A Talking Word Processor and Web Browser

For better or worse, the web browser has become a widely used target platform for software applications. Desktop-style applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, calendars, games and instant messaging systems that were earlier written for specific operating systems, CPU architectures or devices are now written for the World Wide Web, to be used from a web browser. In this paper we summarize our experiences in using the web browser as a target platform for real applications. As a concrete example, we use the Sun? Labs Lively Kernel, a system that implements an exceptionally interactive web programming environment running in a web browser without any plug-in components. Based on this work, we analyze the limitations, challenges and opportunities related to the web browser as an application platform.

This article examines the development of the Wisdom Project, a pilot for the teaching of informatics to primary health care professionals, using an original educational model based on e-mail and Web pages. The article begins by placing the development of the Wisdom Project in the context of changes in medical education and training. The aims and objectives of Wisdom are outlined, and the methodologies for setting up and evaluating the project are described. The article then presents the results of the evaluation, including the identification of significant improvements in knowledge of CD ROMs (P = 0.01), e-mail (P = 0.03), Medline (P = 0.02), operating systems (P = 0.02), Web browsers (P = 0.003) and word processing (P = 0.03). Improvements in evidence-based practice (EBP) did not reach significance. Finally, a number of conclusions are presented, considering the lessons learnt for the future development of such projects.

In this paper, we present Chameleon an application-level power management approach for reducing energy consumption in mobile processors. By using application domain knowledge, as opposed to OS-level or hardware-level inferred knowledge, Chameleon can substantially reduce CPU energy consumption. By exporting the energy management to user-space, designers can design more flexible and easily portable algorithms and systems, and use multiple energy management policies simultaneously. Specifically, we propose a minimal operating system interface that applications use to obtain global knowledge from the kernel in order to make local decisions. We consider three classes of applications soft real-time, interactive and batch and design user level power management strategies for representative applications such as a movie player, a word processor, a web browser, and a batch compiler. Our experiments show that, compared to the traditional system-wide CPU voltage scaling approaches, Chameleon can achieve up to 32-50% energy savings while delivering comparable or better performance to applications. Similarly, Chameleon extracts 9-41% more energy when compared to Grace OS, which uses some application knowledge but operates within the kernel. Further, Chameleon imposes minimal overhead and is effective at scheduling concurrent applications with diverse energy needs.

Hello! Welcome to Modern PyQt! When you build an application, whether for desktop, mobile, or embedded devices, your goal is to create a seamless experience for the user. If you are designing a program for others to use, then you should always consider how the user might interact with the software to solve their problems. Applications such as web browsers, word processors, and video players are all created to enrich the end user’s life, helping them achieve some task simply and efficiently.

Introduction Evaluation is the process of gathering information that will facilitate improving a program (formative) or that will help determining its value (summative). Many experts have analyzed the difference between and summative evaluation. Markle (1989) stated that summative is to prove but is to improve the programs or the product. According to Baker and Alkin (1973), summative is the for validation while is the for revision. The term formative evaluation was coined by Scriven (1967) and is the process of collecting qualitative or quantitative data during the developmental stage of the instructional design process (Seels & Glasgow, 1990). The data collected is used to provide immediate feedback and helps to make revisions or modifications to the program before the final product is developed. One can evaluate almost anything, such as a person, a curriculum, a student, a process, a product, or a program (Tessmer, 1993). In the process of instructional development, the instructional designer evaluates the instructional materials to determine weaknesses in the instruction so that the material can be modified (Smith & Ragan, 1999). In this study, the focus of research is a approach where is done to improve the curriculum design of computer rather than a summative to prove the overall effectiveness of the curriculum. Formative of the course helped the instructors identify if the students achieved sufficient mastery of skills in the curriculum for the course, or if further instruction was needed in specific areas. It also helped to identify if both the instructors and students agreed on the importance of the instructional content and strategies of the course. Formative Evaluation in Computer Literacy Computer has been defined as an understanding of computer characteristics, capabilities, and applications, as well as ability to implement this knowledge in the skillful, productive use of computer applications suitable to individual roles in society (Simonson, Mauere, Montag-Toradi, & Whitaker, 1987, p. 233). Gupta (2006) defines it as the individual's ability to operate a computer system. This includes having a basic understanding of the file management processes such as formatting a disk and how to save, copy, delete, open, and print documents. It also involves using computer applications software to perform personal or job-related tasks, using web browsers and search engines online, and being able to email. Computer is a fundamental part of the undergraduate curriculum in this decade. It is as basic to undergraduate students as the course work in the core curriculum (Dugger, Meade, Delany, & Nichols, 2003). Students educated in computer use the computer skills in most of the other courses in their discipline. Previous studies have found that computer competency is essential to both academic and career achievement (Davis, 1999). Many studies have discussed the contents of computer course and instructional strategies in terms of learning effectiveness. An all-purpose computer literacy class that expects everything to be taught in one semester is considered unrealistic (Beard, 1993). According to Ndahi and Gupta's study (2000) on workforce training, the most frequently required computer skills were word processing and the knowledge of database software. In addition, the trainees voiced a strong interest in learning file management and preparing presentations. Gupta (2006) found that basic parts and functions of information systems, system software, security and privacy issues, the use of application software (word processor, using a spreadsheet, preparing a presentation), and accessing remote computers should be among the course objectives of a basic computer course. …

In this paper, we present Chameleon---an application-level power management approach for reducing energy consumption in mobile processors. Our approach exports the entire responsibility of power management decisions to the application level. We propose an operating system interface that can be used by applications to achieve energy savings. We consider three classes of applications---soft real-time, interactive and batch---and design user-level power management strategies for representative applications such as a movie player, a word processor, a web browser, and a batch compiler. We also design a user level power manager based on GraceOS using Chameleon. We implement our approach in the Linux kernel running on a Sony Transmeta laptop. Our experiments show that, compared to the traditional system-wide CPU voltage scaling approaches, Chameleon can achieve up to 32-50% energy savings while delivering comparable or better performance to applications. Further, Chameleon imposes small overheads and is very effective at scheduling concurrent applications with diverse energy needs.

This paper describes a new method of using the Internet to develop and deliver individualized prelab and postlab questions to students in the undergraduate laboratory. The delivery platform is Microsoft NT Server running Active Server Pages (ASP). The questions are written using a word processor and use a limited set of mark-up characters. Once written, the questions are saved to a file in HTML format to allow the ASP to generate and distribute the questions to the students via a Web browser.

TO EXAMINE STUDENT COMPUTER USE, training and proficiency patterns, 688 undergraduate students were surveyed at a large state university. Students reported which computer applications they used and how they learned specific computer applications. They also rated their proficiency with computers. Common computer applications such as word processing and spreadsheets, Web browsers, and e-mail were used by 84%–90% of students; 86% of students own a computer. Eighty-nine percent of the students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “my computer skills are adequate for my professors’ needs.” Approximately 25% of students considered themselves advanced computer users. Correlates with student ratings of proficiency included programming skills and the use of other operating and hardware systems, but also extended to construction of Web sites, the use of newsgroups, and the ability to use the Web for research. The predominant way students reported learning about the use of e-mail, the Web, and spread-sheets was informally; increased use of common applications was not correlated with formal training. Finally, even when major and class standing were held constant, differences existed for males and females in the use of specialized applications and self-ratings of proficiency. But, substantive gender differences were not evident for the use of common applications.

The Pathologist's Workstation

Despite the expansion of Deaf people's use of communication technology little is published about how they use electronic communication in their social and working lives and the implications for their concepts of identity and community. Australia is an ideal research base because the use of a range of technologies is widespread there. To gain access to a wide age range of people who identify as Deaf, members of the national organization, the Australian Association of the Deaf, were surveyed by mail. Results showed that Short Message Service (SMS), telephone typewriters (TTY), voice/TTY relay services, fax, and e-mail were used regularly. Deaf users are discerning of the purposes for which they use each method: SMS for social and personal interactions, TTY for longer communications and (via the relay service) with people and services without TTYs, fax for business and social contact, and computers for personal and business e-mails as well as Web browsing, accessing chat rooms, word processing, games, and study.

We demonstrate proactive information retrieval via screen surveillance. A user's digital activities are continuously monitored by capturing all content on a user's screen using optical character recognition. This includes all applications and services being exploited and relies on each individual user's computer usage, such as their Web browsing, emails, instant messaging, and word processing. Topic modeling is then applied to detect the user's topical activity context to retrieve information. We demonstrate a system that proactively retrieves information from a user's activity history being observed on the screen when the user is performing unseen activities on a personal computer. We report an evaluation with ten participants that shows high user satisfaction and retrieval effectiveness. Our demonstration and experimental results show that surveillance of a user's screen can be used to build an extremely rich model of a user's digital activities across application boundaries and enable effective proactive information retrieval.

Everyday digital tasks can highly benefit from systems that recommend the right information to use at the right time. However, existing solutions typically support only specific applications and tasks. In this demo, we showcase EntityBot, a system that captures context across application boundaries and recommends information entities related to the current task. The user’s digital activity is continuously monitored by capturing all content on the computer screen using optical character recognition. This includes all applications and services being used and specific to individuals’ computer usages such as instant messaging, emailing, web browsing, and word processing. A linear model is then applied to detect the user’s task context to retrieve entities such as applications, documents, contact information, and several keywords determining the task. The system has been evaluated with real-world tasks, demonstrating that the recommendation had an impact on the tasks and led to high user satisfaction.

Development of web browser prototype with embedded classification capability for mitigating Cross-Site Scripting attacks

An evaluation experiment was conducted to compare four interface styles: Hanwang Fixed Window, Translucent Mobile Single Window, Translucent Mobile Double Window, and No Window. Subjects tested the four styles on a pen_based word edit system in free-form mode. The result shows that traditional interface style of the Hanwang Fix Window didn't satisfy the requirement of the nature interaction of the end user. And the TMDW mode are very suitable for user to perform the word processing task, in terms of the task performing time and mean accuracy rate. And the NW is the most nature and promising style, in terms of the subjective preference and the error rate of the performing time and accuracy rate of the experimental data. The experiment also shows that the moving window would influent the accuracy rate of the recognition. This experiment confirmed that a proper employment of interface style could improve the interactive efficiency of word editing systems. Also we give out some useful interface hints to improve the performance of the interface. Our tests for the first time give statistical support to the view that free pen_based interface is meaningful in the nature pen and gesture input of the word edit system.

This paper describes four computer‐assisted Japanese language and culture projects using word processing and the World Wide Web (WWW) conducted in a college‐level third‐year Japanese class, and reports the impact of the projects as assessed by student pre‐ and post‐questionnaires reflective comments from students, and instructor's reflective observation notes. Fourteen students provided their feedback on the four projects that they had engaged in: (1) journal writing; (2) creating a personal home page; (3) a Japanese culture project using the WWW; and (4) a collaborative class fiction using a discussion forum on the WWW. The projects were successful in that students enjoyed word processing, creating Web pages, and collaboratively creating a fiction all in the Japanese language. Students also felt that these projects benefited the overall development of their Japanese language skills, understanding of Japanese culture, and computer skills. They also felt that word processing made writing in Japanese easy. Observations found that students' motivation increased. There was also a significant decrease in students' anxiety toward using computers. Areas of difficulties included kanji recognition in word processing and in reading Web pages and mastering technical skills. This paper offers suggestions tor conducting similar computer projects in foreign language classrooms.