Terms+from+Group+5

__**Hardware:**__ a serial bus architecture.
 * Bus**- "...a bus is a subsystem that transfers data or power between computer components inside a computer or between computers and typically is controlled by device driver software".
 * CPU**- In a computer or on a network, a bus is a transmission path on which signals are dropped off or picked up at every device attached to the line.
 * Parallel**- "A parallel port is a type of socket found on personal computers for interfacing with various peripherals. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port."
 * Serial**- A shared channel that transmits data one bit after the other over a single wire or fiber; for example, Ethernet uses
 * SCSI**- (Small Computer System Interface) SCSI is a hardware interface that allows for the connection of up to 15 peripheral devices to a single PCI board called a "SCSI host adapter" that plugs into the motherboard.
 * RS232**- "...is a standard for serial binary data signals connecting between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data Circuit-terminating Equipment). It is commonly used in computer serial ports."
 * USB**- (Universal Serial Bus) is a plug-and-play interface between a computer and add-on devices (such as audio players, joysticks, keyboards, telephones, scanners, and printers). With USB, a new device can be added to your computer without having to add an adapter card or even having to turn the computer off.
 * Firewire**- A high-speed serial bus developed by Apple and Texas Instruments that allows for the connection of up to 63 devices. It is widely used for downloading video from digital camcorders to the computer.
 * Hard Drive**- "...is a non-volatile storage device which stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces."
 * Floppy Drive**- A reusable magnetic storage medium introduced by IBM in 1971.
 * CD ROM/RW Drive**- (Compact Disc Read Only Memory) A compact disc format used to store programs and data files. Holding either 650MB or 700MB, the CD-ROM uses a different format for recording data than the audio CD (CD-DA), from which it evolved. CD-RW disks look like other CD media, but with close inspection, they have a more polished surface with a very dark blue-gray cast. Similar to a hard disk, files can be added and deleted, and the media must be formatted before use.
 * Desktop**- A single-user computer. It typically refers to a PC or Mac, but may also refer to a workstation from Sun, IBM, etc. Also called a "client computer" or "client" or simply a "desktop," the term implies stationary use, whether it resides on the top of the desk or under the desk in a tower case.
 * SIMM**- (Single In-line Memory Module) is a module containing one or several random access memory (RAM) chips on a small circuit board with PINs that connect to the computer motherboard.
 * DIMM**- (Dual In-line Memory Module) is a double SIMM (Single In-line Memory Module).
 * RAM**- (Random Access Memory) a type of memory chip that is "byte addressable" and provides direct access to any location on the chip. It is often used as the computer's main memory.
 * COM1**- In a PC, the name is assigned to the first serial port
 * ROM**- (Read Only Memory) A memory chip that permanently stores instructions and data.
 * NIC**- (Network Interface Card)In the case of a single home computer, the network adapter is often wired to a router, which is connected to or includes a DSL or cable modem for Internet access.
 * Modem**- "Modem (from modulate and demodulate) is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information."
 * IR**- "Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of radio waves."
 * RF**- "Radio frequency, or RF, is a frequency or rate of oscillation within the range of about 3 Hz and 30 GHz."

__**Internet:**__ comprehensive language that also includes hypertext links. HTML is an SGML document that uses a fixed set of tags, while XML is a simplified version of SGML. Network Neutrality- Refers to the absence of restrictions placed on the type of content carried over the Internet by the carriers and ISPs that run the major backbones.
 * URL**- (Uniform Resource Locator) The address that defines the route to a file on an Internet server (Web server, FTP server, mail server, etc.).
 * URI**- (Uniform Resource Identifier) The addressing technology for identifying resources on the Internet or private intranet.
 * SGML**- (Standard Generalized Markup Language) An ISO standard for defining the format in a text document. Widely used in the publishing industry, an SGML document uses a separate Document Type Definition (DTD) file that defines the format codes, or tags, embedded within it. Since SGML describes its own formatting, it is known as a "meta-language." SGML is a very
 * HTML**- (HyperText Markup Language) The document format used on the Web. Web pages are built with HTML tags (codes) embedded in the text. HTML defines the page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the hypertext links to other documents on the Web.
 * HTTP**- (HyperText Transfer Protocol) The communications protocol used to connect to servers on the Web. Its primary function is to establish a connection with a Web server and transmit HTML pages to the client browser or any other files required by an HTTP application.
 * XML**- (EXtensible Markup Language) An open standard for describing data from the W3C. It is used for defining data elements on a Web page and business-to-business documents. XML uses a similar tag structure as HTML; however, whereas HTML defines how elements are displayed, XML defines what those elements contain.
 * XHTML**- "The Extensible HyperText Markup Language, or XHTML, is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but also conforms to XML syntax."
 * ISP**- (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines
 * CVS**- Concurrent Versions System (CVS) is a program that lets a code developer save and retrieve different development versions of source code. It also lets a team of developers share control of different versions of files in a common repository of files.
 * FTP**- (File Transfer Protocol) A protocol used to transfer files over a TCP/IP network (Internet, Unix, etc.). For example, after developing the HTML pages for a Web site on a local machine, they are typically uploaded to the Web server using FTP. Broadband- "...in telecommunications is a term that refers to a signaling method that includes or handles a relatively wide range of frequencies, which may be divided into channels or frequency bins."
 * FileServer**- "A form of disk storage that hosts files within a network; file servers do not need to be high-end but must have enough disk space to incorporate a large amount of data."
 * NLR**- "National LambdaRail is a high-speed national computer network in the United States that runs over fiber-optic lines, and is the first transcontinental Ethernet network. "
 * TCP/IP**- (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) A communications protocol developed under contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to internetwork dissimilar systems. Invented by Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn, this de facto Unix standard is the protocol of the Internet and the global standard for communications.
 * DNS Server**- A dedicated server or a service within a server that provides DNS name resolution in an IP network. It turns names for Web sites and network resources into numeric IP addresses.
 * BitTorrent**- "BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol. BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources."
 * DTD**- A DTD, or document type definition, is a collection of XML markup declarations that, as a collection, defines the legal structure, elements, and attributes that are available for use in a document that complies to the DTD.
 * Well-Formed**- A document is well-formed when it is structured according to the rules defined in Section 2.1 of the XML 1.0 Recommendation [XML].
 * CSS**- A way of rendering the style of a web page from multiple sources with a defined order of precedence where the definitions of any style element without conflict.
 * Frameset**- The HTML tag that divides a Web page into sections (frames).
 * Strict**- Strict DTD includes all HTML elements and attributes that have not been deprecated.
 * Attribute**- In the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), an attribute is a characteristic of a page element, such as a font. An HTML user can set font attributes, such as size and color, to different values.
 * Transitional**- includes all elements and attributes of HTML 4 Strict but adds presentational attributes
 * W3C**- An international industry consortium founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee to develop standards for the Web. The W3C has standardized many of the fundamental technologies of the Web, including HTML and XML, URLs and URIs, the SOAP protocol and the P3P privacy description.
 * Element**- Definitions (DTDs). These elements have properties: both attributes and content, as specified (both allowable and required) according to the appropriate HTML DTD (for example, the HTML 4.01 strict DTD). Elements may represent headings, paragraphs, hypertext links, lists, embedded media, and a variety of other structures

__**Networking:**__
 * Hub**- A common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN. A hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied to the other ports so that all segments of the LAN can see all packets.
 * Router**- "...is a device that extracts the destination of a packet it receives, selects the best path to that destination, and forwards data packets to the next device along this path."
 * Switch**- "In networks, a device that filters and forwards packets between LAN segments."
 * Blog**- A Web site that contains dated text entries in reverse chronological order (most recent first) about a particular topic.
 * Wiki**- A Web site that can be quickly edited by its visitors with simple formatting rules.
 * Wireless-G**- "...is an amendment to the IEEE 802.11 specification that extended throughput to up to 54 Mbit/s using the same 2.4 GHz band."
 * ASP**- An organization that hosts software applications on its own servers within its own facilities. Customers rent the use of the application and access it over the Internet or via a private line connection.
 * Peer-to-Peer**- Peer-to-peer is a communications model in which each party has the same capabilities and either party can initiate a communication session.
 * Server**- A computer system in a network that is shared by multiple users.
 * Client/Server**- An architecture in which the user's PC (the client) is the requesting machine and the server is the supplying machine, both of which are connected via a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).
 * Backbone**- The part of a network that handles the major traffic. It employs the highest-speed transmission paths in the network and may also run the longest distances
 * LAN**- A local area network (LAN) is a group of computers and associated devices that share a common communications line or wireless link.
 * Protocols**- The format and procedure that governs the transmitting and receiving of data.

__**Computer Software:**__
 * Driver**- A program that controls a device. Every device, whether it be a printer, disk drive, or keyboard, must have a driver program. Many drivers, such as the keyboard driver, come with the operating system. For other devices, you may need to load a new driver when you connect the device to your computer.
 * IDE**- A set of programs run from a single user interface. For example, programming languages often include a text editor, compiler and debugger, which are all activated and function from a common menu.
 * Virtual Memory**- Virtual memory is an addressing scheme implemented in hardware and software that allows non-contiguous memory to be addressed as if it were contiguous.
 * Fragmentation**- The phenomenon in which free storage becomes divided into many small pieces over time. It is a weakness of certain storage allocation algorithms, occurring when an application allocates and deallocates ("frees") regions of storage of varying sizes, and the allocation algorithm responds by leaving the allocated and deallocated regions interspersed.
 * Virtual Machine**- In computer science, a virtual machine is software that creates a virtualized environment between the computer platform and its operating system, so that the end user can operate software on an abstract machine.
 * FAT**- (File Allocation Table) The original file system used in DOS, Windows and OS/2. The FAT keeps track of where data are stored on disk. When the disk is high-level formatted, the FAT is recorded twice and contains a table with an entry for each disk cluster.
 * NTFS**- (NT File System) An optional file system for Windows NT, 2000 and XP operating systems. NTFS is the more advanced file system, compared to FAT32.
 * OS**- The computer's master control program. The operating system (OS) sets the standards for all application programs that run in the computer.

__**Fonts:**__
 * Font**- A font is a set of glyphs (images) representing the characters from a particular character set in a particular typeface.
 * Font Family**- ...collections of closely-related typeface designs that can include hundreds of styles.
 * Sans Serif**- A typeface style without serifs, which are the short horizontal lines added at the tops and bottoms of the vertical member of the letter.
 * Serif**- Short horizontal lines added to the tops and bottoms of traditional typefaces, such as Times Roman.
 * Italic/Oblique**- In typography, italic refers to fonts with characters slanted to the right.
 * Mono-Space**- A font in which each character is the same width.
 * Proportionally Spaced**- Character spacing based on the width of each character.
 * Point**- In typography, a unit equal to 1/72nd of an inch, used to measure the vertical height of a printed character
 * Character**- A single alphabetic letter, numeric digit, or special symbol such as a decimal point or comma. A character is equivalent to a byte; for example, 50,000 characters take up 50,000 bytes.
 * Proportionally Spaced**- A proportional typeface displays glyphs using varying widths.

__**Numbering, Characters and Encoding:**__
 * Foward Slash /**- The slash is also often used in command line syntax to indicate a switch.
 * Back Slash /** - The backslash symbol (\) is used as a separator between folder and file names in DOS, Windows and OS/2 when the full path to a file is written out.
 * @**- Symbol used for at.
 * Tilde**- A symbol used in Windows, starting with Windows 95, that maintains a short version of a long file or directory name for compatibility with Windows 3.1 and DOS.
 * ASCII**- is a character encoding based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text.
 * &**- An ampersand (&), also commonly called an "and sign" is a logogram representing the conjunction 'and.
 * Binary Number**- Binary describes a numbering scheme in which there are only two possible values for each digit: 0 and 1.
 * Hexadecimal**- is a numeral system with a radix, or base, of 16, usually written using the symbols 0-9 and A-F, or a-f
 * Octet**- an octet is a grouping of eight bits.

__**Security:**__
 * Phishing**- phishing is a criminal activity where phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
 * Worm**- a self-replicating computer program. It uses a network to send copies of itself to other nodes (computer terminals on the network) and it may do so without any user intervention.
 * PGP**- Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a popular program used to encrypt and decrypt e-mail over the Internet. It can also be used to send an encrypted digital signature that lets the receiver verify the sender's identity and know that the message was not changed en route.
 * Social Engineering**- Using persuasion and deception to obtain confidential information from someone by phone or in person. It is the low-tech approach for breaking into a computer system.
 * Strong Passwords**- A password that is difficult to detect by both humans and computer programs, effectively protecting data from unauthorized access.
 * Confidentially**- Restrictions on the accessibility and dissemination of information.
 * Authentication**- Authentication is the process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be. In private and public computer networks (including the Internet), authentication is commonly done through the use of logon passwords.
 * Virus-** Software used to infect a computer. After the virus code is written, it is buried within an existing program. Once that program is executed, the virus code is activated and attaches copies of itself to other programs in the system. Infected programs copy the virus to other programs. The effect of the virus may be a simple prank that pops up a message on screen out of the blue, or it may destroy programs and data right away or on a certain date.
 * Firewall**- The primary method for keeping a computer secure from intruders. A firewall allows or blocks traffic into and out of a private network or the user's computer.
 * Logic Bomb**- A program routine that destroys data when certain conditions are met; for example, it may reformat the hard disk or insert random bits into data files on a certain date or if a particular employee record is missing from the employee database.
 * Spam**- E-mail that is not requested. Also known as "unsolicited commercial e-mail" (UCE), "unsolicited bulk e-mail" (UBE), "gray mail" and just plain "junk mail.
 * PKI**- (Public Key Infrastructure) A framework for creating a secure method for exchanging information based on public key cryptography.
 * Integrity**- The quality of correctness, completeness, wholeness, soundness and compliance with the intention of the creators of the data. It is achieved by preventing accidental or deliberate but unauthorized insertion, modification or destruction of data in a database. Data integrity is one of the six fundamental components of information security.
 * Encryption**- The reversible transformation of data from the original (the plaintext) to a difficult-to-interpret format (the ciphertext) as a mechanism for protecting its confidentiality, integrity and sometimes its authenticity.
 * Buffer Overflow**- A common cause of malfunctioning software. If the amount of data written into a buffer exceeds the size of the buffer, the additional data will be written into adjacent areas, which could be buffers, constants, flags or variables.
 * Audit Log**- An examination of systems, programming and datacenter procedures in order to determine the efficiency of computer operations.
 * VPN**- A private network that is configured within a public network (a carrier's network or the Internet) in order to take advantage of the economies of scale and management facilities of large networks.

__**Best Sources:**__ Techweb Wikipedia Techtarget