Skip to main content

understand the technology that surrounds you everyday - III

We are surrounded by so much technology everywhere that sometimes we wish we knew better. Without further ado, look at this nifty compilation created for the rest of us. This is the third among three lists that explains the real meaning behind everyday words from the world of technology. First, see the first list of technological terms and the second list of technological terms. 

Newbie: Slang term for a user who is new on the network.
Postmaster: The administrator responsible for resolving any email problems.
QuickTime: Apple’s method of storing sound, graphics and movie files which is designed for playback via the Internet.
RNA (Ring No Answer): This is the symptom used to describe a modem at a local that rings, but does not pick up the incoming call.
SMS (Short Messaging Service): Allows cell phone users to exchange text basedmessages. Short means less than 128 characters when it started out, but as of today it can accommodate 160 characters. Traditional SMS is now nearly displaced by instant messengers and apps running from handheld devices.
Spam: A colloquial term referring to the act of posting the same message to several inappropriate newsgroups, or mass mailing unsolicited email messages to several users.
SSD (Solid State Drive): A next-generation, microchip-based (flash) storage device with no moving parts. It is significantly faster than a traditional hard drive with read/write mechanical head.
Urban Legend: A story, which may have started with a grain of truth that has been embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of myth. Spreads faster on the Internet.
Veronica: Is only a service that maintains an index of titles of items on gopher servers. Closely linked to Archie.
Virus: A program, which infects computer systems by incorporating itself into other programs or computer systems.
W3: An acronym for the World Wide Web
Winsock: A TCP/IP stack that allows you to send data to/from the Internet. Quite different
from a “windsock”.
White Pages: ICQ’s version of a directory. It allowed you to search for people to chat with. A/S/L anyone?
Xbox: Microsoft’s much-popular gaming console.
YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary): Taken from the standard disclaimer attached to EPA mileage ratings. This warning can be found in some UNIX freeware distributions.
ZIP: An open standard that allows you to compress and decompress data. The file extension given to ZIP files is .zip.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

the most boring page on the internet

Some people are born boring; others like John Ingram, thrust boredom upon the rest of the world. And so as we tread upon the gargantuan bog called the Internet, we slip and wonder: why? Why did John Ingram create a site that has nothing but just 413 (exactly) words of text? Why did he create a site that has no meaning, no reason to exist, and no way to earn him even a cent, forget a fortune? But it takes all kinds, and Ingram is one of those. He is rational in his thought, grammatically correct in his writing (although) for some reason he hates capital letters), and has enough reasons to keep the world’s most boring site alive at all times since its “founding” in 1996. Is that why his site has now been translated into 12 languages including Finnish, French, Swedish, Norwegian, and, hold your breath, ladies and gentleman, Pig Latin? World War II is obviously history since here we have a German as well as a Hebrew translation sitting right next to each other. The site, Ingram informs us...
2 comments
Read more

abort, retry, ignore poem

The infamous Abort, Retry, Ignore message box of Windows, with no option given to close it. Found this classic and fun poem about the "Abort, Retry, Ignore" message. I have been able to trace back the source to Annoyances.org. Here it is: Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets. Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer, I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store, Only this and nothing more. Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
 Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token.
 "Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!"
 One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more,
 Just, "Abort...
Post a Comment
Read more

folding the brick - talent wasted on perfecting crease on glass

It is such a demeaning thought. A smartphone that has been able to do nothing more than pick up calls and take photos for nearly 20 years now, is on a new race. To get folded. A dumb expensive brick that it already is, today's so called smart-phones are the epitome of anti-innovation and waste of Earth's resources. A company today chooses to advertise its camera compared to its own from last year; and call it innovation. Obviously, siring five thousand talented staff from around the world means at least one line of improvement deserves to come out in the camera department. The same in the processor. But is this innovation? Innovation stopped on the day smartphone was made public. To give it a little credit: today's cameras take better pictures, but other that that, it's nothing. It has become a a slab, a brick! And now companies are on a new race to fold this brick. What could be more humourous and pathetic at the same time? Wasting so much of Earth's resources plus...
Post a Comment
Read more