PEBCAK, or Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard, is a commonly used acronym within the tech support community to indicate that the reported problem with the system is not a failure of any software or hardware component, but is instead a wetware failure–the user of the computer is the source of the problem.
Snoopware is a type of computer and mobile operating system software designed to actively spy on the user of the device. Unlike spyware, which is designed to monitor browsing/usage habits to allow advertisers to better target and sell to the user, snoopware is designed to allow a third party access to the computer or mobile device.
A keystroke logger is a software or hardware tool that captures every key pressed on a computer’s keyboard. Keystroke loggers can take the form of a physical device attached to a computer–often a small extension to the keyboard cable itself–that is undetectable by the host computer (and usually only discovered if the computer user or a member of the IT department notices it). More commonly, however, keystroke loggers are software-based.
When the operating system of your computer or mobile device displays a small notification on your screen, you’re experiencing a “toast” notification. The defining characteristic of a toast notification is that it pops up, like toast in a toaster, and then fades away after a set period of time.
An ad hoc network is a decentralized wireless network. The term ad hoc, Latin for “for this purpose”, refers to the the non-dependence of the ad hoc network on pre-existing infrastructure such as a Wi-Fi access point, routers, or other physical network structures.
An access point (AP) is a piece of hardware that bridges communication between wireless devices and a physical network. The Wi-Fi nodes found in coffee shops and other public spaces as well as the Wi-Fi enabled router found in many homes are examples of access points.
Although many cellular providers advertise 4G service–and that 4G service is certainly speedy compared to the previous 3G data speed–there are currently no 4G providers actually meeting the requirements of the 4G standard specifications. Current revisions to 4G technology, such as Mobile WiMAX v2, are set for deployment in the coming years and should significantly increase potential 4G network speeds.
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a derivative of Short Messaging Service (SMS), designed to break through the text-only/160 character limitation of SMS-powered text messages.
Short Message Service (SMS), or as most of us call it, texting, is the text messaging component of cellular communication networks. It’s the most widely used communication protocol in the world, with billions of people the world over collectively sending six trillion text messages annually.
Jabber, later renamed the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), is an open standard for instant messaging. XMPP was developed in the late 1990s and released for public use in 1999. Since then it has become the most popular instant messaging framework around, with everyone from small companies and universities deploying private Jabber servers to adoption by Google as the driving protocol for their enormous Google Talk system.
A zombie computer is a computer that has been taken over by some mechanism (Trojan virus, backdoor exploit, etc.) so that a remote party has access to the machine and is able to call upon the machine to perform some task.
Historically, the term “widget” was used to denote a part or piece of machine that was unidentified (or did not, for the purposes, need to be identified). In modern computer-slanted usage, a widget is a small interface display designed to clearly convey information to the user.
Internet Service Providers, web sites that offer various services (especially communication related), and temporary providers of internet access (such as University and Public library computer labs) will generally have you sign off on an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) before allowing you to use their service.
The Terms of Service are the legal terms by which the user must agree with in order to use the service in question. While not all web sites have a Terms of Service agreement between the site and the user–especially those that simply provider information like news sites or other general purpose information portals–sites where the user has an actual account and/or shares personal information (significant or insignificant) with the web site or service almost always have a Terms of Service in place that the user must virtually sign off on before using the service.
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, usually referred to by the much easier to pronounce MIME acronym, is an internet standard that extends the functionality of email to include non-text attachments, multi-part message bodies, and text in character sets other than ASCII. Prior to the adoption of the MIME standard, the process of attaching files was laborious–senders had to manually encode their files using a binary-to-text tool, dump the text into the email body, and then rely on the recipient to reverse the process and manually turn the encoded text back into binary so they could access the file.
A heat sink is a passive heat exchanger designed to disperse heat from electronic devices and help maintain stable operating temperatures. Heat sinks are designed to have a large surface area (usually achieved via fins, much like a radiator) to maximize the volume of cooling material (typically air) that comes in contact with the surface of the heat sink.
The command line is a software tool included with an operating system to give users the ability to feed commands to the operating system for immediate execution. Using the command line contrasts with using the Graphic User Interface (GUI) of the operating system. Many users prefer using the command line over the GUI because of the speed and power afforded by command lines.
The Dvorak Keyboard layout was created in the 1930s by Dr. August Dvorak and his brother in-law Dr. William Dealey. The two created the layout in order to alleviate problems with the popular QWERTY keyboard configuration (the very configuration still in use today by hundreds of millions of typists worldwide).
The QWERTY keyboard, called such because the first five keys in the top letter row form the word, is the standard English keyboard used by hundreds of millions of computer users world wide.
Multi-core processors are a recent innovation in computing. Historically, computers had a single core, or processing unit. All computations performed by the computer were directed through the single core in a linear fashion. The only way to increase the speed of the computer was to increase the power of the single processor–and this was precisely how desktop and server computing grew throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Web 2.0 is a phrase used to encapsulate the design choices of web sites from the early 2000s moving forward. Unlike earlier web design choices that presented users with static web pages and no chance for interaction or alteration, Web 2.0 sites are designed for a richer user experience.
In the early years of the web, sites were designed around what are now referred to as Web 1.0 elements. These elements included static pages (as oppose to user-generated content), segregated and inaccessible user data, use of frames and tables to position content on the page, prolific GIF buttons (also supported via tables), and email forms. The most significant element of the Web 1.0 experience was that users consumed content and rarely, if ever, contributed in any meaningful way to web site they were visiting.
A memory leak occurs when a computer application acquires computer memory but fails to release it back to the operating system when the memory is no longer needed. Memory leaks diminish system performance by reducing the available pool of memory accessible to the operating system and other applications.
