| A | B |
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| 286, 386, 486 (or 80286, 80386, 80486) | Three generations of PC processor, now pretty much obsolete, the ancestors of the Pentium. The 286 was the earliest processor able to run (just about) a version of Windows, although a 386 is really the minimum to run it properly. The 486 was the earliest processor able to run Windows 95. Slowly. |
| ADSL | (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) A method of connecting a computer to the internet over an ordinary phone line using ethernet office networking technology instead of an ordinary modem, which produces a much faster (broadband)connection. Asymmetric because it is faster from internet to PC than the other way (also true of a 56K modem). |
| AFAICS, AFAIK, AFAIR | (As Far As I Can See/Know/Recall) Internet slang. |
| AGP | (Advanced Graphics Port) A special slot on the PC motherboard for the latest graphics cards, and the format of the cards themselves. Standard on new PCs from 1998. |
| AIUI | (As I Understand It) Internet slang. |
| AMD | AMD is a leading manufacturer of processor chips for PCs, including the Athlon and Duron chips. |
| AOL | (America On Line) An Internet Service Provider, or ISP. AOL were in business as a large commercial bulletin board before the internet really took off. Now they are an ISP specialising in family-friendly internet access. |
| Applet | A small program used to carry out a particular task, often on a web page. See Java. |
| Application | Software used to carry out a particular task, such as word processing or desktop publishing. Essentially another word for program. |
| Architecture | The basic design of a computer's hardware. Computers with different architecture, such as the PC and the Mac, cannot run each others' programs. |
| ASCII | (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) An early and very basic format for text files, standard across pretty much all computers and mail systems. It only includes upper and lower case letters, numbers, and standard punctuation marks, but more sophisticated text formats still tend to be based on it. An ASCII file is a basic text-only file generated by a program like Notepad. |
| ATAPI | (ATtachment PAcket Interface) An upgrade to EIDE which allows the hard disk controller to control CD drives as well. Almost all CD drives are controlled this way. |
| Athlon | A PC processor - AMD, the other leading chip manufacturer's equivalent to Intel's Pentium. Like the Pentium, constantly being upgraded. You will often see a number such as 2700 following the word Athlon, which is a rough measure of the processor's speed - the higher the number, the faster the chip. |
| ATM | (At The Moment) Internet slang. |
| Attachment | A file sent by email is "attached" to the email. An attachment can be a picture, a word processor document, a program or any other type of file. You should never open an attachment if you are not sure what it is, because some viruses propagate as email attachments; but they can't infect your machine if you don't open the attachment. |
| AUP | (Acceptable Use Policy) A document setting out what an Internet Service Provider deems an acceptable use of their services, usually published on their website. Typically it will forbid the publication of obscene or defamatory material, and sending email or newsgroup spam. If you violate your ISP's AUP, they will usually close your account down immediately. |
| Backup, back up | An extra copy of your work, eg documents, pictures etc, saved onto floppy disk/CD/tape, so that if your computer is stolen or breaks down you don't lose everything. |
| Backwards-compatible | A program (or system) designed to work with data generated by earlier versions of itself, even though the format may since have changed completely. |
| Bandwidth | A measure of total amount of data transferred over a period of time, often used to measure how busy a website is. A webhost will usually base its charges on the bandwidth a website uses, ie how much data per month is requested from it. |
| BIOS | (Basic Input/Output System; pr. "by-oss") A program built into every PC for setting up very basic things, like how many hard and floppy disks you have and what type they are; the first thing that loads when you start your PC. You usually only need to access the BIOS if you are upgrading your hardware, eg adding more RAM or an extra disk drive, or setting a power-on password. BIOS settings are stored in a special type of memory called CMOS. |
| Bit | The smallest unit of information in a computer, can either equal 0 or 1. Eight bits equal one byte. |
| Bitmap | See bmp. |
| Bluetooth | A high-speed wireless communication system for PCs and other computing devices. The industry is very excited about it, but the few Bluetooth devices that have made it to market so far won't always communicate with each other reliably, so it has yet to really take off. |
| bmp | (BitMaP) A standard type of graphics file. An uncompressed format, so the files tend to be fairly big. |
| Boot, boot up | Usually used to mean "start up the computer". Literally, the process of loading up the operating system and getting the computer ready for use. See Reboot. |
| Boot disk | A floppy disk (usually) which holds a copy of the operating system, or enough of it to start the computer, useful if the computer won't start up properly from the hard disk. |
| Bot | (roBOT) A semi-automated program, usually performing a function on the internet such as indexing webpages or sorting email. |
| bps | (Bits Per Second) A measure of how quickly information is being transferred, usually via a modem or network. Divide by ten to get an approximation of the number of characters per second (cps). See also Kbps, Mbps. |
| BRB | (Be Right Back) Internet slang. |
| Broadband | Internet access over a connection much faster than an ordinary modem, such as ADSL or cable. |
| Browser | A program used for viewing World Wide Web pages on the Internet. The most widely used is Microsoft's Internet Explorer. |
| BTW | (By The Way) Internet slang. |
| Buffer | A temporary storage area for data, often used to "smooth out" incoming audio or video streams. Several seconds worth of material is stored in the buffer and it is then played back from there, so that if there is a brief interruption in the stream your music or whatever doesn't stop. |
| Bug | Error, especially in a program, that has been missed in testing. The story goes that the original bug was an insect that got itself cremated inside an electrical circuit in an early computer, causing it to fail (and I don't suppose the insect enjoyed it much, either). It took them ages to figure out what was causing the problem, and when they eventually found the bug the story passed into legend. |
| Bulletin Board | A semi-public area which computer users can connect to using a modem, to read and post messages and/or exchange files. Bulletin boards are rapidly going out of fashion as more and more people connect to the Internet, and are being replaced by websites. |
| Burn | Create a CD. |
| Byte | A basic unit of measurement for pieces of information; the space required to store one character. See also Bit,Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte. |
| Cache | A temporary storage area for frequently or recently used data, either in memory, on your hard disk or the internet. For example, if you go back to a webpage you have recently visited, your PC will usually be able to display it from a cache on your hard disk, so it won't need to download it from the internet again. |
| CAD | (Computer Aided Design) Software used to produce complex technical drawings by designers and engineers. |
| CCD | (Charge Coupled Device) The component of a scanner or digital camera which actually takes the pictures. The quality of image it is capable of is usually measured in Megapixels - the higher the number, the better the image. |
| CD Burner | A CD drive that can create ("burn") CDs. |
| CD-ROM | (Compact Disk-Read Only Memory) A misnomer, as strictly speaking it is not memory but storage. Identical to standard music CDs. Currently the most popular medium for releasing programs on, as it can hold literally hundreds of times as much information as a standard floppy disk, about 650 Megabytes in total. |
| CD-RW | (Compact Disk-ReWriter) A CD drive which can create CDs, either audio or data, using special rewriteable CDs which are also often called CD-RWs. A CD-RW drive can also create ordinary CDs, though not rewrite them. |
| Celeron | A PC processor - Intel's budget chip, cheaper than the Pentium, but also less powerful. |
| Character | A letter of the alphabet, number, space or punctuation mark is a character. |
| Cluster | Data stored on a disk is spread across a number of clusters, small physical areas on the disk. How big they are depends on the way the disk is formatted - generally a few kilobytes each. |
| CMOS | (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor; pr. "see-moss") A special type of memory which retains its data when the PC is switched off, used to store settings for things like what type of hard disk you have, and how much memory. The settings are accessed via the BIOS. |
| CMYK | (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Keystone black ) The standard four colours used by most printers - almost any colour can be created out of these. See also RGB. |
| codec | (COmpressor/DECompressor) A small piece of computer code that tells the computer how to decode particular types of information, usually video files. If your video player won't play a particular format, you can usually download and install a codec which will tell it how from the internet. |
| Compatible | Compatible pieces of equipment can work together; incompatible ones can't. "PC Compatible" or "100% compatible", said of a computer, means that it is built to the PC standard and so can run any PC programs and use any standard PC peripherals. |
| Compression | A way of making files smaller, either to fit into restricted storage space or to speed up transmission over the Internet. Popular compression standards include JPEG and GIF for pictures, MP3 for music files, and zip for just about everything else. |
| Cookie | A small data file stored on your computer by a website, in theory to allow it to "remember" your preferences, but in practise mostly used to track which adverts you have seen. You can set most browsers to reject all cookies, or to ask your permission before storing them, but this can generate multiple error messages on some websites and is generally more hassle than it's worth - they are pretty harmless. |
| cps | (Characters Per Second) A measure of how quickly information, particularly text, is being transferred over a modem link or network. See also bps. |
| CPU | (Central Processing Unit) The nerve centre of the computer : everything flows through it. Often just called "the processor". The best known, thanks to a barrage of advertising, is Intel's Pentium, now in its fourth incarnation, imaginatively called the Pentium 4. |
| Crack, cracked | A crack is a small program intended to defeat software's copy protection, thus allowing unlicensed copies to be made - stealing it, in effect. Software that is distributed with its copy protection disabled or bypassed has been "cracked". |
| Crash | When a computer program or operating system stops working completely or almost completely it (or the computer) is said to have "crashed". When a computer crashes it usually needs to be rebooted before it can be used again. See also lockup. |
| CRT | (Cathode Ray Tube) The imaging technology used in most desktop monitors. Provides an excellent colour display, but is extremely bulky and is now being gradually supplanted by TFT. |
| CSS | (Cascading Style Sheets) A set of HTML commands used to control the style of web pages, more complex than the <FONT> tag-set it is intended to replace, but also more powerful and particularly useful for retaining a uniform style across a large website. Generally only used by professional web designers. |
| Data | Any information created by a user, such as documents, pictures or sound recordings. |
| Database | A program used for organising any kind of information on a computer into a searchable form, anything from a list of contacts to a complex stock control system. |
| DDR | (Double Data Rate) A very fast type of RAM for a PC, originally only used on high performance graphics cards but now being used for general memory in most high-end PCs. |
| Default | A default setting is one you haven't changed - what a program will do (or use) if you dont tell it any different. "Accept the defaults" means leave any settings as they are. |
| Desktop | A computer designed to sit on a desk (as opposed to a laptop). In Windows, it also means the screen you see when you aren't running any programs, with "My Computer", the Recycle Bin and so on. |
| Digital | Literally "to do with numbers". Often used to describe a device using computer technology to replace older, traditional technologies. For example, a digital camera is one that stores images electronically rather than on chemical film. |
| DIMM | (Dual In-line Memory Module; pr. "dim") A module of RAM (memory) for a PC, replacing the older SIMM specification. |
| Directory | An area on a disk for storing files, particularly in DOS. Usually called a folder in Windows. |
| Disk | Generic term for a type of storage device, such as a hard disk or a floppy disk (diskette). So called because the important part, where the information is actually stored, is circular, although you can't see it because it is hidden away inside a protective shell. |
| Diskette | Also known as a floppy disk. Called a diskette because it was smaller than the original huge floppy disks, now long obsolete. |
| Domain | An internet address owned by a company, organisation or individual, such as jonstorm.com, nasa.gov or bbc.co.uk. See also TLD, How web addresses work. |
| Dongle | A small hardware device used for copy protection with some software. The dongle must be plugged in to a port on the computer, often the printer port, or the software won't function. |
| DOS | (Disk Operating System; pr. "doss") DOS was the standard operating system for PCs until Windows 95 came out. Will run on any PC. Controlled by typing in text commands and has several serious limitations, but requires a much less powerful computer than Windows 95 and there is a huge library of software available for it. |
| DoS | (Denial of Service) A form of attack on (usually) an internet service, which aims to prevent the service from operating properly, often by bombarding it with more information than it can process. See also Mailbomb. |
| Download | To transfer information (files) from a network (such as the Internet) onto a user PC. See also upload. |
| dpi | (Dots Per Inch) A measure of picture quality, often used to measure printer capabilities. The higher the number, the better the quality. |
| Driver | A small program used by the operating system to control hardware such as a sound or video card. Often downloading the latest driver for a device from the manufacturer's website will improve its functionality. |
| Duron | A PC processor - AMD's budget chip, cheaper than the Athlon but also less powerful. |
| DVD | (Digital Versatile Disk) A more advanced version of the standard CD which can hold far more information, now standard on most new PCs. Widely used for high-quality digital movies. DVD drives can usually also read ordinary CDs. |
| DVD RW, DVD Writer | (Digital Versatile Disk ReWriter) A DVD drive that can create ("write") rewriteable DVDs. There are several competing formats at the moment, largely incompatible with each other, though some drives support more than one format. It is likely that one of these formats will become standard in time, but at the moment it is not clear which. To add to the confusion, they tend to have very similar names : for example DVD+RW and DVD-RW are completely different formats, and incompatible with each other. |
