Creative Hub is an initiative borne out of a passion to make people utilize their God’s given talent in an appropriate manner (give glory back to the giver) & this vision of building a creative community was given form the stable of ConQuesTECH (Conquest Technologies).

ConQuesTECH Creative Hub is aimed at providing platforms for the creative minds, gathering creative community and sharpening our mind to be more creative such that Proverb 18:16 is fulfilled, A man’s gift makes room (way) for him.

Aside this, here is the word that launches CREATIVE HUB out. 

... whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report

if there be any virtue & if there be any praise

THINK of these things.

Philipian 4:8

The initiative has launched (& still launching) various platform in achieving it aim of building this community of creative thinkers and we are glad that you are part of this move. 

Creative Hub features RESEARCH & KNOWLEDGE BASE, COLLABORATION & PARTNERSHIP, PROFILING & PORTFOLIO, PROMOTION & ADVERT, COMPETITION & AWARD and WEALTH CREATION (through Content Creation & Publishing).

I welcome you again and again, you may want to share your thought about this initiative. You may do so in the comment session below.

NOTE: Though our topic is on software, yet it does not limit to software, it also includes the file we use software to produce (i.e. every other created content) e.g. books, videos, audio… etc.

Distribution of software entails how software is made available for use. Gone are the days where you have to visit a merchant shop to purchase CD for your software (and other content), the world is now a global village where you can stay in the corner of your room and get anything in a twinkle of an eye. We do not say that other existing medium has been neglected, but our submission is that things are changing which also that we must do everything in our capacity to adapt to the changes.

 A huge amount of resources (both human and material resources) is invested towards making software, yet most of these software are acquired for free by the users of the software. How are the software developers are supposed to have their ROI (Return of Investment) in this manner? 

Apart from this factor which frustrate profitability efforts of the software companies, the world is a competitive world where price of the same product/content varies with no or little significance variance in the quality of the products, even some quality software are cheaper than most of “less quality” software to the extent of some software producing companies offering absolutely free software.

It is a general notion that nothing good is free but by the order of the day and trending situations, we now have free software topping the list as the best software and even far better than the paid software. So, the questions are that “how do these freemium thrive to get their ROI?” and “how would the paid software expect to survive the competitive system?”. The answers to these questions will not be answered here but in the scope 10 of this course “Computer Basics” but there are various classes/instances on how software are distributed, this is what we will deal with.

Paid versus Freemium (Free): Paid software are made available with a price tag, any attempt to get such software without going through normal protocol is “stealing” and one may face the law for such action especially in a law abiding environment whereas, free software are made available without a price (they are completely and absolutely free.

Open source versus Close source: Open source means that the source code of the software is made available by the owner to inspect, modify, readjustment and enhanced another individual while in close source, the owner of the code will not even distribute the source code and even any individual that had an access to the source code by any other means must not inspect, modify, readjustment and enhance the source code, if done otherwise, the fellow is a criminal in the face of the law with the offence of copyright infringement.

"Source code" is the part of software that most computer users don't ever see; it's the code computer programmers can manipulate to change how a piece of software—a "program" or "application"—works. Programmers who have access to a computer program's source code can improve that program by adding features to it or fixing parts that don't always work correctly. - opensource.com 

Most times, open source goes along with free and also close source goes along with paid but this is not always necessary meaning that a software can be free and open source or free and close source and vice versa in the case of paid software.

The profitability of software (especially in the case of freemium/open source) will be discussing in scope 10, and this is beyond software as it applies to other contents and concepts and even the kind of world we are building at ConQuesTECH.

At ConQuesTECH we like to say that we're interested in the ways open source values and principles apply to the world beyond software. We like to think of open source as not only a way to develop and licence computer software, but also an attitude. That the kind of system we are building and that our quest.

Software serves different purposes for different people. Almost every aspects or field of life and occupation has an applicable software.

Though, there are numerous types of software classified based on their uses, applications and functionalities, we have to mention some.

Word processor: for word document preparation e.g. Ms Word, WPS, Kingsoft

Data analysis: for organising, sorting, arranging, managing and analysing data e.g. Excel, SPSS

Computer graphics: for graphical designs through the computer e.g. CorelDraw, Photoshop, Picsart, Autodesk sketchbook, Pixelab.

Internet browsers: browse through the internet e.g. Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Puffin Browser, UC Browser, Opera mini.

Motion graphics and Animation: for making animation, motion graphics; giving life to graphics

Data recovery: Sometimes data may be loss, but through data recovery software you have that chance of getting back your lost data.

Others are text editor, Games, Website interface and management, video editor, audio editor, educational software.

The list is not limited to the mentioned as the application of software in various and numerous field of life is ubiquitous. Also, the uses of the one mention cannot be limited to the writing.

This is the reason why you need to stay in tune with ConQuesTECH for our subsequent publications.

Software ranges from simple to complex base on users’ ability to interact with the interface of such software.

Some software, by their design are designed to be complex (i.e./ used by users [expert] who has prior knowledge/skills) while other are designed to be simple (sometimes termed as WYSIWYG [What you see is what you get] based software).

Some software has both simple and complex aspect in them which allow different level of users to use them based on the concerned aspect mastered and understood.

This could equally apply to HARDWARE.

At ConQuesTECH, we believe that complexity is as a result of not knowing, and it not the major issue by not knowing, but the problem comes when you choose not to know when the knowledge is available, that what’s called ignorance.  This imply that you can know anything even everything. This is 21st century when we almost have equal opportunity and access to knowledge.

Plug-in,  add-in,  add-on, extension OR snap-in

All these are similar in nature,  they are regarded as the kind of module that interacts with another software) to add specific function [add extra Features] or to support specific file format/device and to add features to a software with limited features. 

The terminologies  that could be used in place of the above are not limited to these,  it may be called any other name in any other software.  For example,  in Photoshop,  we have terms such as brush,  style,  action... 

In a simple term,  I Call them ADDITIVES. 

This scenario will be explained further in course scope 3 (THE DOCUMENT) 

Hybridised 

When packages are in combined state of the previously mentioned (of different OS, as a PC software, as a mobile apps, even as in emulators,  existing both as offline/local package OR as a cloud/online package.

For example,  Microsoft Office packages have it from in offline package as well as online features within it; it cloud feature could be used as standalone without even the application/software, all you need is to log-in to Me office website through any browser using our account details.  It also transcend through PC software or rather make a choice of using a mobile apps (smartphones/tablet).

Many other software is also constructed in this manner eg Adobe, Google apps.

File format (type/extension)

File in computing goes beyond pieces of papers but almost everything we can even observe as long as software is concerned.  Even software program) is a kind of file. In Android we have the apk,  window we have exe/msi,... In Java, we have jar,  jad.

File is  of different type which may be based on area where it maybe applicable,  we have images,  audio,  books,  videos, 3D, application software, GIS,  file archivers/compressors, textual and document,  scripts and code...  etc. File type deals with such file performs. 

File extension is the sub-type of the file type which performs similar function. It is identified by "dot" extension eg. .jpg, .png,  .gif

All the above examples are of the same type i.e. they are all image file type,  but each have it unique properties that is peculiar to it.  Some software support some format/extension, while some don't (in terms of reading and writing) 

Other extension include  .pdf,  .doc,   .docx,   .ppt,   .epub,   .mp3,  .mp4,  .mkv,  .aac,   .psd,   .cdr,   .iso,   .zip,   .rar,  .ico...   etc. 

NOTE: It should be noted that this extension is different from the extension in terms of Plug-in and Co.