COMPUTER TERMS IRONTON MIDDLE SCHOOL

COMPUTER

a programmable device that can store, retrieve and process data.

DESKTOP COMPUTER/PC

a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location.

OPERATING SYSTEM

is a collection of software that manages computer hardware for computer programs. Examples of popular modern operating systems include Android, BSD, iOS, Linux, OS X, QNX, Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone, and IBM z/OS. All these, except Windows, Windows Phone and z/OS, share roots in UNIX.

APPLE/MAC MACINTOSH

Apple/Mac - Macintosh marketed as Mac, is a line of personal computers (PCs) designed, developed, and marketed by Apple, Inc.

MICROSOFT WINDOWS

is a series of graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft.

NETWORK

a group of connected computers.

LAN Local area network -

a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building using network media.

WAN

Wide area network - a network that covers a broad area using private or public network transports. Business and government entities utilize WANs to relay data among employees, clients, buyers, and suppliers from various geographical locations.

SERVER

a central computer dedicated to sending and receiving data from other computers on a network.

CPU

Central Processing Unit – the main chip in a computer that processes instructions, performs calculations and manages the flow of information through a computer system.

HARDWARE

any part of a computer system that you can touch or see. Hardware consists of the keyboard, mouse, monitor, hard drive and printer.

INPUT DEVICE

any peripheral (piece of computer hardware equipment) used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system such as a computer or other information appliance. Examples of input devices include keyboards, mouse, scanners, digital cameras and joysticks.

OUTPUT DEVICE any piece of computer hardware equipment

used to communicate the results of data processing carried out by an information processing system (such as a computer) which converts the electronically generated information into human-readable form. Some types of output are text, graphics, tactile, audio, and video.

SYSTEM UNIT

-the computer case also known as a "computer chassis", "tower", "system unit", "base unit" or simply "case" and sometimes incorrectly referred to as the "CPU" or "hard drive", is the enclosure that contains most of the components of a computer (usually excluding the display, keyboard and mouse).

HARD DRIVE

the hardware located in the computer case that a computer uses to store information.

MODEM a piece of

hardware that links your computer to other computers and information services through telephone or cable lines.

PERIPHERAL

a device that is connected to a host computer but not part of it.

USB

Universal serial bus (USB) -the most widely used hardware interface for attaching peripherals to a computer

MONITOR

a piece of hardware that displays text and graphics from a computer.

KEYBOARD

an input device with letters, numbers and symbols.

MOUSE

a handheld device used to move or select items on a screen.

PRINTER

a piece of hardware that produces a paper copy of information from a computer.

SCANNER

is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image

SPEAKERS

allow sound to be emitted from the computer.

MICROPHONE

allow sound to be sent to the computer.

START MENU

located at the bottom of the screen for easy access of commands and programs.

SLEEP MODE

a low power mode for computers and other electronic devices.

DESKTOPrefers to the background shown on the computer that has the icons and folders.

ICON

a small picture that links to a file or program.

FOLDER

a place for storage of files on the computer.

RECYCLE BIN stores deleted files.

TASK BAR

usually located at the bottom of the screen and is used to launch and monitor applications.

CURSOR

a flashing symbol on the screen that shows where the mouse pointer is or where the next character typed will be entered.

TITLE BAR

usually located at the top of the screen and displays the name of the file or page that is open on a computer.

MENU BAR

located under the title bar and has tabs for access of commands.

TOOL BAR

is a GUI widget on which on-screen buttons, icons, menus, or other input or output elements are placed. The tool bar is usually at the very top of the page and shows the name of program and work that is open.

HOVER

to point the mouse over an item without selecting the item. This action will often times reveal the function of the item

COMMAND

an instruction that causes a computer to perform a certain task. Commands are found on the menu bar.

SHORTCUTS

one or more keys used to complete a command or function without having to used the menu bar.

SCROLL BAR

moveable bar that allows you to see all the information in a window.

SCROLL

to move the scroll bar to view parts of the computer screen.

SOFTWARE

a set of electronic instructions that tells a computer what to do.

PROGRAM

is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer.

INSTALL

copying a program onto your computer’s hard drive from another source.

UPDATE

a newer version of software or program

USER FRIENDLY

easy to operate.

WORD PROCESSING the composition, editing, formatting

and sometimes printing of any sort of written material.

DOCUMENT

a printed copy of work created in word processing or desktop publishing.

HARD COPY

a printed work.

SPREADSHEET

a product made from an interactive computer application program for organization and analysis of data in tabular form.

DESKTOP PUBLISHING

desktop publishing - the creation of documents using page layout skills on a personal computer.

DATABASE

an organized collection of data.

TEMPLATE

a source in which content can be altered to create a similar work.

FONTS

the style of type on a computer. (Times New Roman and Arial are very common fonts.)

Times New Roman

Arial

Century Gothic

Comic Sans

Chiller

EDIT

to alter or modify data as in pictures, text, music or videos.

TRANSFORMATIONS

to crop, rotate, flip or invert.

CLIPBOARD

a software facility that can be used for short-term data storage and/or data transfer between documents or applications, via copy and paste operations.

COPY

to store data on the computer’s clipboard.

CUT

to remove an item from a location in the computer or on a program.

PASTE

to add data saved on the clipboard to a location on the computer.

SAVE

to store on the computer for later retrieval.

SAVE AS

to save on the computer in a way to specify name, location and file extension.

NAME/RENAME

files can be designated a name and renamed.

STORAGE DEVICE

allows for data to be held for the computer.

IMPORT

to retrieve and save data from another source.

EXPORT

to send data from one source to another source.

CD ROM

a pre-pressed compact disc which contains read only memory (ROM) data.

FLASH DRIVE

a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface.

SD CARD

Secure Digital (SD) is a memory device format for use in portable devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras, GPS navigation devices and tablet computers.

CARD READER

card reader - data input device that reads data from a card-shaped storage medium.

ZIP FILE

a file or package of files that has been compressed. (Zip files have .zip as a file extension and can be unpacked or decompressed with file archive programs such as Winzip, Winrar, 7zip, etc.

COMPRESSION

involves encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation.

UPLOAD

refers to the sending of data from a local system to a remote system such as a server or another client with the intent that the remote system should store a copy of the data being transferred.

DOWNLOAD

to receive data to a local system from a remote system.

DISK

a general category of storage mechanisms where data are recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks.

COPYRIGHT a form of legal protection

given to the creators of original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works.

PATENT

a set of exclusive rights granted to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention.

TRADE MARK

a recognizable sign, design or expression which identifies products or services of a particular source from those of others. Trademarks serve to identify a particular business as the source of goods or services.

PLAGIARISM

the copying of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions and the representation of them as one's own original work.

ATTRIBUTION

Identifying the source of a work.

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

a violation of the exclusive rights of a copyright holder.

COPYRIGHT TERM

the length of time the law allows owners to hold the exclusive rights on their original works.

FAIR USE

one of several legal limitations on the exclusive rights granted to copyright owners.

FILE SHARING

the practice of uploading or downloading digital files to and from a computer network where more than one user has access to those files.

PHISHING

the criminal process of trying to gain sensitive information like a username, password, personal information, credit information.

LICENSE

permission granted by the copyright holder that releases rights to someone else.

MASHUP

a genre of derivative works that are built by creatively reusing and combining various portions of music, film, audio and graphics.

PARODY

an exaggerated, often comical work that takes elements from the original work.

PUBLIC DOMAIN

works that are not restricted by copyright and do not require a license or fee to use.

STAKEHOLDER

a person, group or organization that has a vested interest in the positive or negative outcome of an action.

CONTROL PANEL

the tool in the operating system which allows settings to be changed on a computer or device.

MEMORY

Memory (or storage) refers to retained digital data. Memory can be temporary or permanent.

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN

color, contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.

PHOTO EDITING

modifying images, typically photos.

LAYERS

used in digital image editing to separate different elements of an image.

MERGE

a function that will combine parts or entire files. For example, layers together in photo editing software.

GRAPHICS

refers to images on the computer, photos, clipart, etc.

PIXEL

the smallest item that makes up an image. Pixels are small dots or squares of color that make up your screen.

RESOLUTION

refers to the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed.

FILE EXTENSION a suffix (separated from

the base filename by a dot or space) to the name of a computer file applied to indicate the encoding (file format) of its contents or usage. Examples of filename extensions are .png, .jpeg, .exe, .dmg and .txt.

IMAGE EXTENSIONS

file formats for images include:Joint Photographic Experts Group (jpg), Exchangeable image file format (Exif), Tagged Image File Format (TIFF), Raw image formats (RAW), Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Bitmap (BMP), Portable Network Graphics (PNG).

DOCUMENT FILE EXTENSIONS file for documents include:

.txt, .rtf, .doc, .pdf.

SOUND FILE EXTENSIONS

file formats for sound include - .mp3, .wav.

VIDEO FILE EXTENSIONS

file formats for video include:

avi, mpeg, wmv

ISP

(Internet Service Provider) a business or organization that offers users access to the Internet and related services. import

INTERNET

a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies.

BROWSER

Web browser (browser) – (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web.

SEARCH ENGINE

a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. Google, Bing, Ask Jeeves are all examples of search engines.

bing

URL

(Uniform Resource Locator) –identifies an information resource which may be a web page, image, video or other piece of content.

HYPERLINKS

links present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources.

HOME PAGE

a webpage or website that is set to load when the browser is opened or the home button is pressed in the browser.

HTML

(Hyper Text Markup Language) – basic language that is used to build web pages.

BOOKMARK

bookmark - a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is stored for later retrieval in any of various storage formats.

PRIVELEGES

permissions to perform an action.

EMAIL

(or electronic mail) a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.

EMAIL SIGNATURE

a feature of email programs that will allow the author to insert the owner’s name, title, address and other important contact information.

EMAIL CLIENT a software program that will download

and upload emails from your mail server. (Examples of email clients are Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Pegasus and others.)

EMAIL SERVER

like a post office in the real world. It collects email and delivers it to the chosen client or post box.

JUNK EMAIL

a term for advertising or spam. Spam is the sending of bulk email.

ATTACHMENT

attachment - a computer file sent along with an email message.

ENCRYPTION a security

mechanism that uses a password usually to scramble the data in a way that only the original password can decrypt it.

FORUM

a member based website that can be used to communicate via messages.

WEBLOG

a journal type of forum where authors can share their personal viewpoints or ideas.

DEFRAGMENT

a process that reduces the amount of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the storage device used to store files into the small or smallest number of contiguous regions (fragments).

BACKUP

the process of backing up, refers to the copying and archiving of computer data so it may be used to restore the original after a data loss event

BOOT

the process that starts computer operating systems.

SAFE MODE

option that allows the computer to load only the files necessary to run the basic services.

VIRUS

a man-made file that infects a computer in order to sabotage its files.

CRASH

an event in which a computer or a program (such as a software application or an operating system) ceases to function.

BUG

an error, flaw, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result.

HUB

Ethernet hub, active hub, network hub, repeater hub, multiport repeater or hub is a device for connecting multiple Ethernet devices together and making them act as a single network segment.

SWITCH

a network switch or switching hub is a computer networking device that links network segments or network devices. The term commonly refers to a multi-port network bridge that processes and routes data.

IP is the principal

communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. (Internet Protocol)

BIT the basic unit of

information in computing and digital communications.

BYTE

a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits.

MEGABYTE (MB) - a multiple of

the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with three different values depending on context: 1000000, with exceptions allowed for the base-two meaning if defined explicitly.

GIG

- a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. A gigabyte is 1,000,000,000 bytes.