft recommends that all systems have automatic updates turned on to prevent a system from being attacked by an unpatched bug, but some business IT departments need to test updates before deployment across systems to predict compatibility issues with custom software and infrastructure. This deployment turn-around time also lengthens the time that systems are left unsecure in the event of a released software exploit.
The windows XP file system is based on folders.Folders hold files and other folders, so the system is hierarchical, or “tree structured “.The benefits are better organisation of our files and information.Windows XP Explorer utility provides a different way to locate and work with folders and files.We can copy, move and delete files, just like we can while workings on the deskstop, but the techniques are different.
The .NET Framework
The .NET Framework is a multi-language environment for building, deploying, and running XML Web services and applications.
Common Language Runtime - Despite its name, the runtime actually has a role in both a component's runtime and development time experiences. While the component is running, the runtime is responsible for managing memory allocation, starting up and stopping threads and processes, and enforcing security policy, as well as satisfying any dependencies that the component might have on other components. At development time, the runtime's role changes slightly; because it automates so much (for example, memory management), the runtime makes the developer's experience very simple, especially when compared to COM as it is today. In particular, features such as reflection dramatically reduce the amount of code a developer must write in order to turn business logic into a reusable component.
ASP.NET - ASP.NET builds on the programming classes of the .NET Framework, providing a Web application model with a set of controls and infrastructure that make it simple to build ASP Web applications. ASP.NET includes a set of controls that encapsulate common HTML user interface elements, such as text boxes and drop-down menus. These controls run on the Web server, however, and push their user interface as HTML to the browser. On the server, the controls expose an object-oriented programming model that brings the richness of object-oriented programming to the Web developer. ASP.NET also provides infrastructure services, such as session state management and process recycling that further reduce the amount of code a developer must write and increase application reliability. In addition, ASP.NET uses these same concepts to enable developers to deliver software as a service. Using XML Web services features, ASP.NET developers can write their business logic and use the ASP.NET infrastructure to deliver that service via SOAP.
SQL SERVER 2005
Microsoft SQL SERVER is a set of components that work together to meet the data storage and analysis needs of the largest websites and enterprise data processing system.SQL SERVER 2005 extends the performance, reliability, quality.SQL SERVER 2005 includes several new features that make it an excellent database platform for large-scale online transactional processing (OLTP), data warehousing and e-commerce applications.
Internet Integration:
The SQL SERVER 2005 database engine includes integrated XML support. It also has the scalability, availability and security features required to operate as the data storage component of the largest websites.
Scalability and Availability:
The same database engine can be used across platforms ranging from laptop computers running windows 98 through large, multiprocessor servers running windows 2000 data centre Edition.
SQL Server supports features such as indexed views and large memory support that allows it to scale to the performance level required by the largest organization. It supports wide range of user’s access it at the same time.
The SQL SERVER 2005 relational database engine supports the features required to support demanding data processing environments. The database engine protects data integrity while minimizing the overhead of managing thousands of users concurrently modifying the database. Replication allows you to also maintain multiple copies of data, while ensuring that the sequence copies remain synchronized.
3.SYSTEM DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
INTRODUCTION
Web surveys are gaining prime importance in our increasingly mobile and highly IT enabled world. A web survey is a fast and easy way to learn all the information that we might want to know. One of the reasons we should consider using a web survey is because we can learn so much information from our customers or employees.
Knowing what drives a customer is helpful no matter what type of business run; what gets them into a store and what keeps them coming back. A web survey is a quick and easy way for them to contribute their opinion and they can feel like their contribution can make business better.
Questionnaire design is considered to be one of the main part of web surveys. Web surveys allows rapid updating of questionnaire content and question ordering according to user responses. Different respondent groups can be created and surveys are allocated to them by the surveyor. For each survey there is certain time period. After this both SMS Surveys and normal surveys are analyzed by the Surveyor and view the chart. All the information is managed tactfully for interpretation and analysis of the data to provide actionable information
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