Your Technology Glossary
What do those weird computer terms mean?
Hoax or Uban Legend -
In computer terms, these are usually emails started to scare people into forwarding the memo to everyone they know. A Hoax is a false threat, usually worded as if it were warning you of a virus or other potential threat. An urban legend is very similar, however, these may not necessarily target your computer, but your life instead. For example: You may have heard about the one telling us not to flash your brights back at someone when they flash them at you because it is a gang initiation. This is a false story or urban legend intended to scare you. Visit www.urbanlegendsonline.com for more of these stories.
Blog or Weblog -
These are very popular these days online. A Blog is an online log or journal that people keep about nearly any topic that interests them. Usually these are kept in a place where others can see them online as well. Blogs allow others to "peek" into your private life and let others know about your thoughts.
Podcast -
A Podcast is like a broadcast of media, usually audio, that nearly anyone can create. Podcasts are downloaded, usually onto Portable media device, like an iPod so they can be played back at a later date. These are great for traveling when you might not have the ability to listen to live broadcasts, like in an airplane. They are also fairly easy to create and share, so even the average user can tell a story to capture your attention and share it with the world.
Hijack -
No, this isn't the kind where someone captures an airplane and all of the passengers onboard. This type of hijack usually hits a lot closer to home. It is a computer program, like a virus that will actually take over parts of your computer. For example, if you were hijacked, your Internet home page might keep changing to some advertiser's page. You might also continuously get annoying pop-ups when you are online. These programs are usually extremely hard to remove because they hide so well and just keep re-creating the programs that you uninstall to get rid of the hijack. A hijack is usually fixed by backing up your data and wiping out your hard drive with fresh installation of Windows.
Memory Key -
(Also known as a Thumb Drive or USB Drive). A small device, usually about the size of a cigarette lighter that can store as much as 500+ floppy disks and can be used on most computers with a USB port. This is a much better way to carry files around these days.
Ghz or Gigahertz -
Breaking down this word, Giga means "billion" in computer lingo and a hertz is a cycle or calculation. So one gigahertz is a billion cycles or processes per second. This term is used to measure the speed of most modern computers. For example 2.8 gigaherts. Speeds of today's fast computers are around 3.8Ghz.
Mhz or Megahertz -
A speed rating of older computers. "Mega" in computer lingo means a million. So one megahertz is one million cycles per second. Today this term is used to measure the speed of memory chips. You might see something like this: 512mb 444mhz RAM. The "444" is measuring that many cycles per second into and out of the memory.
RAM or Memory -
The short-term storage for information in your computer. When you first open a program, many of the commands or processes are initially stored in RAM. They will stay there until there is not enough space anymore or the process has not been used in a while and then it will be erased or transferred over to the hard disk. Memory used to be farily interchangeable, but these days, memory is much more specific to each computer model. Memory is not only getting larger and cheaper, but it is also getting faster. Memory is not only referred to in how many megabytes or gigabytes, but it is also measured by speed in mhz or megahertz.
Megabyte, Gigabyte and Terabyte-
These terms are both used to measure the amount of storage space. You'll often see hard disk drives measured in gigabytes and other media in megabytes. For example a 3.5" floppy disk is 1.44mb or megabytes. Modern hard disks or hard drives are anywhere from 160gb (gigabytes) to 1tb or 1 terabyte (a trillion bytes).
Memory Key or Thumbdrive -
A small device about the size of a cigarette lighter that is used to store electronic files like word processing documents, pictures, etc. These devices are taking the place of the old 3.5" floppy drive. A typical memory key will hold as many as 85+ floppy disks (128bm) and cost as little as $30. Most memory keys are measured in megabytes and range from 8mb to over 1gb.
CDRW and DVDRW -
This is a compact disk used for writing data in a computer and is intended for multiple uses. It needs to be formatted the first time before using and then it will act like another hard disk in your computer. When the disk is inserted after it has been formatted, you can simply copy and paste files using "My Computer" just like you would copy and paste files on your "C" drive. A CDRW will hold about 700mb of data and a DVDRW will hold about 4.7gb of data (almost 7 times more than a CDRW). You cannot use a DVDRW in a CDRW drive but you can use both a CDRW and DVDRW disk in DVD ReWriteable drives.
CD-R -
This disk is intended for single use only. It can be used more than once if the disk was not finalized the last time it was written to, but in most cases it is used one time. This disk holds about 700mb of data. These can be used in both CDRW and DVDRW drives.
DVD-R and DVD+R -
These are similar to the CD-R disks but a standard has not yet been chosen like it has been with a CD-R. It appears like the standard may be DVD+R. Both versions hold about 4.7gb and some will hold twice as much if they are "Double-Layer or Dual-Layer" and you have a "Dual-Layer" DVD drive. You MUST use the disk made for your drive. A DVD-R drive will not accept DVD+R disks and vice-versa. Some drives are made to accept both but consult your owner's manual if you are not sure.
Core2 Duo -
What do they mean when they say "Intel Core2 Duo? The Core2 Duo is a processor (the computer's brain) that can perform more than one task at a time. It's like actually having 2 processors on your computer at the same time. Think of a highway. A traditional processor would have a single lane for traffic. The Core 2 Duo processor has multiple lanes so more traffic (or data) can be processed at one time.
Core2 Quad -
What do they mean when they say "Intel Core2 Qaud? The Core2 Quad is a processor (the computer's brain) that can perform many more than one task at a time. It's like actually having 4 processors on your computer at the same time. Think of a highway. A traditional processor would have a single lane for traffic. The Core 2 Quad processor like a superhighway so huge amounts of data can be processed at one time. These processors work best for someone who does a lot of multitasking
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