Ba325

Front 1

What does a business do and what is its purpose?

Back 1

A business satisfies the needs of others by exchanging desired goods and services for
enough money to make a profit. The business produces these goods and services by
investing resources (money) to add value to raw materials and/or information.

Front 2

How do the concepts of "voluntary purchase" and "competition" reduce if not eliminate the
viability of greed as a business strategy?"

Back 2

All purchases in a free economy are voluntary. Without a customer choosing to have some
needs and desires satisfied, there is no purchase. Because a business must fulfill the needs
of customers within a competitive environment, a successful business person must learn to
be finely attuned to providing what other people want. Greedy business people soon find
that to express their greed as they run their businesses soon leads to a loss of customers
and profits and people turn to other businesses to provide the goods and services they
want.

Front 3

What role do prices and scarcity play when "price gouging" occurs?"

Back 3

Price is a prime characteristic of the desirability of any product or service. When the price
rises, the demand for the product decreases on the part of consumers and the supply of the
product increases on the part of the business. So when an item becomes scarce, people will
buy less of it while at the same time businesses will work particularly hard to satisfy the
demand more of the item. The fundamental economic issue is how to address the scarcity,
and a higher price leads to more of the product supplied to the customer.

Front 4

Briefly describe how "price gouging" forces people to share ice after a natural disaster
knocks out power."

Back 4

If the price of ice does not rise during an emergency which drastically increases supply, then
one or a few people may buy up all they could possibly use and maybe more simply
because they were first in line. If the price rises, then demand will decrease and people will
buy only what they need. If the price rises enough, they will skimp and use the bare
minimum to get by, leaving more of the scarce commodity for others to buy.

Front 5

Every economic system must allocate scarce resources. List and briefly describe three such
allocation methods.

Back 5

1. First-come, first-served: First to arrive get the goods.
2. Price: Those who can afford it get the goods.
3. Cronyism: Friends, family and girl or boy friends get the goods.
4. Lottery: Randomly selected people get the goods.

Front 6

What is a paragraph style? List and briefly describe four different paragraph style
properties.

Back 6

A paragraph style describes the formatting of a paragraph including indention, typeface
(font), line spacing within the paragraph, line spacing before and after the paragraph, and
whether or not the paragraph can be separated from the following paragraph at a page
break. (See Paragraph... and Borders and Shading... under the Format menu in Word for
more styles). Paragraph styles can be used to generate a table of contents and format a
PowerPoint presentation. Moreover, changing the definition of a style automatically
reformats each occurrence of a paragraph with that style throughout the entire document.

Front 7

List four advantages to using Header paragraph styles in Microsoft Word.

Back 7

Four advantages: Automatic generation of a table of contents, automatically restyling of all
instances of a header when the formatting for the header is changed, availability of outline
mode, and automatic conversion to PowerPoint slides.

Front 8

What is the purpose of the Edit --> Paste Special menu choice for each of the MS Office
applications? What does the resulting Paste Link option accomplish?

Back 8

The regular Paste function inserts information stored on the clipboard into the document.
The catch is that this information is inserted with one specific format only. The Paste Special
option provides for multiple formats, such as pasting the information in a format for display
on a web page, as a graphic, as standard text (or whatever), or with no formatting at all.
Also, if the information on the clipboard is from another MS Office document, and the
document to receive the Paste is also an MS Office document, then a live link can be set
between the two documents. For example, an Excel worksheet displayed in a Word
document will automatically update in the Word document when the worksheet is modified
in Excel.

Front 9

What rules does PowerPoint use when converting Word headers over to slides?

Back 9

A Header1 style triggers PowerPoint creating a new slide with the content of the header
serving as the title of the new slide. Then each Header2 style under the Header1 becomes a
first-level bullet point on the slide. Header3 styles become second-level bullet points on the
slide, and so on.

Front 10

What is a computer's clock speed? What is the primary problem of assessing the speed of a
CPU with clock speed?

Back 10

Clock speed is the number of cycles per second that the system processes information,
usually expressed in GHz. The primary problem of assessing the speed of a CPU by its clock
speed is that the amount of information processed on each cycle is as important as the
number of cycles processed per second. Clock speed is closer to the concept of a
tachometer in a car than the speedometer.

Front 11

What is a CPU? Which two companies manufacture CPUs for personal computers?

Back 11

The CPU is the central processing unit, the "brains" of the computer where the "thinking" is done. Intel and AMD are the two most prominent CPU companies.

Front 12

What is a front-side bus and how does it relate to the speed of a computer?

Back 12

A bus is an electrical connection, essentially a circuit, between two different components.
The front-side bus connects the CPU with RAM, and so is critical to the overall speed of the
computer system. If the CPU cannot quickly send information to RAM and quickly receive
information back, then the computer will run much slower.

Front 13

What is a GPU and how does it help the CPU? What computers do not have a GPU and so
what tasks are these computers unable to do?

Back 13

A GPU is a graphics processing unit. The purpose of a GPU is to perform the many
computations needed to provide for the computer's display, thus freeing up the CPU for
other work. The very cheapest Windows computers have an "integrated graphics card",
which means that they do not have a separate GPU. Graphics on these machines is very
slow and limited.

Front 14

Today, which is generally most important in determining a computer's speed: processor
speed or RAM? Why? What should be the minimum configurations of processor speed and
RAM for different computing tasks?"

Back 14

At this time technology has advanced to the point that even relatively slower, but modern,
CPU's are powerful enough to accomplish most business tasks such as word processing,
email, and web browsing. At the same time, the operating systems have become much
more sophisticated and complex, as have the corresponding applications. All this additional
software power requires lots of memory. If the space for these programs is not stored
directly in RAM, it must be continually swapped back and forth from the hard disk, which
drastically slows the overall speed by which the computer operates.

Front 15

What is a teraflop? What is a petaflop? How is a ___flop related to the assessment of a
computer's speed?

Back 15

A teraflop is a trillion (floating point) computations per second. A petaflop is one thousand
teraflps, or one quadrillion flops. A ___flop is a useful indicator of speed because it shows
how many computations are done in a unit time.

Front 16

What is a bit? a byte? a Kilobyte? a Megabyte? a Gigabyte? a Terabyte? How are these
terms related?

Back 16

A bit is a binary integer, a 0 or 1, corresponding to a switch that is off or on. A byte is 8
bits, corresponding to a single character such as the letter A when representing character
data. A Kilobyte or KB is 1024 bytes. A Megabyte or MB is 1024 KB. A Gigabyte is 1024 MB.
A Terabyte is 1024 GB.

Front 17

What is a GPU and what type of GPU do the most inexpensive computers have?

Back 17

The GPU is the "graphics processing unit", which is the computational engine for creating the
screen rendering, including extra memory called video RAM or VRAM. The most inexpensive
computers have no specialized GPU, and instead use the general CPU for video processing
as well as most everything else.

Front 18

Who makes the fastest CPU for desktop computing and what is its name? What company
takes second place now, and who was the fastest up to mid-2006."

Back 18

In July of 2006 Intel released the Core 2 Duo, the fastest CPU for PC's. The release of this
chip beat the AMD competition, which had the fastest chip until the Core 2 Duo.

Front 19

What does open source have to do with Portland?

Back 19

Portland is the leading region in the world for open source development. The most well
known open source personality, Linus Torvalds, the founder of the Linux OS, lives in
Portland. He is employed at The Linux Foundation, in Beaverton, which is the focus for Linux
development across the world.

Front 20

What role did the Apple II computer play in the development of the IBM Clone, which is the
direct ancestor of today's PC's?"

Back 20

In the early 1980's, Apple II's were the first computers used in business that were not IBM
mainframes or minicomputers. Accountants, in particular, used Apple II's because they
alone ran the first spreadsheet program, Visicalc. The result was that IBM rushed their first
PC to market, relying on Bill Gates to provide the operating system. Gates himself was
chosen because he became well known for developing the first programming language on
the Apple II.

Front 21

What is the distinction between Linux and a Linux distribution? Name one of the leading,
completely free of cost, Linux distributions."

Back 21

Linux is the core operating system that is a version of Unix. Only geeks, however, go to
www.linux.org and download the raw operating system and then install. Most users instead
use a version of Linux, a distribution, that is packaged with an installer, open source
applications, a graphical user interface, and the ability to automatically update both the
operating system and the applications. Many distributions exist, but the most popular
application, that is also free of cost, is Ubuntu from South Africa.

Front 22

How might the state of Massachusetts influence the history of computing? Did
Massachusetts' thoroughly investigate the underlying technologies before making their
decision?

Back 22

Massachusetts has declared that by the end of 2006 all official state document files must be
stored in an open format, either Open Document or PDF. In particular, Microsoft proprietary
formats are not acceptable, nor is its less properitary format that applies to the next version
of MS Office, #12. Apparently, Massachusetts did a throuough investigation of the
underlying issues before leaving Microsoft products out of the official standard.

Front 23

Compare and contrast how Linux and Windows are developed? How much does each cost to
purchase? What rewards do the original Linux programmers get?

Back 23

Windows is developed under a strict management structure with total secrecy regarding its
underlying code and a highly proprietary structure that has the product sold for profit. Linux
source code is totally free, in terms of cost and in the sense that anyone can see all the
code and modify it as they wish. If the changes are good enough, they may be incorporated
directly into the official version of Linux. Initially all development was done by volunteers,
but today major computer companies such as IBM invest heavily in Linux development even
though their developments and advances are then shared with the rest of the computer
community. Volunteers still contribute, however, and there is much status in the open-
source community for important contributions.

Front 24

What is "copyleft"? What is the major similarity of copyleft and copyright? Which concept
applies to Linux and which concept applies to Windows?"

Back 24

Both copyleft and copyright seek to protect intellectual property, but they do so in a
completely opposite way. Copyright makes it illegal for anyone to copy the intellectual
property and to distribute it for free or resell, whereas copyleft makes it illegal to copy the
intellectual property and not distribute for free or to not distribute any changes to the rest
of the world. Windows is based on proprietary copyright and Linux is based on open-source
copyleft.

Front 25

Why is the adoption of Linux by IBM an event few would have originally predicted?

Back 25

Linux began completely outside of the formal, corporate environment, with no corporate
backing. IBM is the prototype of professional, well-established, business organizations run
by traditional management procedures.

Front 26

What is the Linux Foundation and who is Linus Torvalds? What does this mean to Portland?
What does this mean to Microsoft?

Back 26

The Linux Foundation is one of the world's premier development facilities and organizations
for open source software, particularly Linux. The Linux Foundation, a non-profit that consists
of a merger of OSDL and another Linux group, is located in the Portland, OR area
(Beaverton, OR). Portland one of the most important world-wide centers for open source.
Linus Torvalds is the initial developer of Linux and a revered figure in the open source
movement. The success of open source is a direct threat to Microsoft's proprietary method
of operation.

Front 27

What is the Linux desktop? What are some reasons why the Linux desktop is not more
widely used in the business world?

Back 27

The Linux desktop refers to running the Linux OS on a desktop (or personal) computer. Two
primary reasons mitigating further adoption in the business community is that the Linux
interface is not as developed as the Windows and Mac desktop. Also there is not as much
software, particularly established applications from influential companies such as Microsoft
and Adobe.

Front 28

What does the state of Massachusetts have to do with the battle between Open Source and
Microsoft?

Back 28

Massachusetts has declared that all state government must store computer files in openly
accessible formats. In particular, the old Microsoft formats of .doc, .xls, and .ppt, for
example, are proprietary. The codes by which these files are stored are secret, only known
to Microsoft unless reverse engineered, so the state of Massachusetts will no longer use
computer applications that store information in these formats.

Front 29

Who develops for Linux and why?

Back 29

Historically Linux was developed by people donating their time, with no business model.
Today, as Linux has entered mainstream business computing, at least 70% of all recent
updates to Linux have been by people paid to do Linux development. The biggest
contributors are companies that sell computers, lead by IBM, or companies that provideservice and support for business users of Linux, lead by Red Hat and Novell. Also many
companies such as Sony, Nokia and Samsung contribute that use Linux in their products
though their products are not necessarily general purpose computers.

Front 30

What do .odf and .docx have to do with ISO?

Back 30

ISO is the International Standards Organization, which sets standards for a wide range of
products and practices from ball bearings to computer file formats. ISO recognizes the Open
Document Format (.odf) as an international standard for storing word processing files on a
computer. Microsoft's old propriety and secret format, .doc, is now history as Microsoft is
trying to .docx also certified, so far without success. Both .odf and .docx are standard text
files that can be universally read and understood.

Front 31

What is the distinction between MS Word .doc and .docx formats?

Back 31

For over two decades MS Word saved documents in the .doc format, which is a proprietary
format with no published standard. That way, MS Word documents can only be read with
Microsoft applications, or by a reverse engineering of the format which never guarantees
perfect recovery. In response to international demand for a published, open standard of how
to read the saved document, Microsoft capitulated and more or less opened the standard by
going to a text based XML format called .docx.

Front 32

What is an entity?

Back 32

A specific thing, object or event, such as a Customer. The information for each type of entity
is stored in a database table.

Front 33

What is a field?

Back 33

A specific type of information that describes a characteristic of an entity, such as a
Customer's last name.

Front 34

What is a record?

Back 34

A record is a line of data for a specific entity, such as a specific customer's name, address,
and birthdates.

Front 35

What is a repeating group and why is this a problem?

Back 35

Multiple displays of the same information (Type and Birthdate) for different objects (Pets) on
the same record (Customer) is a repeating group. The presence of repeating groups means
that the records are not of the same length and updating and maintaining this information is
unwieldy.

Front 36

Name two companies that produce a DBMS for large-scale corporate computing. Also
specify the corresponding product names.

Back 36

Oracle Corporation produces Oracle and IBM produces DB2.

Front 37

What is a primary key?

Back 37

The primary key is the unique information that identifies each record, a single field or a
combination of fields.

Front 38

What is a foreign key?

Back 38

The copy of a primary key in a many-table that links a record to a record in another table is
called a foreign key. It is the glue that links the one- and many-tables together.

Front 39

What is a one-to-many relationship? Include a definition of the one-table and the many-
table in the explanation.

Back 39

The one-table contains the primary key and the many-table contains the corresponding
foreign key. One record in the one-table could potentially relate to many records in the
many-table, but each record in the many-table points to exactly one record in the one-
table. To relate a one table with a many table, match the values of the foreign key in the
many-table with the corresponding value of the primary key in the one-table. A one-table
and the corresponding many-table are in a one-to-many relationship.

Front 40

Access, SQL Server, and 4D are three different DBMS's. Briefly list the primary advantage
and disadvantage of each product."

Back 40

Access has excellent built-in compatibility with the rest of the MS Office suite, but is limited
to only a few users at most. SQL Server is very powerful, suitable for large-scale databases,
but is relatively difficult to use and provides much more power than is needed for small
network. Products like 4D do not have anywhere near the market penetration of the MS
products, but 4D is as "easy" to use as Access but also can be used with up to hundreds of
users, filling the niche between Access and SQL Server.

Front 41

Describe the configuration of a client-server network regarding a multi-user database.

Back 41

When multiple uses access the same database, the data and the corresponding database
management system reside on a server computer. Each database user runs a client
application that connects over the network to the main database application and
corresponding data. Most of the database processing takes place on the server computer.
The client computers simply access the main database and do not incur much of the CPU
overhead in the database processing.

Front 42

What is scalability in the context of applications run in a business? What are some primary
advantages of scalability? How well does MS Access scale?

Back 42

Scalability is the ability of a software application to handle the needs of a business as it
grows from small to medium to large. A scalable application allows the business IT staff and
users to learn about one application and not need new training and programming to adapt
to different, more powerful application as the business grows. MS Access is a desktop
application, designed to work best with only one user, so a growing business would have to
find another solution to accommodate growth.

Front 43

How many foreign key fields does a table need?

Back 43

A table has a foreign key for every many relationship the table is part of. For example, the
Order table has one foreign key because One Customer has many orders. The OrderLine
table has two foreign keys because One Order has many orderlines and One Product
appears on many orderlines.

Front 44

Why should a primary key have the property of No Duplicates but a foreign key allow
duplicates?

Back 44

Primary keys are unique identifiers and so by definition cannot be repeated. A foreign key is
a copy of a primary key in a related many-table. Because, for example, one customer can
have many pets, the foreign key must allow duplicates. Otherwise Sally can have Muffy, but
not Fluffy too.

Front 45

Consider the following statement: "Once a one-table, only a one-table?" True or false? Why?

Back 45

A table by itself is not a one-table or a many-table. By itself it is just itself. Two tables are
needed for a relationship and any single table could be a one-table in one relationship and a
many-table in another relationship.

Front 46

What are the design and user environments? In database development, why does the
designer go back and forth between the design environment and the user environment?"

Back 46

The design and construction of the database structure takes place in the design
environment. Here tables are constructed, fields are added to tables, one-to-many relations
are defined, forms created and modified, and so forth. The user environment is where data
is entered, modified, and, in general, processed. The designer will typically make some
modification in the design environment and then go to the user environment to assess the
effectiveness of this modification.

Front 47

What is an ERD? Provide an example as part of your explanation. [From Database handout
only]

Back 47

An ERD is an entity relationship diagram that provides an overview of the entire database
structure. Each table is represented by a rectangle. Each one-to-many relationship is
represented by a line from the one-table to the many-table with a "less-than sign"
representing many at the end of the line. a | represents a 1 at the beginning of the line. An
example is the one-to-many relationship: one person owns many animals and each animal
is owned only by one person. the corresponding ERD follows.

Front 48

How are Events related to lines of code (Methods) in a modern DBMS? Name and briefly
define two such Events.

Back 48

Lines of code, called methods, only run when triggered by pre-specified events. One event
is On Load, which means when a form is loaded into memory and displayed on the screen.
Another event is On Data Change, which occurs when the data for a field changes.

Front 49

What are the two primary types of forms and what are their functions?

Back 49

The detail form is for entering or displaying an entire screen or page of data. The list form
is for entering or displaying a single line of data, so most list forms contain only a portion of
the available fields. The advantage of a list form is that this information can be displayed
for 20 to 30 records on a single screen.

Front 50

In which part of the database system are forms edited?

Back 50

Form editing is part of the design process, so form editing occurs in the design environment,
specifically in the form editor.

Front 51

In a database environment, what is the distinction between the Form Wizard and the Form
Editor? How are they both used in the same design project? Which one is usually used first?

Back 51

The Form Wizard quickly constructs an initial version of a form. The Form Editor can be
used to create the form from scratch, or more effectively, is used to modify an initial form
created by the Form Wizard. The Wizard does a great job, but some touching up of the
created form is usually needed in the Form Editor.

Front 52

Identify three different objects that can appear on a database form.

Back 52

Form objects include buttons, text labels, database fields, subforms, graphics, and more.

Front 53

Consider an invoicing database with the minimum 4 tables. Identify the one-tables and
verbally describe the corresponding relationships.

Back 53

The two one-tables are Customers and Products. One customer can have many invoices and
each invoice is attached to only one customer. One product can appear on many invoices
lines, but each invoice line contains only one product.

Front 54

What is an invoice? Describe the appearance of an invoice and the sources of information on
an invoice.

Back 54

An invoice is a contract that specifies what items are sold to a customer and the payment
terms for those items. The invoice includes information that identifies the company in the
form of text labels. Customer identity information from the customer table is displayed and
order information from the order table is displayed. Orderline and product information are
displayed on the order lines.

Front 55

An OrderLine on an invoice displays data from three different sources. List the sources and
provide an example of each.

Back 55

Entered from Keyboard: Values for ptrProdID and Qty.
Automatic Lookup from One Table: Values for Description and Price.
Calculated: Value for LineTotal.

Front 56

How are invoices stored in a relational database? Be specific by describing the forms and
tables involved.

Back 56

An invoice is not a table, but a form that is composed of information from at least four
different tables. The form is attached to the Order table, so that entering information into a
new invoice is the database equivalent of generating a new Order table record. The form, however, displays information from the Customer who places the order as well as OrderLines
that display the Products ordered, their quantity, and unit and extended price.

Front 57

In the invoicing database project, there are two instances of automatic lookup. Provide the
details of one of these instances. That is, what is the one-table, the many-table, the
primary and foreign key, the form on which the information occurs, the information keyed
into the form, and the result of the lookups?"

Back 57

Enter in a Customer's ID into the Invoice (corresponding to a record on the Order man-
table) and all the Customer information from the related one table is automatically
displayed. Or, enter in a Product ID (foreign key) on the OrderLine and the Product's Price
and Description are automatically displayed. In this case the Product table is the one-table
and the OrderLine table is the many-table.

Front 58

How are a main form and a subform related to the concept of a one-to-many relationship?

Back 58

The main form is a detail form that displays information for the one-table. The subform is a
list form that displays information from the many-table, one line per record.

Front 59

What is the purpose of an "assignment statement" in a programming language?"

Back 59

The "assignment statement" assigns a value to a variable, which ultimately reduces to
assigning a value to a specific memory location in RAM.

Front 60

What is the distinction between tables and forms in a database? Why does a table need
forms?

Back 60

The table stores the data and a form is used for entering the data and displaying the data.
The form serves as a "window" for entering and displaying the data. Without forms, there
would be no way to get data into a table or to display the data.

Front 61

How many orders does a customer have stored in a database? How many orderlines does an
order have stored in a database? So is the order table a one-table or a many-table?
Explain.

Back 61

No table by itself is a one-table or a many-table, which instead are properties of the
relationship between two tables. The order table is a many table when related to customers,
and is a one table when related to orderlines.

Front 62

Define ERP and provide a brief example of how ERP integrates many different business
processes.

Back 62

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, which can be a massive database program for
integrating virtually all of a company's business processes. For example, when a customer
places a large manufacturing order, an ERP program can help plan from which supplier or
suppliers the raw materials will be purchased, which manufacturing plants should be used
for the manufacturing, which employees should do the work and when they should report to
work, how the materials should be manufactured, and how they should be delivered to the
customer.

Front 63

What company sells the most ERP systems? What is the #2 ERP company?

Back 63

The world-wide leader in ERP is a German company called SAP. The second most important
ERP provider is Oracle.

Front 64

What is a Query and how is a Query used in a DBMS? Provide English statements of two
different queries.

Back 64

A query extracts information from a database. Specifically, the query identifies specific
records, perhaps including information on related records as well. One example is to locate
all invoices with overdue balances. Another example is to locate all customers with a
specified last name.

Front 65

What is a Report and how is a Report used in a DBMS? Describe the general purpose and
appearance of two different reports.

Back 65

A report is a readable, formatted display of data and analysis optimized for printing. The
report editor of a DBMS allows for the page numbering, headers and footers, sorting,
calculations, and other features that facilitate the printed display of information. One report
may list all customers grouped by zip code, the total invoiced amount for each customer, as
well as the total invoiced for each zip code. Another example of report lists each student by
first and last name for each class as well as the grade for each student and the average
grade for each class.

Front 66

What are Break Areas and Break Levels in a report? How are they used to organize
information in the report?

Back 66

A break area on a report is where calculations such as totals and averages are printed. Each
break area corresponds to a sorted criterion, such as sorting people by zip code. The first
break level corresponds to the first sorted criterion, a second break level corresponds to the
second sorted criterion, and so on.

Front 67

An OrderLine on an invoice displays data from three different sources. List the sources and
provide an example of each.

Back 67

Entered from Keyboard: Values for ptrProdID and Qty.
Automatic Lookup from One Table: Values for Description and Price.
Calculated: Value for LineTotal.

Front 68

What is automatic lookup in a database and how is it implemented?

Back 68

Automatic lookup is the automatic retrieval of information from a related table, such as
providing customer information on an order form. Automatic lookup is implemented by
entering information into a many-table foreign key field, from which the database system
then automatically finds and retrieves the record in the related one-table with the matching
primary key.