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ATA => (AT Attachment) More commonly known as IDE, the "AT" refers to the IBM-AT computer where this interface was first used.
ATA-33 => An extension to the ATA interface (IDE) that will effectively double the top data transfer speed up to 33 Mbps. Also known as Ultra-IDE.
ATM => (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) A networking protocol designed to move multimedia data around with high reliability and speed. Some ISPs use ATM as the protocol for their backbones.
ATX Form Factor => The ATX form factor specification takes the original baby AT-sized motherboard, rotates it 90 degrees, and calls for a power supply with a side-mounted fan that cools not only the power supply, but also the processor and add-in boa...
AUI => This is a synonym for the 10Base-5 Thicknet Ethernet standard.
Availability => This is a measure of how much time a network or a connection is running. Generally, the equation is: Time Running / Time Measured (time running divided by time measured). Thus, if you measured something for 20 minutes, and it was only...
Backbone => A segment of a network that's often a higher speed than therest of the network and connects all the other segments. If you don'thave a fast backbone, your network will lag. That's why a lot of ISPs areconstantly restructuring their backbo...
Bandwidth => This is a measure, in some amount of bits per second, of theamount of data that can be sent over a particular cable, interface, orbus.
BASIC => (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) Thisprogramming language was developed in the mid '60s. The language wasconstructed of simple English-like commands that were run through aninterpreter, line by line, each time the program w...
Batch => A group of commands that are executed one at a time. Same asscript.
Baud => The measure of how frequently sound changes on a phone line. Thisused to be the measure of speed of modems because they worked by bruteforce and actually made a sound for each bit of information. Now, modemswork on a more sophisticated level....
Bilinear and Trilinear Filtering => This is used to smooth flat surfacesby averaging the colors of adjacent pixels, which blurs them and removesblockiness when viewed up close.
Binary code => Binary consists of a string of bits, i.e. 01010111000000001
BIOS => (Basic Input Output System) This makes your computer speak thesame language as every other computer, making accessing video and thekeyboard standard.
Bit => This is the smallest unit of measure in a computer. It isrepresented by a 0 (off) or 1 (on). You can think of a bit as a switch.If it's in the on position, it's a 1, and if the switch is off, it's a 0.All parts of your computer communicate in ...
Bit depth => How many bits it takes to represent the color in one pixel.The larger the bit depth, the more colors you can display and the morepower it takes to display.
Black box => Anything that you put input into and get output from, butdon't know what's inside or how it works.BLOB (Binary Large OBject) => A BLOB is a data type used in a relationaldatabase that can contain any type of binary data, including sound,...
Boolean logic => This is the form of logic where every answer is eithertrue or false. Alternately, you can think of it as either 0 or 1, where 0= false and 1 = true.
Boot => This is a verb meaning to load. You can say thatyou are booting your machine, or that your operating system is bootingup.
BPS => (bits per second) This is generally a measure of how fast somedevice communicates, usually in thousands of bits per second (Kbps) ormillions of bits per second (Mbps).
Bridge => Bridges link two or more network segments that use the samenetwork technology. The network topologies do not have to be the same,i.e. you can bridge Ethernet and Token Ring. If the protocols are not thesame on segments, then you've got a ro...
Browser => Most commonly used to refer to a software program used to lookat World Wide Web pages.
Bug => This is commonly an error in design or programming in a hardwaredevice or piece of software. The effects of a bug may be as harmless asan extra graphic on the screen, or as harmful as a system crash or lossof data. See also Feature.
Bus => A bus is simply a data path between devices. The computer's systembus is what peripherals use to send and receive data from the processorand main memory.
Bus mouse => A mouse that uses the smaller 6-pin connector instead of yourcomputer's serial port. Also referred to as a PS/2 mouse because of itsearly adoption by the IBM PS/2 series of computers.
Bus speed => This is a measurement, usually in MHz, of how many times datacan be transferred over the bus per second.
Bus Topology => This network topology has computers connected to a strandof network cabling that is connected to network repeaters at one end andterminated at the other. If you break part of the cable or remove theterminator, all machines on that seg...
Byte => Simply put, it's 8 bits. Think of it as a string of 1s and 0s thatrepresents a number from 0 to 255. For example '01100101' is one byte ofinformation.
C => This is a programming language developed in the late '70s. It became hugely popular due to the development of UNIX, which was written almost entirely in C. C was written by programmers for programmers and it lets you write code in sloppy ways th...
C++ => This is an extension of the C programming language that adds object-oriented concepts.
Cable Modem => Cable companies are working to provide Internet access over coaxial cable. That's right, the cable that you plug into your VCR or TV. A cable modem accepts this coaxial cable and can get data from the Internet at up to and above 1.5 Mb...
Cache memory => Generally a small chunk of fast memory that sits between either 1) a smaller, faster chunk of memory and a bigger, slower chunk of memory, or 2) a processor and a bigger, slower chunk of memory. This is to provide a bridge from someth...
Cat 3, 4, 5 => See Category 3, 4, or 5 cable standards.
Category 3 cable standard => Cat 3 cable is certified to run at up to 16 MHz. You can achieve speeds of up to 10 Mbps on Cat 3 cable. This cable maxes out with standard 10 Mbps Ethernet.
Category 4 cable standard => Cat 4 cable is certified to run at up to 20 MHz. You can achieve speeds of up to 16 Mbps, such as with the 16 Mbps token-ring standard.
Category 5 cable standard => This is the latest and greatest copper wire standard. It uses an RJ-45 plug like Cat 3, and 4, and 4-pair wire, but it is certified to run up to 100 MHz and is suitable for 100 Mbps wiring standards. The guys that wired u...
CAV => (Constant Angular Velocity) This refers to a spinning disk. As data is read from the disk, the drive motor spins at the same speed. For example, CD-drives that work at CAV will read data at 12x towards the center and 20x towards the edge, wher...
CD-R => (Compact Disk Recordable) CD-R drives will record up to 650 MB of data onto specialized CD-R media. The media is expensive compared to the mass-produced CDs that software is generally distributed on, but cheap for the amount of data you can s...
CD-ROM => (Compact Disk Read Only Media) CD-ROM media is read-only media that holds 650 MB of data. It's generally accepted as the easiest way to distribute software. CD-ROM drives can also read music CDs even though they are in a different format th...
CGI => (Common Gateway Interface) This interface allows scripts or programs to run on a Web server. All Web servers support CGI scripting. You can make a CGI script do pretty much anything a computer program can. Most commonly, they are implemented t...
Channel => This refers to the group of resellers that supply most companies with software, hardware, and support. The channel is a force to be reckoned with, and it competes directly against companies like Gateway 2000 and Dell. A channel can also be...
CIR => (Committed Information Rate) This term is used by ISPs to represent an amount of data that you should, on the average, be able to draw through your connection to them. This is measured in kilobits or megabits per second.
CISC => (Complex Instruction Set Computer) Intel x86 chips are CISC chips because of the complexity of the instruction set. On the other side of the coin, you have RISC chips that use a reduced instruction set. RISC chips split big operations into lo...
Client/Server => Client server technology came about when computers began to cost less. Mainframes are very expensive, and didn't give users much personal freedom. The client/server model promised to change that scenario and it's much more popular to...
Clock chipping => Synonym for over-clocking.
Clock Cycle => Think of a clock cycle as one tick of the second hand (but generally at a much higher speed). Computer clocks run voltage through a tiny crystal that oscillates at a predictable speed to give a meaningful timing method to the computer....
Clustering => Clustering is an up-and-coming technology using two or more computers that function together as a single entity for fault tolerance and load balancing. This increases reliability and up-time in a client/server environment. One computer ...
CLV => (Constant Linear Velocity) In terms of disk drives, it means that the rate of data being read off of the disk stays the same from center to outer edge. To accomplish this, the drive motor speeds up and slows down as data is read from different...
CMOS => (Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) This is the common reference for the BIOS preferences in your computer. Actually, it is a low power version of a chip. The low power comes into play because it is what commonly holds your BIOS prefere...
Coaxial cable => This is the original Ethernet cable. It consists of a single, insulated copper wire, surrounded by a copper braid or foil. The wire is then coated with plastic. Coaxial cable is used in bus topology.
COBOL => (COmmon Business-Oriented Language) This is a programming language developed in the '60s by several computer companies and the US Department of Defense. COBOL is still used today for programming business applications and COBOL programmers ar...
Code => A series of instructions that make up a program.
Code generator => A code generator is part of a compiler. It takes intermediate code and translates it into the final workable code in the target language.
Coily => Enemy of Q-Bert.
COM => (Component Object Model) This is a Microsoft specification that describes methods of communication between components. For example, if you were to drag an item over a window, the item and window would have some rules of communication that they...
Compiler => A compiler translates a computer program from one language into another, catching any errors in syntax along the way. Most commonly, you translate some high level language, such as C++ or COBOL, into optimized machine language. This form ...
Compression => Takes something large and makes it smaller. Compression generally comes in two forms, lossy and lossless. Lossy compression is best used on graphics files and sound files. It crunches down the data at a much higher ratio, at the expens...
Computer => Technically, this is anything that inputs data, processes it in some way, and outputs it.
Control Program for Microprocessors (CP/M) => CP/M was THE operating system before IBM created the PC. IBM was shopping for an OS for the PC, ended up going with Microsoft, and Bill Gates created DOS. CP/M is not really used on anything but fossils a...
Convergence => The ability of the three electron beams (red, green and blue) in a CRT monitor to meet at a single point and produce one dot. If a monitor is mis-converging, you will notice shadows of blue or red around any white images. Often, this w...
Cookie => Web sites send these to your browser so that the site is customized based on your previous actions on that site. For example, someday UGeek may send a cookie to your browser to let us know whether you are a new visitor or if you've been her...
Core => In UNIX systems this term is commonly used in reference to core dumps.
Core Dump => In UNIX systems, when a program crashes, it "dumps" out an image of the memory and registers so that you may go through and see what caused the problem. This is almost as useful as the Netware and Windows NT memory dumps (which is not ve...
CP/M => see Control Program for Microprocessors.
CPU => (Central Processing Unit) Think of this as the brains of the computer. When most people think of processors, they think of Intel. The Pentium and Pentium Pro are CPUs.
CRC => (Cyclic Redundancy Check) A mathematical calculation that produces a number that can be used to check the integrity of a file by regenerating the number and comparing the results.
CRT => (Cathode Ray Tube) This is one of the main components of monitors and TVs. A beam of electrons is shot towards the CRT and as they collide with phosphors on the inside surface, they produce light. Today, other technologies are performing bette...
CTI => (Computer Telephony Integration) Simply put, this represents the integration of your computer and telephone. Its serious uses include dial-up registration, fax-back systems, and other systems that record your information by telephone access. A...
Cyberspace => This term was coined to refer to the vast expanses of the Internet. Just as space is infinite, the Internet is, well, pretty darn big. It just sounded cooler than "Internet" to the news media. 
Daisy Wheel printer => A printer that uses a wheel with all the characters on it to produce output. These printers generally aren't used much any more due to the decreased cost of other printers that can produce graphics as well as text. The one good...
DAT => (Digital Audio Tape) This type of magnetic tape at one point threatened to supplant the normal audio cassette with a better quality alternative. Unfortunately, it never really took off due to idiotic licensing issues that kept its price high. ...
Data => Information. Any series of bits, characters or objects that has meaning. Data is stored and transmitted by computers.
Data type => This refers to the type of data that is being used in a computer program. Different types of data take up different amounts of space. Some common data types are integer, float (for floating point numbers), or string (for a text string). ...
Database => An ordered set of data.
DB-25 => This is the name for the connector used for parallel ports on PCs.
DCOM => (Distributed COM (Component Object Model)) This is yet another Microsoft technology. It is a version of the COM that is designed to work across networks and, specifically, the Internet.
Desktop Case => A computer case designed to sit on your desktop. It's wider than it is tall.
Device Bay Interface Specification => This is a new specification designed to provide a simple and generic way of interfacing computers and their components. Device Bay devices will be about the size of a VCR tape and will interface via the USB or Fi...
Diamondtron => This is Mitsubishi's answer to Sony's Trinitron. Instead of rectangular pixels, Diamondtron used diamond-shaped ones which supposedly offer crisper text.
DIB => (Dual Independent Bus) This is the bus architecture between Intel's Pentium II processor, memory, and L2 cache. One bus connects the processor to L2 cache and a second connects the processor to main memory. Having two buses instead of one incr...
Die size => Simply put, this is the two dimensional (length by width) measurement of a microprocessor. The thickness of the processor is not considered. For example, a die size may be 384 square millimeters.
Digital => Digital implies a value represented by a group of discrete steps. Some claim that digital representations of images and sound are more accurate; others that the translation of analog sounds and pictures into digital representations causes ...
Digital Control => This is a control that doesn't directly cause a physical change in something, but rather sends a signal that a processor interprets. The processor then makes the change. An example of a digital control would be a television set wit...
DIMM => (Dual In-Line Memory Module) Very much like a SIMM except that they are larger and you need only one in place of two SIMMs. DIMMs are 64-bit memory devices, so you just need a single DIMM for a processer with a 64-bit memory path to work prop...
DirectDraw => A set of APIs for Windows 95 and NT that allow programmers to directly access the video controller, allowing for faster graphics response.
DirectPC => TCP/IP over satellite. This is a system for going on the Internet by satellite at about 800 Kbps. Unfortunately, you also need a modem to be able to send anything to the Internet because the satellite is one way only.
DirectX => A Microsoft technology that works under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.x. Basically, it's a set of APIs that allow programmers to access more directly sound and graphics capabilities of the computer allowing for, among other things, great gam...
Disk Duplexing => See RAID 1
Disk Mirroring => See RAID 1
Disk Striping => See RAID 0
Disk Striping with Parity => See RAID 5
DLL => (Dynamic Link Library) This is a library of procedures that programs can call with input. The DLL produces output related to that input.
DLT => (Digital Linear Tape) A technology designed by DEC and sold to Quantum used for backing up huge amounts of data (up to 35 GB per tape without compression, 70 GB with compression). The drives are very expensive and so is the media, but they are...
DMA => (Direct Memory Access) PCs have DMA channels that allow certain devices to directly access memory in order to speed up the process.
DMI => (Desktop Management Interface) This interface standard is designed to allow PCs to intelligently broadcast information on their system configurations and support remote management so that they can be managed more easily.
DMTF => (Desktop Management Task Force) This motley crew was assembled to create the DMI standard.
DNS => (Domain Name Service) This service maps TCP/IP numbers such as 123.12.4.245 to a more easily remembered name, such as www.ugeek.com. Thus, when you type www.ugeek.com into your browser, it goes out to the DNS server you specified when you inst...
DNS Entry => The DNS routing tables are filled with DNS entries that map TCP/IP addresses to more easily recognized names. If your browser says it can't find a particular DNS entry, here are some possible reasons: => You may not be able to communicat...
Domain name => Domain names are used to represent more complex TCP/IP addresses. For example, we purchased the UGeek.com domain name so we could use it to represent our server's address. You purchase domain names through the InterNIC. They can be rea...
Domain Name Service => See DNS.
DOS => (Disk Operating System) This OS is what got it all started for PCs.
Dot Matrix Printer => This type of printer prints out little dots that can form graphics or characters. This type of printer was popular a while back because the only other choice was a daisy-wheel printer that didn't print any graphics. These printe...
Dot Pitch => The smaller the better, as it relates to monitors. The dot pitch is a measure of distance between phosphor dots of the same color on a CRT monitor. A high dot pitch generally produces a blurred and unclear picture. Smaller dot pitches pr...
Double Buffering => This shows you that the graphics engine uses two layers, or buffers, to produce an image: one for display and one for rendering. Since the viewer only sees the finished image, this allows for smooth-motion animation. (Again, play ...
DPMA => (Dynamic Power Management Architecture) This architecture allows computers to have a variety of advanced power management features.
DRAM => (Dynamic Random Access Memory) The standard and cheapest memory available. The fastest DRAM is about 60 nanoseconds. This is the most common form of computer memory. It needs to be continually refreshed in order to properly hold data, thus th...
Drive Bay => Usually a 5.25"-wide 1"-tall hole in a computer case, suitable for the installation of some sort of drive. Some are exposed so that a removable drive (e.g., floppy, CD-ROM) can fit. Some are not exposed and are meant for hard drives, tap...
Driver => A driver is software that works to communicate between an operating system and a peripheral. Think of it as a translator. If you use a crappy driver, your OS won't understand your video card and may become unstable and crash. Hardware manuf...
DS-0 => (Digital Signal level 0) This is the signal used to carry a standard analog or digital phone line connection. 24 DS-0 connections can be carried on a T1 line. The speed of the signal is either 64 Kbps, or 56 Kbps if the eighth bit is used for...
DS-1 => (Digital Signal level 1) Synonym for T1.
DS-3 => (Digital Signal level 3) Synonym for T3.
DS-4 => (Digital Signal level 4) Synonym for T4.
DSP => (Digital Signal Processor) A DSP is a microprocessor designed to work with analog signals such as video or audio that have been digitally encoded. The DSP then takes these digital representations and performs operations on them. DSPs are used ...
DSTN => (Double-layer Supertwist Nematic) This is a form of passive matrix LCD screen. It is an improved version of the standard supertwist nematic passive matrix LCD screen where the display is divided into two sections and addressed separately to d...
Dual boot => This describes a system that can boot to two different operating systems. Some OSs, such as Windows NT and OS/2, allow for dual booting when installed. Of course, you can also use other methods such as commercial programs that install a ...
Dualscan => Refers to a passive matrix LCD screen that uses a better method of displaying graphics, producing a sharper, more vivid image than normal passive matrix screens.
Dumb Terminal => These are hooked up to mainframes, and are little more than a monitor attatched to a keyboard. All they are good for is running programs using the mainframe's hard drive and memory.
DVD => (Digital Variable/Versatile/Video Disc) Much like a CD-ROM except that it stores up to 12 times as much and is re-writeable. Although the industry claims that DVD really stands for NOTHING, I think otherwise. DVD is the successor to CD-ROM tec...
EBCDIC => see Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code.
EBIOS => (Enhanced BIOS) The EBIOS translates between the partition table limitations of a standard computer BIOS and the IDE limitations to provide up to 8 GB of storage space using the IDE interface. Your computer's BIOS has maximums of 1024 cylind...
ECC => (Error Checking and Correcting) Generally refers to memory chips, or motherboards that support this type of behavior in full-parity memory chips. ECC memory uses some extra memory on the memory chips for parity information and checks to see wh...