Job Control

Computers use a job control system to manage their tasks, letting one process use resources in one area while another uses resources in a different area.

Job control systems developed early on in the design of modern computers to alleviate speed problems.

Additions to peripheral hardware, such as buffers and cache systems, only made certain processes faster and didn’t solve the problem.

When the hardware was able to take a new process, the highest-priority process would be made active. This process would then move into the hardware.

While a single queue held all the active and inactive processes, information pertaining to the hardware came from the hardware itself.

The driver for the hardware would report whether it was available or not to the scheduler—if a process entered an error state and continued to use the hardware, it would never become available. In addition, some processes only needed the central processor or a certain peripheral; this would tie up the entire system until those processes ended.

When one process comes up that is more important than one that is currently active, the active one will suspend and the new process will take over.

Race Condition

Race conditions have to do with attempts by a system or individual device to engage in multitasking .

Generally, a race condition exists when the system is attempting to process two or more different operations simultaneously, but is unable to do so.

A race condition is created when two or more operations are vying with each other to reach completion ahead of the other operations.

When all the individual functions are properly arranged, this leads to the successful execution of all the functions in a timely manner. However, if the sequence of operations is thrown out of balance, this creates a bottleneck.

In the worse case scenario, the race condition will make it impossible for the system to continue in its attempt to process all the functions in the order currently engaged.

One common example of a race condition has to do with the processing of data.

The priorities are established to function well within the capabilities of the system and thus limit the ability of a race condition to develop.

Become a Personal Assistant

In the past, a personal assistant worked only with celebrities and millionaires, but that's no longer the case.

Today, anybody can become a personal assistant and work with executives, attorneys, politicians, or even ministers.

When you become a PA, you are in charge of organizing a great part of your employer's life, so initiative and a facility for leadership are vital.

While there are no minimum qualifications required to become a personal assistant, there are some important skills to develop.

To begin with, a personal assistant should be Internet-savvy and comfortable using modern technology. This includes everything from sending e-invites to managing data download .

To become a personal assistant, you should also have "people skills," the ability to communicate professionally, remain calm under pressure, be tactful, and, above all, obtain results.

Once qualified, a personal assistant is usually trained in-house so he or she can be molded to fit the employer's requirements.

Multithreading

In the world of computing, multithreading is the task of creating a new thread of execution within an existing process rather than starting a new process to begin a function.

Essentially, the task of multithreading is intended to make wiser use of computer resources by allowing resources that are already in use to be simultaneously utilized by a slight variant of the same process.

The basic concept of multithreading has been around for some time, but gained wider attention as computers became more commonplace during the decade of the 1990’s. This form of time-division multiplexing creates an environment where a program is configured to allow processes to fork or split into two or more threads of execution.

By allowing a program to handle multiple tasks with a multithreading model, the system does not have to allow for two separate programs to initiate two separate processes and have to make use of the same files at the same time.

The time slicing that is inherent in allowing a fork or thread to split off from a running process is thought by some to set up circumstances where there may be some conflict between threads when attempting to share caches or other hardware resources.


There is also some concern that the action of multithreading could lower the response time of each single thread in the process, effectively negating any time savings that is generated by the configuration. However, multithreading remains one of the viable options in computer multitasking .

It is not unusual for a processor to allow for both multithreading as well as the creation of new processes to handle various tasks. This allows the end user all the benefits of context switching while still making the best use of available resources.

Multitasking Operating System

A multitasking operating system is any type of system that is capable of running more than one program at a time.

With older examples of the multitasking operating system, managing two or more tasks normally involved switching system resources back and forth between the two running processes.

While this approach did create a short time lag for the operator, this lag was usually no more than a few seconds, and still offered considerable more efficiency than the older single-task operating system.

Over time, popular incarnations of the multitasking operating system were developed that used a different approach to allocating resources for each active program. This created a situation where virtually no time lag occurred at all, assuming that the equipment driving the system had adequate resources.

The typical multiple operating system requires more resources than the simple operating systems that were common for desktop computers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Today, most desktop, laptop, and netbook operating systems function with some type of multitasking operating system.

Even equipment such as automatic teller machines or ATMs still make use of some type of multitasking system, using a series of programs to check balances and execute the requests made by users.

Computer Multitasking

Computer multitasking is the process of more than one program being executed by a computer at the same time.

When computer multitasking was in the early stages of development, it was called time-sharing, a term which referenced the way multiple programs or processes shared the power of the CPU .

Fairly early on, this term was supplanted by the contemporary term multitasking, although in its earliest versions, multitasking was not true multitasking but a rapid switching between applications that seemed simultaneous.

These systems, which have become more common and more advanced during the early 21st century, are capable of true multitasking, although in practice, there is no observable difference, aside from improved performance, in the way these systems work compared to single processor systems.

Computer performance is dictated by processor speed, but the number of programs that a given processor can run at one time is also limited by the amount of system memory these programs occupy.

A technique called memory switching allows for the system memory to be accessed by whatever program is running at the moment on single processor systems or to be delegated as needed on multiple processor systems.

The limitations on human abilities to multitask will ultimately limit the ways in which individuals can utilize the power of modern computers to multitask, however.

Multitasking

It is often encouraged among office workers and students, because it is believed that multitasking is more efficient than focusing on a single task at once.

It would appear that in some cases, multitasking is indeed an effective way to utilize time, while in other instances, the quality of the work suffers as a result of split attention.

Later computers were able to run a wide assortment of programs; in fact, your computer is multitasking right now as it runs your web browser and any other programs you might have open, along with the basic programs which start every time you log on to your operating system.

A secretary might be said to be multitasking when she or he answers phones, responds to emails, generates a report, and edits a form letter simultaneously.

Certain complex higher order tasks, for example, demand the full function of the brain; most people wouldn't want brain surgeons multitasking, for example.

A certain amount of multitasking has become necessary and expected in many industries, and job seekers often list the ability to multitask as a skill on their resumes.

When you do decide to multitask, make sure to check your work carefully, to ensure that it is of high quality, and consider abandoning multitasking for certain tasks if you notice a decline.