306 Glossary
www.dell.com | support.dell.com
EXTENDED DISPLAY MODE — A display setting that
allows you to use a second monitor as an extension of your
display. Also referred to as dual display mode.
EXTENDED PC CARD — A PC Card that extends
beyond the edge of the PC Card slot when installed.
F
FAHRENHEIT — A temperature measurement system
where 32° is the freezing point and 212° is the boiling point
of water.
FCC — Federal Communications Commission — A U.S.
agency responsible for enforcing communications-related
regulations that state how much radiation computers and
other electronic equipment can emit.
FLOPPY DRIVE — A disk drive that can read and write to
floppy disks.
FOLDER — A term used to describe space on a disk or
drive where files are organized and grouped. Files in a
folder can be viewed and ordered in various ways, such as
alphabetically, by date, and by size.
FORMAT — The process that prepares a drive or disk for
file storage. When a drive or disk is formatted, the existing
information on it is lost.
FSB — front side bus — The data path and physical
interface between the processor and RAM.
FTP — file transfer protocol — A standard Internet
protocol used to exchange files between computers
connected to the Internet.
G
G — gravity — A measurement of weight and force.
GB — gigabyte — A measurement of data storage that
equals 1024 MB (1,073,741,824 bytes). When used to refer
to hard drive storage, the term is often rounded to
1,000,000,000 bytes.
GH
Z — gigahertz — A measurement of frequency that
equals one thousand million Hz, or one thousand MHz. The
speeds for computer processors, buses, and interfaces are
often measured in GHz.
GRAPHICS MODE — A video mode that can be defined
as x horizontal pixels by y vertical pixels by z colors.
Graphics modes can display an unlimited variety of shapes
and fonts.
GUI — graphical user interface — Software that interacts
with the user by means of menus, windows, and icons. Most
programs that operate on the Windows operating systems
are GUIs.
H
HARD DRIVE — A drive that reads and writes data on a
hard disk. The terms hard drive and hard disk are often used
interchangeably.
HEAT SINK — A metal plate on some processors that
helps dissipate heat.
HELP FILE — A file that contains descriptive or
instructional information about a product. Some help files
are associated with a particular program, such as Help in
Microsoft Word. Other help files function as stand-alone
reference sources. Help files typically have a filename
extension of .hlp or.chm.
HIBERNATE MODE — A power management mode that
saves everything in memory to a reserved space on the hard
drive and then turns off the computer. When you restart the
computer, the memory information that was saved to the
hard drive is automatically restored.
HTML — hypertext markup language — A set of codes
inserted into an Internet web page intended for display on an
Internet browser.
HTTP — hypertext transfer protocol — A protocol for
exchanging files between computers connected to the
Internet.
H
Z — hertz — A unit of frequency measurement that
equals 1 cycle per second. Computers and electronic
devices are often measured in kilohertz (kHz), megahertz
(MHz), gigahertz (GHz), or terahertz (THz).
To Next Page
Loading...
