ICT Fundamentals and Office Applications
From data to information
Data are raw, unprocessed facts and figures. Information is data processed into a meaningful form, and knowledge is information combined with experience and judgement. Good information is accurate, relevant, timely, complete, verifiable and cost-effective to produce. ICT has six components: hardware, software, data, people, procedures and networks.
Generations and categories
First generation used valves, the second transistors, the third integrated circuits, the fourth microprocessors and VLSI, and the fifth is associated with AI and parallel processing. Machines are classed as supercomputers, mainframes, midrange/minicomputers, microcomputers and embedded systems.
Office applications
Expect questions on word processing (styles, mail merge, headers, tables of contents), spreadsheets (formulas, functions, charts, what-if analysis), presentation software, desktop databases and personal information managers. A formula is user-written and begins with =; a function is built in, e.g. =SUM(A1:A10). References can be relative (A1), absolute ($A$1) or mixed (A$1).
Trap: examiners love asking what happens when a formula is copied or filled. Relative references shift; absolute parts stay fixed. Also know that COUNT counts numeric cells only, COUNTA counts non-empty cells and COUNTBLANK counts empties.
Worked example: cell B2 contains =A2*$D$1. Copied to C3, the A2 shifts one column right and one row down to B3, while $D$1 is frozen, giving =B3*$D$1. Rule of thumb: put a $ before whichever part of the address must not move, usually the row or column of a fixed rate table.
Mail merge joins a main document to a data source so that one letter reaches many recipients.