Glossary Flashcards
What is meant by an
Accessible interface?
An interface is Accessible if its design does not prevent certain people from using the interface, (e.g. people with vision or hearing problems.
What is an Actual Parameter?
A Parameter which is used when a procedure or function is called.
What is the Address Bus?
The Address bus is used by the processor to identify a memory location for reading from or writing to.
What is an Algorithm?
A detailed sequence of steps which, when followed, will accomplish a task.
What is meant by Alpha Testing?
Alpha Testing is the testing of software within the development organisation. Can be performed even if the product is not complete.
What is an Animation?
When images can appear to move.
What is meant by Anti-Virus Software?
Software used to detect the presence of viruses or other malicious software on a computer system.
What is the Arithmetic and Logic Unit?
Also known as the ALU, the Arithmetic and Logic Unit is the part of a CPU Where data is processed and manipulated.
What is an Array?
An array is a way of storing a range of values of the same type in a single indexed structure.
What is ASCII?
ASCII Stands for ‘American Standard Code for Information Interchange, and is an 8 bit system for storing text.
What is an Attribute?
A property of characteristic of something.
What is a Back Link?
A link within a website that leads back to the homepage of the website.
What is meant by Bandwidth?
The rate that data can be transmitted through a connection, typically measures in bits per second.
What is meant by beta testing?
Beta Testing is the testing of software outside of the development organisation, using clients or selected members of the public.
What is a Bit?
A single unit of binary data.
What is meant by Bitmap?
A representation of image data where each bit corresponds to an individual pixel on the screen.
What is the Body of a web page?
The second section of a web page that contains all the data that is to be displayed.
What is a Boolean variable?
A value which can only be true or false.
What is meant by Bot-net?
Bot-net is a slang term for the computers that have become infected with malicious software and can then be used to launch a DDOS attack.
What is a Break-point?
A marker set within the code of a program to halt program execution at a predefined spot. Used for debugging programs.
What is a Calculated Field?
A field that obtains its value by carrying out calculations or operations on the contents of other fields.
What is meant by Cardinality?
Cardinality is the type of relationship between tables in a relational database.
What is meant by Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)?
The language used to construct style sheets for websites.
What is a class library?
Collection of classes that can be used in software development, as building blocks for further class definitions.
What is meant by Client-Side?
When an operation is done at the ‘client’ end of a client/server connection.
What is meant by client side scripting?
The scripts for a website are executed on the clients computer, this allows the code to be viewed and copied.
What is meant by Cloud System?
Applications and services that are accessed remotely from a server.
What is a collision?
A Collision occurs when two devices attempt to transmit simultaneously on an Ethernet network.
What is meant by Colour Depth?
The number of colours that have been used to capture an image.
What is Compatibility?
Whether or not an information system will work on a particular device.
What is a Compiler?
A program that translates a complete high level language program (source code) into an independent machine code program.
What is meant by Compression?
Compression is used to reduce the size of files.
What is a Computational Construct?
A system of data representation and control structures used to solve problems using a computer through a programming language.
what is Concatenation?
Concatenation is when two strings are joined together to make a new string.
What is a Conditional Loop?
A control construct which allows a block of code to be repeated until a condition is met.
What is meant by connectivity?
How computers in a network are connected.
What are Control Characters?
Special non-printing characters in a character set, used for special purposes, e.g carriage return and end of file.
What is meant by Control Structures?
A programming language structure which determines the flow of execution though the code.
What is a Control Unit?
Include timing/control logic and an instruction decoder. It sends signals to other parts of the computer to direct the fetch and execution of machine instructions.
What are Cookies?
Cookies are small text files saved by a browser that can be accessed and read by websites visited. Often used to save personal preferences, but can be used to track user for advertising purposes.
What is a Database?
A Collection of information stored in a structured format that can be quickly searched or sorted.
What is a Database-driven Website?
A Database-driven Website is one that collects its content from a connected database.
What is a Data bus?
Used to transfer data to and from the processor.
What is a Data Dictionary?
A detailed list of data structures and relationships in a programming project.
What is a Data-flow Diagram?
A diagram that shows how data flows between different modules in a piece of software.
What is DCT?
DCT stands for Discrete Cosine Transform and is a lossy compression system used by the JPEG compression algorithm.
What is a DOS attack?
A Denial of Service Attack attempts to disrupt a network by overloading it with requests for information.
What is a differential backup?
Only changes made since the last full backup are saved.
What is a Digital Certificate?
An electronic document that is used to confirm the identity of an individual or an organisation.
What is a Digital Signature?
An electronic signature that is used to authenticate the identity of the sender.
What is Disk Mirroring?
A constant backup is made every time any changes are made.
What is a DDOS Attack?
A Distributed Denial of Service attack is when a group of computers infected with malicious software bombards a website to force it offline.
What is a Domain?
The permitted values of an attribute, for example a type of data.
What is a Domain Name?
A text-based address that is registered with a Domain Name Server (DNS) and ties your web server to your IP address.
What is meant by Domain Name Server (DNS)?
DNS is a network service which converts the user friendly name of a web resource to its IP address so that your browser can access it.
What is a Dynamic Web page?
A Web page that’s contents are subject to change every time it is loaded.
What is Encapsulation?
A characteristic of objects in object-oriented programming which means that objects are closed systems which cannot be altered from outside.
What is meant by Encryption?
Apply a code to data before it is transmitted electronically. It prevents information from being understood if it is intercepted.
What is an Entity?
Something that exists as a particular and discrete form.
What is an Entity Set?
A collection of entities of similar form represented in a database as a table.
What is Ethernet?
A popular local area network protocol commonly using either a UTP cable with transmission rates of up to 1000 Mbps or wireless with transmission rates of up to 300 Mbps.
What is an execution error?
An error which only manifests itself when a program is run rather than when its source code is translated.
What is an Expert System?
A system consisting of a database of facts and rules, an inference engine and a user interface used to help people make decisions.
What is an Exponent?
The Exponent represents the range of a floating point number.
What is the Fetch-Execute Cycle?
The repeated process of fetching instructions from main memory, decoding the instructions and executing them.
What is a field?
One piece of information in a record.
What is a Firewall?
A Firewall is a software that monitors network traffic, blocking activity as described by Firewall settings.
What is a Fixed Loop?
A loop which repeats a set number of times.
What is meant by FLAC?
Free Lossless Audio Codec is a lossless compression algorithm which has been specifically designed to take advantage of the characteristics of audio files.
What is Floating Point notation?
A method of representing an approximation of a real number in a way that can support a wide range of values.
What is a Foreign Key?
The primary key of a separate table that is included in a table.
What is a Form?
A graphical user interface in a database, can only display one record at a time.
What is a Formal Parameter?
The parameter in in the definition of a procedure or function.
What is a Frame?
Frame is the name for the blocks of data being transmitted between machines in an Ethernet network.
What is meant by Frame Rate?
How many still images are played per second to give the impression that they are moving.
What is a Full Backup?
All data is backed up, regardless of when it was last backed up.
What is a Function?
A Function is a sub-program which returns a value.
What is meant by GIF?
A lossless data compression format for graphics.
What is a Global Variable?
A Global Variable is a variable that has scope throughout the entire program where it occurs.
What is the Head of a Web page?
The top section of a web page that contains the metadata and title tag.
What is meant by Hexadecimal?
A number system which uses base 16 instead of 10.
What does Hierarchical mean?
Pages can be accessed in a random order. But there is still structure to it.
What is meant by a High Level Language?
English-like programming language which has to be translated into machine code before computers can understand it.
What is meant by House Style?
A set of rules for writing readable code imposed by a software development company on their programmers.
What is a Hub?
A Hub is a piece of network hardware in an Ethernet network. A hub transmits every frame it receives to all the machines connected to it.
What is Identity Theft?
Identity Theft is when your personal details are obtained by others for the purposes of committing fraud.
What does Increment mean?
Incrementing a variable means to increase its value by a fixed amount.
What is an Incremental Backup?
Only the changes made since any form of backup are saved.
What is an Index?
An integer value which identifies the position of an item in an Array.
What is inheritance?
Used in object-oriented programming, the sharing of characteristics between a class of objects and a newly created sub-class.
What is an instance?
And occurrence or example of an Entity.