124 important questions on computer and technology

(The Soft Part of It)

1. This operating system, created by two programmers of Bell Laboratories, had its origin in an operating system called MULTICS developed at MIT. Name it

(a) Unix (b) Linux

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2. This version of UNIX revived user interest in it and helped them to connect to the Net. This was because this version had some extra capabilities such as networking, extra peripheral support and use of extended file names. Name this version

(a) Xenix (b) BSD UNIX

3. What operating system was developed by Prof. Andrew S Tanenbaum to teach the working of a real O/S?

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(a) Xenix (b) Minix

4. What term is used in a UNIX environment to refer to a special user who is given the authority to access all file directories and files under the root directory?

(a) Avatar (b) Master

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5. What UNIX command program was written by Les Earnest in 1971 to solve the need of users who wanted information on other users of the network?

(a) Who (b) Finger

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6. What project was founded by Richard Stallman with the goal of creating a free operating system?

(a) GNU (b) Copy left

7. This operating system was initially developed by Microsoft and IBM, but later on, it became an IBM product It can run most MS-DOS applications. Warp 4 is its latest version. Name this O/S

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(a) OS/2 (b) CP/M

8. The operating systems CP/M and MP/M are from

(a) IBM

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(b) Apple Computer

(d) Digital Research, Inc

9. VMS was the proprietary operating system of which famous company?

(a) Xerox (b) IBM

10. Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products wrote a clone of operating system CP/M for the 8088 in six weeks in the year 1980. He licensed his O/S to Microsoft, which was looking for something to demo for IBM on time. What did Paterson call his O/S?

(a) QDOS (b) MS-DOS

11. The Microsoft Disk Operating System or MS-DOS was based on which operating system?

(a) QDOS (b) CP/M

12. In contemporary computer slang, this operating system was contemptuously called “Domestos” after the popular British brand of toilet cleaners from Unilever. Name it

(a) MS-DOS (b) MAC

13. What does the MS-DOS acronym FAT stand for?

(a) Frequency Allocation Table

(b) File Allocation Table

(d) Faster Access Time

14. What was the difference between the operating systems MS-DOS and PC-DOS?

(a) The former was for mini computers while the latter was for PCs

(b) The former was for office PCs and the latter was for home PCs

(d) PC-DOS was a scaled down version of MS-DOS

15. Dr. DOS was an operating system developed by which company for IBM-compatible computers?

(a) Apple Computer (b) Altair

16. What are Courtney, Earl, Rover the dog, The Dot, F1 the robot, Links the cat and Rocky the dog?

(a) All are animated characters in the UNIX O/S

(b) All are animated characters in Windows XP search utility programs

(d) All are names of different versions of Linux mascot

17. Microsoft’s answer to UNIX is Windows NT. What does NT stand for?

(a) Networking (b) Netware

18. Which software product used The Rolling Stone’s hit number Start Me Up as the theme song for its launch and launch advertisement?

(a) Windows 95 (b) Windows NT

19. Who is the creator of Linux operating system?

(a) Linus Torvalds

(b) Larry Ewing

(d) Jeff Ayers

20. What is the name of the penguin mascot of Linux operating system?

(a) Pengu (b) Litu

21. Who designed the official logo of Linux?

(a) Larry Ewing (b) Linus Torvalds

22. Lindows was a low-cost commercial Linux-based operating system with similar-looking user interfaces as the Windows O/S. Due to legal challenges from Microsoft citing that the name “Lindows” is too close to their trademark ‘Windows’, the name was changed in 2004. What is the new name of Lindows?

(a) Inspire (b) Aspire

23. If a hacker is ‘Fingerprinting’ a system, then what is she or he doing?

(a) Copying the entire contents of a hard disk to another over a network.

(b) Collecting the information on the contents of a hard disk of the system.

(d) Putting a cookie on a website, visitor’s hard disk.

24. Name the graphical version of UNIX for the Macintosh

(a) System V (b) AIX

25. What is common to Aqua, Platinum, and Brushed metal?

(a) All are graphical user interface themes used in different operating systems from Apple.

(b) All are different security features in Linux operating system.

(d) All are different commercial versions of Linux.

26. Which company pioneered the desktop and windows metaphors for the user interface?

(a) Microsoft (b) IBM

27. Creator of which operating system had planned to name it ‘Freax’?

(a) Minix (b) Xenix

28. The name Linux has of course been coined from Linus, its creator’s first name, and ‘x’. From where does the letter ‘x’ come from?

(a) Minix (b) Xenix

29. Who owns the Linux trademark in the USA?

(a) Nobody (b) Free Software Foundation

30. What term describes a product, which never gets off the drawing board, even though the company’s executives and sales staff keep talking about it?

(a) Shareware (b) Groupware

31. What is ‘warez’?

(a) Software in the drawing board stage

(b) Software in the lab testing phase

(d) Pirated software illegally downloaded and distributed

32. What is a ‘kludge’?

(a) An artificial intelligence program that follows a set of predetermined rules to perform certain work.

(b) Hardware or software assembled from a variety of parts or modules, usually in haste.

(d) Open-source web server software.

33. What kind of software is ‘firmware’?

(a) Software that provides enterpries solutions.

(b) Software that comes preloaded in a computer from the factory such as the operating system.

(d) Software that helps to improve productivity of a firm.

34. Software that comes included with a computer or another piece of hardware is called

(a) Freeware (b) Bundled software

35. What is a ‘dribble ware’?

(a) A software that has been released without proper testing.

(b) Commercial version of an open source software.

(d) Software developed by an organization for internal use only.

36. What do you call a software which is not paid for until the user has tried it and decides to continue with it, and which is often distributed over a bulletin board or on free disks that come with a magazine?

(a) Shareware (b) Freeware

(b) Trialware (c) Groupware

37. What is a WIMP environment?

(a) A graphical-user-interface environment using Windows, Icon, Menu and Pointing device (or Pull-down menus).

(b) A computing environment sans MS-Windows O/S.

(d) A computing environment, which is, totally open, i.e., compatible with any kind of hardware and software.

38. Which company developed the first graphical user interface?

(a) Apple Computer (b) IBM

39. In a WIMP environment, if a user is window shopping, what she or he is doing?

(a) Choosing alternatives to Microsoft software.

(b) Spending a lot of time on experimenting with new window color, fonts, and icon shapes.

(d) Finding fault with the Windows.

40. What is the beta version or beta release of a piece of software?

(a) Version ready to be tested by software testers, usually in house

(b) Version ready to be previewed by select customers, but not for market release

(d) Version ready for release as a shareware

41. What does the ‘smoke test’ of a software product involve?

(a) Putting the software to extreme use, like wrong key combinations.

(b) A cursory examination of all of the basic components of a software system to ensure that they work.

(d) Testing the product under actual use conditions.

42. What is the gold version of a software product?

(a) Version ready to be tested by software testers, usually in-house.

(b) The final version ready to be mass-produced for retail sale.

(d) Version ready for release as a shareware.

43. Sometimes, an application software product becomes so popular and standard that it fuels sales of hardware platform or operating system for which it has been written. Such a type of application is called

(a) Star Application (b) Pop app

44. When a piece of software is no longer marketed or distributed by its creator company, then it is termed as

(a) Adware (b) Abandonware

45. What is ‘adware’?

(a) Software available as addons

(b) Free updated versions of a software

(d) Software that helps to search for and remove suspected spyware programs

46. What is the software engineer’s term for a systems development life cycle model in which each phase of development proceeds in strict order without any overlapping or iterative steps?

(a) Straight line model

(b) Waterfall model

(d) Cowboy coding model.

47. Groupware meant to be used in an organization’s private intranet is called

(a) Innerware (b) Intraware

48. Some people believe that for the first time users of software, its advance features are superfluous and not desirable as they clutter the user interface. According to them, a user should buy very simple software and as their skills improve, they can go for software with more advanced features. These advanced or ‘superfluous’ features are called…………….

(a) Profeatures (b) Clutters

49. What is a ‘bloat ware’ or ‘fatware’?

(a) Software with very thick users’ manual

(b) Software that is full of features or designed so inefficiently that it occupies large chunks of RAM, hard disk space and microprocessor power

(d) Software that tries to be everything for every type of application.

50. What tendency of software developers is called ‘creeping featurism’?

(a) Creating bloat ware.

(b) Creating software that tries to do many different things for the users.

(d) Trying to write software with minimum of features.

51. By now, I have asked you about different types of software such as shareware, free ware, groupware, etc. Now, what is wetware?

(a) Pirated software

(b) Software gifted to somebody

(d) Slang for human brain

52. What do manufacturers normally do when a new range of systems does not offer complete upward compatibility from some previous range?

(a) They supply firmware

(b) They replace the old system with the new one free of cost

(d) They supply bridgeware.

53. Which type of programming code is termed as ‘spaghetti code’?

(a) A code that uses GO TO or JUMP statements in excess or inappropriately resulting in convoluted program flow

(b) A code that has not used the best algorithm possible

(d) A code that gives inconsistent result when run repeatedly

54. What is Hyper-G?

(a) The Linux version of Hypertext

(b) The Mac version of Hypertext

(c) A publishing system using hyper-text features that provides many advanced features than WWW including link consistency and the ability to search multiple servers

(d) It refers to the hyper growth of IT-based industry.

55. What is Hyper Wave?

(a) A commercial version of Linux

(b) A computer game based on Hyper-G

(d) An online Library database

56. What name is given to a free software product that contains only a subset of the capabilities possessed by its forsale version?

(a) Dribbleware (b) Liteware

57. What name is given to a program that operates as an agent for a user or another program or simulates a human activity?

(a) Netware (b) Bot

58. What is a ‘chatterbot’?

(a) A computer program that collects knowledge for a user by automatically visiting the Net and gathering information as per a specified criteria.

(b) A computer program that gathers emailids of potential customers to whom sales messages can be sent.

(d) An interactive voice response system.

59. What does a program called ‘shopbot’ do for you?

(a) It operates vending machines.

(b) It helps in online payments.

(d) It “shops around” or crawls the Web and locates the best price for a product you are looking for.

60. When a piece of software remains unsold or unused for a long time, it is termed

(a) Malware (b) Firmware

61. What name is given to a commercially sold CD-ROM which contains an assortment of software, clipart, utilities, text, fonts, etc. which are also available as freeware or shareware from the Net and Bulletin board system?

(a) Malware (b) Shovelware

62. What name is given to freeware whose reliability and value are doubtful?

(a) Malware (b) Firmware

63. This type of shareware program keeps on reminding the user to register, purchase or take some other action through one or more popup windows. What name is given to such software?

(a) Nagware (b) Crippleware

64. This type of shareware urges the user to make a payment to a nominated charity. What name is given to such type software?

(a) Payware (b) Crippleware

65. As part of their marketing tactic, some free software authors de-liberately remove some important functionality of their software thereby enticing potential users to purchase the working version. What name is given to such freeware?

(a) Payware (b) Crippleware

66. What kind of software is termed “fritterware”?

(a) Any software that has excessive capability giving marginal gains in function but seduces people into using it anyway

(b) Software with very thick users” manual

(d) Software that tries to be everything for every type of application

67. What is a ‘brochureware’?

(a) The sales brochure of a software product.

(b) A planned product existing in brochure only.

(d) A product that fails to deliver as has been promised in its sales brochure.

68. This is a type of software that poses as free browser enhancement software or any other useful plug-in or utility, but after downloading, takes over the user’s Internet surfing by popping up advertisement windows or directing the user to competing websites. What is this type of software called?

(a) Hijackware (b) Spyware

69. Which type of applet is a crapplet?

(a) A crash-proof applet

(b) A hurriedly written applet that performs inconsistently

(d) A badly written totally useless Java applet

70. In a software professional’s jargon, what is “dogwash”?

(a) Writing software for his he or her own use in a larger software development project.

(b) The act of completely removing one O/S in favor of a better one.

(d) Undertaking a less important project to escape from a more important one.

71. What are apps-on-tap?

(a) A user customizable software application

(b) Mass-customized software

(d) Software, which needs frequent upgradation.

72. What first was achieved by MARK IV, a generalized file management and report generation program released in November 1967 by Informatics, in the software industry in the USA?

(a) It was the first software product to earn a million dollar in revenues

(b) It was the first business application software

(d) It was the first software package written for a mini computer

73. VisiCalc, a software product originally produced by Software Arts of the USA, is the first

(a) Calculator utility coming with an operating system

(b) Accounting package

(d) Graphic software

74. Which was officially the first PC-based graphical user interface (GUI)?

(a) Windows 1.0

(b) VisiCorp’s Vision

(d) TopView from IBM

75. What is Dr. Watson?

(a) A file search utility for the Net

(b) A file search utility for PCs

(c) A software utility that comes with Microsoft Windows and is used to help detect, decode and log errors that are encountered while the O/S is running

(d) A virus detection utility

76. In which software application do you find “Clippy”?

(a) Microsoft Windows (b) Microsoft Office (c) Apple Mac O/S (d) CorelDraw

77. Which IT business is common to SAP Ag, People Soft, Baan, QAD and Oracle?

(a) RDBMS packages

(b) CAD/CAM packages

(d) Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages

78. In the popular spreadsheet package Lotus 1-2-3, what does 1-2-3 mean?

(a) It indicates that the package deals with numbers

(b) It was the third product from the company

(d) The package has 123 different applications

79. The popular RDBMS software Oracle’s initial release was Oracle 2, not Oracle 1. Why?

(a) The founder of the company was highly impressed by one of the memorable advertising punch lines in American advertising history “We’re No. 2, we try harder”

(b) From a modest industry position, the company was confident of becoming the No. 2 software company with the release of Oracle

(d) By naming the version Oracle 2, the company wanted to give the impression that all the bugs in the “earlier version” had been taken care of

80. Eudora from Qualcomm, a popular e-mail software, gets its name from Eudora Welty, the author of a 1941 story called why I Live at the Post Office. Why was the software named so?

(a) The software writer was very fond of the story.

(b) The basic idea behind the software is contained in the above story.

(d) Eudora software is based on POP-Post Office Protocol.

81. It is an annoying but common feature of output devices, including printers and monitors that make it very difficult to accurately match a color generated by one device with a color generated on another. This can be overcome by describing color in a standard way rather than modifying output devices in other words having device independent color systems. Which of the following is one such system?

(a) Pantone Matching System (PMS)

(b) CMYK color model

(d) RGB color model

82. In 1985, the Macintosh computer line received a big sales boost with the introduction of the LaserWriter printer and which desktop publishing software?

(a) Aldus PageMaker (b) WordStar

83. In 1995, Lotus Development Corporation sued Borland International, Inc for alleged infringement of its intellectual property related to the structure of the menu in Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software. The significance of this lawsuit was that it tested to what extent software copyright was applicable. Name the spreadsheet brand of Borland, which was at the centre of the lawsuit

(a) MultiPIan (b) Quattro Pro

84. Which of the following application programs helps to overcome the formatting limitations of Hypertext Markup Language?

(a) Adobe Acrobat (b) Adobe PageMaker

85. This product, named Ghost can automatically format and partition a hard disk and copy all the contents of another hard disk on to it (the target disk). This product comes from which company?

(a) Adobe (b) Symantec

86. Which product from Adobe Systems was developed entirely at its development center at Noida, near Delhi?

(a) PageMaker 7 (b) PageMaker 6.5

87. This business newspaper promotes itself with the adline ‘Software for the most advanced microprocessor on this planet’ Name it

(a) The Economic Times (b) The Financial Times (c) The Financial Express (d) Business Standard

88. ‘e-Cricket Pro’ is an analytical software package for cricketers launched by Phoenix Global Solutions and…………..

(a) Board for Cricket Control in India (BCCI)

(b) International Cricket Council

(d) International Management Group

89. Active Platform is a development platform from which company?

(a) Microsoft (b) IBM

90. American Megatrends, Inc. is best known for which product?

(a) Alphachip processor (b) ROM BIOS

91. Which was the first WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor?

(a) Clipper (b) Bravo

92. Which popular software product of the 1980s and 1990s had the original name Vulcan but due to potential trademark issues acquired the present name?

(a) WordPerfect (b) WordStar

93. What is common to FoxPro, Clipper, Recital, Quick-Silver, Xbase++, FlagShip, and Harbour?

(a) All are members of xBase language family

(b) All are DBMS software from Microsoft

(d) All are anti-virus utilities

94. This downloadable software, developed by Mirabilis, an Israeli startup company, alerts Net users when other selected users such as their friends, family members are also online, so that they can chat, send email, exchange messages and the like in real time. Name this software.

(a) RealChat (b) Eudora

95. In 1982, what first was written by a 15-year old high school student Richard Skrenta?

(a) The first anti-virus program

(b) The first sci-fi book centered around a deadly computer virus

(d) The first known computer virus that has spread ‘in the wild,’ i.e., outside the computer system or lab in which it was written.

96. In 2002, David L. Smith got 20 months in federal prison in the USA for which computer crime?

(a) Writing the first computer virus in 1982

(b) For writing and spreading Melissa virus in 1999

(d) For teaching terrorists how to spread computer virus

97. What is the name of the computer virus that is the first one to affect Java files?

(a) StrangeBrew (b) Friday Virus

98. What term was taken from a 1970s science fiction novel by John Brunner entitled The Shockwave Rider?

(a) Virus (b) Worm

99. What is the difference between a virus and a worm?

(a) A virus is self-propagating whereas a worm is not

(b) A virus can affect programs written in any language whereas a worm affects those written in 4GL

(d) A worm spreads through the Internet only

100. Which of the following viruses affects the Palm Operating system?

(a) Phage virus (b) Friday virus

101. What is the name of the computer virus which originated from Lahore, Pakistan in January 1986 and which can infect only 5.25 inch floppies?

(a) Den Zuk virus (b) Brain virus

102. What is a Trojan horse in computer lingo?

(a) An under-utilized software

(b) An under-utilized computer system

(d) A malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software such as a utility, application, game or screen saver

103. Which of the following viruses has been a hoax?

(a) Good Times virus (b) Friday Virus

104. Which virus has been recognized as the first mobile phone virus in the world?

(a) Good Times virus (b) Friday Virus

105. What is a retro virus?

(a) A virus that flashes socially relevant messages on the monitor of the affected system

(b) A virus that has the ability to create a new virus

(d) A modified version of a virus created for legacy systems

106. A virus that is kept in an isolated environment for the purpose of antivirus research and training is called a

(a) Do-gooder virus (b) Zoo virus

107. What is a ‘multipartite virus’?

(a) A virus that spreads through any storage medium, i.e. floppy disks, CDs, pen drives, etc.

(b) A virus that affects both the boot sector as well as the files on a disk.

(c) A virus that collects information on the contents of a remote hard disk and sends the same to its creator over the Net.

(d) A virus that causes multiple damages.

108. In June 30, 1969, what announcement by IBM gave a boost to software products industry?

(a) Effective January 1, 1970, it would begin to unbundle (i.e., charge separately for) some of its software which were being given for free with its machines.

(b) It would use stored programs in its machines.

(d) Its computers would be multipurpose machines instead of being special purpose machines.

109. Software industry in the USA took off when the use of computers for business applications expanded rapidly. This happened in the

(a) 1940s (b) 1950s

110. In which year did software piracy become legal offence in India? (a) 1957 (b) 1965

111. What is the difference between a ‘hard return’ as opposed to a ‘soft return’ in word processing programs?

(a) Hard return is created by the program automatically at the end of a line whereas soft return is created by pressing the return key on the keyboard.

(b) Soft return is created by the program automatically at the end of a line whereas hard return is created by pressing the return key on the keyboard.

(c) Hard return refers to the program automatically correcting the spelling mistakes, and soft return refers to the user correcting the spelling mistakes by self.

(d) Hard return refers to the user balancing, the column heights by self, and soft return refers to the program doing it automatically.

112. What is a Parser program?

(a) A program used to create web pages.

(b) A program that breaks large units of data into smaller, more easily interpreted pieces.

(d) A program that drives computer peripherals.

113. When a computer is switched on, a set of programs called BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which are encoded in read-only memory handle certain startup operations as POST. What does POST stand for?

(a) Programmed Online System Test

(b) Power on Self Test

114. The beta version of some software includes a feature that renders the software unusable after a certain period of time. What is this feature called?

(a) Mail bomb (b) Time bomb

115. What is a mailbot?

(a) A very large amount of e-mail data sent to a user’s e-mail account with the objective of getting it full so as to make incoming emails bounce back.

(b) A program that automatically responds to e-mail messages.

(d) A desktop utility that eases the procedure of sending/receiving e-mails.

116. What is the name of the system, created by a Stanford University team led by Ed Feigenbaum, that has been recognized as the first-ever expert system?

(a) FIPS (b) SABRE

117. Now more commonly called embedded systems, these programs control some pieces of equipment, part cularly those with military applications. What was the original name of such programs?

(a) Command Control Programs

(b) On-board Control Programs

(d) Fuzzy Control Programs

118. This feature in a word processing application helps to see a record of the changes made to a document during the course of its development what is it called?

(a) Greenlining (b) Redlining

119. What is an Easter egg in a computer program?

(a) A logical error

(b) A syntax error

(d) The license number of the software package

120. What is Sieve of Eratosthenes?

(a) A data type.

(b) A popular freeware program that helps to design users their homes.

(d) A text format used by DTP applications.

121. What do you call a compiler that if given a language specification, produces a compiler for that language?

(a) Super compiler (b) Metacompiler

122. From mid-1960s to 1980, computer programs were being categorized either into “scientific” programs or as

(a) Educational programs (b) Language programs (c) Business programs (d) Application programs

123. This project was launched in 1960 by Ted Nelson as the original hypertext project It has been dubbed the longest running vaporware story in the history of computer industry by Wired Magazine as it took the project 28 years to release the software, that too an incomplete one! This project was supposed to be a word processor capable of storing multiple versions, and displaying the differences between these versions. Name this project

(a)’Project Xanadu (b) Project Hypertext

124. ISO 12207 is a standard for what kind of process?

(a) Software life cycle process

(b) Software quality assurance

(d) Information security management

125. What are crackz?

(a) Features in a software that prevent piracy

(b) Security vulnerability in a network

(d) Utilities that help to bypass the protection measures of software in order to pirate it

ANSWERS

1(a)	2. (b)	3.(b)	4. (a)	5.(b)	6.	(a)	7.	(a)	8.(d)	9. (d)	10.(a)
11. (a)	12. (a)	13. (b)	14.(c)	15.(d)	16.	(b)	17.	(c)	18.(a)	19.(a)	20.(c)
21.(a)	22. (c)	23.(c)	24.(c)	25.(a)	26.	(c)	27.	(d)	28. (a)	29.(d)	30. d)
31. (d)	32. (b)	33. (c)	34.(b)	35.(c)	36.	(a)	37.	(a)	38. (d)	39. (b)	40.(b)
41. (b)	42. (b)	43. (c)	44.(b)	45.(c)	46.	(b)	47.	(b)	48. (c)	49. (b)	50. a)
51. (d)	52. (d)	53. (a)	54.(c)	55. (c)	56.	(b)	57.	(b)	58. (c)	59.(d)	60. c)
61. (b)	62.(d)	63. (a)	64. (d)	65.(b)	66.	(a)	67.	(b)	68. (a)	69.(d)	70.(d)
71. (c)	72. (a)	73. (c)	74.(b)	75.(c)	76.	(b)	77.	(d)	78. (c)	79. (d)	80. d)
81.(a)	82. (a)	83.(b)	84.(a)	85.(b)	86.	(a)	87.	(a)	88. (a)	89. (a)	90. b)
91. (b)	92. (d)	93. (a)	94.(c)	95.(d)	96.	(b)	97.	(a)	98.(b)	98. (c)	100. a)
101. b)	102. d)	103.(a)	104. c)	105.(c)	106.	(b)	107.	(b)	108.(a)	109. b)	110. d)
111.(b)	112. b)	113.(b)	114.(b)	115.(b)	116.	(d)	117.	(a)	118. b)	119. (c)	120. (c)
121.(b)	122. c)	123. a)	124. a)	125.(d)