Computer networking is a jungle of acronyms. In this article, which will be the first in an occasional series, I will briefly explain some of the most common of these so that you will be able to impress friends, families and colleagues with your knowledge of the dark art which is networking.TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): This refers to a set of rules and standards by which...
Showing posts with label Jargon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jargon. Show all posts
Friday, 16 January 2009
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Jargon Busting: Anatomy of a window (Part 2)
A number of weeks ago I posted an article naming the various elements that you will find in in Windows programs. This is the second part of that series. Unfortunately, whereas in the last post the displayed elements were interactive, in this post they will only be images.Scroll BarA control for shifting...
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Jargon Busting: Anatomy of a window (Part 1)
All the various controls on a Windows program have names that are not always intuitive. In this post I will identify the most common controls and list the various names that they are known by. I will not bother with buttons or menus as everyone should know what they are. All the controls on this post are interactive, rather than just being images.Text box, Text field, Text Entry, Input BoxA control...
Friday, 11 April 2008
Jargon Busting: BIOS, boots and flashing
What has booting to do with my computer?The term booting is short for bootstrapping, which refers to a process by which a simple control system starts up a more complicated system such as an operating system. The term may have been taken from a story about Baron Münchhausen who pulled himself out of...
Friday, 8 February 2008
Jargon Busting: OSs, GUIs and Shells
What is an Operating System?An operating system, or OS, is software that enables you to operate the computer. It manages the opening of files, the monitor display, printing, access to networks, and so on. The chances are you are using a version of Windows as your operating system, but this is not the...
Monday, 28 January 2008
Jargon busting: software
In a new regular feature I will try to translate a few technical terms into plain English. In the first post I will look at some terms about software that you may have seen.FreewareSoftware that the authors retain the copyright for, which is free to use for an unlimited period. The term has come to refer to any free software, such as public domain and open source.SharewareSoftware that can be used...