Careers in IT

Webmaster

* An individual who manages a Web site. Depending on the size of the site, the Webmaster might be responsible for any of the following:

• Making sure that the Web server hardware and software is running properly
  

Designing the Web site

Creating and updating Web pages

Replying to user feedback

Creating CGI scripts

Monitoring traffic through the site.  

Computer Support Specialist

* Help people use computers. When something goes wrong, support specialists figure out why. Then, they try to fix it.Those who provide help over the phone, via online chat or email, are called help desk technicians.

  

 Technical Writer 

*A technical writer is often tasked with writing documentation that explains technical issues in ways that non-technical people can understand. A technical writer might be responsible for writing the how-to manual for a software application. Technical writers are often copy writers and vice-versa.

Software Engineer 

* A software engineer is a licensed professional engineer who is schooled and skilled in the application of engineering discipline to the creation of software. A software engineer is often confused with a programmer, but the two are vastly different disciplines. While a programmer creates the codes that make a program run, a software engineer creates the designs the programmer implements.

Network Administrator

* Network administrators, also known as network admins or network engineers, are charged with the responsibility of building, monitoring and performing maintenance on the components that make up computer networks. They configure, deploy, maintain, and monitor computer networks, ensuring smooth and efficient operation.

Data Administrator 

*A person who coordinates activities within the data administration department.

 

System Analyst 

*A programmer or consultant who designs and manages the development of business applications. Typically, systems analysts are more involved in design issues than in day-to-day coding. However, systems analyst is a somewhat arbitrary title, so different companies define the role differently.  

Programmer

* a person who designs and writes and tests computer programs

Secondary Storage

File Compression

*Storing data in a format that requires less space than usual.

Data compression is particularly useful in communications because it enables devices to transmit or store the same amount of data in fewer bits. There are a variety of data compression techniques, but only a few have been standardized. The CCITT has defined a standard data compression technique for transmitting faxes (Group 3 standard) and a compression standard for data communications through modems (CCITT V.42bis). In addition, there are file compression formats, such as ARC and ZIP.

Data compression is also widely used in backup utilities, spreadsheet applications, and database management systems. Certain types of data, such as bit-mapped graphics, can be compressed to a small fraction of their normal size

Head Crash

* A serious disk drive malfunction. A head crash usually means that the head has scratched or burned the disk. In a hard disk drive, the head normally hovers a few microinches from the disk. If the head becomes misaligned or if dust particles come between it and the disk, it can touch the disk. When this happens, you usually lose much of the data on the hard disk and will need to replace both the head and the disk. For this reason, it is important to operate disk drives, particularly hard disk drives, in as clean an environment as possible. Even smoke particles can cause a head crash.

*Head crashes are less common for floppy disks because the head touches the disk anyway under normal operation.

Internet Hard Drive

*The sole purpose of an Internet hard drive is to offer a means of accessing your computer files (pictures, documents, music, videos, etc.) from any computer, as long as that computer has access to the Internet. Similar to depositing money into your bank account, and later withdrawing that same money from any ATM machine, an Internet hard drive will allow you to "deposit" your computer files into a remote hard drive, and then later access those very same files from any other computer

Optical Disc Drive

*A storage medium from which data is read and to which it is written by lasers. Optical disks can store much more data -- up to 6 gigabytes (6 billion bytes) -- than most portable magnetic media, such as floppies. There are three basic types of optical disks:

CD-ROM : Like audio CDs, CD-ROMs come with data already encoded onto them. The data is permanent and can be read any number of times, but CD-ROMs cannot be modified.

WORM : Stands for write-once, read -many. With a WORM disk drive, you can write data onto a WORM disk, but only once. After that, the WORM disk behaves just like a CD-ROM.

erasable: Optical disks that can be erased and loaded with new data, just like magnetic disks. These are often referred to as EO (erasable optical) disks.

Solid-state storage

*Solid-state storage is a nonvolatile, removable storage medium that employs integrated circuits (ICs) rather than magnetic or optical media. It is the equivalent of large-capacity, nonvolatile memory. Examples include flash memory Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices and various proprietary removable packages intended to replace external hard drives.

Input and Output

Ergonommic Keyboard

*A keyboard that separates the keys into two halves shaped like a wide "V." Some keyboards have a fixed layout, while others are movable. To the touch typist, the layout feels odd at first, but it puts less stress on the hands and wrist and winds up being comfortable for most people.

Ink-jet Printer

*A type of printer that works by spraying ionized ink at a sheet of paper. Magnetized plates in the ink's path direct the ink onto the paper in the desired shapes. Ink-jet printers are capable of producing high quality print approaching that produced by laser printers. A typical ink-jet printer provides a resolution of 300 dots per inch, although some newer models offer higher resolutions.

Laser Printer

*A type of printer that utilizes a laser beam to produce an image on a drum. The light of the laser alters the electrical charge on the drum wherever it hits. The drum is then rolled through a reservoir of toner, which is picked up by the charged portions of the drum. Finally, the toner is transferred to the paper through a combination of heat and pressure. This is also the way copy machines work.

Magnetic-ink character reader (MICR)

*The machine recognition of numeric data printed with magnetically charged ink. It is used on bank checks and deposit slips. MICR readers detect the characters and convert them into digital data. Although optical methods (OCR) became as sophisticated as the early MICR technology, magnetic ink is still used. It serves as a deterrent to fraud, because a photocopied check will not be printed with magnetic ink.

Optical-character recognition (OCR)

*Ability of a software to convert scanned (digitized) image of printed or handwritten text into a form that can be recognized and manipulated by a word-processing program as alphabets, words, and numerals. OCR is employed in storing the contents of books and documents without the need of retyping or rekeying.

Optical-mark recognition (OMR)

*Short for optical mark recognition, the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as checkboxes and fill-infields, on printed forms. OMR technology scans a printed form and reads predefined positions and records where marks are made on the form. This technology is useful for applications in which large numbers of hand-filled forms need to be processed quickly and with great accuracy, such as surveys, reply cards, questionnaires and ballots. A common OMR application is the use of "bubble sheets" for multiple-choice tests used by schools. The student indicates the answer on the test by filling in the corresponding bubble, and the form is fed through an optical mark reader (also abbreviated as OMR, a device that scans the document and reads the data from the marked fields. The error rate for OMR technology is less than 1%.

The System Unit

Flash Memory

*A computer chip with a read-only memory that retains its data when the power is turned off and that can be electronically erased and reprogrammed without being removed from the circuit board, often used in fax machines.

Graphics Card

*Graphics cards are PCBs (printed circuit boards) that perform the dual role of sending pixels to the display and providing a specific type of processing using a GPU (graphical processing unit).

*One of the main features of a graphics card is the ability to draw 3D graphics in realtime using a technique called rasterization. This involves converting 3D coordinates into areas of pixels and filling the areas with either a transformed image called a texture or a flat surface.

Sound Cards

*A sound card (also known as an audio card) is a computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio, presentation, education, and entertainment (games). Many computers have sound capabilities built in, while others require additional expansion cards to provide for audio capability.

Network Interface Card (NIC)

A device that allows computers to be joined together in a LAN, or local area network. Networked computers communicate with each other using a given protocol or agreed-upon language for transmitting data packets between the different machines, known as nodes. The network interface card acts as the liaison for the machine to both send and receive data on the LAN.

Plug & Play

Plug and Play (PnP) is a capability developed by Microsoft for its Windows 95 and later operating systems that gives users the ability to plug a device into a computer and have the computer recognize that the device is there. The user doesn't have to tell the computer. In many earlier computer systems, the user was required to explicitly tell the operating system when a new device had been added. Microsoft made Plug and Play a selling point for its Windows operating systems. A similar capability had long been built into Macintosh computers.

Bus Line

The bus (or bus lines) are all those little wires that can be seen on the back of a circuit board. They are usually made from copper, though very high-end boards use gold. As electricity is sent across these lines, the receiving components convert the electricity into machine language (binary system).

HDMI

(High-Definition Multimedia Interface) A digital interface for audio and video that provides a single-cable solution for home theater and consumer electronics equipment. Introduced in 2002, one HDMI cable commonly replaces from two to five cables, and in some cases even as many as 11 cables, when connecting devices such as TVs, DVD players, set-top boxes and A/V receivers.

Cache Memory

Cache (pronounced cash) memory is extremely fast memory that is built into a computer’s central processing unit (CPU), or located next to it on a separate chip. The CPU uses cache memory to store instructions that are repeatedly required to run programs, improving overall system speed. The advantage of cache memory is that the CPU does not have to use the motherboard’s system bus for data transfer. Whenever data must be passed through the system bus, the data transfer speed slows to the motherboard’s capability. The CPU can process data much faster by avoiding the bottleneck created by the system bus.