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Also known as broadband, ADSL stands for Asymetrical Digital Subscriber Line. it's now available to more than 90% of the UK, and will give you an always-on connection to the Internet via your phone line. That means you don't need to dial-up as with a conventional Internet connection. A broadband connection is also up to 20 times faster than a conventional dial-up connection, meaning you can download charts and other documents much quicker. It costs around £17-£30 per month for the basic packages. If you are served by cable, you can also get broadband through this.
A file sent with an e-mail, hence it is 'attached'. The file can be opened at the receiving end. It remains self-contained, and is unaffected by the contents of the e-mail itself.
The smallest item, bit is an abbreviation for 'Binary digIT'. They are the 1's and 0's often referred to when talking about computers. A solitary bit isn't particularly useful but put together in a series they can represent numbers using a binary system. Everything a computer does is done by performing calculations on binary numbers.
Eight bits make a byte and this is the smallest collection of bits a computer
can work with. A byte can represent any number from 0 to 255. Bytes represent
letters, numbers, and all other symbols such as a comma, full stop, space etc.
The format followed is a very old system (in computer terms) known as ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange).
In Morse code 3 light flashes equals 1 letter (dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot
dot dot for SOS is the one familiar to most of us). Morse is thus a 3 digit
code. Computer code is an 8 digit code.
CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read-Only Memory) is a data CD storing just under 650 Mb of data - equivalent to around 450 old-fashioned floppy disks! You can't write information to these disks. If you get a CD with a product, or free in the paper it's a CD-ROM. The 'R' in CD-R means recordable. If you have the correct CDdrive, you can write information to these disks. As they're now cheap and disposable, they're ideal for storing bacups of your data. But once they're written on, you can't re-write them - there are disks you can re-write to called CD-RW, Re-Writable.
The Clipboard is an area of your computer's memory that saves items you have previously Cut or Copied (see Cut and Paste) ready for you to use then again.
A small data file that's stored on your computer by websites you visit. Next time you visit the website, the Cookie means the site can 'remember' who you are. This is useful for shopping sites as they can remember which items you had in your shopping basket.
You can move something in a document such as a Microsoft Word file, by 'cutting' it, then pasting it elsewhere. The common shortcuts for this are Ctrl-X to Cut, and Ctrl- to Paste (you can also Copy using Ctrl-C. You can also apply this action to copy complete files or eve 'folders' within Windows, using the same shortcuts.
For most users, this is the first screen seen when a computer is turned on. On this screen can be seen the 'Taskbar' at the bottom of the screen and the 'Start' button at the bottom left. Files, Folders and shortcuts to these can be saved to the Desktop for quick, easy access in the large area above the Taskbar.
When you copy a file from the Internet, it is called 'downloading'. You will have to have requested the download, for example when you click a document to save it to your own computer.
A small piece of software that makes a piece of hardware wor. If you buy a new piece of hardware, such as a printer, scanner or camera, you will receive a CD containing drivers that must be installed on your computer before the hardware can function. Windows XP includes a lot of drivers as standard so common items of hardware, such as digital cameras, can simply be plugged directly in.
Similar to CDs. But not all drives wil read DVD disks and even fewer will write to them. They can store a remarkable 4.7 Gb of data, equivalent to over 3,300 floppy disks.
Message sent between computers. Usually they will be text, but can also include 'Attachments' and 'HTML' and hence can be a great source of 'computer viruses!
Invented by Apple, FireWire is a way of transferring data between your computer and other devices such as external hard drives or video cameras. it's also known as 'IEEE 1394'. You don't need to know what exactly this means but you may see it on documentation and need to known that IEEE 1394 = FireWire.
A format for displaying specific images (known as 'vector graphics') and animation on the web. Most web browsers need a Flash plug-in installed before the content can be viewed.
The Graphics Interchange Format is the most common format for simple web graphics. More complex web-based pictures are often JPEGs.
1 Gb is equivalent to 1,024 MegaBytes. Modern hard drives often have capacities of over 20 Gb. 80 gb is currently seen as ample storage .
The speed of your computer's processor is measured in GHz. Modern PCs are commonly upwards of 2 GHz.
A person who break into other peoples' computers and networks, sometimes just for fun, other times for more dubious reasons!
The main document of a website, often the first page you will see.
HyperText Markup Language is the simple language needed to create web pages and web content.
HyperText Transfer Protocol is the way web pages are transferred across the Internet. Hence it will often appear at the beginning of a web address (URL). The http is often left off nowadays when URLs are quoted as web browsers don't need you to enter it.
Often referred to as a 'link', hyperlinks are the way web pages are joined together. By clicking on something to move from one page to another, you're clicking on a hyperlink.
A small graphic (picture) that represents an application, file or folder on your computer. It can also show an action within an application, such as Save, on a toolbar.
An Internet Service Provider is the company, such as AOL or BT, which provides your connection to the Internet - there are hundreds of different ISPs across the country.
Standing for Joint Photographic Experts Group, this is the world's most common image format. It is a compressed format, so smaller files are good for the web, while it's common for other images such as those saved from digital cameras.
1 Kb is equivalent to 1,024 bytes.
1 Mb is equivalent to 1,024 kilobytes. A floppy disk holds 1.44 Mb of data.
The measure of the resolution of a digital camera. Equivalent to a million pixels, most digital cameras are between two and five megapixels.
Standing for MODulator-DEModulator, a modem is a device - built-in to modern computers - that convertsphone signals to data signals your computer can understand (and vice versa). you need a different kind of modem to use ASDL/broadband.
The most common format for digital music, the acronym simply refers to a standard for music compression that means an average audio track can be stored in a file around 3 to 4 Mb in size.
A link between two or more computers meaning they can share resources and files. Also referred to as a LAN (Local Area Network).
Optical Character Recognition converts characters within a scanned image into editable text you can use in a word processing package.
Any device that is connected to your computer such as a printer, scanner, or digital camera.
Portable Document Format. Created by Adobe Acrobat (amongst others), these are files stored in a format that only requires an application in the 'public domain' (freely available to all) to be viewed. Files stored in other ways requires the user to have that application (which may cost a large amount of money) on their computer before the file can be viewed.
Internet fraud that tries to trick users into revealing personal details.
A standard for hardware that means it can install and configure itself, without the need for you to do anything.
A small application that integrates into another program. Often the context is within web browsers, such as the Flash plug-in that enables you to view certain graphical content on the web.
Random Access Memory is the bank of storage that keeps information in your computer while it is on, such as open applications. The amount you have is often measured in multiples of 128 Mb. Commonly, new computers will have 256 or 512 of RAM, although this is constantly rising as applications become increasingly memory hungry.
A website, such as www.google.co.uk , that enables you to find sites and specific information on the web by entering search terms or keywords related to the subject you want to find out more about.
An icon that points towards an application, file or folder elsewhere on your computer, the idea being that you have easy access to something. All the icons on the Windows Start Menu are, in fact, Shortcuts to the various operations elsewhere on your computer.
Unsolicited junk e-mail. The act of sending spam is 'spamming'. The name comes from a Monty Python skit, during which the word 'spam' was repeated over and over.
The act of 'surfing' is, simply, the act of looking around the web, or 'browsing'.
If you use Windows, you'll use the taskbar every time you start your PC. The taskbar is the bar running across the bottom of the screen that contains the Start Menu and open programs.
The Tagged Image Format is a standard for high quality image documents. The file size is likely to be bigger than a JPEG should you need to download one.
A block of icons or buttons that carry out certain functions within an application, such as Save or Zoom. In a n application such as Microsoft Word, the toolbar is usually located near the top of the window.
A malicious computer program that's disguised as a different harmless program.
Standing for Universal Resource Locator, URL is an Internet address including the 'http://' part. A web address is often referred to as a URL.
A Universal Serial Bus is the standard way peripherals connect and transfer data to and from PCs. If you've bought your computer in the last five years or so, it's bound to have USB ports. USB 2.0 is the latest version, but is backwards compatible with the previous USB 1.1.
A small program or piece of computer code that ends up on your system without your knowledge. Viruses are created by those with malicious intent and can cause problems with your system. You can protect your computer by installing anti-virus software, such as McAfee or Symantec's Norton applications.
The Web is the part of the Internet that displays web pages created in HTML. The web is not the Internet but instead is an element of it; the Internet includes other functions such as e-mail. Its full title is the orld wide Web, hence the 'www' section of most web addresses.
The application software you use to view web pages. The most popular browser is Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
A web page is an HTML file that is accessible via the web. If it's the central page of a web site it's often referred to as the homepage. A website is simply a collection of web pages that are linked by hyperlinks and stored together on the World wide Web.
The standard term used to describe an area of screen space used to run an application. You can work within this space. A window is characterised by a title at the top and buttons to close and re-size the window.
A utility that takes you gradually through a complex task on your computer. Each screen displays a different step to guide you through a particular process, such as copying pictures from a digital camera. Wizards are common in newer versions of Microsoft Windows.
To 'zip' a file is to compress it using an application such as the popular 'WinZip'. This format is often used on the web and in e-mail since large files can be reduced in size so that they take less time to download to your computer. After downloading the file needs to be 'un-zipped' to allow it's contents to be read. Again 'WinZip' is used for this task.
page last updated Sunday, 05 March 2006