Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Glossary of terms for computer tech jargon!

Seems applicable to me for the do-it-yourself computer repair folks out there and a reference guide glossary of terms is useful and so I will herein include a list of abbreviations, terms, and general jargon along with their meanings and explanation. Bare in mind this will in no wise be a complete list as that would be a few books worth of information!
  • TOWER = The case your computer parts are stored in. usually shaped like an elongated box.
  • HDD/HD = This is your hard drive located in your "My Computer" folder for windows OS, it stores all your information, programs and files.
  • OS/OPERATING SYSTEM = Your Operating System is what enables you to easily control programs and files on your computer. Some operating system are called "Windows", "Linux", "Unix", "Android", "Mac OS" and various other brands.
  • MEMORY/RAM = Memory generally refers to the part of your computer which is designed to hold and retrieve information quickly. Memory can also refer to the storage space on your hard drive, although they are typically a separate thing. Memory usually looks like thin pieces of circuit boards with some integrated circuits on it, placed inside the mother board of your computer. There are many different types of memory too as they come in all shapes and sizes for example, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, SDR etc. Memory is also known as RAM or random access memory. The more memory you have the faster your computer can retrieve and manipulate data.
  • MOTHER BOARD = The main electronic board inside your tower is called the mother board. It is the most easily identified piece of equipment in your computer as it is the largest piece. Everything plugs into your mother board. When looking to upgrade parts of your computer, it is usually necessary to make sure new parts are compatible with your mother board version. You can look this up online by typing in your mother board make and model which can be found inside printed on the board itself, or you can call up your local computer repair man to take a look at it for you.
  • COMPUTER REPAIR/IT GUY = "IT" stands for "Information Technology" and is a broad spectrum term used to define any area with in computer or high technology based fields. An IT professional will be able to handle your computer repair needs. Some work solely for specific companies or corporations. Some work for business and residential as part of a larger IT company, and some do computer repair and general IT work as a freelance such as myself. Most professional computer repair men and women will be either A+ certified or comptia certified as those are  pretty much industry standards.
  • CPU/CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT = This is the brain of your computer it is a relatively small chip which sits inside the motherboard and is covered by a big heat sink metal piece and a fan. It heats up pretty quickly which is why care is taken to ensure it keeps cool. It is the other half of the coin in responsibility for your computers speed. CPU power and RAM is the combination for computer performance speed. The more you have of each, the faster your computer will run.
  • ISP/INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER = The company you pay money to in order to be able to connect to the Internet.
  • BROWSER/WEB BROWSER = A program used to look up websites on the Internet. Some browsers are known as "Internet Explorer" by Microsoft, "FireFox" by Mozilla, "Chrome" by Google and many more.
  • BIT = A bit is either a "1" or a "0" it basically has to do with the electricity that runs in your computer being either on or off. That's how the computer thinks in the CPU is by looking at a code of zeros' and ones' to see a pattern of information. Kind of like Morse code expect blazing by at millions or even billions of times a second.
  • BYTE = A byte is just eight bits. For example "10011010"
  • KB/KILOBYTE = "Killo" means 1000 so a kilo byte is one thousand bytes.
  • MB/MEGABYTE = "Mega" is a million so one mega byte is one million bytes.
  • GB/GIGABYTE = "Giga" is one billion or in this case 1 billion bytes.
  • TB/TERABYTE = "Tera" is 1 trillion
That concludes today's vocabulary lessons boys and girls =P If you have any questions about terms or abbreviations then feel free to ask in the comments section!

16 comments:

  1. What is after Terabyte, cause I think my toaster has that much ram?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Few, I still remember all the terms. I really needed the terms when I was putting together my own PC.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i knew all of these i feel like a computer professional now haha

    ReplyDelete
  4. I always had an idea about what these meant, but some of them not so clear. Thanks for the clarification! +followed!

    ReplyDelete
  5. good post for all the non techies out there.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you for these terms, I'd usually hear someone mention a couple of these and I never really took time to figure out what they meant. I actually learned some new terms.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't quite understnad. but i'll learn over time

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is a very helpful blog post. I'm bookmarking it!

    ReplyDelete
  9. This was unbelieveably helpful, lol

    ReplyDelete
  10. The very basics, but help me God I have tremendous problems teaching them to my parents!

    ReplyDelete
  11. All these notions are piece of cake for a professional IT support specialist. These guys know everything there is to know about computers, networks. Otherwise they wouldn't be sought like this by companies all around the world to do their work and maintain their IT infrastructures up and running. Plus, they know how to deal with any problems that may threaten the company's activity.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Nice little reference page here.

    ReplyDelete