Prelude

(i

PREFACE

While delivering lectures in the class, I learnt that students of (Inter, Gr. I) of ICSI course were facing great difficulty in lacking of a syllabus-oriented reference-book on “Management Information Systems”; appropriate for students like them who are new and non-technical in this technology-dominant subject. Constant inspirations of my students encouraged me to publish a book on this subject, to suit them best. This book is written only for students of ICSI (Inter, Gr. I) course. I am indebted to my father Prof. B. K. Bhar (B.Sc.(H), M.Com., LL.B., A.C.M.A.(Lond.), F.I.C.W.A.) and my mother Mrs. Dipali Bhar (M.Sc. B.T.) for their good wishes, blessings and effortless motivation that they provided me while writing the first edition of this book. In this regard, the eternal good wishes of my sister, Miss. Phalguni Bhar (B.Com.(H)), needs separate mention. I owe my respect and gratitude to Prof. Abhijit Sarkar, my first computer professor, whose valid teachings and able guidance made me understand this world of computer, so much so that I am what I am today. Last but not the least, I owe my sincere reverence to Mr. Amalendu Basak, whose worth advice has helped me a lot in achieving success in my life. I am thankful to Mr. A. K. Lodha and his publishing team for publishing this book within such a short time. I wish good knowledge and understanding to all those who read this book. If you think any suggestions of yours can enrich this book, you are always heartily welcome to write at [email protected].

27th April 2006, Thursday th

(13 Baisak, 1413)

Bhuban Kr. Bhar (98319 44428)

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ABOUT THE BOOK The book is written in plain and simple but concise and lucid language; so as to help students grasp the concept effortlessly, retain the knowledge naturally and reproduce the acquired wisdom easily. The book is divided into four chapters, each containing the textual matter for background concept and knowledge. The fifth chapter is a bundle of solved-problems for revision, categorized into 5 parts — the first four of which contains solved-problems referring to the previous four chapters and the last part contains solved-problems of general/miscellaneous topics for widening knowledge base on this subject and its periphery; in order to score in the Main examination. Recent issues have been dealt with in-depth, as required by the course. Although more would be beneficial, only a handful of case-studies have been able to be incorporate in this first edition, written in a very short time. This is a technical subject to be studied by non-technical students, for their law-based course. The syllabus, as compared to the allotted marks, seems to be vast. Students may find difficulty to comprehend and recapitulate the subject. Here are some suggestions regarding how to use this book in accordance with the Institute’s Study Material; so as to learn and master this subject without much difficulty —

⇒ Before commencing each chapter, carefully study the ‘Learning objectives’ at the very beginning. These present the most important material covered in the chapter. At the minimum, one must be able to understand and recall the material contained within the key points when one have completed the study of the chapter. ⇒ Read the chapter quickly. Skim the contents and try to develop an overall feel for the material contained in the chapter. ⇒ Then read the chapter carefully, and should try to study the contents actively rather than passively.

⇒ Now, go through the Institute’s Study Material carefully, thereby integrating the gathered knowledge with the viewpoints of the Study Material. The organization of this book differs from the organization of the Study Material, kindly refer to the contents of the Study Material, in order to match and study. ⇒ One may now glance through the contents of this book again, just for brush-up purpose.

⇒ Finished with the process of studying, you may write down its (main) points, topic-wise and then check up. Judge yourself and if required, repeat the above steps; otherwise go through the relevant solved-problems of Chapter 5. ⇒ It is now time to solve the questions given at the end of each chapter of this book, as well as the Study Material.

⇒ As the last step, solve past-term questions and then go through Institute’s Guideline Answers to check your progress yourself. The students, who keep a positive attitude and work on their own motivation, are expected to find the contents of the book challenging and fun. Enjoy it! Face it! Overcome it! I intend this book to be useful only to the students of Intermediate Group-I examinations of ‘The Institute of Company Secretaries of India’. This book covers the entire syllabus of the course. The book is written with a perspective of the situations a professional may have to face during the career.

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ACRONYMS

A AI

Artificial Intelligence

AIS

Accounting Information System

AKA

Also Known As

ALU

Arithmetic Logic Unit

ANS

American National Standard

ANSI

American National Institute of Standards

API

Application Program Interface

APL

Application Program Language

ARPA

Advanced Research Projects Agency

ARPANET

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

B BCD

Binary Coded Decimal

BIOS

Basic Input/Output System

bps

Bits-per-second

C C/S

Client/Server

CAD

Computer-Aided Design

CAE

Common Application Environment

CASE

Computer Aided Software Engineering

CBIS

Computer Based Information Technology

CBX

Computer Branch Exchange

CCITT

Committee Consult Int. Telephone and Telegraph

CDPD

Cellular Digital Packet Data

CGA

Colour Graphics Adapter

CIO

Chief Information Officer

CIS

Computer Information System

CNM

Computer Network Management

cpi

Characters-per-inch

CPI

Common Programming Interface

CODASYL

Conference on Data Systems Languages

CPM

Critical Path Method

CPU

Central Processing Unit

CRC

Cyclical Redundancy Check

(iv

CRT

Cathode Ray Tube

D DASD

Direct Access Storage Device

DBMS

Data Base Management System

DDL

Data Definition Language

DES

Data Encryption Standard

DIF

Data Interchange Format

DLL

Dynamic Link Library

DML

Data Manipulation Language

DNA

Digital Network Architecture

DNS

Domain Name Service

DS

Database Server

dpi

Dot-per-Inch

DRDA

Distributed Relational Database Architecture

DSS

Decision Support System

DTP

Desk-Top Publishing

DTP

Distributed Transaction Processing

DVD

Digital Video Disk

E EDI

Electronic Data Interchange

EDP

Electronic Data Processing

EFT

Electronics Funds Transfer

EGA

Enhanced Graphics Adapter

EIS

Executive Information Systems

EMS

Expanded Memory System

EMS

Electronic Meeting System

EPS

Encapsulated Postscript

ERD

Entity Relationship Diagram

ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning

EUI

End-user Interface

F FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

FAT

File Allocation Table

FAX

Facsmile Transmission

FDDI

Fibre Distributed Data Interface

FTP

File Transfer Protocol

G

(v

GB

Gigabyte

Gb

Gigabit

GIF

Graphics Interchange Format

GIGO

Garbage In, Garbage Out

GIS

Graphic Information System

GUI

Graphic User Interface

H HMA

High Memory Area

HP

Hewlett-Packard Co.

HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language

HTTP

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

Hz

Hertz (frequency measurement unit)

I IBM

International Business Machines

IC

Integrated Circuit

IDE

Integrated Drive Electronics

IDL

Interface Definition Language

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IIA

Information Interchange Architecture

IITF

Information Interchange Task Force

I/O

Input/Output

IP

Internet Protocol

IPOS

Input, Processing, Output and Storage

IRQ

Interrupt ReQuest

IS

Information System

ISAM

Indexed Sequential Access Method

ISP

Internet Service Provider

IT

Information Technology

J JAD

Joint Application Development

JIT

Just in Time

JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group

K K

Kilo

Kb

Kilo bit

KB

Kilo Byte

Kbps

Kilo bit per second

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KBps

Kilo Byte per second

L LAN

Local Area Network

LOB

Line of Business

LU

Logical Unit

M MAC

Media Access Control

MAN

Metropolitian Area Network

MB

Mega Byte

Mb

Mega bit

BDT

Mobile Data Terminal

MegaHertz

Mega Hertz

MID

Management Information Base

MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface

MIME

Multipart Internet Mail Extension

MIPs

Millions of Instructions per second

MIS

Management Information System

MPEG

Moving Picture Experts Group

MVS

Multiple Virtual Storage

N NCSA

National Computer Security Association

NCSC

National Computer Security Centre

NETBIOS

NETwork Basic Input/Output System

NFS

Network File System

NIC

Network Interface Controller

NII

National Information Infrastructure

NIST

National Institute of Science and Technology

NIU

Network Interface Unit

NN

Network Node

NOS

Network Operating System

NT

New Technology

NTP

Network Time Protocol

O OA

Office Automation

OCR

Optical Character Recognition

OPBC

Open Data Base Connectivity

ODI

Open Data-link Interface

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OEM

Original Equipment Manufacture

OP

Office Protocol

OLE

Object Linking and Embedding

OLAP

Online Analytical Processing

OLTP

Online Transaction Processing

OMR

Optical Mark Reader

OO

Object Oriented

OOA

Object Oriented Analysis

OOD

Object Oriented Design

OOP

Object Oriented Programming

OS

Operating System

OSI

Open Systems Interconnection

OSQL

Object-oriented Structured Query Language

P PABX

Private Automatic Branch eXchange

PBX

Private Branch eXchanges

PCI

Peripheral Component Interconnect

PCL

Pulse Code Modulation

PRMCIA

Personal Computer Memory Card Inter. Association

PD

Public Domain

PDA

Personal Digital Assistant

PI

Programming Interface

PIF

Program Information File

POS

Point of Sale

POWER

Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC

PPP

Point-to-Point Protocol

R RAD

Rapid Application Development

RAID

Redundant Array of Independent Disks

RAM

Random Access Memory

RDA

Remote Data Access

RDBMS

Relational Database Management System

RGB

Red, Green, Blue

RISC

Reduced Instruction Set Computing

ROM

Read Only Memory

RPC

Remote Procedure Call

RSN

Remote Service Network

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S SAP

Service Access Point

SCSI

Small Computer System Interface

SDF

System Data Format

SDK

Software Development Kits

SDLC

Synchronous Data Link Control

SDLC

System Development Life Cycle

SIMM

Single In-line Memory Module

SLC

System Life Cycle

SLIP

Serial Line Internet Protocol

SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SQL

Structured Query Language

T TCOS

Technical Committee on Open Systems

TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TIFF

Tagged Image File Format

TP

Transaction Processing

TP

Transport Protocol

TQM

Total Quality Management

TSI

Time Slot Interchange

TSR

Terminate and Stay Resident

TWAIN

Technology Without An Interesting Name

U UAE

Unrecoverable Application Error

UI

User Interface

UPS

Uninterruptible Power Syste,

URL

Universal Resource Locator

V VDT

Video Display Terminal

VDU

Visual Display Unit

VGA

Video Graphics Array

VR

Virtual Reality

VSAT

Very Small Aperture Terminal

VRAM

Virtual Telecommunications Access Method

VTP

Virtual Terminal Protocol

W WAIS

Wide Area Information Service

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WAN

Wide Area Network

WDM

Wave Division Multiplexing

WMF

Windows Metafile Format

WNT

Windows New Technology

WORM

Write-Once, Read Many

www

World Wide Web

WYSIWIG

What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get

X XGA

Extended Graphics Array

Z ZIF

Zero Insertion Force