Video Transcript: Software

Hi and welcome to week three of the Introduction to Information Systems. I hope you're enjoying it. So far, learning about the overview and the hardware topics,  and we're going to jump in this week to the software topics. And I'd like to first  just start us off with a little prayer. If you don't mind, Dear Heavenly Father, I  pray that you would look over each student this week and bless them with  what's happening in their lives as they are studying and learning. Bless them to  help help them understand the information and to be able to carry it into their  workplaces and their families, to to glorify you and to bless you and to create  great opportunities for themselves and for others with new information, we know that every time we learn, you are leading us somewhere, and We are happy to  follow and learn together. So again, we're, we are grateful. We know you're,  you're here as and looking over us as we are learning. And we just thank you for being a part of our lives and a part of our learning every day. And this, this  course, is no exception. So we we appreciate and we love you, and in your  heavenly name, we pray amen. And again this week, we are jumping into the  software. As you remember, there were five components of information systems, and this is one of them. There we go. And this video this week. We've got some  goals here for us, for ourselves. Here's our learning objectives. We are going to  be able to define what is software as part of technology and information  systems. We're going to be able to describe the two primary categories of  software. We're going to look at ERP software and see what kind of role that  plays in an organization. We're also going to describe cloud computing and its  advantages, its disadvantages. What is cloud computing when you put  something in the cloud, like, where does it go? We're going to talk all about  those things and then defining open source and closed source softwares, and  talk about their characteristics and which ones we should know about, which  ones should be on our radar, all those kind of things. So buckle up. Recap  again, there are five components of information systems. Software is one of  those five components hardware. We talked about that one last week, and all  those things that go together to make the physical stuff you can touch. As part of technology, this is going to be the set of instructions that tells the hardware what  to do. So a software is going to be the instructions that tells the brain, the CPU,  the hardware, what to do. Again, we have the data, the people and the  processes as well. But this week, we're really gonna hone in on the software  piece. Okay, we are looking at software in two different categories. So there's all  kinds of software, right? When you're running program from your computer,  when you are when you used to be like, if you would go and buy a floppy disk or buy a CD of something that you wanted to run on your computer, if you wanted  to be able to do your taxes online, if you wanted to play a game, if you wanted to any of the things that your computer can actually do, that's going to be what  We're talking about with software, and that software, again, is in two categories,  and that's going to be, there we go. There we go, operating systems and 

applications. Many of you probably are familiar with what your operating system  is that you're running right now. I am currently on my Mac laptop, and I'm  running an OS X operating system. Some of you might be running a Windows  operating system. If you are watching me from your phone right now, if it's an  iPhone, you might be having an iOS system. You might be having an Android  operating system. Any one of these will fall under this category. And then we're  going to also talk about applications. And so we're going to jump right in  operating systems. What is. That, and that's going to be it manages the  hardware resources. It's the thing that talks to the machine. Okay, it's it's giving  the instructions to the hardware. So it's managing that hardware relationship  between the software and the hardware. This operating system, it provides the  user interface components. So when you interface, when you communicate with that machine, you're doing so through that proxy of an operating system, it's  becoming easier and easier to do so, so much so that now you can say, Hey,  Siri set an alarm for two minutes, and she will automatically hear you. And as  part of that operating software, operating system, she will tell the hardware what to do to make that alarm sound in two minutes. That is going to be that user  interface component, which at this point we can just verbally many times, be  able to do that with, with smart components, smart cars, smart homes, all these  things. And then the third part of an operating system is this is where the  developers we talked last week really heavily about binary code and how that is  used for communicating volumes of information, of storage of data. It's also the  language used for programming, and so the operating system is what provides a platform for those developers of software to be able to write applications. And so operating systems, a couple examples. We just talked about, Windows, iOS on  your phone, OS on an Apple laptop or desktop computer might be DOS was  very prevalent. Linux is going to be an open source software that many coders  and people who are familiar with processing language and coding language  prefer to use. And we'll talk all about open source in just a few minutes, but  those are examples of kind of the brains of the software operation. That's going  to talk to the brains of the hardware operation, which, if you remember, is the  CPU, the central processing unit. So the operating system is the kind of the  brains of the software component. So that's one piece, one component of  software is the operating system, one category, the other category of software is applications. Don't get this confused with just the little squares on your phone  that you push when you think of apps. Those are applications. Okay? Those  mobile apps on your phone, but this is much more broad than that. This is going  to be any software that allows you to do something, to finish a goal, to  accomplish a purpose. This is going to be anything you can do using the  technology. Sounds simple enough, right? So an example of this would be, I  need to do something. I need to write a paper. So I'm going to use the  application of Microsoft Word to allow me to do that, to execute that command. 

So I'm writing a paper. That's what I'm doing using the application of Microsoft  Word. I would like to edit this video I took on my phone, or I'd like to edit this this photo. I'm going to use the application of Photoshop to do that. I want to listen to this song. I'm going to use the application of iTunes or media player, depending  on what kind of system you're running. And that's going to be it allows me to do  something to accomplish a goal or a purpose. You know, I want to make a  spreadsheet, I would use the application of Excel or numbers. So we think about it's either the brains the operating system, or it's going to be an application,  these things that allow the tasks to take place. So you interact with applications  all day, every day, most likely, some of them are the apps on your phone. You  need to get an Uber you touch the Uber app. You need to have a burger  delivered to your house in the next 30 minutes, you go to DoorDash or Uber  Eats or whatever the app is to get that task accomplished. But it doesn't have to  just be the apps on your phone. Like we said, this is anything that allows you to  do something. I want to read a. Book I open up my E reading app, application to  do so this term killer app. This came to be in the last 10 years or so. This is  something that is so essential that tons of people will go buy a device just to run  that one application. An example of this would be Excel. Once home computing  really became a thing and spreadsheets became what spreadsheets are, there  were people who would buy a computer for the opportunity to run that  application of being able to they want that device to run that application of  spreadsheets. So there's many offices where that's the only thing those  computers do is Excel. So that would be a killer application. If you've heard of  that terminology before. Sounds scary. It sounds like a scary application. It's not. It's just really essential that people will line up and buy a whole device just for  the capability of one thing they can do, or thing they can accomplish by doing  this. And we can, we can zoom out on this one and really get some some more  examples. Maybe there's something that you have went and you purchased an  entire device just to have access to complete one goal or one purpose. So think  about that as you as we think of killer apps. Here's a good visual I would like to  have you look at to really understand. So let's say you're at the top as the user.  Let's say you're a home user, or maybe you're at work, and your organization is  using hardware. Okay, you're going to interact with that hardware through the  application, and then the application is going to communicate with the operating  system. The operating system we already said, tells the hardware what to do, so it's going to communicate with the hardware, and then it's a big cycle, because  then the hardware is going to communicate back to the operating system, which  then informs the application back to the user. So let's put this into practice.  Okay, so we see user, application, operating system hardware. So this would be  if we are, let's say we're writing that paper, and we open up Microsoft Word, and  so we are the user, and we open up the application. That's the next level, and  that's going to be Microsoft Word. We are going to then input commands into 

this paper. We're going to write, we're going to push save, we're interacting with  the application. So that operating system is going to then take that information  and communicate. So the application communicates with the OS the operating  system. The operating system then communicates with the hardware, because  remember, as part of hardware, our memory and our processing speed and our  storage was all part of the hardware. So you push save on the file, so that  operating system is going to inform the hardware of where to put this piece of  data. Are you putting it in short term storage, like that prep table we talked  about, or are we putting it in long term storage, back in the pantry, in the hard  drive? Are we putting it on something removable, a flash drive, whatever that  hardware is that you're telling that what to do, so the hardware is then going to  communicate back to the operating system, which communicates with the  application and back to the user, and you have your finished product. So it's a  cycle of that line of communication that's happening between you and the  hardware, because you can't take a finished product file and put it into the CPU  unit of your computer and know that it's stored. You have to certainly talk  through the application. Maybe you're going to scan in an image file, and you  want to scan then you want to save somewhere and you want to edit that  document. You're going to work through applications, through your operating  system, to the hardware and then right back to you. So I hope that makes a lot  of good sense to you of how we communicate with the machines around us and  the technology that's, you know, making life easier for us every day, it's how we  how we can communicate with the machines, and the machines communicate  back with us. So next, we are going to talk about those little squares on your  phone that are our mobile applications and what it means to have cloud  computing. Okay, a little story for you. Little story time. I was preparing, actually,  to talk to you, and I was preparing to talk all about information systems, and had dozens of slides prepared, and it was, I have an Apple laptop, and it was Apple  update day. And long story short, just before I I was saving the the pieces of  information to my desktop, to that long term pantry storage. And it was Apple  update day, and the the information, the operating system updated itself, okay,  and it messed with my my Adobe Flash that I needed for one of the videos that I  have recommended for you to watch. And so I i very foolishly, looking back,  reverted to a previous version. So using that, using the operating system, I went  back through to a previous version of my hard drive. So it went back about 21  days from the last time I had backed it up. So it totally rewrote those files in the  long term hard drive that SSD, pantry, storage, okay, and So, long story short,  every bit of work I had done was completely gone. It had been totally rewritten to 21 days prior. And so I learned a very valuable lesson at that time why cloud  computing could be so so vitally important as you're working on something, and  we can talk about why cloud computing is has so many wonderful things about it that help us move forward. Had I been saving my document to the cloud, 

whether that be a personal cloud or a third party cloud like Amazon Web  Services or some people choose to have their own private cloud if they need  more more storage and more security on their documents. But certainly, had I  done that, I wouldn't have lost weeks of work with one swoop of the finger tip  saving that as we talked about cloud computing, there's no software to install.  You don't have to upgrade it. You don't have to maintain it. It is a separate  space, a separate server that's separate from your system. So this is my laptop  right here. If I push save on this laptop and I save it to the cloud, it's not saved  on the hardware. Okay? It's not part of this local storage in terms of those  definitions that make up a piece of hardware, it's in the cloud, so that is being  stored in a separate location on a server, and so you don't have to upgrade it,  you don't have to maintain it, and you can access that information from any  computer that has An internet connection. So it doesn't have to be from the  computer where you wrote the document or you made the spreadsheet, or you  you uploaded the image, or whatever you're trying to do. You can do it from  anywhere, from any computer. So that's definitely a benefit of using cloud  computing, of doing processing off site and not in your machine. It can scale up  to a large number of users, where if I'm giving a training, or if I have a bunch of  new teammates coming on in my organization, and I want to share what I'm  doing on my desktop, that's going to be really hard for me to start sending files  and making sure I input everyone's email address is now part of the team. If it's  on the cloud and you're doing cloud computing, those people can remotely. We  said it could be from anywhere, so any one of their computers, as long as they  have an internet connection, can access that data, if they have the credentials,  and really be up and running really quickly with new users and new applications  as all part of our our suite of services. And so those services can be leased for a limited time, just as needed. I can use the cloud, you know, I don't have to  commit to weeks or months part of, you know, a contract of cloud computing I  can, I can store and lease space as needed. The next pro about it is one that I  feel very passionately about now, as you can imagine, which is that your  information isn't lost if somebody comes over and take. My somebody steals my  laptop, or I am taking taking a drink of this water, and the entire bottle spills on  the motherboard of my computer, and all that bus power. So the bus is where  your connections are made. All that bus power is lost. If that happens,  somebody feels it, if it crashes, if it if I accidentally light a fire right here on my  laptop, my my information that is processed would still be safe on the cloud. It's  on a separate, third party server. Also, if you have cloud computing, it really  helps you to not have those limitations of how much storage or memory space is available on your computer, you can have access to as much memory and  storage space as you need on the cloud, and you're not limited to what your  machine can handle In this very limited space. So there's definitely some  advantages of cloud computing. Likewise, there are some disadvantages of 

cloud computing. And I'm sure the first one that comes to mind is that, if my  information isn't here on my screen, where is it? Where is the cloud who has  access to my information. Is it really safe? Is it really secure? Is it where it says  it's going to be this level of trust that we've had to really build as the technology  grows to know where that processing is actually happening? The advent of  those personal servers that we talked about, if you want a private server that is  just the cloud for your information only. A lot of people feel more comfortable  doing it that way. And I'm a proponent of cloud computing. I know that there are  certain applications that would not allow my sister works on a military installation that where they do not participate in cloud computing, and things are done on a  very local level for security. Understandably so. So kind of we have to take into  consideration, you know, what you're working on, the security needs and ways  weigh the advantages with the disadvantages of that mobile application of cloud  computing, and being able to do it on the go, if I'm if I'm away from my office and I'm not sitting here at my computer, I'm still able to do all the processes I need  and store things where I need to if I was again, in a very Information sensitive  organization like the military installation I was mentioning earlier, not the best  bet. So again, weighing the pros and cons and seeing you know what your  organization really needs to move forward. So after the cloud computing, I would like to talk to you about the open source software and open source software is  going to be software that makes the source code available for anybody to copy  and use it. And there we go. So this open source software is free for everyone to use. It's it's usually like, if you have, let's say you're operating windows and you  have Microsoft Office Suite, which includes Word and it includes Excel and it  includes PowerPoint and it includes outlook, and all these things that go into  making software for business that's going to be, you know, these, these  productivity applications and softwares that's, you don't actually own that  software. Just because you own your computer, you're leasing a license, you're  you're purchasing a license for that software, which means you don't own it. You can't copy it and give it to someone else. You can't break it down to the source  and change it and make it Emily's version of Excel with changes and tweaks in  the source code. It's just not possible. It's proprietary to who built the software,  and you are using a license of that software for a certain amount of time. I don't  know how, how old you are watching, but you might remember of uploading and  you had to reboot and purchase, you know, different applications. For instance,  with my MAC, with my Apple Computer, I did purchase this suite of app of  Microsoft Office products which are now part of my, part of my computer,  because I am I have leased the. License on those things. I don't own them. With open source software, it makes it available for anybody to copy it, to use it. You  can for most people, for you and me, most likely I don't want to speak for you,  but for most people like myself, you know, we're not a programmer, so we're not  a software developer and programmer. So having the source code wouldn't 

really be very useful, but there are some people that can have that open source  software and build upon it and use the source code for building applications, for  building software. Some very famous ones you might be familiar with that were  

open source software that are now really heavily used are the Firefox browser.  Some of you are using Chrome, you might be using Safari, you might be using  Firefox. Firefox was an open source software that was built using this free code.  So it's not owned. It's for everyone the Linux operating system as well. So many  coders and developers prefer to use a Linux operating system because it gives  them the freedom to build using that source code that would not be in a more  traditional operating system, like an iOS or a Windows system, the Apache web  server is going to be one of those definitely, definitely needed, definitely started  with the source code that was free for everyone, and then as developers looked  at that source code, they were able to build and expand upon that. So that is the open source software, as opposed to the closed source source software, which  is the traditional stuff you buy and you license it for a short amount of time. It's  made to make a profit. Somebody developed it, and then they, you know, they  developed it, and they want to get paid for it, as opposed to some of these other  open sources are made for really complex computing machines that are already  very, very expensive. So the goal is to have the software be really accessible for everyone. Summarizing what we talked about here is that, again, if it's a piece of software in MIS and information systems, the software gives the instructions  telling the hardware what to do. There's two basic categories of software,  operating systems and applications. Operating systems, like we talked about,  are kind of the brains. They do, the communicating and the applications are  executing tasks. You do a specific goal, you accomplish a goal, and that's the  application to meet a specific goal. So that is our summary Week Three that that we're just finishing here discussing our software. There is a very main software  called ERP and enterprise resource planning. And those ERP softwares are  something we're going to jump into and get into them all by themselves,  because it is quite it's quite an undertaking. And so we will be talking about ERP  as we move forward in the course, and that's going to be definitely falling under  the hardware umbrella. I'm sorry, the software umbrella, but kind of, we're  putting it on its own week, just because there are so many components  involved. And your organization is most likely using an ERP system in some way or another. As a consumer, you are communicating with ERPs all the time from  other organizations, so we're going to jump into that in just a few weeks. So I'd  like you to thank you for hanging with me and talking all about software and  what makes up the software and what doesn't and all of those things. And next  week, we're going to jump into the data and databases about which is another  component of information systems. So the data and the databases will be the  last part of the technology, because you remember that technology umbrella has hardware from last week, software from today, and then the data and databases,

databases that we're going to talk about next week. So I really look forward to  jumping into that with you. I hope you have a wonderful week. I hope that this is  this. You're gaining some clarity on how these pieces kind of work together.  We're looking at them in. Individually right now, before the end of the course, we will be looking comprehensively at how they all do come together and advance  information systems forward. So thank you so much, and I will see you next  week.