Meadowlark: Sheffield based computer consultancy

Programming languages and tools we use.

Microsoft Visual Basic Script

VBscript is Microsofts proprietory scripting language for the web.

It is used as a server side language for the presentation of dynamic content. Typically that content originates from a database of some sort, perhaps a Microsoft Access .mdb file, or perhaps a MSSQL server. The former would be for small numbers of concurrent users, the latter for large numbers.

VBScript is often used in conjunction with Active Server Pages (ASP) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Web scripting languages work differently to conventional languages in that the script resides on the server. The user makes a call to some scripted page, and that page then replies by sending back an HTML page that the script generates.

VBScript is a popular and relatively easy to use scripting language that has recently been upstaged by C#, VB.NET, and ASP.NET

What you can expect from computer hardware in the future?

1. Smaller faster, cheaper, lighter computers for the desktop.  They will be no larger than a DVD drive.  They will be silent, and run free software, and much of this will be web based.  They will use solid state disks, and large quantities of cheap memory.

2. More powerful mobile phones will largely replace traditional PCs.  The screens of mobiles will occupy as much of the phone as physicallly possible.  "Soft buttons will have largely replaced mechanical buttons in top of the range phones.

3. Sophisticated screen display technology will be available that will allow us to use bigger computer monitors in smaller less likely workplaces.

4. Micro-factories: places of work no bigger than a loft extension, where budding entrepreneurs labour in their free time "printing" products with 3D printers and selling their wares by the internet.