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A port scanner is a utility which probes a server or host to verify if the virtual ports of a system are open or closed. Ports allow different applications on the same computer to share network resources simultaneously.

Robotics is the branch of artifical intelligence concerned with the study of robots, automatically guided machines which are able to carry out tasks and functions on their own. Robotics covers a wide spectrum of areas including the design, construction, operation and manufacture of robots.

One category of computer software which often receives little attention is the world of the dictionary. Whilst this type of utility might not seem particularly interesting, dictionary software is an important tool for writers and students.

Point-of sale (POS) is the location where a transaction takes place. It also refers to the immediate capture of transactions and customer payment information when goods and services are purchased. This data can be obtained using many different devices such as a computer, cash register, barcode scanner, PIN pads, and magnetic card readers.

E-Learning consists of all types of electronically supported teaching and learning. It represents the computer and network-enabled transfer of knowledge, behaviors, and skills

As a computer user, you will no doubt have numerous passwords to remember. Some sites put restrictions on the choice of the password. For example, a site may insist on a minimum number of characters, capital letters, numerals, and other characters which make choosing the same password for each site to be impossible. More importantly, there are good security reasons not to duplicate passwords. This inevitably means that individuals will simply have too many passwords to remember. One solution is to keep the passwords in written form. However, this is also highly insecure.

We have extolled the virtues of open source software in many of our previous articles. The debate between open source and closed source software has often centered on factors such as freedom, reliability, interoperability and open standards, support, and philosophy.

In the days when Linux was a fledgling operating system, font handling was often identified as a major weakness. Fortunately, the situation is considerably better these days, with a better quality of user interface typography.

Many readers will have witnessed their computer system becoming progressively slower in use over time. This particularly affects Windows so much so that over time it can feel like the machine is running at half speed. This is in part due to users continually installing more applications, and not performing system maintenance.

Twitter has seen an extraordinary increase in the number of tweets, brief posts of 140 characters. That's right, an absurd constraint, with no pictures, video, or audio. Nevertheless, these short messages seems to bring out the best in humour, understanding, and observation, with tweets often sticking to the facts. 25 billion tweets were made in the past year alone using this text message service by over 100 million people around the world!

Linux is vastly underrated as a gaming platform. This may be due to the fact that there is no significant marketing of Linux games. With a lack of big-name games featuring in the computing press, coupled with a low market share for Linux on desktop PCs, things might seem bleak, with major barriers to the growth of Linux games.

We have always been strong advocates of computer games. Rather than rotting the brain, computer games are interactive, teach essential life skills, and can stimulate learning. They also have been proven to enhance skills such as creativity, cooperation, teamplay, as well as encouraging innovative and strategic thinking and improving hand-eye coordination.

In some circles games are regarded as a distraction and a time waster. However, there are many benefits to playing computer games other than the obvious simple unadulterated fun that they offer.

Computer monitoring software enables systems and applications of all kinds to be watched autonomously, so that the state of a system is continuously known. If the hardware, software, or the operating system is not functioning properly, the system administrator needs to be alerted at the earliest opportunity to ensure fast problem resolution. Using monitoring software, technical staff can often take remedial action at the first sign of a problem, before business processes, end-users, or customers are even aware that there is an issue.

A document management system enables individuals and businesses to manage documents, making it easy to locate a previous document version. This is important from a record control perspective, and to ensure that compliance standards are met within a user-friendly environment.

A rich internet application is a web application that resembles a desktop application in many ways, but is delivered by a browser, virtual machine or from a browser plug-in. The most popular platforms for rich internet applications are Adobe Flash, and Java.

A webcam is a video capture device that is either connected to a computer directly (typically by USB) or over a computer network. Many modern netbooks and laptops have a built-in webcam.

Since the advent of the consumer digital camera, hard disks and memory devices have faced the burden of ever increasing amounts of images to store. This is, in part, due to digital photography being an inexpensive way of taking thousands of images without any image processing costs to bear, thereby encouraging the photographer to snap many pictures of the same thing. The only ongoing expense is recharging the batteries in the camera.

Server provisioning is a set of actions to prepare a server, taking it from bare metal to a functioning system complete with an operating system, data and software.

If you do not value the information stored on your computer, data loss may not represent a significant issue. However, for the majority of users, the loss of their data is likely to have profound implications, such as financial loss, time and effort, and emotional distress. Typically, users who are casual about data protection have not yet experienced data loss. However, it represents the most important thing on your computer.