WM Tech Support - The Home Page of IT Support

Active X Technology which allows programs to do various things on your computer. Unfortunately it also allows hackers to do bad things via internet explorer.

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) A method of connecting a computer to the internet over an ordinary phone line instead of an ordinary modem.

Adware Software which displays advertisements on your computer. Sometimes installed as part of a "free" application, sometimes by stealth.

AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) A special slot on the PC motherboard for graphics cards, and the format of the cards. Standard on PCs from 1998. Now being replaced by PCI Express.

AMD AMD is a leading manufacturer of processor chips for PCs, including the Athlon and Duron chips.

Antispam An antispam program is used to filter out email spam, and sometimes to block it or complain about it.

Antivirus Software which protects computers from viruses and suchlike. Must be updated frequently and renewed annually to keep up with the newest threats.

AOL (America On Line) An Internet Service Provider, or ISP. Once installed, AOL's software is EXTREMELY difficult to remove.

Apple The Apple Corporation makes the only successful PC to not use Windows, the Macintosh. They also make, of course, the popular iPod and iPhone.

Applet A small program used to carry out a particular task, often on a web page. See Java.

Application Software used to carry out a particular task, such as word processing or desktop publishing. Essentially another word for program.

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) An early and very basic format for text files that uses letters, numbers and punctuation marks.

ATAPI (ATtAchment Packet Interface) An upgrade to EIDE which allows the hard disk controller to control CD drives as well.

Athlon A PC processor by the chip manufacturing company AMD, the other leading chip manufacturer's equivalent to Intel's Pentium.

Avatar A picture or figure representing a person in an online environment.

Backup A backup is an extra copy of your work, eg documents, pictures etc, saved onto a removable storage medium such as CD, DVD or magnetic tape, so that if your computer is stolen or breaks down you don't lose everything.

Bandwidth A measure of total amount of data transferred over a period of time, often used to measure how busy a website is.

BIOS (Basic Input/Output System "by-oss") A program built into every PC for setting up very basic things, like how many hard and floppy disks you have and what type they are; it's the first thing that loads when you start your PC. You will use the BIOS if you are adding more RAM or an extra disk drive etc..

Blog Short for 'web log' a blog is an online journal or news site. Most blogs provide a download called an RSS feed which means you can set up a blog reader (or Google Desktop) to download new articles as they appear.

Bluetooth A wireless communication system for PCs and other computing devices.

Boot, boot up Usually used to mean "start up the computer". Literally, the process of loading up the operating system and getting the computer ready for use.

Boot disk A floppy disk or CD which holds a copy of the operating system, or enough of it to start the computer, useful if the computer won't start up properly from the hard disk.

Browser A program used for viewing web pages on the Internet. The most widely used is Microsoft's Internet Explorer, because it is built-in to Windows.

Buffer Audio and video is stored in the buffer and it is then played back from there, if there is a brief interruption in the stream your music or video doesn't stop.

Bug A bug is an error in a program that has been missed in testing. The story goes that a bug went inside an electrical circuit in an early PC, causing it to fail. When the problem was eventually solved the story passed into legend.

Bulletin Board A semi-public area which computer users can connect to using a modem, to read and post messages and/or exchange files. Now largely replaced by websites.

Burn Create a CD or DVD.

Byte A basic unit of measurement for pieces of information; the space required to store one character. See also Bit, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte.

Cable An always-on high speed internet connection similar to ADSL but using cable TV technology instead of a phoneline.

Cache A temporary storage area for frequently or recently used data. If you go back to a webpage you have recently visited, your PC will display it from your internet cache, so it won't need to download it from the internet again.

CAD (Computer Aided Design) Software used to produce complex technical drawings by designers and engineers.

CD-ROM, CD-R (Compact Disk-Read Only Memory) Currently the most popular medium for releasing programs on, it holds about 650 Megabytes in total. Once a CD-ROM has been created its contents cannot be changed.

CD-RW (Compact Disk-ReWriter) A special re-writeable version of the above, can be used, wiped and rewritten several times over.

Celeron A PC processor - Intel's budget chip, cheaper than the Pentium, but also less powerful.

Character A letter of the alphabet, number, space or punctuation mark is a character.

Chatroom A website where you can meet and chat live (via the keyboard) with other internet users. Most such websites have multiple "rooms", each dedicated to a particular topic or theme.

Chip A silicon wafer with millions of tiny circuits engraved on it - what computers are made of..

Clipboard A temporary storage area in Windows. When you cut (Ctrl-X) or copy (Ctrl-C) highlighted text, documents or pictures they are sent to the clipboard; when you paste (Ctrl-V) they are copied from the clipboard to the cursor position.

Cluster Data stored on a disk is spread across a number of clusters, small physical areas on the disk. How big they are depends on the way the disk is formatted - generally a few kilobytes each.

CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor; pr. "see-moss") A special type of memory which retains its data when the PC is switched off, used to store settings for things like what type of hard disk you have, and how much memory.

Codec (COmpressor/DECompressor) A small piece of computer code that tells the computer how to decode video files. If your video player won't play a particular file then it is usually because the right codec is required.

Cookie A small data file stored on your computer by a website, to allow it to remember your preferences.

CPU (Central Processing Unit) The nerve centre of the computer : everything flows through it. Often just called "the processor". The best known PC processors are Intel's Pentium and AMD's Athlon.

Crack, cracked A crack is a small program intended to defeat software's copy protection, thus allowing unlicensed copies to be made - stealing it, in effect.

Crash When a computer program or operating system stops working completely or almost completely it (or the computer) is said to have "crashed". When a computer crashes it usually needs to be rebooted.

Cyberspace Loosely speaking, the internet, and virtual places thereon.

Cybersquatter Someone who buys web addresses in order to sell them on at a profit.

Data Any information created by a user, such as documents, pictures or sound recordings.

Database A program used for organising any kind of information on a computer into a searchable form, anything from a list of contacts to a complex stock control and accounts system.

DDR (Double Data Rate) A fast type of RAM for a PC, originally only used on high performance graphics cards but now being used for general memory in most high-end PCs. DDR2 is a yet faster version.

Default A default setting is one you haven't changed - what a program will do (or use) if you don’t tell it any different. "Accept the defaults" means leave any settings as they are.

Desktop A computer designed to sit on a desk (as opposed to a laptop). In Windows, it also means the screen you see when you aren't running any programs, with "My Computer", the Recycle Bin and so on.

Digital Literally "to do with numbers". Often used to describe a device using computer technology to replace older, traditional technologies. For example, a digital camera is one that stores images electronically.

DIMM (Dual In-line Memory Module; pr. "dim") A module of RAM (memory) for a PC, replacing the older SIMM specification.

Directory An area on a disk for storing files, particularly in DOS. Usually called a folder in Windows.

Disk Generic term for a type of storage device, such as a hard disk or a floppy disk (diskette).

Diskette Also known as a floppy disk. Called a diskette because it was smaller than the original huge floppy disks, now long obsolete.

DNS (Domain Name Service/System) An internet service that converts a human web address such as www.jonstorm.com into an IP address.

Domain An internet address owned by a company, organisation or individual, such as bbc.co.uk or dvla.gov.uk.

Dongle A device used for software copy protection - plugs into a port on the pc, unpopular with users because if lost or broken, the software won't function.

DOS (Disk Operating System) Usually refers to MS-DOS, which was the standard operating system for PCs until Windows 95 came out.

Download To transfer information (files) from a network (such as the Internet) onto a user's PC.

Dual core PC processors which have two complete processors on the same chip, allowing computers to handle multiple tasks faster. See also quad-core.

Dual layer A technology allowing two layers of data to be written to a DVD instead of the usual one, thus increasing its capacity.

DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) An advanced version of the standard CD which can hold far more information, now standard on most new PCs.

DVD RW (Digital Versatile Disk ReWriter) A DVD drive that can create (write) rewriteable DVDs of different types. DVD+RW and DVD-RW are completely different formats, and incompatible with each other.

DVI (Direct Video Interface) A special type of connector for computer monitors, particularly flat panels.