ISP Glossary, Glossary ISP |
| P2P - A method of distributing files over a network. Using P2P client software a client can advertise, send, or receive files with another client. Some P2P file... |
| P54C - The official part number for the Pentium processor from Intel. |
| P55C - The official part number for the Pentium processor with MMX technology from Intel. |
| packet - A packet is a self-contained bundle of data sent over a packet switching network. Packets are typically less than 1500 bytes in size. Longer files are... |
| Packet Filter - Anything that filters out network traffic based on a sender's address, receiver's address, and the type of protocol being sent. Some routers support packet... |
| Packet InterNet Gopher - Part of the standard TCP/IP suite of protocols that allows you to check your connectivity with other devices, or to check whether your own TCP/IP stack... |
| Page - Some regular amount of memory that is accessed by a program or hardware. Memory is split into pages to be dealt with more easily. For example, a database... |
| Page Fault - This is not an error, as "fault" would usually indicate. It simply means that the computer had to resort to using the swap file as memory. If you are getting... |
| Pages Per Minute - This term usually refers to the amount of printed pages a printer can output over a minute's time. The time is based on some average amount of ink or toner... |
| Paging - The act of moving pages of memory from RAM to virtual memory on a hard drive. Excessive paging is caused by a lack of actual system memory. In this case... |
| PAL - The mainly European standard of displaying analog television signals. It consists of 625 horizontal lines of resolution at 50Hz. See also NTSC. |
| palette - The set of colors used in a picture or on a computer screen. Older computers typically used only 16 colors. Modern ones use at least 256 colors, which... |
| Palm Query Application - A small applet that can be downloaded onto a Palm OS-based PDA that allows for the retrieval of information from the Web. PQAs are intended to minimize... |
| Palmtop - A form factor of a computer that can easily fit in your palm. This usually refers to very small PDAs with no keyboards, but can also refer to larger fold-open... |
| Pantone - A standard set of colors, with each color specified by a number. The Pantone colors can be further broken down into a color separation used by professional... |
| Parallel - This means in unison, or many things at the same time. It most commonly refers to a computer with multiple processors that can all function independently... |
| Parallel Port - The parallel port is found on just about all PCs. It's a 25-pin interface cable (also called DB-25) that is designed for connection to a printer. Normally... |
| Parity - The use of an extra bit on memory chips that serves as a checksum, and can let the operating system know if single-bit memory errors are occurring. |
| Parity Memory - Memory that contains a summary of its stored information. The parity does not exactly have a copy of the original, but just enough information to verify... |
| Parse - The act of separating data into more easily understood chunks. |
| Parser - Strictly speaking, this is something that separates data into more easily understood chunks. More practically, a parser is the part of a compiler that... |
| Partially ordered tree - A binary tree where each node of the tree is less than or equal to each of its children nodes. |
| Partition - A section of a hard drive. You must create at least one partition to begin using a new hard drive, and you can create multiple partitions and keep chunks... |
| Partitioning - The act of breaking a hard drive up into one or more pieces, or "partitions." |
| Pascal - A programming language that was designed to teach computer science students the concepts of programming. It's almost like C for dummies. In fact, the two... |
| Passive Matrix - LCD panels that are passive matrix have a duller, dimmer image than those with active matrix screens. Visibility and clarity decrease at smaller angles... |
| Patch - Minor updates to programs that are distributed with only the changes and not the whole program. Imagine an instruction manual that has an extra page stapled... |
| Patch cable - The common name for any network cable that is used to connect, or "patch," any two network ports. |
| Patch panel - A group of network ports stuck together for easy accessibility. Usually this panel resides in a wiring closet or server room. Connections are made between... |
| Path - The group of directories that are searched every time a command is entered in a command line if that command is not found in the current working directory.... |
| Payload - The eventual action taken by a virus once it has installed itself on a system. This action may be immediate, or it could wait for some trigger in the future,... |
| PBX - A private phone switch used within a company that allows inter-company phone calls without using outside lines. It also connects to one or more outside... |
| PC Card - A newer synonym for PCMCIA Card. |
| PC100 - The standard that SDRAM makers adhere to to be sure that SDRAM running at 100MHz works properly. PC100 SDRAM normally works fine in 66MHz SDRAM motherboards.... |
| PC100 SDRAM - The standard that SDRAM makers adhere to to be sure that SDRAM running at 100MHz works properly. PC100 SDRAM normally works fine in 66MHz SDRAM motherboards.... |
| PC1066 RDRAM - Rambus RDRAM that runs at a speed of 533MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 1.06GHz. Memory throughput in systems featuring this type of DRAM is... |
| PC133 - A type of SDRAM that is designed to be run at 133MHz operation. It is pin-compatible with PC100 SDRAM and 66MHz SDRAM, and comes in a DIMM form factor.... |
| PC133 SDRAM - A type of SDRAM that is designed to be run at 133MHz operation. It is pin-compatible with PC100 SDRAM and 66MHz SDRAM, and comes in a DIMM form factor.... |
| PC1600 - DDR SDRAM running at 100MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 200MHz. It has a maximum data transfer rate of 1.6GB/second for one PC1600 channel.... |
| PC200 DDR SDRAM - The DDR memory chips used to assemble PC1600 DDR memory modules. |
| PC2100 DDR SDRAM - A type of DDR SDRAM running at 133MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 266MHz. It is referred to as PC2100 because systems featuring DDR SDRAM at... |
| PC266 DDR SDRAM - The DDR memory chips used to assemble PC2100 DDR memory modules. |
| PC2700 - A type of DDR SDRAM running at 166MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 333MHz. It is referred to as PC2600 because of its maximum data transfer rate... |
| PC3200 - A type of DDR SDRAM running at 200MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 400MHz. It is referred to as PC3200 because of its maximum data transfer rate... |
| PC333 DDR SDRAM - The DDR memory chips used to assemble PC2700 DDR memory modules. |
| PC400 DDR SDRAM - The DDR memory chips used to assemble PC3200 DDR memory modules. |
| PC600 RDRAM - Rambus RDRAM that runs at a speed of 266MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 532MHz. Memory throughput in systems featuring this type of DRAM is... |
| PC700 RDRAM - Rambus RDRAM that runs at a speed of 356MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 712MHz. Memory throughput in systems featuring this type of DRAM is... |
| PC800 RDRAM - Rambus RDRAM that runs at a speed of 400MHz double-pumped to an effective speed of 800MHz. Memory throughput in systems featuring this type of DRAM is... |
| PCB - The normally green plastic board that is imprinted with one or more layers of circuitry. Examples of common PCBs include motherboards, PCI cards, and AGP... |
| PCI - This interface was designed to supplant the VL-Bus architecture and provide a standard slot with a reduced size for high-speed peripherals. It normally... |
| PCI-X - An extension to the PCI interface developed by IBM, HP, and Compaq. The extension allows data to be transferred at 1 GB per second using a 64-bit bus running... |
| PCL - A set of commands used to communicate with Hewlett Packard printers. Each printer company has its own language, but PCL has become a generic term to describe... |
| PCMCIA - Aside from winning the award for being the longest and most-annoying-to-pronounce technology acronym, PCMCIA is a credit card-sized interface card standard.... |
| PDA - PDAs are basically beefed-up organizers or toned-down laptops. They have small LCD screens, some form of pen or keyboard input, and software for organization,... |
| PDC - In Windows NT and 2000 networking, this machine is the main machine that responds to security authentication requests, such as logging in, within its domain.... |
| PDF - Adobe's Portable Document Format. It is often used as a format which allows much more complete, controlled layout of a page and its graphics and text than... |
| Peer to Peer - A method of distributing files over a network. Using P2P client software a client can advertise, send, or receive files with another client. Some P2P file... |
| Peering Relationship - An agreement where one ISP agrees to exchange some level of traffic with another ISP. Sometimes, based on the level of traffic mismatch, one ISP pays the... |
| Peltier Junction - When electrical current is applied to a thermocouple a temperature difference is created, with one side of the thermocouple being hotter than room temperature... |
| Performance Rating - A measure of processing power. The term was coined by Cyrix to compare its 6x86 processor to Intel's Pentium processor that ran at faster processor speeds.... |
| Peripheral - Any device that is not part of the motherboard, aside from memory and the CPU. For example, video cards, sound cards, modems, and hard drives are peripherals.... |
| Peripheral Component Interconnect - This interface was designed to supplant the VL-Bus architecture and provide a standard slot with a reduced size for high-speed peripherals. It normally... |
| Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended - An extension to the PCI interface developed by IBM, HP, and Compaq. The extension allows data to be transferred at 1 GB per second using a 64-bit bus running... |
| PERL - Created by system admin Larry Wall in the mid 1980s, this programming language was originally intended to fill a gap and help out with administration tasks.... |
| Permanent Virtual Circuit - A path through a network from one fixed point to another that appears to be a dedicated circuit; however, the path can be changed and rerouted if necessary.... |
| Personal Computer - This is slang for IBM Personal Computer, or IBM-PC. This is the class of computers the works (so far) on the x86 instruction set, and were first developed... |
| Personal Computer Memory Card International Association - Aside from winning the award for being the longest and most-annoying-to-pronounce technology acronym, PCMCIA is a credit card-sized interface card standard.... |
| Personal Digital Assistant - PDAs are basically beefed-up organizers or toned-down laptops. They have small LCD screens, some form of pen or keyboard input, and software for organization,... |
| Personal Information Manager - A program into which you can enter your personal information, such as your schedule and important contacts. Often PIMs run on PDAs, and allow for synchronization... |
| Perspective Correction - This correctly alters the textures in a scene to give a sense that all the images on the screen converge on one central point way out in the distance.... |
| Petabyte - This is 2^50 bytes. One thousand terabytes/one million gigabytes/one billion megabytes/one trillion kilobytes/one quadrillion bytes (approximately). |
| Petaflop - This is the ability of a computer to do one quadrillion floating point operations in a second. See also teraflop, gigaflop, and megaflop. |
| PGA - A form of chip with a group of pins in concentric rectangles, designed to fit into a PGA slot. x86-compatible chips that fit into socket 7, socket 370,... |
| PGA slot - This slot accepts a PGA chip. A form of chip with a group of pins in concentric rectangles, designed to fit into a PGA slot. x86-compatible chips that... |
| PGP - Pretty Good Privacy, Phil Zimmerman's pioneering encryption software that successfully defied government restrictions and won him many awards. PGP is now... |
| Phase Alternation Line - The mainly European standard of displaying analog television signals. It consists of 625 horizontal lines of resolution at 50Hz. See also NTSC. |
| Phone Switch - These are generally large cabinets with groups of phone port cards plugged into them. On one end the cards connect to the phone company via T1 or larger... |
| PHP - Created in 1994, this is a versatile embedded scripting language that can be placed into HTML documents. As long as the webserver supports it, PHP can... |
| Phreak - A person who breaks into phone systems, generally to get free phone or voicemail service--thus the "ph" at the beginning of the term, similar to "phone."... |
| Picosecond - 1/1000 of a nanosecond, or one trillionth of a second. The individual transistors and logic gates on modern microchips flip in lengths of time measured... |
| PICS - Acronym for Platform for Internet Content Selection, a model for associating labels with content in header metadata, originally devised to help parents... |
| PIM - A program into which you can enter your personal information, such as your schedule and important contacts. Often PIMs run on PDAs, and allow for synchronization... |
| Pin - An exposed and rigid metal wire. A group of pins make up a "male" connector, and you can plug it into a compatible female connector. On motherboards and... |
| Pin Grid Array - A form of chip with a group of pins in concentric rectangles, designed to fit into a PGA slot. x86-compatible chips that fit into socket 7, socket 370,... |
| Pincushioning - One form of image distortion on a monitor--good monitors have controls to deal with this problem. Basically, the top and bottom of the screen are wider... |
| PING - Packet InterNet Groper. An Internet utility used to check the connection with another site. It repeatedly bounces a signal off the remote site and shows... |
| PIO - Input/Output standards on IDE hard disk drives. If you have a hard drive that supports one PIO mode, you need your interface to support it as well for... |
| Pipeburst Cache - A form of L2 cache that uses pipelining to speed data access by being able to feed data to the CPU at the same time as it pulls data from memory. The burst... |
| Pipeline - The technique of processing multiple parts of an instruction at the same time. Many processors have two or more instruction pipelines--think of them as... |
| Pipeline Burst Cache - A form of L2 cache that uses pipelining to speed data access by being able to feed data to the CPU at the same time as it pulls data from memory. The burst... |
| pixel - One dot on a computer screen. Todays least expensive monitors typically are 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high. Larger and more expensive monitors range... |
| PKI - The infrastructure needed to support public key encryption. It requires a certificate authority to issue and verify the public keys, a registration authority... |
| Plain Old Telephone Service - The regular telephone service that people have in their homes. Newer technologies such as ISDN, digital phones, cellular phones, or DSL are not referred... |
| Plastic Pin Grid Array - The PPGA form factor, also referred to as socket 370, was created by Intel to offer a lower cost alternative to its Slot 1 packaging. It exemplified the... |
| Platform - A means of generically grouping like computers. Macintosh computers are a platform; so are PCs running Windows. It's not very specific, and multi-platform... |
| Platter - One of the rigid disks inside a hard drive used to store information. Hard drives typically contain between one and 5 platters apiece, but can contain... |
| PLD - An integrated circuit that consists of an array of AND and OR gates whose operation can be modified. The programming of the devices is done by blowing... |
| Plenum Cable - This type of cabling is meant to be used with a plenum ventilation system. It is used in situations where the smoke from fire would saturate the building... |
| plonk - Usenet speak for "You're in my kill file, bozo!" Supposedly the sound of a newbie falling to the bottom of a kill file. See bozo filter. |
| Plug and Play - A standard that was supposed to make adding peripherals to your system as easy as plugging them in and using them. Also referred to as Plug-and-Pray, its... |
| plug-in - A piece of software that plugs into a main program to give it added capability, for example, you can add a Quick Time plug-in to your browser to play Quick... |
| PMFJIH - Shorthand for Pardon Me For Jumping In Here. Often used in chat and messages as a polite excuse to enter the discussion. |
| PNG - PNG is an image format that uses lossless compression, similar to the GIF format. How the PNG format differs, however, is that the GIF format involves... |
| PNP - A standard that was supposed to make adding peripherals to your system as easy as plugging them in and using them. Also referred to as Plug-and-Pray, its... |
| Point Of Presence - A local telephone number through which you can access your ISP. The largest national ISPs have POPs all over the country. |
| Point to Point - A type of network communication where information is sent from a single source to a single destination, eliminating any extraneous data transmission. See... |
| Point to Point Protocol - The mode of transport used to connect a computer to the Internet via a dial-up adapter (a modem). |
| Point to Point Tunneling Protocol - A remote access protocol that allows people to make a connection to easily connect to their local network through the Internet or some other large network.... |
| Pointer - (1) In programming, think of a pointer as an address. The address can point to just about anything, including another pointer. Ultimately, if you follow... |
| Poll - When one computer, device, or program asks for an answer to a query from another computer or device over a period of time until a condition is met. For... |
| Polyvinyl Chloride - The common vinyl shielding used to cover the pairs in the copper four-pair wire used for numerous Ethernet standards. When burned it gives off deadly fumes,... |
| POP - Post Office Protocol. A protocol for client-server e-mail systems. If you are using software like Eudora or Pegasus or the mail clients in Netscape or |
| POP3 - A standard for client/server transmission of e-mail. An e-mail server holds the e-mail, and you use a POP3 client to fetch the mail from a server. IMAP... |
| Port - To port something you translate the code for a program from one platform to another. You could port a program you wrote on a PC over to a Macintosh, for... |
| Port Replicator - A device that is used to provide laptops--with limited ports and expansion options built-in--with a larger amount of ports and expandability. Most port... |
| Portable Computer - Technically, any computer that features a self-contained screen to allow it to easily be moved around. The first "luggable" portables were as big as a... |
| Portable Document Format - A format developed by Adobe. Adobe makes a freeware Adobe Acrobat Reader program that is available for a variety of platforms. Thus, using a variety of... |
| Portable Network Graphics - PNG is an image format that uses lossless compression, similar to the GIF format. How the PNG format differs, however, is that the GIF format involves... |
| Portable Operating System Interface - A set of operating system interface standards based on UNIX. The standards were developed so that programs could be written more easily that would work... |
| portal - A gateway or entrance to the web. In common usage it has come to describe a starting point page with a hierarchical, topical directory, a search window,... |
| POSIX - A set of operating system interface standards based on UNIX. The standards were developed so that programs could be written more easily that would work... |
| Post Office Protocol 3 - A standard for client/server transmission of e-mail. An e-mail server holds the e-mail, and you use a POP3 client to fetch the mail from a server. IMAP... |
| PostScript - A standard language for telling printers how to print text and graphics. Most Macs use PostScript to print, while PCs normally default to PCL. |
| POTS - Acronym for Plain Old Telephone Service. |
| Power Supply - A device attached to the case that converts 120 AC (in the U.S.) to DC at voltages that a computer needs to run. They come rated by wattage. |
| PowerNow! - AMD's power saving technology used in some of its mobile processors. It allows the OS and power management to tune down the speed of the processor in order... |
| PowerStep - An Apple/Motorola power management technology that allows PowerPC processors to be tuned down in speed when not plugged in so that power can be conserved.... |
| PPGA - The PPGA form factor, also referred to as socket 370, was created by Intel to offer a lower cost alternative to its Slot 1 packaging. It exemplified the... |
| PPM - This term usually refers to the amount of printed pages a printer can output over a minute's time. The time is based on some average amount of ink or toner... |
| PPP - Point to Point Protocol. Along with the older SLIP, a protocol that is |
| PPTP - Point to Point Tunneling Protocol. A new technology developed by Microsoft, US Robotics, and others to enable Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to work securely... |
| PQA - A small applet that can be downloaded onto a Palm OS-based PDA that allows for the retrieval of information from the Web. PQAs are intended to minimize... |
| Practical Extraction and Report Language - Created by system admin Larry Wall in the mid 1980s, this programming language was originally intended to fill a gap and help out with administration tasks.... |
| Precision - Precision is how well you define a value. For example, if the value you are representing is 4.321 and you say it's 4.3, you are precise to two places.... |
| Precision vs. Accuracy - If the actual value is 4.321 and you say that it is 4.30, then you are precise to the first decimal place but inaccurate by .021. If a value is represented... |
| Preemptive Multitasking - A type of multitasking that allows tasks to be given priority levels. The operating system can then allocate resources to these tasks based on priority... |
| Pretty Good Privacy - A freeware program that secures e-mail messages by encrypting and/or adding a digital signature to them. There are also commercial versions of PGP available... |
| Primary Domain Controller - In Windows NT and 2000 networking, this machine is the main machine that responds to security authentication requests, such as logging in, within its domain.... |
| Primary partition - A partition that is bootable. You cannot have more than four primary partitions per drive. |
| Print Screen - This button is intended to print whatever is on your screen. If you are using DOS, or you are in your BIOS and have a printer set up, the Print Screen... |
| Print Server - The interface between a printer and a network that allows network clients to connect to the printer and send their print jobs to it. Print servers can... |
| Printed Circuit Board - The normally green plastic board that is imprinted with one or more layers of circuitry. Examples of common PCBs include motherboards, PCI cards, and AGP... |
| Printer - Any device that makes an impression on media, usually paper, and is connected to a computer. The invention of the computer with printer has almost made... |
| Printer Control Language - A set of commands used to communicate with Hewlett Packard printers. Each printer company has its own language, but PCL has become a generic term to describe... |
| privacy - A source of concern to many on the Internet is how much personal information on them is available to all who look for it. Wherever you open an account... |
| Private Branch Exchange - A private phone switch used within a company that allows inter-company phone calls without using outside lines. It also connects to one or more outside... |
| Processor - Short for Microprocessor. |
| Processor Clock - The processor is regulated by a crystal that vibrates at a regular frequency when an electrical current is applied to it. Each vibration counts as one... |
| Processor Cycle - This is what occurs during one tick of the processor clock. |
| Processor Serial Number - An embedded serial number in Intel Pentium III microprocessors. It allows software manufacturers and websites to identify individuals more precisely. Intel... |
| Program - The act of putting together instructions that a computer will follow. Program |
| Programmable Logic Device - An integrated circuit that consists of an array of AND and OR gates whose operation can be modified. The programming of the devices is done by blowing... |
| Programmable Read Only Memory - This is a memory device. Once data is written to a PROM it is there forever, unlike with an EPROM. A PROM is also a curious high school ritual involving... |
| Programmed Input/Output - Input/Output standards on IDE hard disk drives. If you have a hard drive that supports one PIO mode, you need your interface to support it as well for... |
| PROM - This is a memory device. Once data is written to a PROM it is there forever, unlike with an EPROM. A PROM is also a curious high school ritual involving... |
| Promiscuous Mode - Although it sounds naughty, as it relates to networking promiscuous mode implies that a network card is able to recognize all network traffic with which... |
| protocol - A standard for the exchange of information. Different computers and operating systems and software are able to communicate with each other on the Internet,... |
| Proxy - The use of one computer or device to make requests in place of another over a network. Proxies are often used for Internet security, or to control connections.... |
| proxy server - A proxy server is a process that acts like a switchboard through a firewall to manage the various types of permitted communications with the outside world.... |
| PS/2 - This is a PC made by IBM that can run OS/2 and DB/2. Of course, it can run anything a normal PC can run, but it's just a nifty IBM naming convention that... |
| PS/2 port - A standard serial port connector used to plug mice and keyboards into PCs. It's got 6 pins and is small and round, compared to the larger 9- and 25-pin... |
| PSN - An embedded serial number in Intel Pentium III microprocessors. It allows software manufacturers and websites to identify individuals more precisely. Intel... |
| Public Key Infrastructure - The infrastructure needed to support public key encryption. It requires a certificate authority to issue and verify the public keys, a registration authority... |
| Purge - A synonym for deleting something, usually in such a way that it cannot be easily recovered. It is used in several contexts, including the deletion of print... |
| push - The technology that puts pre-selected content directly on your computer screen from the Internet without your need to browse for it. With this technology,... |
| Push Technology - This technology was first popularized by Pointcast, a company offering a client that would allow data to be "pushed" into it from an external server. The... |
| PVC - see Permanent Virtual Circuit or Polyvinyl Chloride |
| PWL - This is a type of file ending in the .pwl extension. Windows 3.x/95/98 uses encrypted .pwl files to save the local user's system passwords. PWL translates... |
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