COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY

COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY:-

Terms Beginning with "U"

U	U is the standard unit of measurement for rack-mounted equipment. Racks can be used to house servers, hard drives...
UDDI	Stands for "Universal Description Discovery and Integration." UDDI is a protocol that allows businesses to promote...
UDP	Stands for "User Datagram Protocol." It is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols used for data transferring. UDP is a...
Ultra DMA	This technology for transferring data between a computer's hard disk and memory was developed by Quantum and Intel...
UML	Stands for "Unified Modeling Language." This is a programming language that is used for object-oriented software...
UNC	Stands for "Universal Naming Convention," not just the home of the North Carolina Tar Heels. UNC is a filename format...
Undo	The Undo command is located in the Edit menu of most programs and has the shortcut "Ctrl+Z" (PC) or "Cmd-Z" (Mac). It...
Unfriend	When you unfriend a user, your remove that person from your list of friends on a social networking website, such as...
Unix	Also known as UNIX, though the letters do not stand for anything. The Unix operating system was first created in Bell...
Unmount	Unmounting a disk makes it inaccessible by the computer. Of course, in order for a disk to be unmounted, it must first...
Upload	While downloading is receiving a file from another computer, uploading is the exact opposite. It is sending a file...
UPnP	Stands for "Universal Plug and Play." Plug and Play describes devices that work with a computer system as soon as they...
UPS	Stands for "Uninterruptible Power Supply." In the technology world, UPS is more than just a brown shipping company...
URI	Stands for "Uniform Resource Identifier." A URI identifies the name and location of a file or resource in a uniform...
URL	Stands for "Uniform Resource Locator." A URL is the address of a specific Web site or file on the Internet. It cannot...
USB	Stands for "Universal Serial Bus." USB is the most common type of computer port used in today's computers. It can be...
User Interface	A user interface is the means in which a user controls a software program or hardware device. For example, a software...
Username	A username is a name that uniquely identifies someone on a computer system. For example, a computer may be setup with...
Utility	Utility programs, commonly referred to as just "utilities," are software programs that add functionality to your...

Terms Beginning with "V"

VCI	Stands for "Virtual Channel Identifier." The VCI, used in conjunction with the VPI (virtual path indicator), indicates...
VDU	A VDU is a Visual Display Unit. It is another term for monitor or screen, but may also refer to a projector or other...
Vector	Mathematically, a vector is a quantity, defined by both magnitude and direction. For example, a vector could be...
Vector Graphic	Unlike JPEGs, GIFs, and BMP images, vector graphics are not made up of a grid of pixels. Instead, vector graphics are...
Veronica	The name actually stands for "Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Netwide Index to Computerized Archives." Pretty weird, I know...
Vertical Market Software	A vertical market is one that supplies goods to a specific industry. For example, a MIDI keyboard manufacturer...
VFAT	Stands for "Virtual File Allocation Table." Older Windows operating systems (Windows ME and earlier) used a file...
VGA	Stands for "Video Graphics Array." It is the standard monitor or display interface used in most PCs. Therefore, if a...
Video Card	Most of the processing done on a computer is done via the computer's central processing unit, or CPU. So in order to...
Virtual Memory	Memory is hardware that your computer uses to load the operating system and run programs. It consists of one or more...
Virtual Reality	While the word "virtual" is typically overused in the computer world, it is aptly placed in the phrase "virtual...
Virtualization	Virtualization allows a single computer to run multiple (operating systems|operating_system). For example, using...
Virus	Like a biological virus, a computer virus is something you don't want to get. Computer viruses are small programs or...
Visual Basic	Visual Basic is a programming language and development environment created by Microsoft. It is an extension of the...
VLB	Stands for "VESA Local Bus." (VESA stands for "Video Electronics Standards Association"). The VLB, or VL-bus is a...
VLE	Stands for "Virtual Learning Environment." A VLE is a virtual classroom that allows teachers and students to...
VoIP	Stands for "Voice Over Internet Protocol," and is often pronounced "voip." VoIP is basically a telephone connection...
Volume	The word "volume" has several different meanings. The most common definition is the magnitude or intensity of a...
VPI	Stands for "Virtual Path Identifier." The VPI is an 8-bit header inside each ATM cell that indicates where the cell...
VPN	Stands for "Virtual Private Network" (not a successor to the UPN television network). VPN is a network term that most...
VRAM	Stands for "Video Random Access Memory" and is pronounced "V-RAM." System RAM is great for loading and running...
VRML	Stands for "Virtual Reality Modeling Language." If you think this has something to do with HTML, you're right. While...

Terms Beginning with "W"

W3C	W3C is short for "World Wide Web Consortium." The W3C is an international organization that develops Web standards...
WAIS	Stands for "Wide Area Information Server." This is a program that can index enormous amounts of information and make...
WAN	Stands for "Wide Area Network." It is similar to a Local Area Network (LAN), but it's a lot bigger. Unlike LANs, WANs...
Waveform	A waveform is an image that represents an audio signal or recording. It shows the changes in amplitude over a certain...
Web 2.0	Web 2.0 is term that was introduced in 2004 and refers to the second generation of the World Wide Web. The term...
Web Host	In order to publish a website online, you need a Web host. The Web host stores all the pages of your website and makes...
Web Page	Web pages are what make up the World Wide Web. These documents are written in HTML (hypertext markup language) and are...
Web Ring	A Web ring is a way of interlinking related Web sites so that people can visit many similar Web sites by just following...
Webcam	The term webcam is a combination of "Web" and "video camera." The purpose of a webcam is, not surprisingly, to...
Webmail	There are two primary ways of checking your e-mail – using an e-mail program like Microsoft Outlook or with a...
Webmaster	The webmaster is the person in charge of maintaining a Web site. The jobs of a webmaster include writing HTML for Web...
Website	A website, or Web site, is not the same thing as a Web page. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they...
WEP	Stands for "Wired Equivalent Privacy." WEP is a security protocol for Wi-Fi networks. Since wireless networks...
White Balance	White balance is a setting available on most digital cameras and camcorders that defines how the color white should...
White Paper	This term has historically been used to describe a report that states the social or political position of an...
WHOIS	This is an Internet service that finds information about a domain name or IP address. If you enter a domain name in a...
Wi-Fi	Wi-Fi is a wireless networking standard trademarked by the Wi-Fi Alliance. It refers to all networking equipment that...
Widget	Widgets are small programs designed for the Mac OS X Dashboard. Some widgets included with Mac OS X include a...
Wiki	A wiki is a Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser. This is made...
Wildcard	If you've played card games, you may be familiar with the term "wild card." It refers to a card that can take the...
WiMAX	WiMAX, also known as "IEEE 802.16," is a broadband wireless access (BWA) standard similar to Wi-Fi. However, unlike...
Win32	This is the Windows application programming interface (API) for developing 32-bit applications. It has been used for...
Window	A window is an area on the screen that displays information for a specific program. This often includes the user...
Windows	Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system for personal computers. There are several versions of the...
Windows 7	Windows 7 is the seventh version of the Microsoft Windows (operating system|operating_system). It follows Windows...
Windows Vista	Windows Vista is the latest version of Microsoft's Windows (operating system|operating_system). The business version...
Windows XP	Microsoft Windows XP was introduced in 2001 and is the most significant upgrade to the Windows operating system since...
Winsock	Winsock. "Isn't that one of those tube-like flags that tell which way the wind is blowing?" Actually, that's a...
Wireless	In the computing world, the term "wireless" can be rather ambiguous, since it may refer to several different wireless...
Wizard	When most people think of a wizard, they think of an old man with magical powers. This, as with many other computer...
Word Processor	A word processor, or word processing program, does exactly what the name implies. It processes words. It also...
Word Wrap	Word wrapping is when a line of text automatically "wraps" to the next line when it gets to the end of a page or text...
WordArt	WordArt is a text modifying feature in Microsoft Word, a popular word processing program. It includes effects such as...
Workstation	It has been said that a bus stops at a bus station and a train stops at a train station, so what happens at a...
Worm	Worm has two widely different definitions. One refers to a computer virus and the other is an optical storage...
WPA	Stands for "Wi-Fi Protected Access." WPA is a security protocol designed to create secure wireless (Wi-Fi) networks...
WWW	Stands for "World Wide Web." It is important to know that this is not a synonym for the Internet. The World Wide Web...
WYSIWYG	Stands for "What You See Is What You Get," and is pronounced "wihzeewig." WYSIWYG refers to software that accurately...

Terms Beginning with "X"

X86	x86 is the generic name for Intel processors released after the original 8086 processor. These include the...
XHTML	Stands for "Extensible Hypertext Markup Language." Yes, apparently "Extensible" starts with an "X." XHTML is a...
XML	Stands for "Extensible Markup Language." (Yes, technically it should be EML). XML is used to define documents with a...
XSLT	Stands for "Extensible Style Sheet Language Transformation." While XML is supposed to be a standardized language, not...

Y2K Stands for "Year 2000." However, this term is more often used to refer to the "Millenium Bug." This bug is a little...

Yahoo! Yahoo! is one of the Internet's leading search engines. It is also the largest Web portal, providing links to...

Yobibyte A yobibyte is a unit of data storage that equals 2 to the 80th power, or 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes. ...

 Yottabyte A yottabyte is the largest unit of measurement for computer data. It consists of...

YouTube YouTube is a video sharing website owned by Google that allows users to watch other people's videos and publish their...

Terms Beginning with "Z"

Zebibyte	A zebibyte is a unit of data storage that equals 2 to the 70th power, or 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes. While...
Zero Day Exploit	A zero day exploit is a malicious computer attack that takes advantage of a security hole before the vulnerability is...
Zettabyte	A zettabyte is 2 to the 70th power, or 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 bytes. It can be estimated as 10 to the 21st...
ZIF	Stands for "Zero Insertion Force." ZIF is a type of CPU socket on a computer motherboard that allows for the simple...
Zip	Windows users will see this term a lot when looking for files on the Internet. A zip file (.zip) is a "zipped" or...
Zone File	A zone file is stored on a name server and provides information about one or more domain names. Each zone file...