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One of my pet peeves is hearing people, especially those in the broadcast media, use a particular word to emphasize their point, but use the incorrect definition of the word. Two such words are prototype and literal.

How many times have you heard a sports broadcaster describe a player as “the prototype of an NFL quarterback” or “the prototypical Major League closer”? The idea they are trying to convey is that the player has all the physical skills and attributes desired of that position. However, the word prototype does not mean that at all. A prototype is an unfinished, often nonfunctioning, novelty. The prefix, proto-, means “first” or “earliest form of”.

When manufacturers develop a new product, they often build a prototype for display and demonstration before continuing with full production. In this age of rapidly advancing technology, we hear the word prototype all the time. “Within a year, they produced a prototype of the stealth fighter.” “The trade show was full of interactive prototypes.” Can I buy this product now? “No, it’s just a prototype.” Those comments are all proper usages of the word.

However, when a broadcaster means to laud an athlete’s abilities, the correct word is archetype, which means the completed model of perfection, the principle example. Archetype is certainly not a word in common usage, although the prefix is commonly known in words such as archenemy, archrival, and archbishop.

The word literal imparts strict interpretation of the words used, by the letter, the exact meaning, verbatim. Literal is the functional opposite of figurative or metaphorical. Broadcasters, however, seem to use the words literal and literally, merely for emphasis. Vehix.com currently has a TV commercial running, in which the prospective car buyer extols the virtues of the website. She says, “You can literally take a test drive!” I think not. Perhaps you can virtually take a test drive.

I’ve also heard descriptions in the media such as “Literally every crumb was gone.” Really? I think practically every crumb was gone, unless the dog cleaned up afterward. “Her house was literally filled to the ceiling with stuffed animals.” Maybe her house was filled, figuratively speaking, to the ceiling. “The forwards on this basketball team can literally jump through the roof!” They’d be medical marvels! Another sportscaster described a team’s strategy against a formidable goalie by saying, they should “literally get in his shorts.” I think that would be a penalty. Another broadcaster informed us that a particular player “literally carries the weight of his team on his shoulders.” He’s obviously in the wrong sport.

Earlier this week Scott Van Pelt on ESPN was describing the Boston Celtics’ standing in the NBA playoff race. His meaning was that there wasn’t much of a chance that they could improve or worsen their position, so he said that they could “literally take their foot off the gas and coast” to the playoffs. It was a clever metaphor ruined by the misuse of the word literal.

I remember a scene from the movie, The Princess Bride. Vizzini, who is amazed at his pursuer’s tenacity, repeatedly describes the situation as inconceivable. Finally, his partner, Montoya, calls Vizzini’s attention to it: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” He isn’t the only one who needs a dictionary.

Tags: Humor, Opinion, Sports by BrokenClaw
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The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is one of the most exciting sporting events in the US. Unlike the NBA playoffs, what makes the college tourney so fascinating is that every game is an elimination match. On the first 4-day weekend games are played throughout the day as the field gets whittled down from 64 teams to 16 teams. The remaining teams are called the Sweet Sixteen.

The original meaning of that expression probably dates back to the 19th century in the US, referring to the 16th birthday party for girls, as a coming-of-age celebration. It’s an odd association for men’s basketball to begin with, since none of the participants are girls or are 16. But the alliterative expression has been around for a long time and isn’t going away.

On the second weekend of the tournament, the 16 teams get reduced to four. Those final four teams are called the Final Four. Not a very imaginative description, but it has similar alliteration as Sweet Sixteen and rolls off the tongue nicely. The Final Four then play the next weekend, into Monday, to decide the champion.

Now here’s where it gets silly. Some years ago, someone decided that they needed a moniker for the eight teams that remain after the initial round of the Sweet Sixteen weekend. The term Elite Eight has been used in basketball tournaments for a long time, such as the Illinois high school playoffs and the NCAA Division II playoffs. But in both of those cases, the eight teams had a specific association to the eight regions that qualified for the tournament. In the NCAA Division I, the eight teams are just a temporary position on Friday night. The Sweet Sixteen has a weekend, and the Final Four has a weekend. Why do we need a name for the half-way point?

The phrase Elite Eight doesn’t even have the pizzazz of Sweet Sixteen and Final Four. Sure, it has the quasi-alliteration of the initial E, but the pronunciation isn’t even the same. Elite starts with a long E, while Eight starts with the sound of a long A. And it surely doesn’t roll of the tongue. You have to pronounce the final T sound in Elite before pronouncing Eight, which makes it jerky.

Personally, I think Eight Elite would improve its aesthetic quality. Try it. Say “Elite Eight” three times. Then say “Eight Elite” three times. Don’t you agree that Eight Elite rolls off the tongue better? It’s because you can cheat on the pronunciation and make the T in Eight sound like a D, as in A-da-leet. If you try that with Elite Eight, it comes out as Ely-date. Not good.

Say it often. Google it. Eight Elite! Eight Elite! Eight Elite!

Tags: Humor, Sports by BrokenClaw
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Open source software is a description of the way that some software is distributed. It refers to the fact that the writers or developers of the software publicly share the source code (see below). This policy is the opposite of most commercial software, where the source code is considered a trade secret and is never disclosed outside the company.

When computer applications are created, the basic process is that the software writer types in the computer commands using a specific computer language and syntax, called code. The code is then run though a computer program, called a compiler, which converts the code into an application that anyone can use. Each command is usually just a short line of text but the number of commands can add up to thousands and even millions of lines, depending on the complexity of the application. The sum total of all the lines of the written code, the source of the application, is called the source code.

Once the source code is compiled, it cannot be un-compiled. It is similar to baking a cake. You put all the ingredients together using a specific recipe, but once it’s baked, you can’t get the ingredients back out, or even know for sure what the ingredients were. So it is with source code. That is how commercial software developers make money, by selling the final product, which cannot be duplicated, as long as the source code remains closed.

Similar examples are Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken, whose recipes remain secret. Others can make similar products by using a process known as reverse engineering. They conduct a lot of trial and error to try and duplicate the end result.

Open source software uses a different philosophy. The developers publish the source code and encourage others to use, improve, expand, and recompile it for the common good. There are several models for open source software. Some are completely free to use and change however you want. Others are licensed with certain restrictions. The main advantage to open source software is that many people collaborate on it over a long period of time, so the final product is constantly improved, to add features or to fix errors, called bugs.

Open source software packages are available in virtually every category of applications, and many are as good as, or better than, commercial software at a fraction of the cost, or free. Many of them are written for the scientific and technical fields, where students and researchers have developed the programs for their own use. The same is true of digital media editors. One prominent example of a consumer product is OpenOffice, a free suite of office applications that rivals Microsoft Office. Another example is Mozilla Firefox, an open source browser that makes it possible for many people to write their own additions, called plugins, that expand the functionality and improve the user experience.

Tags: Software, Tech Explained, Tech Issues by Smilodon
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A database is a computer application used primarily by businesses to keep track of all types of data. In fact, any computerized business uses a database of one kind or another.

What makes a database useful is the fact that each piece of data, called a record, is entered into the system individually, but remains linked to its associated records. By the same token, each record can be pulled out individually along with its associated records. The data itself can be text, or a number, or any kind of digital media.

A simple example of a database is a collection of names and addresses. To put the information in the database, each piece of data is typed into it’s own box, called a field. There would be a field for the first name, a field for the surname, a field for the house number, for the street name, the city, state, and zipcode. The data is entered individually, but all of these fields are linked together in the database.

The process just described is familiar to anyone who has ever made an online purchase, because that’s exactly what you’re doing when you fill out the order form. You are entering your personal data into their database. The same process happens whenever you fill out a paper form, except that someone else has to transcribe your written information into their computer database.

Now what makes a database useful is that the data can be searched and pulled out by a process known as a query. For example, you could search the database for all of the people with a particular surname, or all of the people who live in a particular state. A database works by creating indexes of all the records so that it can quickly find the answer to a query. In other words, it doesn’t have to search through every single record looking for a particular surname because it already has an index of the surnames, so it’s like finding a name in a phonebook because you know it’s alphabetical.

Queries can also be combined. In our example, you could search for everyone with a particular surname who lives in a particular city. The database would go to the surname index, find what it needs, then follow the link on those names to the city index and find the ones that match.

In the movie, The Fugitive, Harrison Ford’s character demonstrates the power of the database when he sneaks into the Prosthetics Department and uses the computer to look for the infamous “one-armed man”. You can see him entering sequential queries into the system, by date, by limb, by prosthesis, and by type, until the database has only a handful of patients who match all of the queries. TV and movie detectives show a database in action whenever they use the computer to search for a suspect using particular characteristics.

A database program is often part of a group of software known collectively as an office suite or productivity suite, which may include a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software. Open Office is a suite of open source applications which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office.

A database is still primarily a business application, and most home computer users will never have a need to create one. But if you use a computer at all in your job, chances are that you are using a database.

Tags: Software, Tech Explained by Smilodon
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A spreadsheet is a computer application used primarily to create, edit, and display financial and mathematical data on a grid of columns and rows. The name pre-dates computer applications, from the days when a large handwritten worksheet had to be spread across multiple sheets of paper.

Each box on a spreadsheet is called a cell. Each cell can contain text or a number, including currency or a date. Cells can be combined to make larger cells. What defines a spreadsheet, making it different from a simple table of data, is that a cell can also contain, in the background, a mathematical equation, or formula, using data from other cells, which displays as the answer to the formula.

For example, a simple spreadsheet might consist of the batting statistics of a baseball team. The cell containing the batting average of a particular player would be a formula of hits divided by at bats, rounded to 3 digits. The cell containing the total hits for the team would be a formula of the sum of the hits of all the players. Likewise the cell containing the total at bats for the team would be a sum. The cell containing the team batting average would be a formula of the total hits divided by the total at bats.

In this way a spreadsheet is interactive. Changing the value in one cell changes the value in any cell which is connected to it by a formula. It’s easy to see how baseball statistics can be kept in real time using a spreadsheet. The same is true in business. Changing a single cell, such as the cost of a product or the markup percentage, will automatically update the rest of the spreadsheet.

The computer spreadsheet program, particularly one called VisiCalc on the Apple II, is often credited with turning the personal computer from an expensive hobby into a business tool.

On the early IBM PCs, the major spreadsheet programs were Lotus 1-2-3® and Quattro Pro®. When Windows became the pervasive operating system, Microsoft’s own Excel program jumped in and eventually became the market leader on both Windows and Apple machines.

Today’s spreadsheets are much more than just a page of number crunchers. They can grow to huge proportions, they can import data from other computer programs, and like word processors, they can have charts and other graphics embedded.

A spreadsheet program is an integral part of a group of software known collectively as an office suite or productivity suite, which may include a word processor, database, and presentation software. Open Office is a suite of open source applications which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. More recently, online spreadsheets, part of the phenomenon known as cloud computing, provide another option for casual users.

A spreadsheet is still primarily a business application, and most home computer users will never have a need to use one. However, a spreadsheet could be used for some home-based projects, such as a home inventory, or expense report, or list of club members, or team statistics. However, without previous training and experience, you’d be better off using a program written specifically for those applications.

Tags: Software, Tech Explained by Smilodon
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A word processor is a computer application used to create and edit any kind of document. Besides letters and reports, modern word processors are sophisticated enough to produce just about any type of professional quality document, including newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, manuals, and even books.

The first word processors in the 1970s were actually stand-alone office equipment intended to replace the typewriter for creating business letters and reports. By the late 1980s they had advanced to the point where they were essentially a computer, with a CPU, computer memory, keyboard, monitor, and disc drive. So it wasn’t long before they got incorporated into the office PC. In other words, it was more efficient to purchase a desktop computer and then add the word processing feature as a program.

The simplest type of word processor is a text editor, which just allows you to type and edit words. Every computer program that allows you to type text has a text editor. Everyone who writes email is familiar with text editing tools which are part of the email program. If you use webmail like Hotmail or Yahoo, you use the text editing tools (Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete) that are built into every browser.

What really defines a word processor, however, is the host of other tools which allow you to change the font (style and size of letters) and color, alignment, and layout by letter, word, sentence, paragraph, or document. Additionally, a word processor allows you to embed tables, charts, graphs, and pictures into the document. They can also check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. The other fundamental feature is the ability to create and store templates, sometimes called a boilerplates, to standardize the look and content of letterhead, memos, order forms, contracts, policy and procedure manuals, etc.

A word processor is almost always included with the purchase of new computer. For example, all versions of Windows include Wordpad®. A step up from Wordpad is the word processor in Microsoft Works® or Apple’s iWork®. These packaged programs are scaled-down versions, but they have enough features for printing letters and reports, and for creating simple family, school, church, and other organizational newsletters and bulletins.

In business, a full-featured word processor has been a universal tool for many years. In the 1990s there were dozens of choices for word processing software, with names like WordStar, AppleWriter, ProWrite, WordPerfect, and WordPro. Today, most of them have disappeared and have been replaced with Microsoft Word®. The word processor is essential not only for personnel who create documents on a regular basis, but also for anyone who needs to receive and read electronic documents from within the company and via email.

Professional publishers have always had their own software programs, but full-featured word processors have much of the same functionality, now described as desktop publishing.

A word processor is an integral part of a group of software known collectively as an office suite or productivity suite, which may include a spreadsheet, database, and presentation software. Open Office is a suite of open source applications which is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. More recently, online word processors, part of the phenomenon known as cloud computing, provide another option for casual users.

Tags: Software, Tech Explained by Smilodon
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