Productivity Software
Productivity software includes software that people typically use to complete work, such as word processing software (working with words), spreadsheet software (working with data, numbers, and calculations), database software (organizing and retrieving data records), or presentation software (creating slide shows with text and graphics).
Word Processing Software
With word processing software, you can create documents that include sophisticated formatting; change text fonts; add special effects such as bold, italics, and underlining; add shadows, background colors, and other effects to text and objects; and include tables, photos, drawings, and links to online content. With a mail merge feature, you can take a list of names and addresses and print personalized letters and envelopes or labels. Figure 1 shows the application of some of the word processing features and tools Microsoft Word offers.
Spreadsheet Software
Using spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel, you can perform calculations that range from simple (adding, averaging, and multiplying) to complex (estimating standard deviations based on a range of numbers, for example). In addition, spreadsheet software offers sophisticated charting and graphing capabilities. Formatting tools help you create polished looking documents such as budgets, invoices, schedules, attendance records, and purchase orders. Figure 2 shows a typical Excel spreadsheet making use of several key features.
Output Devices
To get information into a computer, a person uses an input device. To get information out, a person uses an output device. Some common output devices include monitors and printers.
Monitor
A monitor, or screen, is the most common output device used with a personal computer. The most common monitors use either a thin film transistor (TFT) active matrix liquid crystal display (LCD) or a plasma display. Plasma displays have a true level of color reproduction compared with LCDs. Emerging display technologies include surface-conduction electron-emitter displays (SED) and organic light emitting diodes (OLED).
Printers
After monitors, printers are the most important output devices. The print quality produced by these devices is measured in dpi, or dots per inch. As with screen resolution, the greater the number of dots per inch, the better the quality. The earliest printers for personal computers were dot matrix printers that used perforated computer paper. These impact printers worked something like typewriters, transferring the image of a character by using pins to strike a ribbon.
A laser printer uses a laser beam to create points of electrical charge on a cylindrical drum. Toner, composed of particles of ink with a negative electrical charge, sticks to the charged points on the positively charged drum. As the page moves past the drum, heat and pressure fuse the toner to the page.Inkjet printers use a print head that moves across the page that sprays a fine mist of ink when an electrical charge moves through the print cartridge. An inkjet printer can use color cartridges and so provides affordable color printing suitable for home and small office use.
Developing Software
Through the years, some software products have become incredibly sophisticated as new features are added in each version. The software development life cycle (SDLC) has evolved over time. This procedure dictates the general flow of creating a new software product as shown in the figure below. The SDLC involves performing market research to ensure that a need or demand for the product exists; completing a business analysis to match the solution to the need; creating a plan for implementing the software, which involves creating a budget and schedule for the project; writing the software program; testing the software; deploying the software to the public, either by selling the product in a package or online; and performing maintenance and bug fixes to keep the product functioning optimally.