2009 Business 4 Update - Glossary of Ter

Business 4 Update – Additional Glossary of Terms
Business 4 Update
Technical Addendum for 2009 – Additional Glossary (Technical Addendum Glossary)
Last Updated: May 5, 2009
INTRODUCTION
We continue to feel strongly that, however technical or non-technical the actual exam questions might be or might
become in the future, the emphasis of the questions is and will continue to be on terminology. Because of that, we
have made extensive additions to the IT part of the Glossary in this Addendum. It might not be the most fun thing
in the world to read a glossary, but it just might make a difference on the exam! Remember that some of the
terminology could simply be used as distracters in an attempt to hide the correct answer to a question. A
considerable amount of the added technical information is located in the Glossary section. Note, however, while
significant terminology is included in the Glossary, not all of the glossary words are included in the text. Further,
there are some words that are included in the text but not in the Glossary, and other words that are contained in
higher level definitions (Java applet, for example, sometimes just called applet, is contained in the definition of
Java).
Note that some of the words in the Glossary are acronyms and are sorted alphabetically; other words are listed in
their non-acronym form, so it sometimes might take just a little looking to find a word. Because the questions on
the CPA exam can use different terminology, it helps to have some context so that you can adapt to any
differences in terminology that you may encounter on your exam. As there are no essay questions on the BEC
exam, you do not have to memorize all of the definitions, but it should be helpful to have some kind of idea of
what a specific word means. Again, you may see the words as correct answers or as incorrect answers.
Exam technique is important for all parts of the CPA exam, but it is especially important on the IT portion of the
BEC exam. As is demonstrated by the released questions, the IT portion of the BEC exam is often terminology,
but the examiners' definition of what level of technical knowledge is appropriate for CPA exam candidates does
not always seem to be consistent with the candidates' definition. Thus, sometimes it is necessary to take a
backwards approach to the questions.
Some questions are obvious and direct and, therefore, easily answerable. Of course, you should go ahead and
answer those questions without further work. Other questions, however, might not be that way at all. So if you
cannot figure out what the answer is, see if you can figure out what the answer is not. At the very least, doing that
might eliminate a couple of the answers and improve your odds of guessing.
Remember that somebody actually has to write the questions, and writing good questions is not an easy task. It is
often relatively easy to come up with 3 good alternative answers (good answers are answers that are either
correct or that are incorrect but close enough so that there might be a plausible reason to pick that answer) but a
lot harder to come up with that all-important 4th alternative. Sometimes, that 4th alternative just has to be pulled out
of the air. With IT questions, that means answers that use buzzwords but that actually do not mean anything. If
you are not sure about a question, look for that alternative. You might be able to eliminate that one alternative and
improve your odds of guessing just because you perused the Glossary!
Note: This material does not have to be “learned” or “memorized.” It is, however, worth at least a quick review
since it answers questions that candidates have often asked during or after live classes. Some time, however
painful, might pay off in a big way.
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© 2009 DeVry/Becker Educational Development Corp. All rights reserved.
GLOSSARY ADDITIONS FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Note 1: There is a reference on pages B4-67 and B4-68 to the overall BEC Glossary in the text.
Note 2: Ignore the following definitions in the "original" Glossary in the text that have been replaced by
definitions in this Additional Glossary:
• Application Firewall
• Bandwidth
• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Spam
Note 3: The "See also" references in this Glossary refer to additional terms in this Glossary and also to the
glossary terms in the "original" Glossary in the text.
Note 4: Some of these definitions can be somewhat vague because many of the words can really be defined
precisely only by being way too technical for this presentation. We provide them here in an attempt to
"collect" as many of the terms that could show up on your exam as possible. Note also that various
vendors of products often use the words a little bit differently (and not necessarily correctly).
10BaseT – 10BaseT is an Ethernet implementation for UTP. The 10 is for the transmission speed of 10 Mbps.
The Base is for baseband (only one signal is present on the medium at a time). The T is for twisted pair.
100BaseT is one of several fast Ethernet standards for UTP. See also unshielded twisted pair (UTP) and
Ethernet.
3G – 3G is the designation for third generation cellular networks. The first generation (1G) networks in the early
1980s were analog and could be used only for voice communications. The second generation (2G) networks in
the early 1990's were digital and provided better voice quality and global roaming and could be used for voice and
data communications. Third generation (3G) networks utilize packet switching technology for higher speeds and
can be used for broadband digital services. There is also an interim 2.5G in the US. The first country where 3G
was introduced on a large scale was Japan. See also analog signal and digital signal and 802.16.
802.11a – 802.11a is an IEEE standard for WiFi that is faster and transmits at between 6 and 54 Mbps. See also
802.11b and 802.11g and WiFi and Mbps.
802.11b – 802.11b is an IEEE standard for wireless LANs or WiFi. See also 802.11a and 802.11g and WiFi.
802.11g – 802.11g is an IEEE standard for WiFi. It was released in 2003 and is backwards compatible with
802.11b. It transmits at up to 54 Mbps but is subject to some interference from other electrical appliances using
the same frequency band, just like 802.11b. See also 802.11a and 802.11b and WiFi and Mbps and 802.11n.
802.11i – 802.11i (also known as WPA2, or WiFi protected access) is an IEEE standard specifying security
mechanisms for WiFi. It supersedes the previous security specification called WEP (wired equivalent privacy),
which left an awful lot to be desired in terms of security (about all it could do was protect from casual snooping;
the use of WEP was optional, which meant that some organizations did not use it at all and were thru totally
unprotected, the 40 bit encryption key that was used was not really long enough, and the same encryption key
was shared by all users). With WPA2, the encryption key is longer and is changed periodically. See also WiFi.
802.11n – 802.11n is a new generation of wireless Internet products that is scheduled for release in 2009 (there
are draft versions available now, from 2007). The "n" products are expected to be about 5-6 times as fast as
801.11g products. The technology uses multiple transmitter and receiver antennas to improve performance. See
also 802.11g.
802.15.1 – 802.15.1 is an IEEE standard for small personal area networks known as Bluetooth. See also
Bluetooth.
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802.16 – 802.16 (or 802.16e) is an IEEE standard for WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access)
for high-speed wireless. WiMAX is a competitor of 3G service and works considerably differently than WiFi, for
example. WiFi uses a contention access for all messages with all subscriber stations passing data through an
access point competing for the access point's attention on a random basis (almost sounds a little like the old
CSMA/CD for Ethernet). With WiMAX, a subscriber station has to compete for the attention of the access point
only on its initial access; after that, it is assigned a time slice. Some telephone companies are investigating
WiMAX for their connections between their central office and homes and businesses. There is no uniform global
assigned frequency spectrum for WiMAX. See also 3G and access point.
802.3 – 802.3 is the physical layer and data link layer IEEE standard for Ethernet. There are about 20-30 802.3
standards for various media and various speeds and other characteristics. See also Ethernet and physical layer
protocol and data link layer protocol.
Access Log – An access log is a file with information of each access to a file or web site. See also system access
log and electronic access controls.
Access Point – An access point is a device that connects wireless communication devices together to form a
wireless network. An access point is often called a wireless access point (WAP, but the abbreviation should not
be confused with the other WAP, wireless application protocol). The access point normally connects to a wired
network. Several WAPs can link together to form a larger network that allows roaming. Wireless access points
have IP addresses for configuration and management of the network. See also hotspot and ad hoc mode and
infrastructure mode and roaming.
Acceptance Testing – Acceptance testing is the final testing of an application system before it is installed in
production. See also unit testing and parallel processing.
Access Control List (ACL) – An access control list, in a computer security context, is a list of permissions attached
to a piece of data. The access control list specifies who (which users or groups of users or roles) can access the
data and what they can do to/with it (read, write, delete, execute).
Address Bus – The address bus is the transfer mechanism for PC (memory) addresses into and out of the
processor (the width of the address bus indicates the largest possible memory address for that particular
processor). See also data bus and internal register and microprocessor.
Ad Hoc Mode – Ad hoc mode is wireless networking where networking devices are physically close enough so
that they can communicate without an access point. See also access point and infrastructure mode and hotspot
and roaming.
Ajax – Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a web development tool for creating interactive web
applications. Ajax applications are executed on the user's machine by manipulating the current web page with the
user's browser, in most cases without having to retrieve a full page of XML each time a change is made. No
browser plug-in is required for Ajax, but it does require users to have JavaScript enabled on their browsers. See
also JavaScript and hypertext markup language (HTML) and XML (extensible markup language).
Alphanumeric Data – Alphanumeric data is a string of characters that contains both letters and numbers. Numeric
data contains only numbers, and alphabetic data contains only letters.
Analog Signal – An analog signal is a continuous wave-type signal that varies in value over time. An analog signal
can be differentiated from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the analog signal mean something. The most
common problem with analog signals is noise. See also digital signal and bandpass filtering and bandwidth and
repeater and noise and frequency.
Analytical CRM – Analytical CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the part of a CRM system that
analyzes customer data generated by the operational part of the system to provide information for improving
customer-related business functions. See also operational CRM.
Apache – Apache is an open-source web (HTTP) server. See also web server and hypertext transfer protocol
(HTTP) and open-source software and runtime.
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Application Firewall – An application firewall is a "new" type of firewall that supplements the standard network
firewall. A standard network firewall (which is what is meant when the word "firewall" is used by itself) inspects
data in packet headers of packets that are coming from or going to certain ports (packet filtering) based on the
firewall access rules that have been written. An application firewall (sometimes known as a proxy or an
application layer gateway or an application level gateway if it is implemented in hardware) examines data in the
packets themselves. Note that the word "application" in this context does not refer to application software such as
the Accounts Receivable application but to the application layer in a network protocol. See also firewall and
application level gateway and port and network protocol and application layer protocol.
Application Program Interface (API) – An application program interface is a source code interface that a computer
system or program library provides to support requests for services to be made of it by a computer program. An
API is often part of a software development kit (SDK). An API comes in the form of a collection of functions or
subroutines callable by other programs.
Appliance – An appliance (or computer appliance) is a software advice which provides a narrow range of
functions and that are normally run on a stand-alone hardware platform that is designed specifically for that task.
Appliances may be used for firewalls or for encryption or as email filters. One advantage is that the appliance can
be optimized for the specific function being performed. See also firewall and content filtering.
Application Layer Protocol – An application layer protocol is a communication protocol for the application layer,
normally or almost always the highest layer of an architecture. HTTP, FTP, DNS, SMTP, POP3, and Telnet are
application layer protocols. See also physical layer protocol and data link layer protocol and transport layer
protocol and Open System Interconnect (OSI).
Application Server – An application server is a server for a particular software application. See also client/server
and middleware and simple object access protocol (SOAP).
Architecture – From a communication protocol and network standard standpoint, an architecture is the overall
structure of a set of protocols or standards. An architecture is almost always built in layers, with the different
layers performing different functions. An architecture is not a product that can be purchased somewhere. It is the
rules or standards that various products should conform to when they are providing services (for example, for a
particular layer). See also application layer protocol and data link layer protocol and transport layer protocol and
Open System Interconnect (OSI).
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Shell – The AI shell is the programming environment of an expert or decision support
system. See also artificial intelligence and rule base and forward chaining and backward chaining and fuzzy logic
and inference engine and expert system and decision support system.
ASCII – ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a system of character encoding based on
the English alphabet. ASCII is strictly a 7-bit code, meaning that it uses only 7 bits or 0-127 in decimal to
represent characters. The first 32 codes are reserved for control characters, code 32 is a blank or a space, codes
33-47 and 58-64 are special characters, codes 48-57 are numbers, and codes 65-90 are capital letters. The 8th bit
in a byte is often used as a parity bit. See also EBCDIC and parity bit.
Assurance Services – Assurance services are services provided by CPAs to their clients in areas such as risk
assessment, information systems reliability, and E-commerce.
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) – Asynchronous transfer mode is a PSDN network protocol that encodes
data in small fixed-size packets instead of variable-sized packets (such as with IP or Ethernet). ATM is a
connection-oriented technology. This ATM should not be confused with the other ATM (automatic teller machine).
See also frame relay and packet switching and TCP/IP and PSDN.
Asynchronous Transmission – Asynchronous transmission is data transmission in which each character is

transmitted separately. There is a start bit before each character transmitted and a stop bit after each character
transmitted. See also synchronous transmission.
Attenuation – Attenuation (signal attenuation) is the weakening of a signal as it travels through a cable. Both
analog signals and digital signals are subject to attenuation. Attenuation is treated by amplification, sometimes
using repeaters. See also dispersion and analog signal and digital signal and repeater.
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Autonomic Computing – Autonomic computing is hardware systems that can configure themselves, optimize and
tune themselves, fix themselves when they are broken, and protect themselves from attack. The idea of
autonomic computing was developed by IBM. Its mainframe computers in the late 1990s could sense some
hardware problems that were starting to develop and contact an IBM service center (call home) which could then
dispatch a service technician before there was any external evidence of the problem to operations or software
staff.
Backbone – The backbone is that part of a network that carries the major portion of the network traffic. See also
fiber optic cable and trunk line and local loop and POP.
Backup – Backup (or file backup) is the copying of data so that the copies of the data will be available if the
original data is damaged or destroyed. Backups are necessary in normal operations (where individual files or
groups of files might be damaged by an incorrect application program, for example) or for disaster recovery.
Backups may be full backups (where "all" of the data is backed up) or incremental backups (where only changed
data after the last full backup or the last incremental backup is backed up). A hot backup is the backup of a
database that is being used; changes to the data might be made while the backup is being made. A backup
window is the period of time that a system has available to perform a backup procedure; some systems never
shut down for backups so that a much more technically advanced backup process must be used. Backups are
only as good as the process to restore the data. Restores must be tested.
Backward Chaining – Backward chaining in an AI shell starts with a hypothesis and works backwards by asking
questions of the user to see if there are data available to support the optimal goal; backward chaining is thus
called goal driven. See also forward chaining and fuzzy logic and inference engine and artificial intelligence (AI)
shell and rule base.
Band – A band, sometimes called a service band, is a small part of the frequency spectrum, in which channels
are normally set aside or used for the same purpose. The AM radio band is a band between 535 KHz and 1,705
KHz, and the FM radio band is a band between 88 MHz and 108 MHz. The 2.4 GHz band for wireless LANs is
between 2.400 GHz and 2.4835 GHz. See also frequency and Hertz and gigahertz (GHz).
Bandpass Filtering – Bandpass filtering is the process of chopping off the high and low ends of an analog signal.
The signal then fits in a smaller band but does not really lose any of its information carrying capability. See also
analog signal and band.
Bandwidth – Bandwidth is a measure of a communication medium's information carrying capacity. It is the range
of frequencies that signals spread over or how wide a particular signal is. For analog signals, bandwidth is a
measure of how rapidly the signal fluctuates with respect to time, or how fast the signal's sine wave goes from a
particular point on the wave back to that same point. There are a number of different definitions of bandwidth
depending on the context. See also analog signal and frequency and band and broadband and bandpass filtering.
Banner Ad – A banner ad is a graphic display on a web page that is used for advertising. The banner ad is linked
to the advertiser's web site and clicking on the ad transfers the person to that web site. See also pop-up ad.
Baud Rate – The baud rate is a measurement of the speed at which data is transmitted between two computers,
informally the number of bits per second being transmitted. Technically, baud rate is the number of clock cycles a
transmission of data uses per second. Technically, the bit rate is the number of bits per second. It is very unlikely
that candidates on the CPA exam will be required to make this kind of very technical distinction, but it is always
good to have seen the words.
BIOS – BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is low-level software that controls PC system hardware and acts as an
interface between the operating system and the hardware. The BIOS contains the device drivers for the various
hardware devices attached to the PC. See also device driver and interrupt and microcode and plug-and-play.
Blacklist – In a spam control environment, a blacklist is an access control mechanism that allows email from all
email addresses except those email addresses on the blacklist. Sometimes legitimate organizations, who just
happen to be sending a large number of emails, are incorrectly identified as spammers and put on a blacklist. See
also spam.
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Blade Server – A blade server is a thin modular processor that is intended for a single dedicated application.
Blade servers are normally installed in racks and often utilize a single heavy duty reliable power supply, as
opposed to multiple power supplies for each of the servers. They tend to concentrate heat generation in a small
area, but they can also utilize more efficient air cooling than a rack of non-blade servers. They can be customized
to perform specialized functions and are normally self-healing and highly redundant. An individual PC or server
does not require much power or generate much heat, but when there are a large number of PCs and servers
used together in a data center in server racks, power consumption and heat removal can become a real problem,
just like they were back in the heyday of the mainframe. As heat builds up, equipment temperature rises and
equipment failure increases. See also server.
Blog – A blog is an informal web site where individuals can publish opinions and views and add links to other
sites. Most blogs are created by individuals, but they can be used by corporations for informal communication
such as presenting information about, and soliciting information about, new products and services. Blogosphere is
a word which is sometimes used to refer to all blogs or a collection of linked blogs.
Blue Screen of Death – The Blue Screen of Death is the popular name for the screen displayed by the various
Windows operating systems when the system cannot recover from, or is in danger of being unable to recover
from, a system error.
Bluetooth – Bluetooth is the popular name for the 802.15.1 networking standard to create small personal area
networks without a cable. Bluetooth can be used to connect up to 8 devices (PDAs, mobile phones, laptops, PCs,
printers, digital cameras, etc., anything with the appropriate radio transceiver in it) within a 10-meter (now 100-
meter, depending on the power of the transmission) area using low-power radio-based communication. Bluetooth
uses the same frequencies as WiFi, but WiFi has a stronger signal. Bluetooth does not require a line of sight and
requires less proximity than RFID devices. See also WiFi and 802.15.1 and RFID.
Boolean Logic – Boolean logic is a system of logical operations, such as AND and OR and NOT, that is often
used in programming or searching.
Booting – Booting (short for bootstrapping) is a process that starts the operating system of a PC when the PC is
turned on. Just after a PC is turned on, it does not have an operating system in memory so there is initially
nothing to execute. The boot process loads the operating system and gets things going. For mainframes, the
same process is called IPL (initial program load). Most embedded systems boot almost instantly; they have their
whole operating system in ROM or flash memory so that it can be executed directly. See also flash memory.
Bot – A bot is an Internet software program that performs certain services on the Internet, such as gathering
information from web pages, autonomously. The term is derived from the word "robot." Web crawlers are bots.
Bots that were designed with a malicious intent are sometimes called malicious bots. See also web crawler and
intelligent agent and botnet and denial-of-service attack.
Botnet – A botnet is a collection of compromised computers (sometimes called zombie computers) running
worms, Trojan horses, or other malicious software under the common control of a botmaster, who controls the
botnet remotely. A bot may be used to send spam, for example, or for a denial-of-service attack. See also bot and
zombie attack and spam.
Buffer Overflow – A buffer overflow is a condition in the processing of a program where the program attempts to
write data beyond the boundaries of a buffer (an area of memory). Without worrying too much about what a buffer
is, the program is attempting to write data into addresses in memory beyond where it should be writing data, thus
potentially damaging or destroying the processing of other programs that are trying to use the data that has been
overwritten. Buffer overflows may be caused by malicious code of some type and may be used to attack a
system; at least two major worms have exploited buffer overflows. The choice of programming language can have
a major effect on the occurrence of buffer overflows; for example, neither C nor C++ provides automatic
protection against buffer overflows, leaving that up to the programmer. Most interpreted languages protect against
buffer overflows. See also software vulnerability and zombie attack and interpretation and bot.
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Bullwhip Effect – The bullwhip effect, in a supply chain using push-based models or forecast-driven models, is the
increase of inventories caused by each part of the supply chain building up safety stocks. In periods of increased
demand, each part of the supply chain will build up more of a safety stock, thus causing the overall inventory to
increase more than is indicated by the increased demand. In periods of decreased demand, each part of the
supply chain will reduce its safety stock, thus causing the overall inventory to be reduced more than is indicated
by the reduced demand. See also supply chain management and pull-based model.
Bundling – Bundling is the selling of a combination of products at a price lower than the price would be if the
products were purchased separately. A common example of bundling is that of cable and telephone companies
selling local and long distance telephone (and possibly VoIP), cable TV, and high-speed Internet access at a
bundled and somewhat reduced price.
Bus Topology – A bus topology or bus network is a network topology in which all stations are connected to the
same transmission medium and all signals are transmitted to all stations (but with the ends not connected in a
ring). Early Ethernet was an example of a bus topology. See also bus network and ring topology and star topology
and tree topology.
Business Continuity Planning – Business continuity planning is one step up from disaster recovery in that
business continuity planning deals with the whole business and not just IT. See also disaster recovery.
Business Information System – A business information system is a set of interrelated components (hardware,
software, networks, people, and data) that collect, process, store, transform, and distribute data and information
to support decision making in an organization. See also accounting information system and transaction
processing system and decision support system and management information system and executive information
system.
Business Intelligence – Business intelligence is the process of analyzing large amounts of data stored on data
warehouses. See also data warehouse and data cleansing and data mining and metadata.
Business Model – A business model describes how a business produces, delivers, and sells its products or
services so as to bring value to its customers. See also business process and channel conflict and collaborative
commerce.
Business Process – A business process is a unique set of tasks and actions that organizations develop and utilize
to produce specific business results. A particular business process may or may not utilize information technology,
but these days many or most do. See also business model.
C and C++ – C and C++ are programming languages. C is a general-purpose procedural language developed in
the early 1970s (and used to write Unix). C is known for the efficiency of the executable code that is produces
(although it is not necessarily easy to learn) and is theoretically part way between assembly language (close to
the 0's and 1's that a computer understands and uses) and higher-level languages. C relies on the programmer to
keep programs out of trouble (such as handling memory allocation properly and using pointers and arrays
properly). C++ is an object-oriented version of C (more or less; it does not have to be used in an object-oriented
manner; out of the box, it can be used just like C) that was developed in 1983. See also Java and programming
language.
C2C – C2C E-commerce involves consumers selling directly to other consumers such as on EBay. See also B2B
and B2C.
Cable Modem – A cable modem is a modem designed to operate over cable TV wiring. Because the coaxial cable
used for cable TV is much faster than twisted pair telephone lines, cable modems can provide fast Internet
access. Cable modems can offer speeds up to 2 Mbps. See also digital subscriber line (DSL).
Cache – Cache or cache memory is a high-speed memory buffer that temporarily stores data that a processor
needs, allowing the processor to retrieve that data faster than if it came from memory. This definition, however,
can be generalized to mean any area of any kind of memory that temporarily stores almost any kind of data. Disk
drives and web browsers also frequently use cache memory.
Call Center – A call center is an organization which handles customer service by telephone and other channels
such as chat. Many call centers were early victims of outsourcing to offshore organizations. See also outsourcing.
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Capability Maturity Model (CMM) – The capability maturity model is a model for the software development
process that allows the "maturity" of the process to be measured. Software process maturity is the extent to which
a specific process is defined, managed, measured, controlled, and effective. The CMM was developed by the
Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University in the early 1980s. Maturity is defined at one of
5 levels: initial, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimized. Areas that are addressed are requirements
management, software configuration management, project planning, project tracking, subcontract management,
and software quality assurance. See also capability maturity model and CERT/CC.
Case-Based Reasoning System – A case-based reasoning system is a system that reasons based on past
problems that are similar. This reasoning is a form of learning by experience. The process is broken down into
four parts: (1) given a problem, retrieve a case and its solution which is relevant to solving it; (2) adapt the solution
to the current problem; (3) test the new solution and revise it if necessary; and (4) store the new case for future
use. Case-based reasoning is often used in Help Desk systems. See also rule base and neural network and
intelligent agent.
CAPTCHA – A CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is the
set of squiggly characters used in a challenge-response test to determine whether a user is a person or a
computer. The user is asked to type the letters of the distorted image and/or numbers. CAPTCHAs are
theoretically unreadable by machines although there are ways to defeat certain of them.
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) – A CRT is the display device that has traditionally been used in most video displays
and televisions, the kind that sticks out in the back. Old timers in the IT business will often say that they have
been hunched over a "tube." CRTs are now being quickly replaced by flat panel displays. See also flat panel
display.
CERT/CC – The CERT/CC is an organization that coordinates responses to Internet security problems. It is part
of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. See also capability maturity model.
Certificate Authority – A certificate authority is an independent organization that issues digital certificates. See
also digital certificate and digital signature. Note: A certificate authority is different than a certificate of authority
authorizing a foreign corporation to transact business within a state. See also certificate of authority.
Change Control – Change control (sometimes called program change control or change management if used in a
more general context) is a formal process to ensure that a computer program is modified only with approved
changes. Some system of change control (normally at least partly automated these days) is necessary to know
exactly what versions of what programs are actually running in production at a particular point in time. In addition
to normal planned changes, there is almost always a need for some kind of emergency changes (that bypass the
normal change control procedure) to keep a system up and running. There should always be some kind of
process to back out the changes if they create a bigger problem than the problem that was originally being
addressed. See also maintenance and software distribution.
Channel Conflict – A channel conflict is a conflict between product distribution channels. For example, if a
company has utilized resellers (retail stores) for most of its product distribution and then implements a direct-sales
operation over the Internet, there is a possibility of a channel conflict where the direct sales might cannibalize
sales from the resellers (since the two distribution methods can compete with each other). The same kind of
conflict can exist if the company has utilized internal salespeople for most of its product sales. See also business
model and clicks and mortar.
Checkpoint – A checkpoint is any one of a series of points where a very long running process (batch job) could be
stopped and restarted. It is sometimes called a checkpoint/restart. See also batch processing.
Chipset – A chipset is the circuits that actually perform the functions of a motherboard. See also motherboard.
Churn Rate – The churn rate is the number of customers who stop using or purchasing products or services from
a company.
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Circuit Switching – Circuit switching is the process for telephone lines in which an entire circuit is reserved for the
entire duration of a call. The alternative to circuit switching is packet switching, where a signal is broken into
multiple packers and sent separately, to be reconnected at the other end. When a telephone handset is picked
up, that action signals the phone network that a call is being made. When the other end picks up, the circuit is
established. When one person hangs up, the circuit is disconnected. See also packet switching and POTS and
sampling.
Cladding – Cladding is the thick cylinder of glass fiber that surrounds the thin transmitting core. The cladding
keeps the light in the central core. See also fiber optic cable.
Click Fraud – Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs in pay per click advertising where a person or some time of
an automated script imitates a legitimate user and generates a click for the ad without having actual interest in the
target. See search engine and search engine marketing.
Clicks and Mortar – A business model combining stores (the mortar part) and clicks (the Internet part). See also
content provider and business model and channel conflict and virtual storefront.
Clickstream Tracking – Clickstream tracking tools collect data on customer activities on a web site. The analysis
of such clickstream data is not surprisingly called clickstream analysis. See also web personalization and
collaborative filtering.
Cloud – The cloud is the representation in network diagrams of the public switched data network (PSDN). Once
customer data gets to the cloud, the customer does not have to worry about exactly what happens to it after that
(the carrier worries about that). Most carriers offer service level agreements for transmission within the cloud. See
also PSDN and service level agreement.
Cloud Computing – Cloud computing has nothing to do with the public switched data network. Cloud computing is
Internet-based computing. It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided as a service,
allowing users to access those services through the Internet. It encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-
use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends existing capabilities. See also software-as-a-service and
utility computing and Web 2.0.
Cluster – A cluster is a group of loosely coupled computers that work together as a group. Clusters may be high-
availability clusters, load balancing clusters, or high-performance clusters. See also grid computing and edge
computing and supercomputer.
Coaxial Cable – Coaxial cable (or coax) is a thickly insulated and heavily shielded copper wire similar to that used
for cable television. It is higher speed than unshielded twisted pair (UTP). See also fiber optic cable and
unshielded twisted pair.
COBIT – COBIT is the Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology is a set of best practices
created by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and the IT Governance Institute in 1992, with
updates since then. COBIT discusses control objectives for each of 34 different IT processes (divided into the 4
domains of plan and organize, acquire and implement, deliver and support, and monitor and evaluate) and 7
criteria (effectiveness, efficiency, confidentiality, integrity, availability, compliance, and reliability) and IT resources
(people, applications, technology, facilities, and data).
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) – CDMA is a wireless networking (digital cellular) standard used in the US
by companies such as Verizon, MCI, and Sprint. CDMA uses spread-spectrum technology and does not assign a
specific frequency to each user. Instead, individual conversations are encoded with a pseudo-random digital
sequence. Supposedly, CDMA provides a higher capacity than TDMA, a major competitive standard. CDMA,
TDMA, and GSM are all 2G technologies. See also time division multiple access (TDMA) and global system for
mobile communications (GSM) and 3G.
Codec – A codec is a device that converts analog signals from analog to digital. See also modem and analog
signal and digital signal.
Collaborative Commerce – Collaborative commerce is a general term for the methods that organizations interact
electronically to plan, design, build, buy, sell, distribute, and support goods and services. See also business
model.
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Collaborative Filtering – Collaborative filtering compares information gathered about a particular customer's
behavior to data about other customers and decides what the particular customer would like to see next on a web
site. See also clickstream tracking and web personalization.
Command Line Interface – A command line interface is a method of interfacing with a computer through typing
commands on a command line. DOS for PCs had a command line interface and so do Unix and Linux (although
GUIs are now available for both Unix and Linux). The program that interprets the commands is called a command
line interpreter or shell. See also graphical user interface (GUI).
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) – CGI is a standard protocol to interface external application software with a
server such as a web server, which allows the server to pass requests from a browser to the external application
and for the external application to return the output to the browser.
Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) – Computer aided software engineering is a method of system
development that supposedly reduces the amount of repetitive work that a system developer needs to do though
the use of certain tools. It was once a panacea for quicker system development. See also rapid application
development (RAD) and structured programming.
Computer Forensics – Computer forensics is the examination, testing, and analysis/evaluation of computer-based
material for evidence in a court of law. See also electronic discovery.
Computer Literacy – Computer literacy is the knowledge of information technology. It ranges from knowledge of a
particular application, such as a specific word processor or a particular spreadsheet, to a broader knowledge of
how to use hardware, software, networking, and application systems in general. See also digital divide.
Concatenation – Concatenation is the joining together of two strings of characters by sticking them end-to-end.
Connectionless Protocol – A connectionless protocol is a protocol that does not establish a connection before
transmitting. A connection-oriented protocol does establish a connection before transmitting. See also TCP.
Content Filtering – Content filtering is examining data for its content and preventing that data from entering or
leaving an organization. To some extent, anti-virus software is a form of content filtering, but normally content
filtering is used in a broader sense. Common types of content filtering are parental controls over TV and parental
control over web sites that can be viewed by their children. A problem with any kind of content filtering software
(on the Internet, for example) is keeping up with new inappropriate web sites since they tend to multiply like
rabbits. See also appliance and firewall.
Content Provider – A content provider is an organization that provides digital content, such as digital news, music,
or video over the Internet. An example would be wsj.com from the Wall Street Journal. See also clicks and mortar
and virtual storefront and business model.
Conversion – Conversion (sometimes called data conversion when data only is being discussed) is the process of
changing from an old application system to a new application system. There may be a direct cutover or some kind
of parallel processing where both the old application system and the new application system are both run and the
results are compared (often a quite difficult comparison to make if the new and old systems do not perform the
same functions in the same way). See also system analysis and system design and maintenance and parallel
processing.
Cookies – Cookies are small files deposited on a person's hard drive when a person visits a web site. Cookies
identify the person's web browser software, track that person's visits to the web site, and allow the operator of the
web site to customize the contents of its interaction with that person. The procedure is as follows: (1) a person
goes to a particular web site, (2) the web server reads the person's browser and determines the browser and
browser version, the IP address, and other information, and (3) the web server transmits the cookie to the
browser and the cookie is stored on the hard drive. When the person returns to the web site, the web server looks
for the cookie and, to some extent, identifies the person.
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Copyright – A copyright is a statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property from having their work
copied for any purpose during the life of the author plus a certain number of years. Software is just one of the
many forms of intellectual property. Copyright law covers only the particular form or manner in which the ideas or
concepts have been manifested and not the actual ideas or concepts themselves. See also patent and intellectual
property and trade secret and software piracy.
Core Competency – A core competency is an activity for which an organization is a leader and that provides
customer benefits, is hard for competitors to imitate, and can be leveraged widely to many products and services.
If a core competency yields a long-term advantage, it is said to be a sustainable competitive advantage. A core
competency may be knowledge of a particular subject matter, a reliable manufacturing or product development
process, a specific and beneficial business culture, good customer relationships, and many other factors.
Theoretically, activities which are not core competencies should be outsourced. See also outsourcing.
Core Systems – Core systems are systems that support functions that are absolutely critical to an organization.
COSO – COSO is the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, consisting of the
AICPA, the American Accounting Association, the Institute of Internal Auditors, the Institute of Management
Accountants, and the Financial Executives Institute. It was formed in 1985. Note that COSO's Internal Control –
Integrated Framework is now often used as the criteria for evaluating internal control in the auditor's opinion on
Management's Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting now included in the report of independent
registered public accounting firms in annual reports.
CSMA/CD – Carrier sense multiple access/collision detection is a now obsolete scheme for broadcast
transmission on a LAN. A station (NIC) with something to transmit checks the transmission medium to see if
something else is already being transmitted. If so, it waits. If not, it transmits. If it then detects a collision (some
other station transmitting at the same time), it waits a random interval of time and retransmits (and so does the
other station, but since the interval is random, the two stations do not wait the same time). The problem with
CSMA/CD was that it did not work well for large networks. With large networks, there were just too many
collisions to detect and to fix. See also Ethernet.
CSU/DSU – A CSU/DSU (Data Service Unit/Channel Service Unit) is customer-owned network termination
equipment, normally used with a leased line. An example is a device connecting a LAN to a phone company T1.
The CSU/DSU manages line control and converts between formats of messages. See also customer premises
equipment.
Customer Premises Equipment – Customer premises equipment is telecommunications equipment owned by the
customer. Customer premises equipment is anything inside of the demarcation point, which is the point of
separation of the customer equipment (a LAN) from the carrier's telecommunication channel (a T1). See also
CSU/DSU.
Customization – Customization is changing a purchased application software package to meet a customer's
specific requirements. Customization is not always a good idea since every time a new release of the software is
distributed, the customizations have to be made over again. And the customizations do take time.
Cybersquatting – Cybersquatting is registering or selling a domain name with the intent to profit from the goodwill
attached to a trademark belonging to someone else. Normally it refers to registering or selling a domain name that
has some other company's name in it. See also domain name and domain name warehousing.
Data Bus – A data bus is the transfer mechanism for data into and out of a PC processor or into and out of
memory. See also address bus and internal register.
Data Cleansing – Data cleansing or data cleaning is the finding and fixing of errors in data in a database. Data
cleansing is also called data scrubbing. Data cleansing fixes data that is incorrect, incomplete, improperly
formatted, or redundant. See also data warehouse and metadata.
Data Independence – Data independence is the condition in which data that is processed is independent of the
programs that process it so that either can be changed without affecting the other. See also data redundancy.
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Data Link Layer Protocol – A data link layer protocol is a communication protocol for the data link layer of an
architecture. Ethernet is a data link layer protocol. See also Ethernet and application layer protocol and network
layer protocol and transport layer protocol and Open System Interconnect (OSI).
Data Redundancy – Data redundancy is where the same data is stored in more than one place in an organization.
If data is stored in more than one place, its value is likely to be different in at least some of those places. If data is
stored only in place, it can have only one value. See also data independence.
Data Store – A data store is another name for a data warehouse. See also data warehouse and data mart and
data mining and business intelligence.
Denial-of-Service Attack – A denial-of-service attack (DoS) is an attack on a computer system in an attempt to

make the computer system unavailable to its intended users. One common method of attack is to bombard the
target machine with external communication requests so that it cannot respond to legitimate requests. A
distributed denial-of-service attack (DDos) occurs when multiple compromised systems (a botnet) flood the target
machine. See also botnet and internet protocol address spoofing.
Device Driver – A device driver is a specialized piece of software that handles a specific hardware interrupt in a
PC. See also BIOS and interrupt and plug-and-play.
Dialback System – A dialback system is a password system that hangs up and calls back potential system users
after their passwords have been validated. This kind of safeguard is normally used only on dial-up systems and
where the user is calling from a pre-defined phone number.
Digital Cash – Digital cash (also electronic cash or E-cash) is currency in an electronic form that moves outside
the normal channels of money. Digital cash can be used by people who want to make purchases over the Internet
but do not want to use their credit cards. An example of digital cash is PayPal. See also digital checking and
digital wallet and smart cards and micropayment.
Digital Checking – Digital checking is an electronic check with a secure digital signature. See also digital cash and
digital wallet and smart card.
Digital Divide – The digital divide is the name given to the high degree of access to computing in higher economic
areas and the lower degree of such assess in lower economic areas. See also computer literacy.
Digital Signal – A digital signal is a signal that is represented by zeros and ones. See also analog signal and
repeater.
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) – DSL is a technology that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a
telephone network. It is broadband communication over telephone lines as opposed to cable. See also cable
modem and VoIP.
Digital Wallet – A digital wallet is software that stores credit card and other information to facilitate payment for
goods on the Internet. A digital wallet can hold a user's payment information, a digital certificate to identify the
user, and shipping information for delivery. See also digital cash and digital checking.
Direct Cutover – A direct cutover is implementing a system without any period of parallel processing. See also
parallel processing.
Disaster Recovery – Disaster recovery is the plan for or the actual resumption of computer processing after some
kind of a disaster (which is more than just a temporary system outage). See also business continuity planning.
Disintermediation – Disintermediation is the removal of organizational or business process layers responsible for
intermediate steps in a value chain. The process of shifting or moving intermediate steps in a value chain is called
re-intermediation.
Dispersion – Dispersion is the spreading of optical signals as they travel along a fiber optic cable. Dispersion is
related to signal attenuation for other types of signals. See also attenuation and fiber optic cable and analog
signal and digital signal.
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Distributed Database – A distributed database is a database that is physically stored in several different physical
locations. A distributed database is not the same as distributed processing. See also replication and partitioning.
Domain Name – A domain name is a name which includes one or more IP addresses; domain names are merely
something that is easier to remember than an IP address. In web addresses such as www.beckerreview.com, the
domain name is beckerreview.com. The .com is the top level domain name for commercial organizations. Other
such top level domain names are .gov for governments, .edu for educational institutions, .org for nonprofit
organizations, and .mil for the military. The beckerreview is the second level domain name, and the www
indicates that the PC with that address is a web server. Organizations with second level domain names have to
have a DNS server. A third level domain name is an individual host and would be something like
olinto.beckerreview.com if a host were named after Peter Olinto. The entire address is called a fully qualified
domain name. The word "domain" has multiple uses in IT and is normally not used here other than in "domain
name;" if it were, the domain would be the routers, networks, and hosts under the control of a single organization.
If the name had a /students attached to it, like in www.beckerreview.com/students, the /students (and anything
after it in more complex domain names) would be a file name. A DNS root server is the servers that administer
the top level domain names. See also domain name system (DNS) and IP address and domain name
warehousing and cybersquatting.
Domain Name System (DNS) – The domain name system is the system of domain names that is employed by the
Internet. The Internet is based on IP addresses, not domain names, and each web server requires a domain
name server to translate domain names into IP addresses. Think of domain name servers as large electronic
telephone books. See also IP address and domain name.
Domain Name Warehousing – Domain name warehousing is the practice of obtaining control of domain names
with the intent of warehousing (hanging onto them without using them). See also domain name and
cybersquatting.
Dotted Decimal Notation – Dotted decimal notation is the notation that is used to designate an IP address. See
also IP and IP address.
Downsizing – Downsizing is shifting data processing from mainframes to smaller computer systems. Many people
thought that downsizing would automatically save money because small processor MIPS cost considerably less
than mainframe MIPS. Those people conveniently forgot that small processors (partly because there are so many
of them) take considerably more people resources to support than did mainframes. Upsizing and rightsizing came
along later, and the definition of downsizing was expanded to include other things than the replacement of
mainframes. See also total cost of ownership and RAS and MIPS.
Downtime – Downtime is a period of time when an application system is not available to a user of that system, for
whatever reason, including hardware problems, software problems, and network problems. See also high-
availability computer system.
Dual Core Processor – A dual core processor is a device which contains two independent processors, sometimes
on a single integrated circuit.
EBCDIC – EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code) is a system of character encoding used
for IBM processors. EBCDIC is an 8 bit code, meaning that it uses 8 bits or 0-255 in decimal to represent
characters. EBCDIC was introduced along with the System/360 processors. Code 40 (in hexadecimal) is a blank
or a space, codes C1-C9 are the alphabetic characters A –I, codes D2-D9 are the alphabetic characters J-R, and
codes E2-E9 are the alphabetic characters S-Z. PCs use ASCII. See also ASCII and hexadecimal notation.
Echo – Echo (in voice communications) is a signal propagating in the same direction as the original signal but
reflected back to the originator. There are two types of echo: acoustic echo (caused by sound from the speaker
part of the telephone and transmitted back by the microphone) and hybrid echo (caused by the electrical
transmission itself). Trying to get rid of echo is called echo cancellation. See also noise and jitter and latency.
Edge Computing – Edge computing is a multi-tier load-balancing web service in which significant parts of the web
site content, logic, and processing are performed by smaller servers. See also grid computing.
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Electronic Discovery – Electronic discovery (sometimes called ediscovery or electronic data discovery) refers to
discovery in civil litigation of electronic information. Discovery refers to a pre-trial procedure used by a party to a
lawsuit to obtain facts and information about the case from the other party in order to assist in its preparation for
trial. Electronic discovery is governed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which at the time of this writing
require that electronically stored information be provided within 99 days of request. Any electronic information
(including telephone calls), but especially email in some recent well-publicized cases, may be the subject of
electronic discovery. The process of performing electronic discovery is often called litigation support. See also
email and email archiving and metadata and computer forensics.
Electronic Vaulting – Electronic vaulting is the electronic transmission and storage of backup data at an offsite
storage location. Traditionally, backup data has been stored offsite, for disaster recovery and/or data retention
purposes, on tapes that had to be physically taken to the offsite location. Electronic vaulting replaces the physical
movement of the tapes with electronic transmission and sometimes replaces the tapes with other storage devices.
Email – Email (or electronic mail) is a method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over
electronic communication systems. See also instant messaging and simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) and
email archiving.
Email Archiving – Email archiving is the secure preservation of email for regulatory compliance and other
purposes. It is a form of backup. An email archiving system normally extracts message contents and attachments
and indexes them and stores them in a read-only format so that they cannot be altered. See also email and
electronic discovery and metadata.
Embedded System – An embedded system (such as a PDA or a bank ATM or a cell phone) is a hardware device
in which the processor controlling the device is completely contained in the device it controls. Unlike a general
purpose PC, an embedded system performs only certain specialized tasks and thus can be optimized for
performance. Of course, the functions of many embedded systems tend to expand over time as they take on
more and more functions.
Emulation – Emulation is the ability of a program or of a device to imitate another program or device.
End User – An end user is a person who actually uses a system. In many cases, the entry of data into an
application has been handed over to the end users (and away from keypunch operators). See also end-user
development.
End-User Development – End-user development (sometimes called end-user computing or EUC) is the
development of application systems or parts of application systems by end users as opposed to people in an IT
organization. Some of the first end-user developed systems were spreadsheets. A problem that often occurs with
end-user developed systems is keeping the (same) data in those systems in sync with that in the formal
production systems of an organization. Other problems are the security of the programs and of sensitive data
contained in these systems, and backup and recovery (or lack thereof). Other problems are incompatibility of
some of these systems with the hardware and software in the rest of the organization and the resulting inability of
the systems to communicate. See also end user.
Ergonomics – Ergonomics is the interaction of people and machines. See also repetitive stress injury.
Escrow – Escrow (of source code) is where the source code of an application system is held by a supposedly
independent third party (escrow agent) so that it can be made available to the purchaser if something happens to
the vendor (filing for bankruptcy) or if the vendor fails to maintain the software as promised in the license
agreement for the software. Escrowing source code is not a panacea because the software in escrow is not
always maintained properly (to be useable, the source code should be updated when new releases of the
application system are distributed and theoretically even when fixes are made) and there have been
disagreements about whether the escrow agreement is a contract that can be voided by a trustee in bankruptcy.
See also source code and object code.
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Ethernet – Ethernet is a large collection of frame-based networking technologies for LANs. Ethernet incorporates
a number of wiring and speed standards for the physical layer and a common addressing and message format.
Ethernet was originally developed for communicating over shared coaxial cable in broadcast mode using
CSMA/CD (transmitting to all stations on the network and using a collision detection scheme); today, Ethernet is
used on the vast majority of networks and no longer uses CSMA/CD. See also 802.3 and CSMA/CD and
10BaseT and network and network protocols.
Exchange – An exchange is an independently owned third-party Internet marketplace to connect buyers and
sellers for spot purchases. Exchanges proliferated during the early years of E-commerce, but many of them failed
in the dot.com bust. This use of the word "exchange" is not the same as Microsoft Exchange, which a messaging
and collaborative software product.
Expansion Slot – An expansion slot is a part of an I/O bus that allows the processor to communicate with
peripheral devices. See also address bus and data bus and internal register and motherboard.
Exposure – Exposure is a measure of risk derived by multiplying the potential magnitude of an error (in dollars) by
the probability of occurrence of that error. See also risk.
Fault-Tolerant Computer System – A fault-tolerant computer system is a system that contains redundant
hardware, software, and power supplies that enable the system to provide continuous and uninterrupted service.
Fault-tolerant computer systems hopefully detect hardware problems before they occur and switch to a backup
device. Fault-tolerant systems are one step above high-availability computer systems. See also high-availability
computer system.
Fax on Demand – Fax on demand is the faxing of documents directly from business applications (ERP, CRM,
SCM, and others), without having to get people involved in the process.
Feasibility Study – A feasibility study is a part of system analysis that attempts to determine if a particular system
solution is technically or economically or organizationally feasible. See also system analysis.
Fiber Optic Cable – Fiber optic cable is a cable that works with light pulses. It is faster than coaxial cable and
unshielded twisted pair. In recent years, fiber optic cable has been installed everywhere by everybody (it was first
used for long-distance transmission but it has come or is coming closer and closer to the desktop). In many cities,
fiber optic cable is what is installed right after a road is repaved. Of course, that means that the road has to be
dug up all over again. See also unshielded twisted pair and coaxial cable and backbone and cladding.
File Extension – A file (or filename) extension is a suffix, in many but not all operating systems, to the name of a
file that indicates its format. The file extension is the (often) three characters after the dot in the file name. File
extensions can be "associated" with specific applications so that the file can be processed by the associated
application by clicking on the file name. Examples are "doc" for Word files and "xls" for Excel files and "exe" for
executable files and "txt" for plain text files and "pdf" for Adobe files and "xps" for Windows Vista document format
(xps means XML paper specification, which is a general-purpose document format to compete with Adobe). See
also plain text file and XML.
File Transport Protocol (FTP) – FTP is a network protocol used to exchange files over any network that supports
TCP/IP. FTP is an application layer protocol. FTP transfers require a server and a client. FTP is commonly run on
two named ports (20 and 21); the FTP server listens on port 21 for incoming connections from FTP clients, and,
once a connection is established, the data is transferred using port 20 or some other port as indicated by the
client. There is no way to transfer encrypted data using basic FTP (SFTP or FTPS have to be used) since the
protocol was written prior to the development of SSL (secured socket layer). See also hypertext transport protocol
(HTTP) and simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) and IP and TCP/IP and application layer protocol and data
encryption and SSL.
FireWire – FireWire is a PC serial interface standard that offers high-speed communications and data services.
FireWire has replaced SCSI (small computer system interface, which was often used for disk drives and tape
drives) in many PCs; servers and high-end workstations often use SCSI interfaces. Many digital cameras and
camcorders and other such external devices use a FireWire interface. See also Serial ATA.
15
Flash Drive – A flash drive is a data storage device with a USB interface. They are small in size and are difficult to
destroy. A flash drive is a small circuit board encased in plastic with a USB connector on one end. They can be
plugged into a USB port on a PC and do not require any power other than that provided by the USB port. See
also flash memory and universal serial bus (USB) port.
Flash Memory – Flash memory is a form of non-volatile memory (that does not need power to maintain its
information) that can be electrically erased and re-written. Flash memory is used in digital cameras and cell
phones and USB flash drives (that are quickly replacing floppy disks). See also flash drive.
Flat Panel Display – Flat panel displays are a newer kind of display device that has more of a flat screen than a
CRT. See also cathode ray tube (CRT).
Floating-Point Coprocessor – A floating-point coprocessor is a special math chip that was used in early PCs for
arithmetical calculations based on scientific notation. Starting with the 486 chip, floating point processors have
been built into PC motherboards. See also motherboard.
Flowchart – A flowchart is a diagrammatic (or symbolic) representation of a program (program flowchart) or

system (system flowchart), including the flow of data through a program or system and the processes performed
on that data. The flowchart that sometimes shows up on the BEC exam is a system flowchart. Questions can
appear on how to interpret a system flowchart by asking what the flowchart symbols are.
Forward Chaining – Forward chaining in an AI shell begins with the available data or data entered by a user and
uses the rules to extract more data until an optimal goal is reached; forward chaining is called data driven. See
also backward chaining and fuzzy logic and inference engine and artificial intelligence (AI) shell and rule base.
Frame – A frame has different definitions in different areas of IT (not even counting the word "frame" in
mainframe). In general, a frame is a packet of data that has been encoded for transmission over a particular
transmission link. The process involves adding address and control fields and sometimes fields to detect errors.
The word "frame" may also be used in frame relay multiplexing to describe a time slot. Normally, packets can be
divided into frames. In this Addendum, frame and packet are used somewhat interchangeably. See also frame
relay and packet.
Frame Relay – Frame relay (multiplexing) is a shared network service that is faster and sometimes less
expensive than packet switching. Frame relay puts data into variable-length frames and leaves any error
correction up to the end-points of the data transmission; when frame relay detects an error in a frame, it just drops
the frame. Cable modem and DSL and dedicated broadband services are replacing frame relay. See also packet
and frame and packet switching and TCP/IP and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and cable modem and
digital subscriber line (DSL).
Freeware – Freeware is copyrighted software that is made available free of charge (as opposed to shareware,
which is paid for after some period of use). See also shareware and open-source software.
Frequency – Frequency is the rate at which a signal oscillates. Frequency is measured in terms of cycles per
second or Hertz (this is a different Hertz than the rental car company). One Hertz means that an event repeats
itself once per second. When waves travel from one transmission medium to another, their frequency does not
change; only their wavelength and speed change. See also Hertz and frequency division multiplexing and analog
signal and wavelength.
Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) – Frequency division multiplexing is a form of multiplexing where two or
more signals at their individual frequencies are combined and transmitted at the same time over a carrier
frequency (don't worry about how that is actually done). It can also be thought of as dividing a frequency spectrum
into multiple channels, such as with microwaves. Historically, telephone networks have used FDM to carry several
voice channels over a single physical circuit. See also microwave transmission and time division multiplexing and
multiplexing and wavelength division multiplexing.
FTP – FTP (File Transport Protocol) is a protocol for transferring files. See also hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP)
and simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) and domain name system (DNS).
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Full-Duplex – Full-duplex transmission or communication is the ability to transmit in both directions at the same
time using more than one communication medium or at a different frequency. Half-duplex transmission is
transmission in both directions, but not at the same time.
Fuzzy Logic – Fuzzy logic deals with reasoning that is approximate rather than precise. Fuzzy logic does not
necessarily reason in terms of IF-THEN statements but attempts to reason like people, in terms, for example, of
"good" and "bad" and "tall" and "short" and "hot" and "cold" and shades of grey in addition to black and white.
Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory. See also backward chaining and forward chaining and rule base and
artificial intelligence (AI) shell and inference engine and neural network.
Gigabyte (GB) – A gigabyte is approximately 1 billion bytes. The word approximately is in the definition because
the size is actually 1,073,741,824, which is 230 bytes. See also megabyte and terabyte and kilobyte.
Gigahertz (GHz) – Gigahertz is a measurement of how fast something, possibly a processor in a computer, is.
One gigahertz represents 1 billion cycles per second. A CPU that runs at 200 GHz executes 200 billion cycles per
second. Each instruction requires a fixed number of cycles so that the CPU can execute a certain number of
instructions per second. Earlier slower CPUs were measured in terms of MHz, which were millions of cycles per
second. See also Hertz.
Global Positioning System (GPS) – GPS is a worldwide satellite navigation system. GPS used to be real neat
technically, but now that GPS receivers are being installed in cars (automotive navigation systems) and handheld
devices, GPS has become somewhat commonplace. GPS can be used by emergency services to locate mobile
phones. GPS transmission requires a line of sight and cannot be used indoors.
Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) – GSM is the major standard for wireless networking (mobile
phones) in the world. See also code division multiple access (CDMA) and time division multiple access (TDMA)
and 3G.
Graphical User Interface (GUI) – A GUI is a method of interfacing with a computer through the manipulation of
graphical images. The first GUIs were on Apple computers and Windows. GUIs replaced the DOS command line
interface. See also command line interface and Visual Basic.
Grid Computing – Grid computing is a collection of interconnected computers (like a cluster) that do not fully trust
each other and that act more like a computing utility than like a single computer. Grid computing is optimized for
workloads that consist of many independent packets of work that do not share data during the computation
process. See also supercomputer and edge computing and cluster.
Handoff – Handoff is the process of transferring an ongoing cell phone call from one cell to another, for example
when the cell phone is moving away from the area covered by one cell to the area covered by another cell. A cell
is an area that is covered by a single transmitter (or mobile base station).
Header Label – A header label is an internal label which occurs at the beginning of a tape or disk file and
identifies the file. See also trailer label.
Hertz – Hertz is how frequency is measured. See also frequency and gigahertz.
Hexadecimal Notation – Hexadecimal notation is measurement in base-16 notation (normal numbers are base-
10). In hexadecimal, numbers are 0-9 and A-F. See also EBCDIC and ASCII.
High-Availability Computer System – A high-availability computer system is a system that contains redundant
hardware, software, and power supplies that enables the system to attempt to provide continuous and
uninterrupted service or to recover quickly from problems that do occur. Planned downtime is downtime for
maintenance; it can normally be scheduled and users can be alerted. Unplanned downtime is downtime that is not
planned and is normally the result of some system problem. Uptime is the opposite of downtime. Availability is
uptime / total time, with some calculations excluding planned downtime from the calculations. See also fault-
tolerant computer system and downtime and service level agreement.
Hop – A hop is the transmission of microwaves between one microwave transmitter or microwave repeater and
another. Microwave transmission has to be line of sight. See also microwave transmission.
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Hotspot – A hotspot is several wireless access points in a public place to provide wireless coverage for a specific
area. See also access point and ad hoc mode and infrastructure mode.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) – HTML is a tag-based formatting language used for web pages. It provides
a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document and to replicate that information in a
web page by using the tags in the text. An extension of HTML is XHTML (extensible HTML), which confirms to the
XML format. The ability to read and work with HTML documents is built into browsers, and the ability to read
XHTML is built into all new browsers. XML, on the other hand, needs a "parser" to translate it before it can be
used in standard browsers. See also XML.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) – HTTP is the communications protocol used to transfer web pages on the
World Wide Web. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP that uses SSTL (secure socket layer) for its security. See
also hypertext markup language (HTML) and XML and file transfer protocol (FTTP) and UDP and simple object
access protocol (SOAP) and secure socket layer (SSL).
Hub – A hub is a device that connects network components. See also router and gateway and switch and local
area network (LAN).
IEEE – The IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is a leading standard setting organization for
telecommunications and related areas. It is based in the US. See also WiFi Alliance and the various IEEE 8xx
standards.
Identity Theft – Identity theft is a crime in which an imposter obtains key pieces of personal information such as
social security numbers, driver license numbers, and credit card numbers to impersonate the person whose
identity was stolen. The information may be used to obtain credit, merchandise, or services in the name of the
victim. See also phishing.
Image Processing – Image processing (sometimes called document processing) is any form of processing for
which both the input and the output are images. See also workflow management.
Inference Engine – An inference engine is the strategy used to search through the rule base in an artificial
intelligence shell. See also backward chaining and forward chaining and fuzzy logic and artificial intelligence (AI)
shell and rule base.
Information Appliance – An information appliance is a simple hardware device, such as an Internet-enabled cell
phone or a PDA, which has been customized to perform a few specialized communication functions. See also
personal digital assistant (PDA).
Information Asymmetry – Information asymmetry is where one party to a transaction has better access to
information that is important to the transaction than the other party.
Infrastructure – Infrastructure (specifically IT infrastructure) is the hardware, software, storage technology, and
networks providing shared resources to an organization.
Infrastructure Mode – Infrastructure mode is wireless networking when the networking devices communicate
through an access point. See also ad hoc mode and access point and hot spot.
Ink Jet Printer – An ink jet printer is a printer which prints by propelling very small droplets of liquid ink onto the
paper. Ink jet printers are contrasted to laser printers which capture an image of the entire page at once and use a
toner to transfer that image to paper.
Instant Messaging – Instant messaging (IM) is the act of instant communication between two or more users over
the Internet based on typed text. Instant messaging requires the use of a client program that connects to an
instant messaging service and a contact list to determine who can exchange messages. Instant messaging is
instant or real time where email is not. Instant messaging has been available on private networks since the 1970s.
There are no real standards for instant messaging, and each major IM provider (MSN, AOL, and Yahoo)
continues to use its own protocol although they are interoperable. See also email.
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Intellectual Capital – Intellectual capital is intangible assets such as proprietary knowledge, information, unique
business methods, and brands which are seldom recorded on the books of an organization. Intellectual capital is
contrasted to physical capital or physical assets.
Intelligent Agent – An intelligent agent is a software agent that assists users and acts on their behalf with non-
repetitive tasks. The "intelligent" aspect means that the agent can adapt and learn from what is happening or has
happened in its environment. See also rule base and neural network and case-based reasoning system and bot.
Interrupt – An interrupt (or hardware interrupt) is used by hardware devices to indicate to the motherboard that
they (the hardware devices) are requesting service. In the text and this Addendum, interrupts are used in
conjunction only with PCs, but they actually are used in all types of processors. See also BIOS and device driver.
Intellectual Property – Intellectual property is a term used to describe products of the human intellect that have
economic value. Software is just one of the many forms of intellectual property. Intellectual property can be
protected as trade secrets or by copyrights or by patents. See also copyrights and patents and trade secrets.
Internal Register – Internal registers are the pieces of hardware that store data and addresses within the PC
processor and determine the size of the data on which the processor can operate. See also address bus and data
bus and motherboard.
Internet Protocol Address Spoofing – Internet protocol address spoofing is the creation of IP packets with a forged
IP address. It is often referred to as IP spoofing or a sequence number attack. IP spoofing is often used in denial-
of-service attacks. See also IP and IP address and firewall and denial-of-service attack.
Interrupt – An interrupt (or hardware interrupt) is used by hardware devices to indicate to the motherboard that
they are requesting service. See also address bus and data bus and internal register and motherboard and device
driver and stack.
Integrated Service Digital Network (ISDN) – ISDN is a type of circuit switched telephone network service which
was designed to allow the digital transmission of voice and data over telephone lines at a rate of up to 64kbps.
ISDN is being replaced by DSL, which has a higher transmission rate. See also digital subscriber line (DSL).
IP – IP (Internet Protocol) is the protocol used to send messages over the Internet. See also TCP and TCP/IP and
IP address and dotted decimal notation and Internet protocol address spoofing.
IP Address – An IP address is an address assigned to users on a network or the Internet (actually assigned to the
NIC). IP addresses are written in a decimal format (dotted decimal notation) such as 123.11.1.123. Each of the
four sets of numbers between the dots can be between 0 and 255. For dial-up access to the Internet, the internet
service provider assigns the user to a temporary IP address, which is released when the user hangs up (dynamic
IP addresses). For high-speed connections, the cable modem has an IP address which is always used. IP
addresses are 32 bits long (IPv4), although there is a new version with addresses that are 128 bits long (IPv6).
See also domain name and domain name system (DNS) and IP and dotted decimal notation and IPv4 and MAC
address and Ethernet and Internet protocol address spoofing.
IP Fragment – An IP fragment is a part of an IP message. Fragmentation occurs when an IP message must be

broken into fragments for transmission over networks that allow different maximum lengths. See also firewall and
network address translation (NAT).
IPv4 – IPv4 is the current version of IP with 32-bit addresses. IPv6 is a newer version of IP with 128-bit
addresses. At the time of this writing, estimates are that the Internet will run out of network addresses in fewer
than 10 years. In IPv4, there are only approximately 2 billion network addresses (232 = 4,294,967,296). In IPv6,
there are approximately 16 billion-billion network addresses (2128), which should be enough for a while longer.
See also IP address and IP.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) – IRC is a form of Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is designed for group
conferencing but is also used for one-to-one communications and private messages. IRC used TCP and can use
SSL for security. The basic means of communication in an IRC session is a channel; channels may have nodes.
IRC sessions are not encrypted unless they are using SSL and thus can be susceptible to Internet attacks. See
also TCP and SSL.
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ISO 17799 – ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 17799 is an international set of standards for
security and control. The areas that are covered by ISO 17799 are security policy, security organization, asset
control, personnel security, physical security, communications and operations management, access control,
systems development and maintenance, and business continuity management, and compliance. The International
Organization for Standardization itself is the organization that sets the standards. The ISO is based in Geneva
and currently includes national standards organizations from 156 countries. See also IEEE.
ISO 9000 – ISO 900 is an international set of standards for quality management and quality assurance. One of
the standards in ISO 9000 is ISO 9001, which is a standard for manufacturing. See also capability maturity model.
Java – Java is an object-oriented programming language somewhat similar to C++. It is independent of operating
systems and processors (it runs under any operating system and on any hardware processor). Java has become
the leading programming language on the Internet. Java programs are often small programs called applets (or
Java applets) that are designed to run on local processors and that perform certain limited functions. Only those
particular applets that are necessary for a particular function are actually downloaded from the server to the local
processor. The Java environment is the programs that can be used to run Java; since Java is an interpreted
language, it needs a Java run-time system to run a Java applet. See also programming language and operating
system and JavaScript and C and C++.
JavaScript – JavaScript is a script language developed by Netscape that allows the insertion of commands on a
HTML web page (HTML is static and cannot interact with users other than by presenting hyperlinks). Despite the
name, the only real relationship between JavaScript and Java is that they are both based on and were derived
from the C programming language. See also Java and hypertext markup language (HTML) and script language
and Ajax.
Jitter – Jitter is the sudden and unwanted variation in one or more characteristics of a signal, such as amplitude
(the height of the waves) or frequency. See also noise and echo and latency and analog signal.
Job – A job is a set of work to be done in an IBM batch processing environment. A job is one or more (up to 255)
job steps. A job step is that portion of a job where an individual program is run. Jobs are run with Job Control
Language. See also Job Control Language (JCL).
JPEG – JPEG is a compressed digital graphics file type used to store and display photographic and photographic
type images. JPEG files are higher resolution than GIF (graphic interchange format) files and are usually
substantially larger than GIF files of the same image. JPEG and GIF are two of the many different types of
graphics file types. See file extension.
Key – A key is a unique identification code assigned to each record in a file or database. See also database.
Key Word – From a search standpoint, a key word (or keyword) is a word that is used to find information that
contains that word. In computer programming, a key word is a word or other identifier that has a particular
meaning to the programming language being used. For example, many people have seen things like (IF…THEN)
in some basic programming languages. Both IF and THEN are key words and they cannot be used out of that
context.
Keystroke Logging – Keystroke logging is the recording of keystrokes on a terminal. If installed maliciously by
spyware or some kind of Trojan Horse, a keystroke logger can be used to obtain data like passwords. A keystroke
logger may take the form of a rootkit. See spyware and Trojan Horse and rootkit.
Kilobyte (KB) – A kilobyte is approximately 1 thousand bytes. The word approximately is in the definition because
the size is actually 1,024, which is 210 bytes. See also megabyte and gigabyte and terabyte.
Knowledge Management – Knowledge management is the way that organizations gather, manage, and use the
knowledge that they acquire. It is also the process of improving the way that organizations manage their
knowledge. See also knowledge repository and knowledge system.
Knowledge Repository – A knowledge repository is a collection of internal and external knowledge in a single
location (in some place other than the brains of the workers). See also knowledge management and knowledge
system.
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Knowledge System – A knowledge system, sometimes called a knowledge work system or a knowledge
management system, is a system that contains an organization's knowledge about something or some things (the
knowledge repository). Knowledge systems support the processes for gathering and using that knowledge.
Sometimes, groupware is considered a type of knowledge system because groupware lets people collaborate and
share knowledge and acts as a repository of that knowledge. Sometimes, document management systems are
considered a type of knowledge system. The distinction between data and information and knowledge is often a
little blurry; all systems store information. See also knowledge management and knowledge repository and
groupware.
Knowledge Worker – Knowledge workers design products or services and create new knowledge. They are
engineers, architects, scientists, computer analysts and programmers, and many others. Other categories of
workers are data workers, production or service workers, and managers of various types. See also service
worker.
Latency – Latency or communication latency is another name for transmission delay. Latency may be caused by
the distance a signal has to travel, but most of the time it is caused by the number of switches or routers or other
pieces of equipment that the signal has to pass through. Each switch cannot start to forward a packet until it has
received the entire packet; in addition, a specific signal might have to spend some time in a queue somewhere
along the line if the line is congested. The total time delay (each individual delay will be very small, but they can
add up) can be significant (in telecommunications time). Latency is normally noticed in satellite transmissions
where one person sometimes has to wait for a second or so. See also noise and jitter and echo.
Leased Line – A leased line is a telecommunications circuit that is leased by a customer from a
telecommunications provider. A leased line may be used to carry telephone traffic, data traffic, or a combination of
both. Leased lines are normally T1s, T3s, or fractional T1s. See also T1 and T3.
Legacy System – When the term was first used, a legacy system was an older system of some kind, normally
running on a mainframe. The term was derisive and was often used by a person new in the IT business towards
anything that had been developed or used before that person arrived. Now, however, the term is often used for
any kind of an "old" system that is still being used. Old, of course, is a very subjective term.
Linux – Linux is a Unix-based operating system for PCs. See also Unix and operating system.
Load Balancing – Load balancing is balancing access requests among various servers, often in a server farm.
The access requests are directed to the most available server so that, hopefully, no one server is overwhelmed.
Load balancing is often used with firewalls and intrusion detection systems. There are multiple ways to balance a
processing load, but all of them involve directing access requests to whatever server is being most lightly used at
the time. See also mirroring and server farm.
Local Loop – A local loop, also known as a subscriber line, is the telephone line (and these days possibly other
media) used by a customer to reach the telephone company's POP (point of presence) on the backbone. See
also POP and trunk line and backbone.
Local Number Portability – Local number portability is the ability of a telephone customer to take his/her phone
number with him/her when he/she moves from one residence to another or one wireless carrier to another. Back
in the dark ages, before 1996, phone numbers was attached to a physical location and a change in location
meant a change in phone number. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required local number
portability in the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S. by the end of 1998.
Logic Bomb – A logic bomb is a piece of program code inserted into some kind of other software that will set off a
(normally) malicious function when a specified condition is met. A logic bomb that is to be executed at a certain
point in time is called, of course, a time bomb. Logic bombs are sometimes left by a disgruntled programmer. See
also virus and malware and Trojan Horse and worm.
MAC Address – A MAC (media access control) address is a unique physical address for each NIC on a network.
An Ethernet MAC address (there are other kinds) is 48 bits long and is normally written in hexadecimal notation in
6 groups of 2-digit numbers. 48-bit MAC addresses are used in Ethernet, 802.11 wireless, Bluetooth, and ATM,
among others. See also IP address and Ethernet and Bluetooth.
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Macro Virus – A macro virus is a virus that is contained in a document or spreadsheet and is executed when the
document or spreadsheet is opened or some other document or spreadsheet function is performed. See also
virus and malware.
Mainframe – A mainframe is a large computer that really started with the IBM/360 series back in the 1960s. See
also minicomputer and supercomputer.
Maintenance – Maintenance can be hardware maintenance (fixing the hardware) or software or application
maintenance (fixing the software). By itself, the word normally means software maintenance. Maintenance is
distinguished from development, which is writing the software in the first place. Normally, a significant portion of
the total cost of an application system is in maintenance. See also total cost of ownership (TCO) and system
analysis and system design and change control.
Malware – Malware is a general name for malicious software (mal is a French word meaning bad). See also virus
and Trojan Horse and worm.
Mass Customization – Mass customization is the ability to offer individually tailored products or services using the
same production resources as mass production. Information technology can be used to make the production
process more flexible and to link the various parts of the production and distribution process together.
Mbps – Mbps (which means megabits per second) is a measurement of data transmission speed. A megabit is
one million bits (it is measured in thousands, not multiples of 1024). A T1 communications line is rated at 1.544
Mbps. There also kilobits per second (kbps, with the k small), gigabits per second (Gbps), and terabits per second
(Tbps). See also T1 and T3.
MTBF – MTBF is an abbreviation for mean time between failure. MTBF is the mean time between failures of a
device. MTBF is simply the reciprocal of the failure rate and is a measure of reliability. It is not the same thing as
the life expectancy of a device. See also MTTR.
MTTR – MTTR is an abbreviation for mean time to recover. MTTR is the mean time that it takes a device to
recover from a non-fatal problem. See also MTBF.
Megabyte – A megabyte is approximately 1 million bytes. The word approximately is in the definition because the
size is actually 1,048,576, which is 220 bytes. See also gigabyte and terabyte and megabyte.
Metadata – Metadata is data about data. An example in email would be the "To" and "From" and "Subject" for the
email itself. See also data warehouse and data cleansing and electronic discovery and email.
Metasearch Engine – A metasearch engine is a search engine that sends user requests to other search engines
and combines the search results from each one. See also search engine and search aggregator.
Metric – A metric is something quantitative about a system or process that can be measured. Metrics define what
is to be measured.
Microcode – Microcode is low-level instructions that are "hard-wired" into a processor. In modern PCs, the
microcode is normally really hard-wired and cannot be changed. In mainframes and mid-range computers, the
microcode is often programmable and can be modified. Microcode is sometimes called firmware. It resembles
BIOS. See also BIOS.
Microwave Transmission – Microwave transmission is point-to-point radio transmission using large dish antennas.
See also hop.
Micropayment – A micropayment is a payment of less than $10. Micropayment systems have been developed to
accumulate numerous small payments into one larger payment through a normal payment process. Think of an
EasyPass or EasyTag system on a toll road (they go by different names in different parts of the country). Each
time you go through a toll booth, it might cost $1.00. The various $1.00 charges are collected and charged to a
credit card possibly at the end of the month. It might not be cost efficient to charge the credit card for each of the
individual $1.00 charges. See also digital cash.
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Microprocessor – A microprocessor is an electronic component with multiple processors (transistors) on an

integrated circuit board. One or more of the processors serves as the central processing unit (CPU).
Microprocessor and processor are used interchangeably in this Addendum. See also data bus and address bus.
Middleware – Middleware is software that acts as an intermediary between different application components,
often in complex, distributed applications that are run on different hardware platforms. Middleware was originally
developed to link newer server-oriented software to older mainframe-oriented software, but now the term is used
for anything that allows communication between one system and another. Systems have always "talked" to each
other. In traditional batch processing systems, the systems had an interface, and one system generated a file of
transactions for the other system to read and process; unfortunately, each interface had to be separately
designed and programmed. Middleware facilitates performing the same function for online systems. See also
application server and client/server and simple object access protocol (SOAP).
Minicomputer – A minicomputer is a computer between a PC/server and a mainframe. See also mainframe and
supercomputer.
MIPS – MIPS is millions of instructions per second. It is used in processing power designations for mainframes.
See also system capacity.
Mirroring – Mirroring is the use of a backup computer to duplicate ALL of the processes and transactions on the
primary computer. If the primary computer fails, the backup computer can immediately take its place without any
interruption in service. Mirroring, which can obviously be very expensive, is sometimes used by banks and other
such organizations where absolutely no downtime can ever be accepted. See also load balancing.
Mobile Computing – Mobile computing is the use of Internet-enabled cell phones, PDAs, and other wireless
computing devices to access digital information on the Internet from any location.
Moore's Law – Moore's law is a "rule" (not really a law) that processing power doubles every 18 months. Wirth's
law (not quoted anywhere near as much but probably just as true), says "Software gets slower faster than
hardware gets faster."
Motherboard – The motherboard or main board or system board is the main circuit board for a PC. See also
address bus and data bus and internal register and expansion slot and chipset and floating point coprocessor.
Multiplexing – Multiplexing is the combination of multiple signals on a single communications circuit (the more
signals that can be sent at once, the more traffic an individual circuit can carry). There are a number of different
kinds of multiplexing discussed in this Addendum. See also time division multiplexing and frequency division
multiplexing and multiplexer.
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) – Multiprotocol label switching is a protocol to carry circuit switched traffic
and packet switched traffic together on network backbones and provide some amount of message prioritization
and network management. It is a competitor to ATM and frame relay. See also circuit switching and packet
switching and ATM and frame relay.
Neural Network – A neural network is a network that is based (as much as possible) on the human brain. The
human brain can learn from experience. Neural networks can learn from (at least theoretically) by inferring rules
from observations and examples and are thus self-adapting. Neural networks are sometimes viewed as simplified
models of processing in the brain and are readily adaptable to fuzzy logic computing tasks. See also artificial
intelligence shell and case-based reasoning system and rule base and fuzzy logic.
Network Address Translation (NAT) – Network address translation is a firewall technique that is used to send
traffic from an internal network to the Internet by using a single public IP address (the IP address of the firewall).
See also firewall and packet filtering.
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Network Monitoring – Network monitoring is monitoring a network and the systems attached to it for slow or failing
systems. Normally, these days, network monitoring is done by a network management/monitoring system of some
type, with a human (a network administrator) notified if there is a problem. Network monitoring is monitoring the
network by the owners or operators of the network for performance and other similar problems (response time
and network or system availability). Intrusion detection software monitors the network for outside intrusions. See
also simple network management protocol (SNMP).
Noise – Noise is the random electromagnetic energy in a cable. There is always some noise. Noise is measured
by the signal-to-noise ratio. The mean of the noise is called the noise floor. Noise spikes are short duration
increases in noise. See also attenuation and propagation effect and jitter and latency and echo and signal-to-
noise ratio.
Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness (NORA) – Non-obvious relationship awareness can take information from
various sources and find non-obvious relationships and connections. See also data mining.
North Bridge – The north bridge is one of the two chips (the other one is, amazingly enough, the south bridge) in
the core logic chipset of a PC motherboard. The north bridge handles communication with memory and the video
card. The word bridge here has nothing to do with a bridge used in LANs. See also south bridge and
motherboard.
Object – An object is something that combines data and the specific processes which operate on that data. Data
in an object can be manipulated only by the operations, or methods, built into the object. Object-oriented
programming and object-oriented databases are examples of applications of objects. Object-oriented
development is one of the latest attempts to standardize systems or parts of systems so that they can be more
easily maintained. See also object-oriented programming and object-oriented database.
Object Code – Object code is the result of compiling program source code so that the programs can be executed.
Object code has nothing to do with objects per se. See also source code and compilation and interpretation and
object.
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) – An original equipment manufacturer is either a reseller or the original
manufacturer of equipment. For example, if a manufacturer of PCs buys disk drives from another manufacturer for
inclusion in the PCs, the term OEM can refer either to the disk drive manufacturer or the PC manufacturer.
On-Demand Computing – On-demand computing (sometimes called utility computing) is the offloading of peak
demand processing to other data processing centers. The term implies that organizations can purchase and pay
for computing power from central computing centers only as that computing power is needed. In the 1960's,
essentially the same concept was called timesharing. See also application service provider (ASP) and utility
computing and software-as-a-service.
Open-Source Software – Open-source software is software that is basically free. For software to be open-source,
it must comply with the following criteria: (1) there must be free redistribution of the software, (2) the distribution
must be of source code, although object code may also be distributed at the same time, (3) the license must allow
for modification of the software and the distribution of the modified software, and (4) the license must not restrict
other software that may be distributed at the same time. See also Linux and freeware.
Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) – OSI is a network connectivity model (an abstract definition for
communications and network protocol design). The model defines seven layers as follows: (1) physical layer, (2)
data link layer, (3) network layer, (4) transport layer, (5) session layer, (6) presentation layer, and (7) application
layer. At each layer, certain functions are theoretically performed. It is difficult to match a particular product to the
OSI model since the product may have been designed for a different set of protocols and will only perform certain
of the functions. See also TCP/IP.
Operational CRM – Operational CRM (customer relationship management) is the part of a CRM system that
provides tools for sales-force automation, call center and customer service and support, and marketing
automation. See also analytical CRM.
Opt-In – Opt-in is a method of informed consent which prohibits the collection of personal information until the
consumer specifically requests that the information be collected. See also opt-out.
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Opt-Out – Opt-out is a method of informed consent which permits the collection of personal information until the
consumer specifically requests that the information not be collected. See also opt-in.
Outsourcing – Outsourcing is the sending of work that used to be done by company employees to other
organizations. Offshore outsourcing, which is sending that work to other countries such as India, has gained
notoriety in recent years as white-collar and professional work has been outsourced. But, theoretically, any time
an organization hires somebody else to do a certain type of work or produce a certain type of product or
component, the work has been outsourced (Dell contracting with a component manufacturer across the street to
manufacture monitors is an example of outsourcing). When work is outsourced, a key component of the success
or failure of that outsourcing is the management of the work that has been outsourced. See also core competency
and call center.
P2P Network – A P2P (peer-to-peer) network is a network without file servers, where all clients are on the same
level. See also client server.
P3P – P3P is a standard for communicating a web site's privacy policies between the web site and its visitors.
Packet – A packet is a formatted block of information transmitted by a network. There is normally a header, a
trailer, and a data area. See also frame and packet switching.
Packet Filtering – Packet filtering is a firewall examining individual incoming packets and determining whether to
accept or reject each specific packet based on the IP addresses used and the specific port that the packet is to go
to. Packet filtering can be stateful packet filtering (where packet information or state is remembered) or stateless
packet filtering (where state is not remembered). See also firewall and network address translation (NAT) and
stateful packet filtering and frame.
Packet Switching – Packet switching is a method of slicing digital messages into pieces called packets. The
individual packets are then transmitted over various transmission routes and are rearranged at the destination.
Packet switching optimizes the use of the bandwidth available in the network. See also packet and TCP/IP and
frame relay and circuit switching.
Parallel Processing – Parallel processing is running both the "old" system and the "new" system on the same real
data and comparing the results. See also direct cutover and unit testing and acceptance testing.
Parallel Port – A parallel port is a type of PC physical interface that connects to certain peripheral devices such as
printers. Over a parallel port, binary information is transferred in parallel with each bit sent simultaneously over a
separate wire. Parallel ports are being replaced by USB ports. See also serial port and universal serial bus (USB)
port.
Parity Bit – A parity bit is an extra bit that is added to a byte, character, or word to ensure that there is either an
odd (odd parity) or even number (even parity) of bits in a string of bits. See also ASCII and EBCDIC.
Parse – Parse is to analyze a sequence of characters in a string of characters to determine the structure of that
string of characters. Compilers often use a form of parsing. See also compilation and interpretation.
Partitioning – Partitioning (file or database partitioning) is splitting a file or database (normally a database) and
storing it in pieces, normally in different physical locations. A distributed database is not the same as distributed
processing. See also replication and distributed database.
Password Cracker – A password cracker is a program that attempts to "guess" passwords by various means.
Many users choose weak passwords that are easy for them to remember. Sometimes, they choose words that
are in a dictionary. One way to crack such passwords is to use a dictionary (of words and possibly of standard
numbers such as dates and standard variations on those words and numbers) and try one word after another.
Methods to combat such cracking are to lock user ids after too many incorrect guesses or to enforce a more
complicated system that requires a combination of letters and numbers. Passwords should always be encrypted
when they are stored on a system (such as in a valid password file). See also password harvesting.
Password Harvesting – Password harvesting is the attempt to obtain passwords. Password harvesting is the
original name for what is now known as phishing, which is the attempt to obtain passwords and other important
information such as social security numbers and bank account numbers and the like. See also phishing and social
engineering and identity theft and password cracker.
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Patch – A patch is a piece of program code that corrects problems. Microsoft (other vendors do the same thing)
makes patches available as Service Packs downloadable over the web. Installing patches for a large organization
can be very costly and time consuming because it is necessary to ensure that installing the patch does not cause
other problems (especially on PCs where users have been allowed to install their own software or have just done
it anyway; patches might also introduce new vulnerabilities even while fixing the vulnerability they were designed
to fix). Installation of patches almost always has to be automated in some way in a large multi-platform
organization (called patch management), and it is often difficult to get patches installed on laptops and other
devices that are not always connected to the network. Patch Tuesday is the second Tuesday in a month. Patch
Tuesday is the day that Microsoft releases its security patches. See also bug.
Patent – A patent is a grant of the exclusive monopoly to an idea behind an invention for 20 years. See also
copyright and trade secret and intellectual property.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) – The PCI DSS is data security standard for the
payment card industry (VISA, MasterCard, American Express, etc) for handling, processing, storing, and
transmitting credit card data. This PCI has nothing to do with the PCI in PCI Bus. The PCI data security standard
applies to all payment card network merchants and service providers. Participants must build and maintain a
secure network, protect cardholder data, implement access control measures, and monitor and test networks.
Participants not complying may not be allowed to process credit card transactions or may have to pay higher fees
or may be fined.
PBX – A PBX (Private Branch Exchange) is the (privately owned) device which switches an organization's
telephones and hooks into the telephone company's local loop. A hybrid PBX is a PBX that can handle both
normal telephone traffic and IP traffic using VoIP. See also local loop and POP and IP and VoIP.
PCI Bus – A PCI (peripheral component interconnect) bus is a bus for attaching peripheral devices to a PC
motherboard. The PCI specification covers the physical size of the bus, its electrical characteristics, bus timing,
and protocols. See also motherboard.
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) – A PDA is a small handheld computer capable of digital communication. PDAs
normally include applications such as schedulers, address books, email access, etc.
Personal Firewall – A personal firewall is a firewall designed to protect an individual PC, as opposed to an
organization's network. A personal firewall is often software-based. See firewall.
Physical Layer Protocol – A physical layer protocol is a communication protocol for the physical layer, the lowest
layer of an architecture. See also application layer protocol and data link layer protocol and transport layer
protocol and Open System Interconnect (OSI).
Ping – A ping is a computer network tool that sends an echo request to a target host (a router or an individual
computer or a PC). A ping merely establishes that the target host is available and reachable. Hosts should not
respond to a ping from outside the organization's network. Pinging might be used as a first step for network
diagnostics, but it might also be used as a first step by a hacker to determine the IP addresses of routers or
computers on a network. A "ping of death" is an attack that involves sending a malformed or otherwise malicious
ping to a computer. See also IP address.
Pixel – A pixel (picture element) is the tiny dots that make up the representation of a picture in a computer's
memory. The more pixels used to represent an image, the closer to the original. A screen that displays 1024 x
768 displays 1024 pixels across the screen and 768 down the screen.
Plain Text File – A plain text file is any file in ASCII text or other human-readable form. Plain text files are different
from formatted text files. In an encryption context, plain text files are files that have not been encrypted. See also
file extension.
Plug-and-Play (PnP) – Plug-and-play means that peripheral devices can be added to a PC without having to
manually add new device drivers. For plug-and-play, the operating system and the hardware and the BIOS must
all support plug-and-play and there must be a device driver already installed to support the peripheral device; for
example, the operating system and the appropriate peripheral bus must be able to recognize that a new
peripheral device has been added. Plug-and-play is sometimes called a hot swap. Without plug-and-play, the PC
must be turned off, the device must be installed, and the PC must be turned on and booted. See also device
driver and BIOS.
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Policy Rules – Policy rules are access rules that are written for firewalls. See also firewall.
Pop-Up Ad – A pop-up ad is a graphic display on a web page that is used for advertising. They pop up
automatically when a person accesses a web site. They work the opposite of banner ads. For every action, there
is a reaction. A pop-up blocker is software that blocks pop-up ads. See also banner ad.
POP – A POP (point of presence) is a telephone company's connection to its network. There must be some kind
of private line (or other connection) from a customer's site to the POP. See also local loop and PBX and trunk line.
POP3 – POP3 is a protocol for receiving (inbound) text-based email. SMTP provides outbound, not inbound, mail
transport. POP3 has nothing to do with a POP. See also simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) and hypertext
transport protocol (HTTP).
Port – A port is the control field (in TCP and other protocols) that indicates which application process should
receive the data in the data field (what application the message came from and thus what application the
message should go to). "Well-known" or standard ports are ports in the range 0-1023 (210). Certain well-known
ports are port 80 for HTTP (and port 443 for HTTPS), ports 20-21 for FTP, port 25 for SMTP, port 53 for DNS, and
port 110 for POP3. Unused ports are above 1023. Note that this usage of the word "port" has nothing to do with
the word port in such terms as "USB port." See also hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) and file transport
protocol (FTP) and simple mail transport protocol (SMTP) and domain name system (DNS) and firewall and
application firewall.
Portal – A portal (sometimes corporate portal or enterprise portal) is a browser-based application that allows
knowledge workers and other workers in an organization to gain access to, collaborate with, make decisions on,
and take other actions on a wide variety of business-related information, regardless of where the workers or the
information are located. In addition to corporate portals that are used by an individual business, there are other
portals, such as Yahoo, which collect web information and provide it to individual users.
PostScript – PostScript is a page definition language and programming language used in desktop publishing.
POTS – POTS is an acronym for plain old telephone service. See also sampling and circuit switching.
Power Surge – A power surge is a temporary spike in the voltage of the power delivered by the electric utility.
Surges can be protected against with a surge protector (which will do nothing, however, for a total loss of power).
See also uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
Private Key Encryption – Private key encryption is a scheme of encryption that utilizes private keys (one key or
symmetric keys). See also public key encryption and data encryption.
Program-Data Dependence – Program-data dependence is the connection between data stored in files or
databases and the specific programs that process that data. Computer programs have to describe the data to be
input or output in some way, and techniques have been devised to remove the data descriptions from the actual
programs so that the programs do not have to be changed when the size, for example, of the data changes. One
advantage of databases is that that the data definitions can be stored in a central data dictionary; the programs
then merely have to describe the data in a generic way and leave the rest up to the database management
system. See also database and data dictionary and database management system (DBMS) and data
independence.
Propagation Effect – A propagation effect is a change in a signal during propagation (creation) of the signal. See
also noise and attenuation.
Prototyping – Prototyping is the building of an experimental system rapidly and inexpensively for the system's end
users to evaluate. Often, end users cannot explain clearly what is needed in a system but can easily critique
something that they can see. Prototyping is often used when building the user interface to a system. See also
rapid application development (RAD) and structured programming.
PSDN – The PSDN is the public switched data network. See also PSTN.
PSTN – The PSTN is the public switched telephone network. See also PSDN.
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Public Key Encryption – Public key encryption is a scheme of encryption that utilizes both public and private keys
(two key or asymmetric keys). See also private key encryption and data encryption.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) – PKI is the use of public and private keys in encrypting and decrypting data
transmissions and the use of digital certificates that can identify an individual or an organization.
Pull-Based Model – A pull-based model (also called a build-to-order model) is a supply chain model in which
actual customer orders or purchases trigger events in the supply chain. A pull-based model can be contrasted to
a push-based model in that production schedules for a push-based model are based on forecasts of demand for
products. See also supply chain management and bullwhip effect.
Push Technology – Push technology is the same as broadcast technology. It is an Internet-based content delivery
system where information is provided to a client based on a predefined set of request parameters (a user profile).
See also push reporting.
RAS – RAS is an acronym for reliability (or robustness), availability, and serviceability, which was an IBM
marketing slogan for why not to downsize to smaller processors. See also downsizing and total cost of ownership
(TCO).
RDF – RDF (Resource Description Framework) is an extension of XML (originally, but it has been extended
beyond XML) that attempts to describe data in terms of objects and their relationships. See also XML (Extensible
Markup Language).
RJ-11 – RJ-11 connectors are the connectors that are used for normal home telephone cables (one-pair voice-
grade UTP cable). See also RJ-45 and unshielded twisted pair (UTP).
RJ-45 – RJ-45 connectors are the connectors that are used for normal business telephone cables (two-pair data-
grade UTP cable). See also RJ-11 and unshielded twisted pair (UTP).
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) – RFID is the use of tiny tags with embedded microchips containing data
about an item and its location and a small antenna to transmit that information. Unlike bar codes, RFID tags do
not need line of sight contact to be read and are usable at up to around 100 feet. An RFID reader has an antenna
which continually transmits. When the RFID reader senses a tag, it causes the tag to transmit its data; the RFID
reader then sends that data to a central host computer. RFID tags can be either active RFID tags, which can be
modified, or passive RFID tags, which cannot be modified. See also Bluetooth.
Rapid Application Development (RAD) – Rapid application development is a specific process of creating workable
systems in a very short time period. It was a panacea for system development before object-oriented
development came along. There has been a long line of system development panaceas; sometimes, the people
who benefit the most from the latest "hot" thing are the people who write the books about them. See also
structured programming and computer aided software engineering (CASE) and prototyping.
Records Management – Records management is the practice of identifying, classifying, archiving, and destroying
records. Records are "information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an
organization or person in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of a business." Records may be
paper or computer-generated. A records management system is a system used to track and store records.
Everybody remembers the Enron document destruction at Arthur Andersen, but there is nothing necessarily bad
or wrong about destroying records, as long as such destruction is a part of a standard records management
process.
Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) – RISC is a computer architecture that uses a reduced set of
instructions. Complex instructions take several cycles to execute, and RISC attempts to reduce the number of
complex instructions so that overall the instructions can be executed faster. The inverse of RISC is CISC or
complex instruction set computers.
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Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) – A redundant array of inexpensive disk (also known as redundant
array of independent disks) is a disk storage system with a number of disk drives where the data is spread over
the various disks in a certain prescribed manner (depending on the level of RAID). The disk drives act as a unit in
storing and retrieving the data. The intent of RAID is to improve reliability and performance. RAID can be
implemented in hardware, in software, or a combination of both, although software implementations do not
provide as good performance as hardware implementations since the software has to be run somewhere;
hardware implementations require a specialized RAID disk controller. RAID0 is non-redundant where sequential
blocks of data is written to multiple disks in stripes; all of the disks can be read back in parallel, thus improving
read performance. RAID1 writes all data to two disks, the original disk and a redundant disk, without parity; if one
disk fails, the other copy is used. RAID4 through RAID6 write the data to one disk and a parity bit or bits to a
second disk; if one disk fails, the data can be recreated using the parity bit. A hot spare disk may be used to
automatically replace a failed disk. RAID10 is a combination of RAID0 and RAID1. See also RAS.
Referential Integrity – In a relational database, referential integrity prevents the deleting of key values in related
records (tables). If, for example, there is a relational database with customer records (tables) and invoice records
(tables), the invoice records will normally contain a customer number in them to reference back to the customer
record. If a customer is deleted, there must be something done about the invoice records with that customer
number in them (they can be deleted also, or the customer deletion can be disallowed). Referential integrity is
enforced by the database management system itself. See also database and database management system and
relational database.
Relevancy Ranking – Relevancy ranking (in a search context; also relevance ranking) is a ranking of the results
returned by a search query in order of their relevance. Relevance is a numerical score assigned to a search result
indicating how well the search result meets the requirements of the search query key word. A simple relevancy
ranking is a ranking of search results by how many times the key word appears in the document. See also search
engine and search engine optimization. .
Repeater – A repeater is an electronic device that receives a weak or low-level signal and
regenerates/retransmits it at a higher level or higher power. Repeaters can be used for both analog and digital
signals. The word repeater can also be used in the context of microwave repeaters. See also analog signal and
digital signal and attenuation and microwave transmission and bridge.
Repetitive Stress Injury – A repetitive stress injury is an injury that occurs when muscle groups are injured through
the repetition of a particular motion or set of motions. A common example of repetitive stress injuries is carpel
tunnel syndrome from keystrokes on a keyboard. See also ergonomics.
Replication – Replication (file or database replication) is duplicating a file or database in its entirety, normally in
different physical locations. A distributed database is not the same as distributed processing. See also partitioning
and distributed database.
Request for Proposal (RFP) – A request for proposal is a request from a customer to a vendor of an application
software package or of services for information about the products or services. An RFP is often used as an initial
communication to various vendors about the organization's initial requirements for software or services. An RFP is
sometimes called an RFQ (Request for Quotation). An RFP is also used for the same function for hardware
purchases, especially when specialized hardware of some kind is needed.
Reverse Engineering – Reverse engineering is the process of taking a product (or a program) apart and
determining how it works. Reverse engineering is legal as long as it does not violate copyrights or patent rights.
The purpose is often to see how something works so that a new product can be developed without actually
infringing on a copyright or a patent. See also trade secret and patent and copyright.
Ring Topology – A ring topology is a network topology that is formed in a ring with each device connected to two
other devices; the ends are connected. See also bus topology and star topology and tree topology and ring
network.
Roaming – Roaming is the extending of wireless (cell phone) service to a location that is different from the "home"
location, which normally means that a different service provider is being used. The service is handed off from one
service provider to the other. Roaming is less important than it used to be with nationwide service plans, but
different service providers define nationwide in different ways. See also access point.
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Rootkit – A rootkit is a piece of software used by an intruder (normally) that is intended to conceal malicious
software installed on a system without the user's (or the operating system's) knowledge. Rootkits often modify
parts of the operating system or install themselves as part of the operating system and then hide themselves.
Rootkits spread by the same techniques as viruses and other such threads. Antivirus and other security software
now often provides some form of rootkit detection. These detectors often work by comparing files on a system to
the original files (the way the files were supposed to be). See also keystroke logging.
Rule Base – A rule base is the set of rules in an artificial intelligence system. Rule based expert systems are
based on rules that are built into the rule base. The only way that a system using the rule base can "learn" is if the
rules are updated by some external party. See also forward chaining and backward chaining and inference engine
and artificial intelligence shell and fuzzy logic and case-based reasoning systems and neural network.
Runtime – Runtime is the time during which a program is being executed or run (its run time). The runtime
environment is the environment (which may be part of the operating system or other software) that provides
services to a program when it is running. A runtime library is a collection of utility programs or functions that
provide the runtime services to a running program. A runtime error is an error that is discovered while a program
is running (as opposed to a compile time error, which is discovered while the program is being compiled). See
also Apache and C and C++.
Sampling – Sampling, in a voice telecommunications context, is the sampling of the human voice in a telephone
conversation. See also POTS and circuit switching.
Scalability – Scalability is the ability of a computer, computer product, or system to expand to serve a larger
number of users.
Script Language – A script language is a computer programming language that is used only for simple, repeated
actions. Script languages are normally interpreted and not compiled. It is usually faster to write a program in a
script language, but, especially if interpreted, the executable program may execute slowly. A script can be
somewhat thought of as a kind of Job Control Language for smaller processors. See also Job Control Language
(JCL) and JavaScript and compilation and interpretation.
SCSI – SCSI is a hardware bus technology used in the transfer of data to and from a hard drive. SCSI systems
focus on support for multiple devices or drives in arrays with high-speed data transfer; it is most often used for
servers. See also Serial ATA.
Search Aggregator – A search aggregator is a special type of metasearch engine that gathers results from
multiple search engines. Normally, a search aggregator allows users to specify which search engines to perform a
specified search. See also metasearch engine.
Search Engine – A search engine is a program designed to find information on the Internet or elsewhere. The
search engine allows the user to ask for content meeting specific criteria (search criteria) and retrieves a list of
items that meet those criteria, most often sorted in some manner. Search engine normally refers to an Internet
search engine. Search engines operate on search algorithm or ranking algorithm. Normally, a spider or web
crawler program of some type finds a new page or a web site and stores the page on the search engine's server
and another program extracts information about the page (such as the words and links that the page contains and
the links to that web page from other web pages). Search engines often cannot index certain paid-subscription or
restricted corporate web sites or web sites with very long and complex URLs. Search is sometimes divided into
general or text search, video search, local search (searches that retrieve local information such as restaurants),
image search, news search, blog search, mobile search (search results returned to a mobile device), and intranet
search (search restricted to the information of a particular organization). See also key word and search engine
marketing and click fraud and metasearch engine and search aggregator and relevancy ranking.
Search Engine Marketing – Search engine marketing is a set of marketing methods used to increase the visibility
of a website in search engine results (to increase the probability of the website sorting to the top of the list). See
search engine and click fraud and search engine optimization.
Search Engine Optimization – Search engine optimization is a marketing method which seeks to improve the
number and quality of visitors to a web site from natural search results, optimizing the factors that a search engine
might utilize to rank the web site. See search engine marketing and relevancy ranking.
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Secured Electronic Transaction (SET) – SET is a standard protocol for securing credit card transactions over
insecure networks such as the Internet. SET makes use of digital certificates and public key cryptography.
Although it was widely publicized in the 1990s, it is unclear how much acceptance SET actually received. See
also SSL (secured socket layer) and digital certificate and public key cryptography.
Serial ATA – Serial ATA (SATA) is a hardware bus technology used in the transfer of data to and from a hard
drive. Serial ATA is often used for PC data storage since it is simpler and more reliable than SCSI. See also SCSI
and FireWire.
Serial Port – A serial port is a type of PC physical interface that connects to certain peripheral devices such as
mice and keyboards. Over a serial port, binary information is transferred one bit at a time. See also parallel port
and universal serial bus (USB) port.
Server Farm – A server farm is a group of networked servers that are housed in one location. Normally, the
workload is distributed over the various servers in the farm. See also load balancing.
Server Virtualization – Server virtualization is the process of partitioning one physical server into multiple servers
such that each of the "virtual" servers has the appearance and capability of running as its own dedicated
machine. Each virtual server can run its own operating system and can be booted independently. The "virtual" is
the same "virtual" as with virtual memory. This kind of partitioning has been common for years with mainframes
but has now spread to other architectures. Server virtualization is sometimes divided into hardware-based
virtualization and software-based virtualization. The intent of server virtualization is to increase the utilization of
hardware resources, which is often quite low on single-purpose hardware and to decrease the number of actual
physical servers that are used (which are reduces the power consumption and heat generated). See also virtual
memory and virtual private network (VPN).
Service Level Agreement – From a telecommunications standpoint, a service level agreement (SLA) is an
agreement by a PSDN provider (carrier) to provide a certain level of service within the cloud. Service level
agreements can also be used in other areas, such as computer operations in general, wherever the level of
service can be quantified and measured. See also PSDN and cloud and high-availability computer system.
Service Worker – Service or production workers actually produce the organization's products or services. Service
workers in a manufacturing environment are machinists and assemblers. Other categories of workers are data
workers, knowledge workers, and managers of various types. See also knowledge worker
Shrink-Wrap License – A shrink-wrap license is an unsigned software license agreement which states that
acceptance on the part of the user to the terms of the agreement is indicated by the user opening the shrink-wrap
packaging, by the use of the software, or by some other specified mechanism. Remember that software is
normally "sold" under some kind of license (so that it is not really sold at all). The purchaser can use the software
under the terms of the license agreement and can transfer the license subject to whatever restrictions are
contained in the license agreement.
Signal – A signal is an electromagnetic wave or light wave. See also analog signal and digital signal.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio – The signal-to-noise ratio is the ratio between the signal and the noise floor (the mean of
the noise). Signal-to-noise ratios can be calculated both for analog signals and digital signals. The higher the
ratio, the better. See also attenuation and analog signal and digital signal and noise.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) – SMTP is a protocol for transmitting text-based email. SMTP provides
outbound, not inbound, mail transport. See also hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) and FTP (file transport
protocol) and TCP/IP and POP3.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) – SNMP is a protocol for monitoring a network. In SNMP, a piece
of software called an agent runs on each of the devices being monitored (called a managed object) and reports
information to the network management/monitoring system. See also network monitoring.
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Single Log-in – A single log-in (on single sign-on) is a system that allows a users who utilizes several different
systems the ability to log in to them all with one user id and one password. It attempts to combat the proliferation
of different user ids and passwords that may occur in an organization with multiple security systems, possibly for
multiple hardware platforms (each password with different rules and possibly different expiration dates). It is also
sometimes a way to organize who has access to what on an overall organizational basis (which is real nice to
know when somebody quits and their access to various systems must be terminated).
Smart Card – A smart card is a plastic card the size of a credit card that stores digital information. The cards can
contain electronic cash and can be used for payments or access to an ATM machine. See also digital cash and
digital checking.
Snapshot – A snapshot, in a backup context, is a copy of a file at a particular point in time.
Sniffer – A sniffer (also known as a packet sniffer or protocol analyzer) is a computer hardware device (and/or
sometimes software) that can intercept traffic passing over a digital network. The sniffer captures each packet and
decodes it. Sniffers are often legally used for network performance monitoring and problem solving. They can be
used maliciously to intercept messages on a network. There are also wireless sniffers which can capture
information over a wireless network. See also packet.
SOAP – SOAP (originally Simple Object Access Protocol) is a protocol for exchanging XML-based messages
over a network using HTTP. SOAP works well with network firewalls. See also XML (extensible markup language)
and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and middleware and application server.
Social Engineering – Social engineering (from a computer security standpoint; there are many other definitions of
social engineering in other contexts) is taking advantage of humans or the carelessness of humans involved with
a system to attack the system. An example is calling a person, impersonating somebody else, and asking for and
obtaining a password to the system. See also buffer overflow and zombie attack and password harvesting and
phishing.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – Software-as-a-service is a software delivery model where a software vendor

develops a software application and then rents that application for use over the Internet (the opposite would be
where the application was run natively on a PC or other computer). Users of the software pay for using the
software, not for owning it. Older terminology for somewhat the same thing was application service provider or
utility computing. See also application service provider and utility computing and cloud computing.
Software Distribution – Software distribution has multiple meanings in information technology. Sometimes it refers
to the process of distributing software, or updates to the software, to the various parts of an organization that are
to use it or are using it. For example, an organization with multiple branch offices might be using the same
software (internally developed or purchased) at each branch office. The organization will normally want to have
the same version of the software (or at least a known version of the software) running at each branch office. See
also change control.
Software Piracy – Software piracy is making a copy of a piece of software and selling it. Software piracy is a
subset of copyright infringement of software. See also copyright.
Software Vulnerability – A software vulnerability is a weakness in a system that allows an attacker to attack the
system. Software vulnerabilities can be divided into categories of exploits, where a flaw in the software such as a
buffer overflow, is exploited, and indirect attacks, such as the use of a zombie computer called a zombie attack,
and backdoors. See also buffer overflow and zombie attack and backdoor.
Source Code – Source code is the actual program instructions written by a programmer. Source code is compiled
(to produce object code) or interpreted. See also escrow and object code.
South Bridge – The south bridge is one of the two chips (the other one is the north bridge) in the core logic
chipset of a PC motherboard. The south bridge handles communication with the PCI bus, the real time clock, the
USB port, power management, the interrupt controller, and other devices. See also north bridge.
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Spam – Spam is unsolicited commercial email; it normally sent in bulk to many users in substantially the same
form at the same time (it costs very little to send spam). Spam is an increasing burden to both individuals and to
organizations, but legislative efforts to combat spam have been ineffective (and probably always will be since
many of those sending spam are outside the jurisdiction of the country passing the legislation). Detecting spam by
the content of the email (content filtering) is a popular anti-spam measure (but it can be made harder by
misspelling words that might be caught), as are blacklists. In order to send spam, spammers must have email
addresses to send the spam to, and these email addresses can be obtained in various ways; one method is to
harvest email addresses that have been posted for other reasons. Spam is often sent from other people's PCs
without their consent. See also web crawler and bot and blacklist.
Speech Recognition System – A speech recognition system (sometimes called a voice recognition system) is
hardware and/or software that enables a computer to recognize speech.
Spoof Site – A spoof site is a fraudulent web site that looks like a well known legitimate web site. One of the most
common examples of phishing is sending a fraudulent email to claims to be from a legitimate and well known
organization. The fraudulent email will attempt to entice the recipient to the spoof site. The spoof site will ask for
personal information such as credit card numbers or social security numbers. See also phishing and identity theft.
Spyware – Spyware is a broad category of malicious software designed to take control or partial control of a
computer's operation without the informed consent of the computer's owner; at the very least, it gathers
information with the user's consent. Keystroke loggers and screen capture programs can be considered spyware.
Spyware does not normally self-replicate; it gets on a system through deception of the user or through exploitation
of software vulnerabilities or is installed along with other useful software without the user's knowledge or
permission. Spyware developed from adware, which started out as software that displayed advertisements for
free software. See also Trojan Horse and virus and keystroke logger.
SSL – SSL (secured socket layer) is an application layer protocol that is a standard for E-commerce transaction
security. SSL is all about encryption and digital certificates. SSL is included in all standard web browsers these
days. See also secured electronic transaction (SET) and data encryption and digital certificates and tunneling and
virtual private network (VPN).
Stack – A stack is a temporary data structure based on LIFO (yeah, real accounting). In the context used in the
text in conjunction with PCs, the stack is a part of memory where register contents are temporarily stored. See
also interrupt.
Stateful Packet Filtering – Stateful packet filtering is a firewall technology where the firewall retains the source's IP
address and port number (on an outgoing message) so that it will know where to return the response. Stateful
packet filtering is contrasted to stateless packet filtering. See also firewall and packet filtering and network
address translation (NAT).
Storage Area Network (SAN) – A storage area network is a network that contains remote storage devices (disk
arrays, tape libraries, and CD arrays) to servers in such a way that the devices appear to the operating system to
be local devices. These days, SANs are used mostly in large organizations. See also storage virtualization.
Storage Virtualization – Storage virtualization is the uncoupling of logical storage from physical storage. The
physical storage devices appear to be a single large storage device, even though they are scattered over the
network. See also storage area network.
Structured Data – Structured data is data that does exist in a data structure. See also unstructured data and data
structure.
Structured Programming – Structured programming is a method of programming that attempts to eliminate the
GOTO statement or its variants (the misuse or overuse of GOTO statements can really make program source
code hard to read). See also rapid application development (RAD) and computer aided software engineering
(CASE).
Subschema – A subschema is the particular view of data in a database that is needed by a particular application
program. See also schema and database.
Subnet – A subnet is a part of a network.
33
Supercomputer – A supercomputer is a computer that leads the world in terms of computing power when it is
introduced. Today's supercomputer is tomorrow's tinker toy. Supercomputers are optimized for calculation speed
and sometimes for particular types of calculations. They normally have little capacity for I/O (input and output)
since little I/O is needed. See also mainframe and minicomputer and cluster and grid computing and edge
computing.
System Capacity – System capacity is the ability of a system (of whatever type) to process a certain number of
transactions (or data) within a certain time period. Systems are normally made up of sub-systems of varying
individual capacities. A bottleneck can occur at the sub-system with the smallest capacity and that bottleneck can
impact the performance of the system as a whole. Improving system performance is often the process of
eliminating one bottleneck after another. Once one bottleneck is eliminated, another one will occur. For some
systems, the ability to transfer data fast enough (the data transfer rate) is a significant bottleneck. See also MIPS.
System Complexity – System complexity is a measure of how complex a system (of whatever type) is. The more
complex a system (or anything else) is, the less chance that the system will operate correctly. Complexity breeds
errors.
Switching Cost – Switching cost is the cost of switching from one product or solution to another competing
product or solution. For IT, switching cost might be the cost of switching from one ERP application system
purchased from SAP, for example, to another similar application system from Oracle. Switching costs are often so
prohibitive as to lock an organization in to a particular vendor's system or application (it is very expensive to
switch from SAP ERP to Oracle ERP, or vice versa, and the vendors know it). Certainly, locking in customers is
one of the vendor's objectives. See total cost of ownership (TCO) and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
Synchronous Transmission – Synchronous transmission is a form of data transmission where start and stop bytes
are required at the beginning and end of blocks of characters, rather than for individual characters. See also
asynchronous transmission.
System Analysis – System analysis is the analysis of a business problem that will be addressed by a new system
of some kind. See also system design and conversion and maintenance.
System Design – System design is designing the system. System design includes specifying the input,
processing, output, user interface, and file or database design. It should also include controls and security. See
also system analysis and conversion and maintenance.
SysTrust – SysTrust is an assurance service introduced by the AICPA that evaluates the reliability of an
information system with respect to its availability, security, integrity, and maintainability.
TCP – TCP (Transport Control Protocol) is the transmission protocol of the Internet protocol suite. TCP is a
transport layer protocol. TCP is a reliable and a connection-oriented protocol. See also IP and IP address and
TCP/IP.
TCP/IP – TCP/IP stands for transmission control protocol/Internet protocol. It is the set of transmission protocols
used for the Internet. The TCP part of TCP/IP allows two hosts to establish a connection and exchange streams
of data. The IP part of TCP/IP deals with the packets of data themselves. TCP/IP was not developed for the
Internet but was used by the Internet and, as such, is also the de facto standard for corporate networks. TCP/IP
was originally developed in 1969 by a US government agency then called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency). See also IP and TCP and IP address.
Telemarketing – Telemarketing is a form of direct marketing where a salesperson uses a telephone to solicit
prospective customers.
Terabyte (TB) – A terabyte is approximately 1 trillion bytes. The word approximately is in the definition because
the size is actually 1,099,511,627,776, which is 240 bytes or 10244 bytes. The next one up is petabyte, which is
one quadrillion bytes. See also megabyte and gigabyte and kilobyte.
Thin Client – A thin client is a computer in client server architecture without a disk drive. The thin client relies on
an application server for storage of data and is basically used as an input device, somewhat like the old IBM
green tube. See also fat client and server.
34
Throughput – Throughput is a network's actual speed, or the speed that the network actually achieves.
Throughput is in contrast to the network's rated speed, i.e., the speed that the network should achieve.
Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) – TDMA is a wireless networking (digital cellular) standard. TDMA divides
a radio frequency into time slots and assigns a specific frequency to each user. TDMA is used by GSM digital
cellular systems such as those used by T-Mobile, Cingular, and AT&T. See also code division multiple access
(CDMA) and global system for mobile communications (GSM) and 3G.
Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) – Time division multiplexing is a type of multiplexing that combines streams of
data by assigning each stream of data a different time slot. See also frequency division multiplexing and
multiplexing.
Token – The word token has several meanings. From a security standpoint, it means a physical device similar to
an identification card that identifies a particular user. From a network standpoint, a token was used in token-ring
networks to identify the node that could transmit because it was holding the token.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – Total cost of ownership (TCO) is the total cost of owning computer hardware or
software, including the original purchase price and ongoing maintenance and support costs of all kinds after that.
Often, the majority of the TCO is after the original acquisition. See also downsizing and outsourcing.
Trade Secret – A trade secret is protection for intellectual property that is not in the public domain. See also
intellectual property and patent and copyright and reverse engineering.
Trailer Label – A trailer label is an internal label which occurs at the end of a tape or disk file and identifies the file.
Header and trailer labels are used by programs processing the tape or disk files to ensure that the proper files are
being processed. See also header label.
Transborder Data Flow – Transborder data flow is the movement of data containing personal or sensitive
information across international boundaries. The European Union (EU) countries, especially, have imposed
restrictions on transfers of data to countries which do not have an "adequate" level of protection for such data,
which countries include the US.
Transport Layer Protocol – A transport layer protocol is a communication protocol for the transport layer. See also
physical layer protocol and data link layer protocol and application layer protocol and Open System Interconnect
(OSI).
Trojan Horse – A Trojan Horse is a program in which malicious or harmful program code is contained inside
apparently harmless program code or data in such a way that it can take control of the computer and cause
damage. See also virus and spyware.
Trunk Line – A trunk line is a single transmission channel between two telephone switching centers. See also
local loop and POP and backbone.
Tunneling – Tunneling is another name for a virtual private network (the process that makes the virtual private
network private). On a virtual private network, the data is encapsulated (wrapped in a wrapper) at the tunnel start
point before it is transmitted; it is then de-encapsulated at the tunnel endpoint. Normally, with tunneling, the data
is encrypted for security purposes, because tunneling does not provide any security by itself. See also SSL
(secured socket level) and virtual private network (VPN).
UDP – UDP (User Datagram Protocol) is a protocol often used in VoIP. UDP is an unreliable protocol. See also
VoIP and unreliable protocol.
Unit Testing – Unit, or program testing, is the separate testing each program in a system. See also acceptance
testing and parallel processing.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) Port – USB (USB 1.1) is an external bus standard that connects up to 127 peripheral
devices at 12 Mbps. USB ports became widely available in 1998. USB 2.0 is a high-speed version of USB 1.1 that
supports data rates up to 480 Mbps. USB 2.0 is fully compatible with USB 1.1. See also serial port and parallel
port.
Unix – Unix is an interactive operating system, designed for minicomputers. See also Linux and operating system
and minicomputer.
35
Unreliable Protocol – An unreliable protocol is a protocol that does not perform any error correction. Any
messages which are discovered to be in error are simply discarded. Reliable protocols are protocols that perform
both error correction and error detection. UDP is an unreliable protocol. TCP is a reliable protocol. See also UDP
(User Datagram Protocol) and TCP.
Unstructured Data – Unstructured data is data that does not exist in a data structure. Unstructured data is
Unstructured data is text data, emails, pdf files, presentations, and spreadsheets. See also structured data and
data structure.
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) – A UPS is a device which maintains a continuous supply of electrical power
to connected equipment. UPS is also called battery backup. When a power failure or abnormality occurs, the UPS
switches from electrical power to its own power source (the battery) almost instantaneously. A UPS is not,
however, a backup standby generator; the battery will run out sooner or later, but there should be enough time to
bring the connected equipment down in an orderly fashion. A backup generator will not provide protection from a
momentary power interruption. A UPS can be one of two types: online, where the connected equipment is always
powered from the battery and the battery is continuously re-charged from the utility power; and offline or standby,
where the connected equipment is powered from the utility power and the UPS kicks in when there is a problem
with the utility power. A UPS, in combination with a surge protection device of some type, normally protects
against a complete loss of power or a temporary under-voltage (voltage sag) or a temporary over-voltage (voltage
spike or swell), among others. See also power surge.
URL – A URL (uniform resource locator) is a string of characters that refers to specific resources on a computer.
A URL consists of three different parts. The first part is the protocol that will be used (for example: the http in
http://). The second part is the computer on which the requested resource is located (for example: the
www.beckerreview.com/). The third part is the resource (file) requested (for example: students). See also
hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) and domain name and domain name system (DNS).
Utility Computing – Utility computing is another name for on-demand computing. See also on-demand computing
and application service provider and software-as-a-service.
Utility Program – A utility program is a computer program that is typically included with operating systems that
perform certain common functions. A utility program in a PC environment is one that formats a disk, for example.
Utility programs have nothing to do with utility computing. See also operating system.
Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) – UTP is telephone wiring (two strands of wire twisted together). It is relatively low
speed. See also coaxial cable and fiber optic cable and optical fiber.
VLSI – Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of
transistors on a single chip.
Virtual Private Network (VPN) – A virtual private network is a private network that has been configured within a
public network to take advantage of the economies of scale of the public network, often the Internet and
sometimes the telephone network. A VPN wraps the data from the private network in a wrapper to hide its
contents. There are several types of VPNs; some of them use encryption and are secure (secure VPNs) and
some of them are not secure (trusted VPNs). Remember that the word "virtual" in computing almost always
means "it looks and acts like it but it really is not." See also tunneling and SSL (secured socket layer) and virtual
memory and server virtualization.
Virtual Storefront – A virtual storefront is an organization which sells physical products directly to consumers or
businesses. The most obvious example is Amazon. See also clicks and mortar.
Virus – A virus (from a computer security standpoint) is a self-replicating computer program (or piece of program
code) that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other programs or data. A virus can enter a system as an email
attachment or a file downloaded from the Internet or from an infected floppy disk or CD, or in other ways such as
Word or Excel macro viruses. A virus can be a boot sector virus (which hides in the boot sector of a PC), a file
virus, a macro virus, or a polymorphic virus (which changes when it is copied to a new host). All malicious
software is not a virus; worms and Trojan horses are considered malicious software. See also worm and malware
and logic bomb and macro virus and spyware and Trojan Horse and virus signature.
36
Virus Signature – A virus signature is a unique string of bits that identifies a particular virus. Anti-virus software
uses the signatures of the various types of known viruses to detect them, and it looks for virus-like activity (such
as operating system files longer than they are supposed to be) to detect unknown viruses (and will often
quarantine the suspicious files); this latter approach is called a heuristic approach. Anti-virus software must be
updated regularly with new virus signatures to be effective. See also virus.
Visual Basic – Visual Basic is an event-driven computer language (as opposed to a procedural language like C
and C++; an event-driven language responds to things like the user clicking a mouse) derived from the early
versions of Basic and first released for Windows in 1991. Visual Basic was really developed for programming of a
graphical user interface and it is relatively easy to implement such applications. Visual Basic for Applications
(VBA) is a similar programming language that is embedded in applications like Microsoft Office, Excel, and
PowerPoint. Even though Visual Basis is used extensively, some people think that "It is practically impossible to
teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are
mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." The same person also supposedly said "The use of COBOL
cripples the mind; its teaching, therefore should be regarded as a criminal offense." He also said that FORTRAN
was an "infantile disorder." In spite of these perceived shortcomings, thousands of useful applications have been
developed in these three languages by mere mortals, and many of them have run for decades. See also C and
C++ and programming language and graphical user interface (GUI).
VoIP – VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet. A protocol
called Multiprotocol Label Switching is used on network backbones to label different types of IP traffic for
prioritization (normal IP traffic is on a best-efforts basis with no prioritization; however, voice traffic needs some
priority for reasonable conversations since lost packets could result in poor call quality and even dropped calls).
With VoIP, when the telephone handset is picked up, that action signals the VoIP modem (whatever it might be
called) that a call is being made. When the other end picks up, a connection, but not a dedicated circuit, is
established. When one person hangs up, the connection is disconnected. Router equipment operated by the VoIP
service provider routes the call from one end to the other. Security over VoIP can be a problem. See also digital
subscriber line (DSL) and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS).
War Driver – A war driver is a person who drives around looking for an unsecured WiFi wireless network
connection. It is similar to driving around with a scanner looking for radio signals.
Wavelength – Wavelength is the distance between repeating parts of a wave. In a sine wave, the wavelength is
the distance between the midpoints of the wave (two consecutive tops of the curve). See also frequency.
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) – Wavelength division multiplexing is frequency division multiplexing in
an optical communication. See also frequency division multiplexing (FDM) and time division multiplexing (TDM).
Web 2.0 – Web 2.0 does not refer to a new version of the World Wide Web or any kind of technical upgrade. It
refers to changes in the way that software developers and users utilize the Web. See also cloud computing.
Web Crawler – A web crawler is a bot which browses the web in an automated manner. Many search engines
utilize web crawlers to provide up-to-date data on web pages to update their indexes (a web crawler starts with a
web page to visit and then adds the hyperlinks in that page to the web pages). Other, less reputable, uses are to
collect email addresses for spam. See also bot and spam and search engine.
Web Hosting Service – A web hosting service is an organization which maintains a number of web servers and
provides fee-paying customers with the space to maintain their web sites. See also web server.
Web Personalization – Web personalization is modifying a web page to provide some kind of personal information
to a particular customer. See also clickstream tracking and collaborative filtering.
Web Server – A web server is a computer that delivers a web page upon request. Every web server has an IP
address. Any computer can be turned into a web server by installing web server software and connecting it to the
Internet. See also web hosting service and Apache and IP address.
Wintel PC – A Wintel PC is a PC which uses a Microsoft operating systems (Wi, short for Windows) and that runs
on an Intel processor (tel, short for Intel).
37
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) – WAP is a protocol that enables cell phones and other wireless devices to
access web-based information and services. See also code division multiple access (CDMA) and time division
multiple access (TDMA) and global system for multiple communication (GSM).
Wireless Markup Language (WML) – Wireless markup language is a language based on XML used by WAP
which is optimized for small devices. See also wireless application protocol (WAP) and XML.
WiFi – WiFi is the set of standards for wireless LANs, also called the 802.11b standards (the standard numbering
is from the IEEE). WiFi is packet switching. See also 802.11b and 802.11a and 802.11g and IEEE and 802.11i
and packet switching.
WiFi Alliance – The WiFi Alliance is a global non-profit organization created in 1999 with the goal of driving the
adoption of a single worldwide accepted standard for high-speed wireless local area networks. See also IEEE and
802.11a and 892.11b and 802.11g.
Workflow Management – Workflow management is the process of streamlining business procedures so that
documents can be moved easily and efficiently, often electronically, in a workflow management system. Workflow
management is often divided into business process modeling and workflow management. See also image
processing.
Worm – A worm (from a computer security standpoint) is a self-replicating computer program, similar to a virus. A
worm is self-contained and does not need to be a part of another program to propagate itself. Worms are
generally designed to travel over networks such as the Internet. See also virus and Trojan Horse and malware.
XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language) – XBRL is a language for electronically communicating
business and financial data. It is based on XML and uses standardized “tags” that correspond to concepts and
information included in financial reports. It facilitates the automated retrieval and analysis of financial data. See
also XML.
Zombie Attack – A zombie attack is an attack on a computer system that is launched from a third-party computer
which has been taken over. A zombie attack is not the same as a zombie process in Unix. A zombie process is a
process (like a job but online) that has completed execution but that still has an entry in the process table and
thus still looks like it is running. See also backdoor and software vulnerability and buffer overflow and bot and
botnet.
38
Other Simpler Words that are Not Specifically Defined in this Glossary (But May be Mentioned in the Text)
Application Programmer, also Programmer

Basic – See Visual Basic
Browser
CD-Rom
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Cursor
Data Center – Originally for mainframes but now any large collection of processors
Data Entry
Dial-Up – Slow telephone-based access prior to DSL and cable modem service
Directory
Display Screen
Documentation
Download
Email
FAQ, frequently asked questions
Floppy Disk, also Diskette
Hard Drive, also Disk Drive
Homepage
Mainframe
Memory – See Primary Storage
Menu
Multimedia
Network Administrator
Output
Printer
Programming
Query
RAM – See Primary Storage
ROM – See Primary Storage
SCSI – See FireWire
Script – See Script Language
Spreadsheet
Storage Device
Upload
Voicemail
Word Processor
39

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Business 4 Update – Additional Glossary of Terms

GLOSSARY ADDITIONS FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Asynchronous Transmission – Asynchronous transmission is data transmission in which each character is

Denial-of-Service Attack – A denial-of-service attack (DoS) is an attack on a computer system in an attempt to

Flowchart – A flowchart is a diagrammatic (or symbolic) representation of a program (program flowchart) or

IP Fragment – An IP fragment is a part of an IP message. Fragmentation occurs when an IP message must be

Microprocessor – A microprocessor is an electronic component with multiple processors (transistors) on an

Snapshot – A snapshot, in a backup context, is a copy of a file at a particular point in time.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) – Software-as-a-service is a software delivery model where a software vendor

Subnet – A subnet is a part of a network.

Application Programmer, also Programmer

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