The term "software engineering" was used for the first time in 1968 in a NATO Conference that wanted to draw attention on the software crisis that was undergoing at that time. In fact it is engineering being applied in the software field of activity. While engineering is pretty old (even the ancient builders of the pyramids had advanced engineering knowledge), engineering software is a very young job and at the same time a very wide area with a lot of sub-specialties.

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It is not to be mistaken with software programming, but it somehow completes the former. Software programmers actually write the software programmes, while software engineers test the software, work on its development, operation and maintenance. That is the starting point for the release of all the later and improved versions of the software applications. Let's take Windows for example.



The basic idea is the same for all versions of Windows because the initial design of the software was held. However, the software engineers worked on Windows 95 for example, tested it, recognized its flaws and saw the breeches in the system and found out where and how the software could be improved. So the software was indeed improved and the new version of Windows 98 appeared on the market. Some people also tried to call it "software development", but there's more than just development in software engineering.

Because computers have become a growing point of interest for all the people, not just the young generation, the software offer had to come up with a lot of different offers and applications in various fields of activity,  software engineering is working at its best full speed ahead in the fast evolving and consuming society. Studies have shown that software engineer is actually the job of the future and a very demanded job on the marker, too. However, it requires very serious training , a university degree and a lot of practice and experience.

Software engineering is considered by some a sub-field of computer science. But computer science is a very wide area which also includes hardware and systems. Software engineering is pretty complex itself, as it can cover many fields of expertise and nobody can be specialized in all that means software engineering, but in one of its sub-disciplines, taking care of and analyzing only one aspect in the whole software.



The sub-disciplines of software engineering are considered to be: software requirements (analyzes and approximates what kind of software is needed for a certain product or wanted by users on the market), software design (deals with wrapping up the software in nice clothes that are at the same time useful and easy and guide the user - the interface of a software), software development (programming languages are used to actually build the software), software testing (tests the software looking for eventual bugs or flaws before releasing it) , software maintenance (solves the problems that may appear in the system while running the software), software configuration management , software development process, software quality and software engineering tools (Computer Aided Software Engineering).

Communication is essential for all the people, no matter where they live and what they do. But if you have the necessary means, you will see that communication is a lot easier, especially these days when you have so many opportunities to communicate with people who are important to you.

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Nowadays, the most important communication means, apart from speaking , is the email . People exchange email messages all the time, sending and receiving valuable information and files or just telling jokes, sending unimportant but funny pictures, I mean sending and receiving a lot of emails every day just to stay i touch with family and friends.



The problem is that sometimes, when you want to send a file from your computer to your friend, you either get the message box telling you that your file exceeds the allowed size for the transfer or it just takes too much and you notice angrily that your email was not sent after 20 minutes. In this case what you have to do is compress the file you want to send , or zip it as they say, and this way it will be easier for you to send it and, at the same time, it will take less time.Usually the same software that helps you archive and compress a file helps you unzip it, too.

But how about when you get an already zipped file on the email and you don't have the exact software used for zipping it? You won't be able to unzip it and see it which is frustrating. In this case you need some good unzip software and, if you are lucky enough and have enough patience to search, you can even find some free unzip software.

So why pay for something that you can find for free? And it does not mean that if this software is free it lacks functionality and is not good enough. If you are interested in free unzip software you can follow these links: www.freedownloadscenter.com and www.zdnet.com.

For example CAM UnZip 4.42 helps you open, create and modify ZIP files easily and quickly. It can unzip any zip file pretty easily in a short amount of time,  list the files in the archive, extract all or selected files, offer support for the files that are protected by password, run setup automatically after the files were unzipped if you choo to.

MacZip 1.0.7cb1 is a valuable tool supported by different platforms that can help you both zip and unzip files when you need it and which is made especially for Mac users, but it works just fine with other operating systems like Unix, VMS, Minix, MSDOS, OS/2, Windows NT, Atari, Amiga and Acorn RISC OS.



7-Zip 4.65 unpacks a host of archive formats, including ZIP, TAR, GZ, and its own 7z format. However it is also capable of creating archives for Linux or Unix operating systems. The most important features of this software is its ability to shrink files, which the producers claim is a lot more powerful than ZIP equivalents, of course with the cost of a longer time. The interface is simple and easy to use, with clear instructions. You can use the advanced options, too, and create self-extracting files, or even adjust the level of the compression.

The person who has the idea and designs a software is considered its author and hence he or she has copyrights on it. Even if the software is copied and distributed all over the world, when you buy it , you actually buy the license to use that software for your personal purpose. Purchasing it does not mean that you now own it and so you can do whatever you want with it. You can only copy it a few times for backup purposes. But you cannot copy it in order to offer it to someone else or , even worse, with the purpose of selling it and obtaining some material advantages from it. In fact unauthorized copy and distribution of such software is totally forbidden and is called software piracy.
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If you are curious and consult statistics you will see that a very big percentage of the software used around the world is not genuine, but pirated. I don't need to tell you what are the economic and financial implications of software piracy both for the software producers, but also for the economy of the states where this software is used without a license, as you can figure this out by yourselves. If the software is illegally copied and distributed that goes to the development of the underground trade and that particular country loses a lot of money it would have got otherwise from the legitimate selling of the software. The company producing the software loses the acquisition price for every single item sold on the black market. And because software companies need money to invest in research and the development of future improved software, the lack of funds leads to stagnation or a slow development. So, as you can see, everyone is affected by software piracy, even the people selling the pirated software. They can be traced and found and arrested in the countries where the state respects the copyright law and after that severely punished.



The users of such software without a license can suffer the consequences because very often the software they purchase infests their computers with all kinds of trojans and other computer viruses that can cause serious damage to their computers.

However, Microsoft officials were really funny when they said that if they can't stop software piracy they would prefer people to steal their software instead of the competitors, hoping that one day they will become so addicted or accustomed with it as to purchase a licensed one. Another funny but actually very serious statement belongs to the president of Romania who said that young people from this country learnt how to use a computer and after that turned into valuable computer specialists due to this pirated versions of software, as they were unable to purchase any other kind of software. The incredible thing about this is the fact that the computer industry and sales in such countries developed a lot and are now blooming thanks to software piracy.



In fact this software piracy appeared and resisted mainly in such countries without a precise legislation in this field, for example countries from the Eastern European block that were very tormented after gaining their independence from the Comunism and it took them a while to set up a proper legislation. Other examples are the countries in the Far East like China and Hong Kong and the African countries, too.

Well, in the meantime things have changed a bit and more and more countries respect the copyright law and let's hope in the near future things will get even better than this.