Map VS GPS

What will you do if you want to know the location where you are now? What will you do if you want to find a way to go to some places? What will you do if you get lost and want to find the way back? Map and GPS can help!! Both of them are used for finding a route and a location. If you would like to know the route to go somewhere then you can consult them. Also, they both are so useful and quite important for those who enjoy traveling to use them as a guideline to guide for the way and to prevent from drift. Although both map and GPS are similar in use, they still have some differences. We can look at these differences from three aspects which are price, convenience and technology.

The first aspect is price. For a normal map, which is a paper-based map, the price is quite low about no more than 120 baht each. On the other hand, GPS’s, which is a digital-based map, price is quite varied starting from 5,000 baht but not exceeding 20,000 baht, so this is more than 100 percent higher than that of the normal map. Imagine, compared to buying only one GPS, if you have 5,000 baht in your pocket, you can buy like forty pieces of normal maps with some money left. Nevertheless, it seems to be common and reasonable that the price of the normal map is much lower than that of the GPS. This might be because the normal map is just a kind of paper map, so it is surely costless than the electronic one. Notwithstanding, it is up to complacency and purchasing power of the individual. If you are the one who do not have to concern much about spending then it will not be a problem for you to get the GPS one.

Next aspect is convenience. In this aspect, there are two points of views to consider. One point is that in terms of space required, the GPS does not need so much space; you can even use it while you are in narrow space. Conversely, some space is required for the normal map, you have to billow out the map first to find the location, so this is quite troublesome sometimes. Another point is comfort. Using the GPS is very comfort; it nearly provides you everything including finding a location, showing the route, telling the way and so on. For instance, you are now on Sukhumvit Road and you want to go to Siam Square. Then what you have to do is just enter your destination into the GPS. After that the GPS will automatically show you the route from Sukhumvit Road to Siam Square. Furthermore, it can tell you which way to go with voice. Whereas, using the normal map, you have to find and search for all routes yourself without a guideline. Thus, this is quite tough and requires some skill. Therefore, it might be a good idea to use the GPS for the ones who love ease.

The last aspect is technology. The GPS can be considered to be a high technology device. Likewise, you do not have to worry about information falling behind because it always updates new information changes all the time. Since the GPS receives signal from the satellite, information can be guaranteed to be accurate and up-to-date. For example, if there are any changes with the route of the road in Bangkok then the GPS will automatically update that new route for you. Hence, every time you ask for the route, you will get recent and right information which prevent you from getting into the old wrong direction. Controversial, the normal map which is based on paper technology, for sure, is not so easy to abruptly adjust something on the normal map. That means it still requires some times to post new changes and release new versions of maps, so this is quite behindhand. Again using the above example, if any changes occur such as new roads are constructed then you may need to keep buying new versions of normal maps; besides, you have to frequently update the change yourself. This is not an easy thing to do.

In summary, like every other thing, map and GPS have some similarities as well as some differences as we can see from above paragraphs. Actually, between these two kinds of maps, it depends on users to decide and choose which one they prefer. For me, I prefer the GPS because it seems to be a lot easier to use and more convenient than the normal map. In addition, it is still be a problem for me to find the right route by using the normal map. Accordingly for safety and preventing myself from getting lost, I think the GPS is more suitable for me.

Mobile functionality

Mobile phones have become such important devices for almost all people to use in communication and to connect to each other. However, rather than communication, most people focus more on their functionalities. No one can refuse that nearly 95 percent of decision making on buying mobile phones depend mainly on their functions. Besides, mobile phone functionalities are continued developing better and better from time to time. Also, mobile phones can be categorized based on their functions into three levels of technologies which are low technology level, medium technology level and high technology level.

The first level is low technology level which implies that functions of mobile phones in this level are still simple, normal and not much attractive. Some functions in this level comprise of send and receive messages, infrared and reminder. The first two basic functions are send and receive messages. With these functions, users can send messages to their friends as well as receive messages back from them. Although many messages can be sent and received, only constant text messages and images are allowed. Next function is infrared. Infrared function provides users the way to transfer data between two or more mobile phones. For example, Susan want to transfer her pictures from her mobile phone to her friend’s mobile phone, then she can do this by using infrared to help her in transferring. The last function is reminder. For reminder function, users can create to do note or appointment reminder to remind themselves about important activities that they have to do. Some kinds of mobile phones in this level are Nokia 3310, 3315, 3320, 3360 and more.

Next level is medium technology level which also includes all functions of those in low technology level but improved and added more. There are many interesting functions of mobile phones in this level which can be divided into five major ones. The first one is photo taking function. Most mobile phones today include this function and most people prefer it. Since, users can make use of this function to take whatever pictures they want. The second one is music player. Inside music player consist of some sub-functions which are to play, to pause and to repeat music in the list. The third one is voice recorder. Users can use this function to record their voice, other voices and much more. Furthermore, voice recorder has automatically save function to keep users records. The fourth one is Bluetooth connectivity. This function helps users to transfer files or images easier. The last one is MMS which stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. MMS function lets users send and receive not only constant messages but also multimedia messages. Some example types of mobile phones in this level are Nokia 6500, 6210, Sunyo S750, Hutch C2905 and many more.

The last level is high technology level. Functions of mobile phones in this level are juicy and very attractive. Some advance functions compose of 3G, internet connection and push to talk are in this level. The first function is 3G also known as video call which means it allows users to talk to each other in a kind of face to face manner through mobile phones. In addition, 3G is still new and very appealing to many people. The second function is internet connection. Internet connection function lets users to directly connect to available wireless everywhere through mobile phones without charging more for GPRS. The last function is push to talk. Many people might not be so familiar with this function, yet it is also interesting. Push to talk is like a function of walky-talky that you just press a button when you want to talk to each other and release after talking. Some examples of mobile phones in this level are iPhone, Nokia 6500 and other more.

In conclusion, mobile phones keep on launching new functions on and on from low technology level to high technology level. In low technology level, functions of mobile phones are still basic and not much exciting. Afterwards, in medium technology level, each function in low technology level is also implemented with some extensions. Moreover, many new and gripping functions are implemented. In the last level, some more powerful and intriguing functions are emerged together with very high in technology. Now it’s time to decide which one you prefer the most!!!

Operating System

An operating system is a program that controls the execution of application programs which are normal programs such as word processing, database programs, drawing, paint, and image editing programs. The operating system, or you can called it “OS” for short, acts as an interface between applications and the computer hardware. Also, the operating system makes a computer more convenience to use for users. An example is when you run many programs at the same time, the operating system will manage which program should be executed first, which should be next and finish all of those for you. Besides, to give you a clearer understanding, I would like to introduce you three interesting examples of the operating system which are Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Windows is a major example of the microcomputer, which are small computers including PC and operating system. Windows is intended to support multitasking of a single interactive user on personal computers. For instance, you can use a word processing, a drawing program and a spreadsheet (excel) at the same time to produce a document. Without multitasking, if you want to create a drawing and paste it into the word processing document, so what you have to do first is open the drawing program, and then create the drawing and save it in a file. After that you have to close the drawing program and open the word processing program. Finally, insert the drawing in the location that you want. The point is that if any changes are desired, you must close the word processing program first and reopen the drawing program, edit the image, save it and close the drawing program, after closing the drawing program you then reopen the word processing program again, and insert the updated image. This single-task becomes time consuming, tedious and unfriendly. Whereas, with multitasking that Windows provided, you can open as many applications as you needed and leave them open. Information can be moved around among number of applications easily like if you want to make any changes in the drawing program, it is not necessary to close the word processing first which means you can open both and many more programs at the same time. As you can see, with the feature of multitasking from Windows, it is much easier for users to perform their work.

Mac OS is another interesting example of the operating system. Recently, Mac OS becomes more and more popular. Moreover, most people switch from Windows to Mac OS for many reasons. One of the reasons is that Mac OS has less problem of virus invasion than those of Windows. One illustration of this idea is that less than 30 percent of Mac OS users claim about the attacking of virus compared to more than 60 percent Windows users encountering virus infecting, that is because Mac OS is still new and still not yet widespread, so most viruses then design mainly to attack Windows. In the same way as other operating system, Mac OS provides users many versions such as Mac OS 7.6, Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X and many others. In addition Mac OS provides users a very wonderful user interface with some tactics. Let’s take a few examples, one is that you can display as many windows as you want on your desktop screen, by just pressing F9 all of the opening windows will be shown as a separate window for you to click on. Another one is that you can change a shortcut icon such as my computer, recycle bin and many more into your own favorite icon, also you can highlight the names of the files to be the color that you wanted or make them easier to recognize, for instance, you may highlight all names of your word files with blue color to separate them from your power point files. Accordingly, Mac OS has many attractive features coupled with great ability to perform work. That’s why more and more people prefer it.

The last example of the operating system that I would like to share you is Linux. Linux is known as an open-source software which means a software created and updated by programmers around the world, yet more appealing point is that it is available for free. A case in point is that if you want to try Linux and want to install it on your computer, you can just go to the website such as www.thaiopenlinux.com, www.softpedia.com, www.linux.com and so on, then choose a version that you are interested in to download for free by not having to pay for anything including license. In fact, Linux provides users plenty of versions, examples of them are Red Hat, Ubantu, Linux Mint, eyeOS and many more. Likewise, Linux is such a flexible operating system which allows users to adjust source code themselves very easily. As for this case, if you do not prefer the style of the given desktop, you can write code yourself to adjust and make your own style. How cool it is!!! Indeed, in the United States, the research show that now more than 85 percent of the companies use Linux operating system due to its robustness and affordability.

In summary, the operating system plays an important role in the computer world, it acts as a helper to help users arrange and deal with the resources and activities of the computer. Furthermore, with operating system, users can perform their work better and more efficiently. Furthermore, from those previous three examples, all of them are provided to help users on managing things on their computer although their features or designs are somehow different. Now it is your turn to choose which kind of operating system will you try next!!!

Database Management System (DBMS)

DBMS is a software system that helps users to organize, create and maintain the database easier. As its name implies, the DBMS stands for Database Management System, it is the software that used to manage the database and to help users make a good database. One question arises, without the DBMS, can we still create or set up the database? For sure, the answer is yes you can, yet you have to program everything yourself!!! That is not so fun and takes so much time also. To come across tough work, the DBMS acts as a helper to help users to manipulate the database and all data that will be loaded into the database well. Besides, the means to insert, to update, to modify, to delete and to retrieve data from or into the database are also considered essential functions of database management system. To give you more idea about the DBMS, I would like to introduce you another three things about the DBMS which are the history of the DBMS, what the DBMS is not and both advantages and disadvantages of the DBMS.

The history of the DBMS can be divided into three generations. The first generation was called “Navigational DBMS.” At the beginning of this generation, one approach was introduced by “CODASYL,” which is the group of people responsible for the creation and standardization of COBAL (COBAL is one of the programming languages), and the approach was known as “CODASYL approach.” This approach was based on the “Manual” navigation of a linked data set, which means to find any particular record in the database, the programmer had to step through all records one by one at the time!!! Also, there was no concept of finding or searching in CODASYL approach. Later in 1968, IBM released their own DBMS system called IMS. IMS was generally similar in concept to CODASYL approach, but now IBM added searching feature into IMS, so it was more convenient for users to find where the record is. The second generation of the DBMS was called “Relational DBMS.” In relational approach, related records were linked together with “a key,” this implies that each record must be unique and was identified by its own key. Besides, in this approach, it allowed users to do normalization, which is a technique for organizing data into tables in such a way that redundancy attribute and related attribute are separated so that inconsistence record and duplicated record are to be removed. At the end of 1970s, IBM introduced the third generation of the DBMS which was called “SQL DBMS,” which stands for structure query language. The concept of SQL DBMS is programming-based, that means you need to insert some commands in terms of coding prior to getting access to the database. In addition, this approach became very popular and widely used until today.

Next, to get rid of some confusion about the DBMS, I will tell you what the DBMS is not!!! Most people might think that the DBMS is a database, but in fact it is not!!! Actually, the DBMS itself is absolutely not similar to the database, we do not uses the DBMS to store, to collect or to gather data. Likewise, the DBMS does not refer to a system catalog that provides the description of the data. The misunderstanding of the DBMS is that some people think that it acts as a center place where a lot of data are kept together. Although before data are accessed to the database, they firstly have to pass through the DBMS, yet the DBMS is not captured or stored in any of those passing data. Indeed, the DBMS is not like the database, which is a large repository where plenty of data are resided inside. Furthermore, the tasks to store names, types, name of relationships of sizes of data items are not functions of the DBMS at all. Additionally, the DBMS does not involve activities like keeping the history of data or recording the status of data. All of those things are not the DBMS, so now I think from those details of what the DBMS is not can make you have better and clearer understanding about the DBMS.

Finally, like all software systems, the DBMS has both advantages and disadvantages. For its benefits, the first one is that the DBMS helps users to control data redundancy. That means some duplicated data are to be removed by the DBMS. Although those duplicated data are not entirely eliminated, the amounts of redundancy data are to be controlled. Secondly, the result of the ability to control data redundancy of the DBMS leads to data consistency. Data consistency refers to a data item which is stored only once in the database, any updated to its value has to be performed only once!!! The third advantage of the DBMS is the improvement of security. The meaning of improved security is to protect the database from unauthorized users, which are the one who have no right to access to the database. The last advantage of the DBMS that I would like to share to you is the increased of concurrency. Many people might not be so familiar with the word concurrency which is the synonym of simultaneous. In addition, increased concurrency implies that two or more users are allowed to access the same file at the same time although the accesses may interfere with each other, yet the DBMS can handle this problem. As you can see, the DBMS has many good points!!! On the other hand, it also has some minor points too!!! One minor point is its complexity. The term complexity implies that the structure of the DBMS is somehow quite hard to understand, and failure to understand can lead to bad design decision. Another minor point of the DBMS is its cost. The cost of the DBMS quite varies depending on the environment and functionality. In other word, the DBMS’s cost is not the same for all application. The other minor point is its performance. The DBMS is written to be too general to provide for many applications. In simple words, some applications may not run as fast as they used to. Even though the DBMS has some bad points, it is still applicable and most people prefer to use it.

In conclusion, the DBMS can help users a lot on managing the database. Moreover, it comes to make things easier for users to control their database. The DBMS acts as middle software which resides between computer programs and databases, and also the DBMS interacts with the users’ application program and the database at the same time. Without the DBMS, either programmer or the one who implemented the database will have much more work to do to arrange data not only when inserting data into the database but also when retrieving data out from the database. So now, if you still have no database management system to be your assistant, then go get it!!!

Evolution of iPod

The Apple Company first released the new MP3 player which was called iPod about seven years ago. After releasing, the iPod quickly became the most popular portable music player that everyone wanted to own. From the past until now, Apple continues developing iPod’s design and its capacity as well as its ability to make iPod a more powerful music player. Besides, iPod evolution is also interesting, it has grown step by step from the first generation to the fifth generation by having some additional new things on each time development.

The first generation of iPod was released in 2001 on October 23 which was the white-and-stainless steel iPod. Also, iPod’s mechanical scroll wheel under its screen was used to choose your music in the list, indeed the scroll wheel moved with your finger. In this generation, the iPod’s storage started from 5 GB, enough to store about 1,000 songs. Although some MP3 player could hold more than 1,000 songs, those were not portable. The first-generation iPod’s, however, connected to Mac only, a Window version was still not available. Later in 2002, Apple released the second generation of iPod on July 17, but they had not changed a lot in this generation. In fact, the only change was from its mechanical scroll wheel to touch-sensitive scroll wheel, and its capacity was now available up to 20GB. For both generations, their battery life time lasted for about 10 hours.

The introduction of the third-generation iPod’s was in 2003, on April 28. Apple made so much change to iPod in this generation especially on its design. The most fundamental redesign was above the scroll wheel, Apple introduced four buttons which resided between the iPod’s screen and its steel wheel so now you can use those buttons to manage your music easier. Another change was on its screen, the iPod’s screen was brighter, and also its background was reflexive, so it is easier to read in almost any light. The other change on its design was that the touch sensitive control worked more smoothly. Moreover, the iPod’s storage was increased to keep more music up to 40GB. Nevertheless, the battery life time was reduced to only last for about 8 hours. Anyway, one new improvement remained is that the iPod’s third-generation was now Window supported, so Apple gave a chance to Window users to try iPod also!!!

In 2004, the fourth generation of iPod was released on July 29, the generation for the one who like to take a photo!!! Apple amazed us by sending the new iPod photo which was the first iPod with color screen to the market. Furthermore, the photo addressed in the device’s built-in, 2-inch LCD screen. As with its color screen, iPod provided you such a great way to view album art on the screen. However, one minor point is that you could only sync photos from just a single computer. This is really not comfortable for us!!! In this generation, iPod’s capacity increased from 8GB to 15 GB as well as the battery life time which lasted for 12 hours, this is longer than any other previous generation.
The last generation that I would like to share you, but still not the last generation for iPod, is the fifth-generation iPod’s. Actually, iPod’s design stayed the same, not much changes, yet there was an interesting additional change on its feature. On October 12, 2005 the new iPod with the ability of video playback came out!!! The video looked excellent on the new 2.5 inch screen and its shape was also thinner than other previous generation, but the height and the width were not changed. Generally, your video can be put on the iPod, but iPod required the special program to convert the file to iPod function. About the video specs, video file format supported MOV, MP4 and M4V. Although iPod’s screen was not big, everything on the screen looked shape and smooth. In the fifth generation, the iPod’s capacity was available up to 80 GB, and battery life time also updated to 20 hours.

In summation, each year, Apple releases a new version of iPod to the market. At the same time, each year, more and more people pay their attention on iPod. The general trend has been toward smaller factors and higher capacities. In addition, iPod makes many people impressed through its design, its feature and its capability. Also, I believe that iPod touch people not only outside but also inside. Now, no one can say that I do not know ‘iPod,’ the most famous portable music player in the world!!!