Home System Software

One of the principal reasons that the personal computer has become a universally used appliance is that there is a wide array of software designed to support the needs and interests of home users. The personal computer is not only a workstation for word processing, accounting, and Internet access. It is also a reference library providing direct access to atlases, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works; an entertainment system providing recorded music, movies, and games; and occasionally a medium for controlling other automated home systems.

The software commonly installed on home systems falls into the following categories:

• Productivity applications, including office suites, personal financial management, and HTML composer/editor applications;
• System and disk management utilities;
• Anti-virus software;
• File compression, decompression, and archiving applications;
• Digital document and eBook readers;
• Internet connectivity and web browsing;
• Reference tools;
• Streaming audio and video players;
• CD-RW (compact disc-rewritable) and DVD (digital versatile disc) tools;
• Games.

Office Suites

The office suite is at the core of most home systems. The suite generally consists of a set of applications supporting word processing, presentations, electronic mail, spreadsheets, and database creation, typically outfitted with a common interface, and usually designed to provide inter-application communications. The most popular suite is Microsoft Office —there are versions for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems—but there are other commercial suites with modest shares of the market, most notably Corel WordPerfect Office and Microsoft Works. There is now also competition in the open source software environment, where Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, its open source counterpart, OpenOffice, and some of the applications included in GNOME Office, are compatible with Microsoft Office at the output file level.

Personal financial software is another popular productivity application. These programs are designed to manage personal finances—including checking, credit card accounts, and investment accounts—and some enable users to update their personal bank accounts interactively. Banks and investment brokerages have also begun to provide customers with software specially designed to manage personal accounts.

Yet another popular productivity application is the HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) composer/editor. In some cases, the HTML composer/ editor is part of an office suite—for example, Microsoft's FrontPage is now included in certain versions of Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Word is also capable of composing and editing HTML files. Other popular HTML composing and editing tools, such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver, are standalone development environments incorporating many other features and utilities, including remote web site management.

System and Disk Management Utilities

Because hard disks grew larger and less expensive in 2001, and the number of programs installed on a home system grew more numerous, utilities aimed at managing disks and how files are written to disks have become increasingly important. ﾀ Most of the applications written in this area are designed to scan hard disks for physical defects, detect fragmented files, and reorganize file systems.

Disk defragmentation tools re-write the files on a disk to increase the efficiency and reliability with which programs and other files are called from the disk. Tools of this type are important to many users, because disk fragmentation is a common problem on systems that enjoy heavy usage, and because highly fragmented file systems can have a significant and adverse effect on performance of a computer. These programs cannot actually fix physical defects, but most of them are able to preserve the integrity of systems and user data by identifying and marking defective clusters.

Disk management tools are often the core of a much larger set of tools included in a number of popular systems utilities packages. Such sets commonly include utilities intended to correct minor errors in the configuration of the operating system and/or applications, identify and mark redundant files for deletion, clear system and application caches, and restore deleted files.

Anti-Virus Software

Anti-virus software is arguably the most important of the utilities that may be installed on a personal computer. Computer viruses are common, and they can be transmitted in a number of different ways, including infected floppy disks, file transfer, and electronic mail. Most of the viruses that circulate are designed to corrupt and destroy file systems. Some of the newer viruses in circulation are especially dangerous, because they are designed to copy personal information, such as the information in an electronic address book, and then use the data as the basis for propagating the virus and infecting other systems by sending copies of the virus to other users via e-mail. Anti-virus software is designed to scan local file systems, on demand or on a scheduled basis, and check incoming e-mail, with particular attention to the contents of attached files.

A key to the effectiveness of anti-virus software is the frequency and thoroughness with which it is updated. The most effective anti-virus programs are updated as often as several times a week via the Internet.

Adobe Acrobat Reader and eBook Readers

Files rendered in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) are one of the most popular ways of publishing formatted documents, because PDF enables authors to preserve formatting beyond the framework of the application in which the document was created, and because Adobe has elected to make the Acrobat Reader available free of charge and for a number of different computer platforms. So, the Acrobat Reader is a common part of the software installed on home systems. In addition, Adobe makes available eBook Reader, which supports PDF files and the Electronic Book Exchange (EBX) digital rights management standards.

Microsoft makes several document viewers available without charge, including viewers for Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and Word as well as its Reader, which supports Microsoft's own eBook format. The current version of the Microsoft Reader supports text, images, and audio. Future versions of the Microsoft Reader are expected to support other media, including streaming video.

Archiving and Compression Utilities

Archived and compressed files are a common element of file management, storage, and exchange. There are a number of relevant methods for archiving and compressing (or uncompressing) files in the personal computer environment, distinguished mainly by the efficiency of the underlying algorithms , but the most widely used in the personal computer environment are utilities that incorporate the compression/decompression algorithm developed by Phil Katz. Recognizable by the de facto standard file extension, *.zip, this archiving and compression format is used to store and transmit programs and documents.

Reference Tools

PC vendors recognized early on that they could capture a significant part of the then-lucrative market for home encyclopedia sales if they included CD-ROM (compact disc-read only memory) based encyclopedias and other reference works as part of the installed software bundle that shipped with their systems, or sold reference works of this type as a low-priced addition. As a result, large numbers of systems include a multimedia encyclopedia. (In the beginning, the multimedia encyclopedias were decidedly inferior to most printed encyclopedias, but in recent years, encyclopedias such as Microsoft's Encarta have achieved much greater editorial authority.) In addition, such systems often include other reference works, such as an atlas, a dictionary, and a thesaurus, and in many cases these reference works are supplemented by Internet-based updating services.

Internet Connectivity

Tens of millions of personal computer users connect to the Internet from home, and many of them use third-party applications to connect with an Internet Service Provider (ISP) , connect to remote systems via telnet, read and send e-mail, and upload and download files. ISPs, most notably America Online, make such software available without charge to customers paying for online access through their services.

Most Internet-connected users are using Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Netscape's Communicator to browse the World Wide Web. Because web browsers also support various other functions, including remote login, file transfer, and access to remote services, including e-mail services, the web browser is not only an almost-universal application, it is also one that plays a multiplicity of roles on many home systems.

Streaming Audio and Video

In recent years, streaming audio and video have become important sources of information and entertainment for Internet-connected users, particularly users with broadband access (via digital subscriber line or cable modem services). Because there are competing technologies—Microsoft uses technologies based on the WAV file format, whereas almost all of the other application developers in this area rely on relevant aspects of the MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) standards— many users have two or more applications to support streaming audio and video installed on their systems. Today, it would not be unusual for a home system to host both Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Real Networks' Real Player, each of which may be downloaded free-of-charge over the Internet.

CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD

A growing number of home systems are equipped with CD drives that are capable of recording CDs (CD-R) and addressing rewriteable CDs (CDRW). Such systems include utilities that are designed to write to blank CDs and/or format and read rewriteable discs.

In addition, many new systems are outfitted with drives that support digital versatile discs (DVDs) and an accompanying DVD-ROM player. (DVD is an optical disc technology that holds 4.7 gigabyte of information, and that in an expanded format is expected to hold up to 17 gigabytes of video, audio, or other information. DVD uses the MPEG standards file and compression standard.)

Games

Home systems commonly include games of various types. There are many types of games available, but the most popular games fall into the following categories: action; adventure and fantasy; military; and sports simulation. Internet-based games, using Java, Shockwave, or some other distributable media, are increasing in popularity, as are interactive, multi-player games. Computer games are distinctive among the applications installed on home systems because games commonly require more sophisticated or specialized hardware. For example, many games require comparatively more powerful graphics adapters; others require special physical controllers.

The Future

The software discussed earlier is designed to be installed and run locally. But Microsoft, Sun, and other computer industry leaders are now in the process of moving toward a new model for the pricing and distribution of software, under which software will be made available across the Internet and on the basis of renewable subscriptions. The companies that are leading this change believe that the model will generate revenue for them and provide better services for clients. It is not clear, however, whether subscription models served across the Internet will succeed in the short term— customer resistance appears to be significant and the availability of sufficient network bandwidth remains a problem—nor is it clear how the new model will influence the configuration of home systems.

see also Animation; Embedded Technology (Ubiquitous Computing); Integrated Software; Music.

Christinger Tomer

Bibliography

Gralla, Preston. How the Internet Works, 6th ed. Indianapolis, IN: Que Books, 2001.

Steinmetz, Ralf, and Klara Nahrstedt. Multimedia: Computing, Communications, and Applications: Media Coding and Content Processing, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.

White, Ron. How Computers Work, 6th ed. Indianapolis, IN: Que Books, 2002.

ﾀ A new home personal computer in 2002 was likely to have a hard disk of 40-80 gigabytes in capacity.