An Operating System (OS) is an interface between a computer user and computer hardware. An operating system is a software which performs all the basic tasks like file management, memory management, process management, handling input and output, and controlling peripheral devices such as disk drives and printers.
Some popular Operating Systems include Linux Operating System, Windows Operating System, VMS, OS/400, AIX, z/OS, etc.
Functions of an operating System:
- Memory Management
- Processor Management
- Device Management
- File Management
- Security
- Control over system performance
- Job accounting
- Error detecting aids
- Coordination between other software and users
An operating system brings powerful benefits to computer software and software development. Without an operating system, every application would need to include its own UI, as well as the comprehensive code needed to handle all low-level functionality of the underlying computer, such as disk storage, network interfaces and so on. Considering the vast array of underlying hardware available, this would vastly bloat the size of every application and make software development impractical.
Common desktop operating systems include the following:
Windowsis Microsoft's flagship operating system, the de facto standard for home and business computers. Introduced in 1985, the GUI-based OS has been released in many versions since then. The user-friendly Windows 95 was largely responsible for the rapid development of personal computing.Mac OSis the operating system for Apple's Macintosh line of PCs and workstations.Unixis a multiuser operating system designed for flexibility and adaptability. Originally developed in the 1970s, Unix was one of the first operating systems to be written in the C language.Linuxis a Unix-like operating system that was designed to provide PC users a free or low-cost alternative. Linux has a reputation as an efficient and fast-performing system.
Common Mobile operating systems:
Android OS: It is a system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.Apple iOS: It is a system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that presently powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone, and iPod Touch; it also powered the iPad prior to the introduction of iPadOS in 2019.
A web browser takes you anywhere on the internet, letting you see text, images and video from anywhere in the world.
It’s important that everyone has access to the web, but it’s also vital that we all understand the tools we use to access it. We use web browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Apple Safari every day, but do we understand what they are and how they work? In a short period of time we’ve gone from being amazed by the ability to send an email to someone around the world, to a change in how we think of information. It’s not a question of how much you know anymore, but simply a question of what browser or app can get you to that information fastest.
A web browser takes you anywhere on the internet. It retrieves information from other parts of the web and displays it on your desktop or mobile device. The information is transferred using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which defines how text, images and video are transmitted on the web. This information needs to be shared and displayed in a consistent format so that people using any browser, anywhere in the world can see the information.
When the web browser fetches data from an internet connected server and it then uses a piece of software called a rendering engine to translate that data into text and images. This data is written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and web browsers read this code to create what we see, hear and experience on the internet.
Hyperlinks allow users to follow a path to other pages or sites on the web. Every webpage, image and video has its own unique Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which is also known as a web address. When a browser visits a server for data, the web address tells the browser where to look for each item that is described in the html, which then tells the browser where it goes on the web page.
Websites save information about you in files called cookies. They are saved on your computer for the next time you visit that site. Upon your return, the website code will read that file to see that it’s you. For example, when you go to a website and the page remembers your username and password – that’s made possible by a cookie.
There are also cookies that remember more detailed information about you. Perhaps your interests, your web browsing patterns, etc. This means that a site can provide you more targeted content – often in the form of ads. There are types of cookies, called third-party cookies, that come from sites you’re not even visiting at the time and can track you from site to site to gather information about you, which is sometimes sold to other companies. Sometimes you can block these kinds of cookies, though not all browsers allow you to.
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Status Bar: You will find the status bar at the very bottom of your browser window. It basically tells you what you are doing at the moment. Mainly, it shows you load speed and the URL address of whatever your mouse is hovering over. -
Address Bar: You will find this bar at the top of your browser window and its purpose is to show you the whole URL or web site address. -
Title Bar: You will find this bar at the absolute top of your browser and in will be the colour blue for the major browsers. The purpose of the Title bar is to display the title of the web page that you are currently viewing. -
Toolbar Icons: You will find the Toolbar directly under the Title Bar. The Toolbar is where you will find the back button, home button and the refresh button etc. -
Display Window: The Display window is the space in which you view this website right now. -
Scroll Bars: The Scroll bars, usually located to the right of the Display Window, allows you to “scroll” (move down or up the web page) so you can view information that is below or above what is currently in the Display Window. -
Developer Tools: Every modern web browser includes a powerful suite of developer tools. These tools do a range of things, from inspecting currently-loaded HTML, CSS and JavaScript to showing which assets the page has requested and how long they took to load. This article explains how to use the basic functions of your browser's devtools.
How to open the developer tools:
- Keyboard: Ctrl + Shift + J
- Internet Explorer and Edge: F12
- macOS: ⌘ + ⌥ + J