Outline of computing

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computing:

Computing – activity of using and improving computer hardware and computer software.

Branches of computing

Computer science (see also Outline of computer science)
Information technology – refers to the application (esp in businesses and other organisations) of computer science, that is, its use by mankind (see also Outline of information technology)
Information systems – refers to the study of the application of IT to business processes
Computer engineering (see also Outline of computer engineering)
Software engineering (see also Outline of software engineering)

Computer science

Computer science – (outline)

Computers

See information processor for a high-level block diagram.

Instruction-level taxonomies

After the commoditization of memory, attention turned to optimizing CPU performance at the instruction level. Various methods of speeding up the fetch-execute cycle include:

designing instruction set architectures with simpler, faster instructions: RISC as opposed to CISC
Superscalar instruction execution
VLIW architectures, which make parallelism explicit

Software

Part of an early computer, EDSAC.

History of computing

History of computing

Business computing

Human factors

Computer network

Wired and wireless computer network

This notebook computer is connected to a wireless access point using a PC card wireless card.

Types
- Wide area network
- Metropolitan area network
- City Area Network
- Village Area Network
- Local area network
  - Wireless local area network
Mesh networking
Collaborative workspace
Internet
Network management

Computing technology based wireless networking (CbWN)

The main goal of CbWN is to optimize the system performance of the flexible wireless network.

Source coding
- Codebook design for side information based transmission techniques such as Precoding
- Wyner-Ziv coding for cooperative wireless communications
Security
- Dirty paper coding for cooperative multiple antenna or user precoding
Intelligence
- Game theory for wireless networking
- Cognitive communications
- Flexible sectorization, Beamforming and SDMA
Software
- Software defined radio (SDR)
- Programmable air-interface
- Downloadable algorithm: e.g., downloadable codebook for Precoding

Computer security

Cryptology – cryptography – information theory
Cracking – demon dialing – Hacking – war dialing – war driving
Social engineering – Dumpster diving
Physical security – Black bag job
Computer security
Computer surveillance
Defensive programming
Malware
Security engineering

Data

Numeric data

Integral data types – bit, byte, etc.
Real data types:
- Floating point (Single precision, Double precision, etc.)
- Fixed point
- Rational number
Decimal
- Binary-coded decimal (BCD)
- Excess-3 BCD (XS-3)
- Biquinary-coded decimal
representation: Binary – Octal – Decimal – Hexadecimal (hex)
Computer mathematics – Computer numbering formats

Character data

storage: Character – String – text
- representation: ASCII – Unicode – Multibyte – EBCDIC (Widecharacter, Multicharacter) – FIELDATA – Baudot

Classes of computers

Polish analog computer AKAT-1

There are several terms which describe classes, or categories, of computers:

Analog computer
Calculator
Desktop computer
Desktop replacement computer
Digital computer
Embedded computer
Home computer
Laptop
Mainframe
Minicomputer
Microcomputer
Personal computer
Portable computer
Personal digital assistant (aka PDA, or Handheld computer)
Programmable logic controller or PLC
Server
Smartphone
Supercomputer
Tablet computer
Video game console
Workstation

Organizations

A computer Lab

Companies – current

Computing publications

Digital Bibliography & Library Project – as of July 2007^[update], lists over 910,000 bibliographic entries on computer science and several thousand links to the home pages of computer scientists.