Computer/Technical Jargon
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Backdoor: A way of secretely gaining access while bypassing all security. Sometimes, programmers write backdoors in their own code in case of emergencies or other situations. Sometimes, a piece of malware will create a backdoor so they can have full control over your computer.
Bandwidth: A measurement of data transfer. Bandwidth may be difficult to understand, but it simply is the amount of data that can transfer through the connection at any given time. If the data needs more bandwidth than what is available, all data transfers will be slower because the data transfer limit is fixed. Bandwidth is always measured in bits per second. For instance, USB 1.1 has a bandwidth of 12 Megabits/second. All the devices connected to that USB port can combine a transfer rate of 12 Mb/sec. Newer interfaces has higher available bandwidth.
Behavoir Targeting: A way of tracking users browsing information using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI).
Beta: The second letter in the Greek alphabet. This term is used to represent the second stage of testing. The first stage is Alpha. In beta testing, the programmers get volunteers to test the code on their computers. This allows the programmers to find more bugs than what may be feasible to find with internal testing. Futhermore, the beta testers offer input on how to improve the design, features, or other parts of the program that the programmers might not have thought about. Please note than not all programmers correctly use beta terminology. The next stage of testing is called Release Candidate.
Binary (noun): A counting system with just two numbers, 1 and 0. This makes it ideal for electronics since it is easy to represent it. Other common counting systems are decimal (what you are used to with 0 to 9), hexadecimal, octal, and Roman Numerals.
Binary (adjective): Something with two parts. For instance, the plus sign, +, is a binary operator. If you just saw "5 +", it wouldn't make sense. But, "5 + 5" does make sense. This idea is often used in programming languages. Also, something that is represented in binary. For instance, a binary file represents data in 1's and 0's and not characters that we know and love.
BIOS: Basic Input/Output System. The BIOS has been around for since the first computer. And although it has had upgrades, at the core it is still the same. The BIOS contains the simple programs needed to get your computer running. When you turn on the computer, a series of programs immediately begins testing your hardware. On newer Plug n' Play BIOS's, the BIOS detects hard drives and sets and assigns resources to installed hardware. When all that is done, the BIOS hands control over to the bootstrap loader which looks for an operating system. It searches in order the devices you specified in the BIOS setup. Once found, the BIOS hands over all control the OS. The OS can change at will many settings the BIOS set. Remember, the BIOS's goal is to get your computer going. Although Intel has created a newer system to get your computer going called Extensable Firmware Interface, the BIOS remains the de facto way to start a computer and probably will for a long time.
bit: A bit is a one or zero. 4 bits in a group is called a nibble and 8 bits in a group is called a byte. Computer communicate in bits with 0 volts representing a 0 and some positive volt, usually between 1.5 to 5 volts, representing a 1. Representing more than these values is impractical and imprecise. The last thing a computer needs to get data wrong because a voltage level was wrong. Thus, a specific sequence of the off/on voltages is used to represent data and where data in memory is physically located, which is called its address otherwise the data could not be found when needed. Each memory address must be a unique number. We say 0 and 1 to help in the creation of these devices. An 8-bit CPU uses a sequence of 8 one's or zero's for CPU instructions and memory addresses. A 16-bit CPU uses 16 one's and zero's, and so on with exceptions that only apply to more expensive computers. How much memory you can have depends on how many unique addresses you can have. Thus, an 8-bit CPU can have 28 addresses, which is 256 bytes of data. A 16-bit CPU can have 216 addresses, which is 65,536 bytes. In math, 216 = 210 x 26. 210 = 1024 or 1k in computer terms, k meaning kilo. 26 = 64. Thus, 216 = 64 x 1k = 64 kilobytes of memory. 232 is 210 x 210 x 210 x 22. 1k x 1k = 1M (mega). 1k x 1k x 1k = 1G (giga). Thus, 232 = 1G x 22 = 4 gigabytes. 64-bit computers have a memory cap of 16 exabytes (18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes).
Blog: A website where anybody can freely post their own news, opinions, or anything else they want. Like the wiki, blogs are what make the internet great. Blogs are noted for posting stories that mainstream media doesn't care about or want to publish. This is especially true with controversial news which mainstream media tends to sensationalize or only focus on their point-of-view. Like the wiki, blogs are viewed with much disdain by some mainstream media. Mostly because blogs expose mainstream media as biased or wrong, although officially because bloggers are not journalists. Keep in mind that blogs may be difficult to verify the truth. With that in mind, blogs are a great way to find the truth and breaking news but must also be viewed with some skepticsm. Also, keep in mind, employers have held their employees acountable for what they post in a blog. The legality of such issues is still being disputed.
Bluetooth: A short-range low-power wireless standard that was originally designed to connect anything to everything. Usually, this standard is used to connect hands-free devices or your computer to a cell-phone; however, the uses are not limited there. For instance, there are Bluetooth printer adapters and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse adapters. Bluetooth is not a replacement for Wi-Fi. Their uses are totally different. Wi-Fi is used to network devices over extended ranges, Bluetooth is used to connect devices over short ranges. Bluetooth was formed by Ericsson, Nokia, Intel, IBM, and Toshiba. It is named after a Danish king, Harald Blatand who was known as Bluetooth.
Blu-Ray: A next generation optical disc standard created by Sony and many others. This standard defeated rival HD DVD only because the bakers of Blu-Ray were richer than the bakers of HD DVD and they were able to buy movie studio loyalty. In any event, Blu-Ray won the format war. Each disc can hold 25 GB and 50 GB and theoretically more in the future. Blu-ray is not an extension of the DVD. The defeated rival to Blu-Ray, HD DVD was. For that reason, Blu-Ray players may or may not be compatible with all DVD's and Blu-Ray discs cannot be used in DVD players (unlike HD DVD which had the option to put both a regular DVD movie and HD DVD movie on the same disc). The disc standard was created because DVD's do not have enough space to hold HD quality movies. A HD quality program is about 8 to 16 GB per hour depending on the video codec used. Blu-Ray drives are also available for computers. Blu-Ray has undergone many extensions, with each player unable to support the new extension features except for the Playstation 3. The older, and cheapest, players only support profile 1.0. All newer players support profile 1.1 which includes some but not all features that were standard on HD DVD. While profile 1.1 movies will play in profile 1.0 players, the profile 1.1 extras will not work on a profile 1.0 player. All Blu-Ray players released after November 1, 2007 must support profile 1.1. Finally 2.0 is the next standard which will include all the features that were standard on HD DVD. The disc is called Blu-Ray because it uses an ultraviolet laser, which is close to blue on the color spectrum. Remember the colors of the rainbow, red-orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo-violet. Also, remember that light is both waves and particles. The visible spectrum starts at violet, which is 400 nm (violet) and ends at 700 (red). DVD's use light at 650 nm, which is red. CD's use light at 780 nm, which in infrared. HD DVD and Blu-Ray uses light at 405 nm, which is violet. The shorter wavelengths allow for the laser to have better focus as the light does not diffract as much. With better focus, the density of data increases, thus increasing the overall data capacity.
Bot: Short for robot. A bot is a piece of software that blindly does some action. Search engines like Google have a bot that roams the internet indexing pages so they can be searched. In games played over the internet, a person may create a bot to do stuff in the game, but this is often against the rules of the game. In order to avoid detection, people who send spam plant spambots on other people's computer. So, bots can be both useful in harmful. When a bunch of comprimised computers are under coordinated remote control, this is called botnet. A Botnet herder is someone who controls the coordinated bots.
Botnet: See bot.
Broadband: Another term for a high-speed connection.
Burning: The process of writing data to recordable optical media (CD's or DVD's). Recordable optical media has to be burned to represent data. Record once optical discs have ink that has to be burned off. Rewritable optical discs have a metal that melts at a certain temperature and crystalizes at a higher temperature. In both cases, the disc is literally burned.
Byte: 8 bits.
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