West Midlands Technical Support

SACD Super Audio CD. A highresolution audio CD format.

ScanDisk A disk-checking utility incorporated in Windows that can detect and repair minor problems with your disk drives.

Scanner A device which uses a light sensor to photocopy data which can be interpreted by software on your PC.

SCART A standardised 21-pin connector for two-way traffic of video and audio signals.

Screen resolution The number of pixels that are displayed on the screen, making up the image. The more pixels, the higher the resolution and the sharper the picture.

Screensaver A program that runs on a computer after a short period of inactivity and displays a moving image on screen.

Script A short program that's stored on a web server to control part of a website.

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (pronounced 'skuzzy'). An extremely fast connection between such things as disk drives and a PC.

SD card Secure Digital card. A secure variant of the postage stamp-size solid-state MMC memory card used by some MP3 players.

SDRAM Synchronous Dynamic RAM. The type of memory to be found in most modern PCs. It is significantly cheaper than its biggest rival, RDRAM.

Search engine A site on the net that indexes the names and addresses of other sites.

Search query The text given to a search engine which forms your search on the world wide web.

Security certificate A piece of data sent from one computer to another designed to prove the authenticity or security of information on the internet.

Selection tool In graphics and page layout programs, the icon for this often looks like the dotted outline of a square.

Serial cable A cable which connects to a serial or COM port. Such leads can connect peripherals to the computer or can be used to link one computer to another.

Serial port A socket on the back of a PC used to connect serial devices, also known as a COM port.

Server A computer on a network (such as the internet) that stores shared information.

Shareware Programs that you can try out free before deciding whether to buy them.

Shockwave Technology developed by Macromedia that allows web pages to contain interactive multimedia.

Shortcut Acts as a link to something such as a program file or disk drive

Site Short for website. A linked group of one or more web pages, normally dealing with a particular subject or by a single author.

Slider bar A control which allows you to change a setting by clicking and 'dragging' a slider.

SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A standard for sending email messages.

Socket 7 Connector on your PC's motherboard for Pentium processors or equivalent non-Intel chips.

Software Any program or group of programs which tells hardware how it should perform, including operating systems such as Windows, word processors, DTP applications and games.

Sound Blaster Sound card made by Creative Labs. The Sound Blaster was one of the first de facto PC audio standards.

Sound card An expansion card that lets a PC create sounds, game sound effects, music, and so on.

Spam Junk email sent to large groups of people offering such things as money-spinning ideas, holidays, and so on.

Speech recognition Analysing the spoken word via special software so that a PC can recognise it and translate spoken commands into computer actions.

Spreadsheet A software application for creating sheets of calculations, set out in rows and columns.

Spyware Software installed (usually surreptitiously) as part of another application installation specifically to monitor and report back on a computer's use.

Start button The button on the far left of the Taskbar in Windows.

Start page The page that appears when you first start your web browsing program.

Streaming When data flows to your PC as needed.

Surfing Popular metaphor used for describing someone exploring the world wide web.

Swapfile An area of hard disk space that your PC can use as 'virtual' memory, or RAM.

System Tray Found on the far right of your taskbar, the system tray displays icons showing which programs are always running in Windows, such as an anti-virus program.

Tab Dialogue boxes often combine settings for different associated functions.

Tablet PC A type of notebook PC with a touchsensitive screen that can be written on, like a writing pad.

Taskbar The bar that runs along the bottom of the screen in versions of Windows from 95 onwards.

TCP/IP Transmission control protocol/internet protocol.

Text box In desktop publishing, a piece of text set apart from the main story on a page, just like this jargon buster box.

TIFF Tagged Image File Format. A standard file format used to store graphic images.

Toolbar A strip of icons that runs across the top of most Windows applications.

Toolbox The software equivalent of a mechanic's toolkit. An program's toolbox should contain everything necessary to complete the task in hand.

Trigger event Event that causes a virus to activate itself and unleash its payload.

Trojan Horse A malicious computer program that's disguised as a different, harmless program.

TrueType An outline font technology developed jointly by Microsoft and Apple.

Undo A command in most programs which reverses your last action.

Uninstall The process of removing unwanted applications from your PC. You might want to do this to free up hard disk space, or simply because you no longer use the program.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) A standard which allows quick and easy connection of external peripherals such as scanners and printers to your PC.

Unix A robust, very stable operating system often used by businesses on powerful workstations and large computers, especially when it is important that applications do not crash.

Upgrade To improve the performance or specification of your computer by adding more memory, a larger hard disk or making another improvement.

Uploading The process of transferring information to another computer, often for publishing on the internet as a web page.

UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply. An device that sits between a computer and its main supply to provide a (usually brief) emergency power supply in the event of a power cut.

URL Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of a web page you visit, enabling it to be found from any other computer connected to the internet.

USB 2 Faster but backwardly-compatible successor to USB that's used by such things as MP3 players and external disk drives.

User interface This is the face of a computer program, what it looks like to the person sitting in front of the monitor, and how it is used.

Utility A program that performs specific tasks on your PC, such as optimising memory use or compressing disk space.

VGA Video Graphics Array. A very basic standard for graphics output.

Video CD A compact disc format that contains low-quality video on a par with VNHS tape.

Video memory Memory installed on your PC's graphics card and used to generate the on-screen image. The more memory on the card, the higher the possible graphics resolution and the more colours that can be displayed.

Video phone A phone which includes a camera and screen to combine your conversation with moving video images of the person you're talking to.

Video-capture card An expansion card for PCs that allows them to record full-motion video sequences to disk from TV receivers, camcorders and other video recording equipment.

Virtual memory A reserved area of hard disk space that your PC can use as 'virtual' memory, or RAM, whenever it is running short of the genuine article.

Virus A malicious computer program designed to cause at best annoyance and at worst, damage to computer data.

VOB A file format that is used on DVDs.

WAP Wireless Application Protocol. A specification for transmitting data, particularly to mobile phones and handheld computers.

WAV file Also known as a Wave file and saved with a. WAV extension. An audio file, used for recording music and other sounds to disk.

Web Also known as the world wide web or WWW. The web is a collection of online documents housed on server computers around the world, and forms the most visible and easily accessible part of the internet. These are accessed via a web browser.

Web browser A software program developed for navigating the internet, particularly the world wide web.

Web pages The online documents stored on internet servers. They link text and images, and often video or audio clips into a coherent whole.

Web space An area of disk space on an internet server. This may be on your own machine or rented from an Internet Service Provider.

Web-authoring program A piece of software designed to make it easier to create a web page or site. Often with sophisticated functions built in, such programs create the HTML code automatically and allow you to concentrate on the design of the site.

Webcam A video camera designed to connect to your PC. It can be used to record video clips which you can send by email, or to transmit images directly over the internet for video-conferencing.

Wi-Fi A catchier name for the 802.11a, b or g standard used for wireless networking devices.

Windows The operating system found on virtually all modern PCs. It allows you to control your computer and to run programs that let you perform particular tasks.

Wizard An automated online 'assistant' designed to guide you, step-by-step, through a potentially complex process.

Word Type of loudspeaker designed to reproduce low audio frequencies, though not the very deepest bass tones.

Worm A program that transmits and copies itself over a computer network, such as the internet. Not all worms are harmful but many are.

WPA/WEP Systems that protect data over wireless networks.

X-axis The bottom edge of a chart or graph. It is normally used to plot dates or timescales.

XG An extension to the General MIDI standard. Developed by Yamaha, it offers more voices and effects, allowing samples to be played with great expression.

XML eXtensible Markup Language. A way of tagging documents for display on different types of machine across the internet.

Y axis The left-hand edge of a chart or graph. It is normally used to plot numbers or amounts.

Y2K Shorthand for Year 2000 and, by extension, for the Year 2000 computer problem, better known as the millennium bug.

Zip drive A high-capacity disk drive designed by Iomega capable of storing 100 or 250Mb of information on sturdy pocket-sized disks.

ZIP file A file or files that have been compressed using a program like PKZip or WinZip to save disk space or to make them quicker to email.

Zipping Compressing a file using a program such as PKZip or WinZip to reduce the space it takes up. Unzipping is the process of decompressing the file to its original form.

Zone In OCR software, a scanned area which is designated as containing a particular type of information, either image or text.

Zoom In image-editing, the tool, normally shown as a magnifying glass, which lets you enlarge an area of the picture so you can see finer detail and work on it more easily.

Z-wave An emerging wireless standard.