The Power of it survival Guide for the cio

Production

The tools situated in this layer are intended to enhance the capabilities of the individual worker. They can work on a standalone machine; there is no need for network support.

1. 
   Word processors;
   
2. 
   Spreadsheets;
   
3. 
   Drawing tools;
   
4. 
   Viewers and Players.
   

Word Processors

Compared to old typewriter and carbon copy technology, the way of producing documents has become much more efficient with the introduction of word processing software. There are many flavors of word processing programs. Different programs are better for different types of jobs.

Text Editors

The simplest programs that do word processing are known as text editors. These programs are designed to be small, simple, and cheap. Most text editors save files in ASCII. The biggest advantage of this scheme is that almost any program can read and write ASCII text. The ability to write ASCII is the biggest benefit of text editors, but it is also their biggest disadvantage. ASCII is a good way of storing text information, but it has no way of handling more advanced formatting. Text editors do not allow you to do things like change font sizes or styles, spell checking, or columns.

Integrated Packages

Often, when you buy a new Personal Computer an integrated package is preinstalled. This is a program that usually contains a word processor, a spreadsheet and some other software tools. An integrated application package is somewhat a "Swiss army knife.” The advantages derive from the fact that all the modules are part of the same program. Therefore, it should be relatively easy to use the parts of such an integrated package together. Integrated packages are often designed with casual users in mind. This could make them easier to use than more elaborate programs. The word processor built into an integrated package is normally more powerful than a typical text editor.

Modern Word Processors

Word processing programs have evolved a lot from the early days of computing. In the beginning these word processors were running on dedicated hardware. This has changed with the Personal Computer. A modern word processing program can do many things besides simply handling text. Since the early 1990s, most word processors feature a WYSIWYG interface. WYSIWYG (pronounced 'whizeewig') stands for What You See Is What You Get. This means that the screen looks much like the finished document. This feature is important as the real strength of word processors is in the formatting they allow. Formatting is the manipulation of characters, paragraphs, pages, and complete documents. Modern word processors also are designed to have numerous features for advanced users. Some of the additional features one can expect to find on a modern word processor are spelling and grammar checkers, the ability to handle graphics, tables, and formulas and outline editors. Word Processors usually save the result of your work in a special, proprietary format. Most of them also allow for saving in a simple text format (with loss of mark up and formatting) or in a special format called Rich Text Format (RTF). The Open Source product OpenOffice (previously StarOffice) and the latest versions of Microsoft Word use XML as native saving format.

Desktop Publishing (DTP)

Desktop Publishing (DTP) software is taking text that has already been created with some other tool, and applies powerful formatting features to that text. Such a program makes it easy to create other kinds of documents than plain pages. Desktop Publishing Software is used to prepare materials such as brochures, flyers, full-page advertisements, newsletters, books, proposals, forms and much more. The quality of graphic material that can be produced in this way is so high that only a professional can detect the difference between material designed by desktop publishing and material that has been typeset. The latter has a somewhat higher resolution but this is not noticeable to the naked eye. In fact, much of the material you see in newspapers and magazines was prepared through Desktop Publishing. The high-end word processing programs give you most of the features you could expect in a desktop publishing program. Yet DTP tools are still popular in certain specialty fields (graphic arts, printing, and publishing…).

Web Authoring Tools

A special class of word-processing programs is the HTML editors also called Web Authoring Tools. They allow the user to create Web pages with a WYSIWYG user interface, much like a normal word processor, but the document is saved in HTML, a special format suitable for publishing on the Internet.

Spreadsheets

In 1978, a Harvard Business School student, Daniel Bricklin, came up with the idea of an interactive visual calculator. Together with Bob Frankston he co-invented or co-created the software program VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. A spreadsheet is in essence a table, but instead of having fixed values in the cells these contains formulas that refer to values (or the results of formulas) in other cells. This is useful for computational work and simulations.

The introduction of spreadsheet software made individual knowledge workers a lot more productive: where they had to do their analyses and simulations on paper in the past, the spreadsheet concept now offers a tremendous flexibility. Modern spreadsheet software allow for graphical representation of the data (bar graphs, line graphs, pie charts) and for database access. Other possibilities include sorting and filtering.

As with the Word Processors there has been a market shakeout so that only a few packages remain. These are usually interoperable; that is: they can read one another’s output file formats.

Drawing tools

Drawing tools allow their users to create graphics or drawings. There are two big groups of graphic file formats: bitmap and vector.

A bitmap graphic (also called raster) is created from rows of different colored pixels. In their simplest form, bitmaps have only two colors, with each pixel being either black or white. With increasing complexity, an image can include more colors; photograph-quality images can have millions. Some examples of bitmap graphic formats are BMP, PCX, GIF, JPEG and TIFF.
Vector graphics (also known as object-oriented) are constructed using shapes, curves, lines, and text, which together make a picture. While a bitmap image contains information about the color of each pixel, a vector graphic contains instructions about where to place each of the components. Examples of vector graphic formats are PICT, EPS, and WMF as well as PostScript.
Bitmap and vector graphics both have their strengths and weaknesses:

1. 
   In general, a bitmap graphic file is much larger than a vector graphic file;
   
2. 
   Bitmap graphics are resolution dependent;
   
3. 
   Vector graphics are not appropriate for complex images.
   

Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM)

Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) tools are a special class of drawing tools. These tools can generate files that can be used as an input for manufacturing machines. For example, a photo-plotting machine generates photo masks that can be used in the manufacturing of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). The industry standard photo plotting language is the Gerber Format (also known a RS-274-D). This format also contains aperture codes, i.e., the coordinates and the diameter of the holes that have to be drilled in the PCB; this information is fed directly to a drilling machine in a further step of the manufacturing process. Many specialized tools and formats exist for almost every industry.

Presentation software

Another specialized class of drawing software is presentation software. These programs are specialized in the preparation and rendering of good looking business presentations. These tools come with an important gallery of backgrounds, graphics etc. Furthermore, users can select between a set of animations to make their presentations even more attractive.

Instead of being a personal productivity tool, presentation software sometimes becomes a “productivity killer”: the user spends more time in making fancy presentations than in concentrating on the essence: the content.

Viewers and Players

Viewers allow their users to visualize the content of a document, without having the possibility to alter it. A well-known example of a viewer is the Acrobat Reader. This freeware allows the visualization of PDF files (Portable Document Format).

A special class of viewers is formed by Web-browsers. These will be handled further on this chapter.

Players allow for the (read-only) exploitation of multimedia files (sound, video, animations).

Characteristics of Production Information Systems

A first characteristic of the Information Systems in this layer is that they have only affect the activities and productivity of individual staff members. If there is any resistance against the introduction of these tools it will be on an individual basis, not structural. This resistance will be inspired by the natural reluctance of people to change. It will have to be overcome using training and coaching in which the potential benefits for the individual worker are made clear. The introduction of these tools does not imply any changes in the existing procedures and working methods. The only difference is that information is handled electronically and no longer on paper.

Personal productivity tools are generic (not specialized) and low cost. There is also a high change rate: every one or two years there is a new "generation" of products on the market. Often, however, the changes are not fundamental; they are just small improvements or new functionalities that are added.

Potential benefits of Production Information Systems

The most obvious benefit is of course the improved personal productivity.

A second benefit is the possibility for efficient storage, retrieval, and reuse of information.
Another more qualitative advantage will be that you will have satisfied customers. This will be good for the working atmosphere and thus for the productivity of the entire organization.

Collaboration

Whereas personal productivity tools most certainly have improved the individual information processing capabilities, they did not affect the global office worker's productivity. Staff spends more and more time in looking for relevant information and less and less time in using it in a significant and productive manner. The Information Systems of level 2 are designed to improve the productivity of groups; this is why they are also called groupware.

Groupware systems typically reside on a network (an LAN, a WAN or the Internet). Today, the most commonly used computing model remains the Client Server model. The Server is running on a central platform (or host) while the Clients are executing on the individual workstations of the users. In almost all cases, the Server is general-purpose and business-unaware. Likewise, the Clients are general-purpose and only used by a single user, so they could be classified as personal productivity tools. The combination of these two lower-level components however, can be seen as a higher-level entity in the value-chain of the organization.
The introduction of groupware in an organization is an important step. Not only are the infrastructure requirements a lot higher than for level 1 Information Systems (there is a need for a network) but also, more importantly, the way the organization works will change completely.
Groupware systems can be categorized along two dimensions: time and space. Table 3.1 gives an overview of the possible combinations and some typical examples.

	Asynchronous	Synchronous
Collocated	Resource sharing Document Management	Voting systems Decision support
Non-collocated	Email News groups Mailing lists Hypertext Enterprise portal Web content management Group calendar Workflow	Chat systems Voice telephony Videoconferencing Shared whiteboards

Table 3.1 – Categorization of Groupware

Collocated – Asynchronous groupware systems

Resource sharing

The simplest form of groupware is the sharing of resources (files, printers, public folders…). This kind of elementary groupware is normally included in the Network Services part of the IT infrastructure.

Document Management Systems

Document Management Systems (DMSs) are software applications that are related to Database Management Systems (DBMSs). Whereas DBMSs handle structured data – short records such as a name, address, and social security number – DMSs store, retrieve, and manage unstructured data such as files, text, spreadsheets, images, sound clips, multimedia, and compound documents. The benefits of using DMSs are well established, including improved productivity, shorter process times, and better access to information. They are increasingly being used for business-critical Information Systems in financial services, insurance, energy, manufacturing, government, and many other industries.

Some years ago, document management standards efforts were started at two levels. One was focused on a simple Application Programming Interface (API) to let any kind of client interact with a DMS that also realized the API, for storing and retrieving files. Desktop applications like word processing and spreadsheet packages are on those clients and must interact with the DMS to store and retrieve the files. In that sense, the DMS replaces the Operating System's file system. With this standard, the client must know the specific design, construction, capabilities, etc. of the DMS to use it, including its proprietary document structuring, indexing, and query facilities. As all this knowledge is inside the client, the API itself is simple and inexpensive, yet very valuable as it makes the power of a proprietary DMS available to a wide range of desktop applications. This API standard, called ODMA (for Open Document Management API) has been built into many different kinds of clients, and is used widely today.

In parallel, a second, more ambitious, standardization effort was launched to create interoperability across the different proprietary DMSs. This effort was carried out by an ad hoc alliance: the Document Management Alliance or DMA. The DMA specification can be combined with the ODMA standard for universal client access, and adds what is needed for completely vendor-independent cross-repository interoperability. In addition, as it accommodates international multi-language conventions, it is even language-independent.

Non-collocated – Asynchronous groupware systems

Email

Email is a groupware application that has seen a tremendous growth in popularity with the introduction of the Internet. The basic functionality is to pass text messages between two persons but almost all email packages include features like forwarding, organizing of the messages in folders, and attaching files.
An email system consists of two components: a server and a client (one for every user).
The server component resides on a central host and has two distinct roles: it relays the messages between the other participants of the network (other hosts or clients) and it stores the messages that are intended for the clients it serves.
The client component usually resides on the workstation of the users allowing them to send mail to other users and to retrieve messages that are stored on the server.
The interaction between the different players in an email system can be handled using several protocols:

1. 
   Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP);
   
2. 
   Post Office Protocol (POP);
   
3. 
   Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).
   

The purpose of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is to transfer email around the Internet. SMTP forms the backbone for email transmission from one host to another. A receiving SMTP host continuously listens for incoming SMTP conversations, and when it detects one, will exchange information about the sender and intended recipients of the message and the email message itself. When the conversation is completed, the two hosts will disconnect from each other, and the receiving host will carry on listening for new conversations. In reality, a listening host will listen while talking to one host, and can cope with several concurrent conversations. Most users on the Internet today use SMTP to send out messages, but few receive SMTP mail directly. As SMTP requires machines to continuously listen for incoming conversations which can occur at any time, SMTP is mainly used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who have email relay hosts that run 24 hours a day.

POP is an abbreviation for Post Office Protocol, and came about as Personal Computers became popular. A prime requirement of an SMTP host is that it continuously listens for incoming email conversations, which is impractical for a PC to do. POP works by querying what is known as a mailbox for new mail. The mailbox will usually reside on a host that has a permanent connection to the Internet. When a user wishes to check if there is any email waiting, he will connect to one of these email hosts using POP. The user will then authenticate himself to the remote host, normally using a username and password combination. Once properly logged on, the user can request a list of the email messages in his mailbox, and choose to retrieve them, look at their headers, delete them or do nothing. It is usual that once an email message has been retrieved it will be deleted from the server, thus preventing it is retrieved several times. When the user's host has retrieved the email messages it wants, it will simply log off and drop the connection to the remote host. The whole process of sending and receiving email is analogous to the postman delivering letters between houses (SMTP), and you picking the letters up from your mailbox when it is convenient for you to do so (POP).
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. With IMAP, you can define a hierarchy of folders (i.e., mailboxes on the mail server), which lets you organize and store mail messages where users can access them from multiple locations. IMAP supports shared folders, so a workgroup can share one copy of a message. IMAP supports both clear text and more secure authentication methods.



Fig. 3.3 – Email protocols
In the early days of the Internet, the only use of mail was the exchange of simple textual messages made of ASCII characters. ASCII needs only seven bit words to map its set of characters, so SMTP was defined to handle words this long. This makes SMTP unable to transmit files made up of eight bits, known as binary files. To overcome this limitation, algorithms for transforming 8-bit files into 7-bit files (encoding) and vice-versa (decoding) have been defined. So for sending binaries you need to encode the file before sending it out with your mail tool and the recipient must know which encoding scheme you used and have the right decoder to go back to the original file. An encoding scheme used in the DOS and UNIX world is uuencode. The Mac community has chosen for BinHex. The MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) standard foresees as encoding scheme known as base64 that is more robust than the others and is therefore recommended.

Newsgroups and mailing lists

These Information Systems have the same fundamentals as email but they are intended for messaging among groups of people, instead of one-to-one communication. The main difference between newsgroups and mailing lists is that newsgroups are pull services (the user explicitly requests to see the content) while mailing lists are push systems (the user receives a message when it becomes available). Both systems can be found as public services on the Internet (often at no cost) or as a private service set up on the Intranet of an organization.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a special text format, which is based on tags. These are in-line commands to show the formatting the information. Usually tags come in pairs; the first one shows the beginning of an entity and the second one the end. The end tag is identical to the begin tag, except that it is preceded by “/.” For instance, the title of a document is indicated by the tag pair. There are two groups of tags:

1. 
   Tags that structure the document by itself;
   
2. 
   Tags that structure the contents of the document.
   

Tags like , and are used to structure the document. They allow the segmentation of the document in a part that contains meta-information (information about the document) and a part containing the useful information.

The second group of tags is used to structure the content of the document. With these tags you can for instance declare that a piece of text is the title of a paragraph or subparagraph (

…

), a table () or a list (

or
). An important element in this group is the anchor tag (). This allows delimiting an active part of the text, a hyperlink; clicking on a hyperlink instructs the browser to load the referred document. This is a powerful feature that made HTML so popular. Below is a simple example of a HTML file:

Hello World!