| UNIX |
A multi-user, multitasking operating
system developed by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others
and originally licensed by AT&T's Bell Laboratories. It
was originally designed for minicomputers, then revised for
use on mainframes and personal computers. There are now many
versions of UNIX which can be used on many different platforms.
UNIX is written in the C programming language, which was also
developed at AT&T. Because it allows multiple programs
to run simultaneously and multiple users to access a single
computer, it has been used by universities and businesses where
many people use the same computer. It is the most commonly
used operating system for Internet nodes. |
| Upload |
To transfer files or data from one
computer to another.To download means to receive; to upload
means to transmit. |
| USB |
Universal Serial Bus. A personal
computer external bus standard, which can support up to 127
peripheral devices in a daisy chain configuration, can support
plug-and-play (hot plugging), and has a total bandwidth of 1.5
megabytes per second. It uses inexpensive cable, which can be
up to 5 meters long. |
| Utility |
a
type of software used to do a specific small job, such as count
the words in a file, or run a small calculator or clock. Good
utilities are invaluable to enhance your basic computer system.
|
| Vector |
a
line between two points. Vectors are created and displayed on
the screen with drawing software. Early computer graphics employed
mainly bit-mapped drawings, where every single point had to
be defined. Bit-mapping can be more precise than vector drawing,
but it is much slower, and demands much more computer memory.
Vector drawings can be processed just as a series of points
and connections, which are compact for a computer to store and
manipulate. |
| VGA |
stands for Video Graphics Array.
A higher resolution video card developed for IBM's PS2 line
of computers. A video display standard for color monitors that
superseded CGA and EGA. VGA monitors display 16 colors at a
resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, the minimum standard display.
The vertical scan frequency is around 56Hz to 60Hz.For multimedia
applications, it is better to have Super VGA. |
| Video monitor |
Also called a display. A device that
displays text and graphics generated by a computer. Desktop
monitors are usually cathode-ray tubes, and laptop monitors
are usually liquid crystal display. A monitor can be monochrome
(black and white) or colour. Colour monitors may show either
digital or analog color. |
| WAN (Wide Area Network) |
A
group of interconnected computers and peripherals separated
by many miles. WANs are frequently composed of LANs in different
cities connected by relatively low-speed data lines provided
by a common carrier. |
| Windows |
User interface software with windows
released by Microsoft in 1985 to run with MS-DOS. |
| Workstation |
a
powerful small computer that runs the Unix operating systems.
The term is sometimes used to refer to a terminal used for a
particular job in a business setting. |
| WWW |
(World Wide Web).A hypermedia-based
system for browsing Internet sites. It is named the Web because
it is made of many sites linked together; users can travel from
one site to another by clicking on hyperlinks. Text, graphics,
sound, and video can all be accessed with browsers like Mosaic,
Netscape, or Internet Explorer. The Web can also be accessed
with text-only browsers like Lynx. |
| WYSIWYG |
What You See Is What You Get.Refers
to the ability of a computer to present an image of a page layout
or graphic on its screen that shows how the actual page will
look like when it comes out of the printer.Before advanced computer
technology made WYSIWYG possible, a typesetter formatting a
page would see only unformatted lines of type and coding on
the screen, and would have to hope that the copy that came out
would look the way it was supposed to. |
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