Common PC Glossary (Part 2)

Continuation from last week,"Common PC Glossary"

1. Dot-matrix printer-An impact printer that prints characters composed of dots.Characters are printed one at a time by pressing the ends of selected wires against an inked ribbon and paper.(Ex. Epson LX300,Epson FX1170 printers)
2. Encryption-The translation of data into unreadable codes to maintain security
3. FORMAT-The DOS format program that performs both low and high level formatting of floppy disks but only high-level formatting on hard disks.(High level means at the software level only)
4. Full duplex-Signal flow in both directions at the same time.
5. Giga-A multiplier indicating 1 billion of some unit,abbreviated as g or G.
6. Gigabyte- A unit of information storage equal to 1,073,741,824
7. GUI- Graphical User Interface. A type of program interface that enables users to choose commands and functions by pointing to a graphical icon using either a keyboard or a pointing device such as a mouse.Windows and OS/2 are the most popular GUIs available for PC systems
8. Hardware- Physical components that make up a microcomputer,monitor,printer, and so on.
9. Head crash- A rare occurrence in which a read/write head of your hard disk strikes the platter surface with sufficient force to damage the magnetic medium.
10. Heat sink- A mass metal attached to a chip carrier or socket for the purpose of dissipating heat.(Can be found on all PC systems,use to protect processor chip and chipsets of a motherboard)
11. High-level formatting- Formatting performed by the DOS FORMAT program.Among other things, it creates the root directory and FATs.(DOS formatting only for Windows98)
12. HTML- Hyper Text Markup Language. A language used to describe and format plain-text files on the Web.It's based on pairs of tags which enables you to mix graphics with text, change the appearance of text, and create hypertext documents with links to other documents.
13. HTTP- HyperText Transfer Protocol. The protocol that describes the rules that a browser and server use to communicate over the World Wide Web.HTTP allows a Web browser to request HTML documents from a Web server.