IT imp. definitions Flashcards
BIOS
It stands for Basic Input Output system. It is a small chip on the motherboard that includes start up code, the set up program and also loads the hardware settings required to operate various devices like keyboard, monitor, disk drives, etc.
ASCII
It stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It issued to represent data in main computer memory. It uses the rightmost seven bits of the 8-bit byte to represent numbers, letters and special characters. The 8th bit is used for parity or it may be permanently 1 or 0.
VPN
It stands for Virtual Private Network. It is a private network that uses a public network (usually the Internet) to connect remote sites or users together. Instead of using a dedicated, real-world connection, a VPN uses virtual connections routed through the Internet from the company‘s private network to the remote site or employee.
Bluetooth
: Bluetooth is a telecommunications industry specification that describes how mobile phones, computers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) can be easily interconnected using a short-range wireless connection.
Joystick
It is a screen pointing input device. It is a vertical lever usually placed in a ball socket, which can be moved in any direction to control cursor movements around the screen, for computer games and some professional applications.
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is a device interface that is used to solve the problem of a finite and possibly insufficient number of expansion slots. Instead of plugging interface cards into the computer‘s bus via the expansion slots, SCSI extends the bus outside the computer by way of a cable.
Management Database:
Management databases store data and information extracted from selected operational and external databases. They consist of summarized data and information most needed by the organization‘s managers and other end users as part of decision support systems and executive information systems to support managerial decision making. They are also called information databases.
Mirror Log
It is an optional database file which is a copy of a transaction log (a file that records database modifications) and provides additional protection against the loss of data in the event the transaction log becomes unusable. It has a file extension of .mlg.
Program Debugging
Cleansing the computer program from errors is called program debugging. Towards this purpose, the programmers devise a set of test data transactions to test the various alternative branches in the program. The results got from the computer are compared with the ones derived manually prior to computer processing. If the results do not tally, the programmer then verifies the flowcharts and code in a search for the bugs and then fixes the bugs.
Repeater
: It is a device that solves the snag of signal degradation which results as data is transmitted along the various cables. It boosts or amplifies the signal before passing it through to the next section of cable.
Fat Client
In two-tier architecture, a client is called as a fat client if the business logic and the presentation layer are located on the client machine and data layer is on the server machine. The entire processing load is on the client. It imposes a lot of memory and bandwidth requirement on the client‘s machine.
DDE
Direct Data Entry (DDE) refers to entry of data directly into the computers through machine readable source documents. It does not require manual transcription of data from original paper documents. DDE devices can scan source documents magnetically or optically to capture data. Examples of such devices include magnetic ink character readers and optical character readers.
Key
In the context of relational databases, a key is a set of one or more columns whose combined values are unique among all occurrences in a given table. A key is the relational means of specifying uniqueness.
EFT
EFT stands for Electronic Funds Transfer and represents the way the business can receive direct deposit of all payments from the financial institution to the company‘s bank account. Once the user signs up, money come to him directly and sooner than ever before. Examples of EFT systems in operation include Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Point-of-Sale transactions.
Decision Table
A decision table is a table listing all the possible contingencies that may be considered within the program, together with the corresponding actions to be taken. Decision tables permit complex decision-making criteria to be expressed in a concise and logical format.
Flowchart
A flowchart is a diagram, prepared by the programmer, of the sequence of steps, involved in solving a problem. It shows the general plan, architecture, and essential details of the proposed structure. It is an essential tool for programming and it illustrates the strategy and thread of logic followed in the program.
Web Browser
: A Web browser is a special client software package which is used to view Web pages on the Internet. It fetches a Web page from a server using a standard HTTP request. Some of the popular browsers are Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.
Hollerith Code
Hollerith Code is used for representing alphanumeric data on punched cards. Each card column holds one character. Each decimal digit, letter, and special character is represented by one, two or three holes punched into designated row positions of the column.
Virus
A virus is a program that instructs the operating system to append it to other programs and thus propagates to other programs via files containing macros which are sent as attachments to electronic mail messages. A virus can be benign like it can cause minor
disruptions by printing laughing messages or can be malignant like it can delete files or corrupt other programs.
Buffering
Buffering is a process that enables the processor to execute another instruction while input or output is taking place rather than being idle while transfer is completed.
