Computer/Technical Jargon

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C: A popular computer language developed in the 1970's by Dennis Richie. C is still one of the most common and powerful languages used. However, very few program are written in pure C, but an extension to C called C++. With a few exceptions, programs compiled in C will also compile in C++. This is because most of the C commands were carried-over into C++. Lots of programming languages use a syntax very similar to C. C is flexible, powerful, and not cumbersome although it is complex.

C++: Pronounced C plus plus. Perhaps the most commonly used programming language. It was developed in 1983 by Bjarne Stroustrup of Bell Labs. C++ has a generic version, called ANSI C++, that will compile successfully on every computer and every Operating System. There are specialized commands for each Operating System for graphical interfaces or specialized OS access. C++ is flexible, powerful, and not cumbersome although it is complex, which is why it has been around for so long.

C#: Pronounced C sharp. This was a program language developed by Microsoft to compete with Sun Microsystem's Java after a long losing battle over the rights of the language. However, C# is actually a morph of several languages, and not just C. C# is only compatible only with Windows.

Cache: Specialized memory that stores recently access data. When the CPU needs a piece of data from memory, it checks the cache first. There are 3 levels of cache, L1 to L3, which each successive layer being bigger and slower. In fact, the order of memory from smallest to biggest and fastest to slowest is always L1 cache -> L2 cache -> L3 cache -> RAM -> Hard Drive. L1 cache is a buffer for data instructions and RAM pulls. CPU's execute instructions in quick bursts, and instuctions are stored in RAM. RAM can deliver its contents in bursts, but once it does so, it must go through refresh periods with cheaper memory having longer refresh periods. Thus, memory the CPU needs is put in the L1 cache to improve the efficency of the CPU. L2 cache also stores this data from RAM, however it is not a buffer for data to be executed. Rather, L2 cache stores recently used data in case the CPU needs them again. The L3 cache is a slower version of the L2 cache and may not exist on all computers. When a CPU needs some information not in the L1 cache, the CPU goes looking for it in the L2 cache. And, if it is not in the L2 cache, then the CPU goes looking for it in the L3 cache if it exists. And, if it is not in the L3 cache, then the CPU goes looking for it in RAM. And, if it is not in RAM, then the CPU goes looking for it in the hard drive. Usually, once space needs to be freed up in cache the least frequently used data is discarded since cache is only holding a copy of what is in RAM or the hard drive. However, AMD Phenom CPU's perform what they call a victim-cache technique where the least frequently used data is moved down one cache level just in case in may be needed in the near future. Cache, except L1 cache, used to reside on the motherboard and not on the CPU. Thus, cache could be expanded. That is no longer the case. All cache is on the CPU itself. Cache is very expensive because it is very hard to make. And, while more cache always improves performance, it is usually not worth the extra cost for most people. This may change with AMD's new approach to cache. Cache may or may not be shared across mulitple CPU cores.

Card: Or add-on card. This is a device used to extend the functionality of your computer. Add-on cards fit in various slots. They are, listed in order from newest to oldest, PCI-X, PCI-Express (or PCI-E), AGP, PCI, and ISA. There are other non-standard slots not listed that are really only used by big computer companies to cut down on cost their costs.

CD: Compact Disc. A round disc, usually 120 mm (4 3/4 inches) in diameter, made with aluminum or gold and coated with plastic to protect the contents. Designed in 1979 by Sony and Philips and introduced to the market in 1982. The standard audio specifications were called "Red Book". CD's were first designed for digital audio, but it wasn't too hard to adapt it to a computer storage medium for data. CD's originally could only hold 74 minutes or 650 MB of data (451 floppy disks). Most CD's today readily support 80 minutes or 700 MB. CD's are read by a infrared laser. The Red Book specification does not specify any copy protection and Philips (which doesn't make music CD's) fights to keep it that way. Any copy protection, such as Sony's infamous rootkit is not part of the CD specificiation, thus such CD's are not guarenteed to be compatible with all CD drives. CD-R's are record-once CD's that require a drive that supports recording to it. CD-RW's are rewritable CD's and they also require a drive to support it. All drives that support CD-RW will support CD-R, but not all drives that support CD-R support CD-RW.

CDMA: Code Division Multiple Access. CDMA is, quite frankly, a very revolutionary technology for cell-phones. However, in real-world use it is not superior to other standards. It was invented by Qualcomm. It very quickly became popular in the US and Japan. CDMA is used by Verizon, Sprint, and Altell. CDMA is technology superior to GSM but in real world use not superior at all. CDMA is slowly losing ground in the US to GSM. GSM has more digital coverage than CDMA globally. Unlike GSM, CDMA supports analog. This is because in the US where CDMA is used, coverage isn't as good because of no national standard. In Europe, where GSM is mandated, there is no need for analog coverage. A key disadvantage of CDMA is that it does not support SIM cards. Future generations of CDMA are not as superior over future version of GSM as CDMA was. Future iterations of CDMA are called 1xRTT, 1xEV (also known as EV-DO and Xohm). You do not need to know these acronoyms, just know that they support CDMA phones. W-CDMA is a future of GSM phones, not CDMA phones.

Celeron: The name of Intel's lower-end CPU's.

Cell: A CPU being used for the Playstation 3. It was designed to be used in a wide range of applications beside computers and video game consoles. Toshiba uses it on some of their HDTV's. Cell has 9 cores. One core is a simple PowerPC core and the other 8 really simple cores. This is unlike most of today's multi-core CPU's where each core is an exact clone of each other. The Cell's cores do not have the fancy bag of tricks available on consumer CPU's that make it easy on program writers. Cell works off the basic principle of distrubuted intelligence.

Centrino: Centrino is not a CPU, but rather a configuration. A Centrino system is one with a Pentium-M, Core, or Core 2 CPU and an Intel Wi-Fi adapter.

CISC: Complex Instruction Set Computer. This is a CPU design philosophy whereby the CPU is capable of performing complex opertations. On paper, a CISC CPU should be more efficient than a RISC CPU (the R stands for reduced) by having smaller programs. A CISC CPU has more commands meaning programs didn't have to be as specific meaning smaller programs. However, on older CPU's, less commands did not mean better programs. Designing CPU's isn't easy, and a complex CPU is even harder, thus optimizations were not implemented because of time and money. Newer CPU's have techniques that do make CISC CPU's more efficient. This technique is called pipelining. These complex instructions are reduced to smaller instructions and executed at the same time. Sometimes, people refer to this technique as being RISC-like or something along those lines. All of AMD's CPU's and all Intel CPU's except the Itanium line are CISC. See also RISC.

Character encoding: Computers don't operate in letters, but in 1's and 0's. A character encoding defines which specific combination of 1's and 0's represent a character. The first was ASCII, American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII worked great if you spoke only English. ASCII was created in 1963 and uses is 7 bits. ANSI was next, and basically fixed several ASCII limitation. Another popular was one that uses Latin alphabet (English, French, ...) is ISO-8859-1, which is just an extension of ASCII. There are several character encodings for international people. UTF-8 covers the Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and Arabic alphabet. It too is an extension of ASCII and uses up to 32 bits. There are, of course, encodings for Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, any alphabet out there. If you every browse a page and it has a bunch of funny symbols and strange characters, the browser read the page using the wrong character encoding. See your browsers help file to get it read the right encoding.

Chipset: A chip or chips that is responsible for communication between the CPU and components. Usually, but not always, there are two, a Northbridge chipset and a Southbridge chipset. The northbridge controls communication for the internal expansion slots and sometimes memory; all AMD CPU's control the memory instead of the chipset, and Intel CPU's are planning to go this route later. The southbridge controls communication between everything else, such as the disk drives. Of course, sometimes things that are usually on the southbridge are on the northbridge and vice-versa. If there is only one chipset, all these functions are combined. Chipsets are very important to overall performance.

CMOS: Complementary Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor. In the computer, this term does not apply to what it really is. The CMOS in the computer is what saves the settings in the BIOS.

Codec: Coder-Decocder. A program or chip that converts audio or video into or from a digital form. Some of the most popular codecs are MPEG-2 for video and Dolby Digital for audio in DVD movies. These also include MP3's. See the list of digital audio codecs.

Core: In a microprocessor, a core is the transititors that make up one CPU. The easiest way to think about it is a core is one microprocessor. So, a single-core CPU has one microprocessor, dual-core CPU has two microprocessors, and so on. The reason why all microprocessors are going multi-core is because of a concept called distrubuted intelligence. However, Intel decided to go multi-core mostly because their engineers were having great difficulties making the microprocessors any faster. A slower multi-core microprocessor is more powerful than a faster single-core microprocessor. Usually, a core is given a code-name. In the enthusiasts community, the code-name is what each CPU is referred to, instead of its trademarked name. Cores with different code-names are different, but not always unique. For instance, Intel has a core named Prescott core found on older Pentium 4's. Intel also has a core named Irwindale found on other Pentium 4's. The Irwindale core is different, but the crux of the CPU is really a Prescott core. With that in mind, remember that sometimes a core with a different code-name is entirely unique. For instance, Intel made many changes to the Prescott core, and that core was given the name Cedar Mill. To better visualize this, please visit the CPU History Chart.

Core: The trademarked name Core is the new name for Intel's mainstream CPU's, replacing the Pentium name.

Compiler: A program that translates a computer program from one language to another. Programs are usually compiled to a machine code so that they can be executed. Better compilers translate the program as efficiently as possible.

Cross-Site Scripting: See phising.

Cybersquatting: The Internet's form of land squatting. This is the practice of taking Internet domain names for the purpose of reselling or when a domain name's lease expires taking a domain name away from the original leasee to sell back to them. You can file a cybersquatting dispute at InterNIC's website. If a person or company has a real right to a domain name, then you cannot force them to give up that domain name. For instance, Nissan Motors sued Nissan Computers, a business that has a legal right to www.nissan.com, and lost. That is because Nissan Computer obtained the inital lease of nissan.com before Nissan Motors did and since both business have Nissan in them, then it is first-come, first-serve.

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