Computer/Technical Jargon
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SATA: Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. A drive interface desinged to replace PATA (often erronously called IDE). The advantage SATA has over PATA is a smaller cable and faster data transfers. SATA has become the standard for disk drives. SATA also has native support for external devices, unlike PATA which had to have the computer powered down and opened up. It is important to know that the commands that SATA drives use and support all of the commands that PATA devices use. Thus, the only differences between a SATA and a PATA drive are the cable and speed. This means that with a connector that converts a serial transmission to or from a parallel transmission is really all that is needed to make older drives compatible with the newer interface. See parallel for the reason why SATA interfaces are faster.
Scareware: A form of malware that attempts to scare and blackmail you into purchasing some software. The scare messages are persistent and difficult to remove. Web advertisements that say you have a problem are not considered scareware.
Script Kiddies: A deragatory term used to designate hackers who get their hacking tools and code from someone else instead of creating the tools and code themselves.
SCSI: Small Computer Systems Interface. Usually pronounced "SCUZZY". An interface for connecting devices to the computer. In times past, this meant scanners, CD burners, and hard drives. Theoretically, any device can be connected by a SCSI adapter. SCSI is not easy to implement or use, but it is much faster and more flexiable than ATA. For instance, the SATA interface can only accept one drive per cable, and the PATA interface can only accept two, but SCSI can have up to 15 hard drives and other devices per cable. SCSI is much more expensive and the home user will not benefit from SCSI at all. However, SCSI is the preferred interface in mainframes and servers because of the high-speed and flexibility.
Sempron: The name of AMD's low-end CPU's.
Serial: Data that is transferred by one wire instead of multiple ones, which is parallel. In general, parallel is slower than serial. See parallel for the reason why. All devices process data in parallel. Sequences of bits make a code, but those bits have to processed at the same time. Data is sent in order through the wires and then reassembled at the other end. Data is sent in packets, which are sections of data with information for the receiving device.
Service Pack: A comprehensive collection of fixes, updates, and patches.
Slave: PATA (usually called IDE) drive cables have two connectors. In order for the computer to seperate the two, they have some identification. This is master and slave. The master drive doesn't control the slave drive. Older disk and CD drives were very picky with these designations. Some drives hated being the master or slave and wouldn't work right. Most drives today have a setting called cable-select where the first plug in the cable is the master and the second is the slave.
SIM card: Subscriber Identification Module. A small memory card that holds a unique identification, network identification, and some phone numbers. SIM cards typically hold 32 kb or 64 kb of memory. The advantage of SIM cards is that you can put them in any GSM phone and instantly, that phone is yours. So, suppose your phone's battery died. You could put your SIM card in another GSM phone and make calls under your account. Or, you want to get a new phone. You just pop the SIM card in the new phone and all your numbers stored on the SIM card carryover and that phone works under your account. Many carriers, however, lock their phones so that you must use their SIM cards in the phones. They do this because phones are expensive and they cannot afford to have people get cheap phones and go to another carrier. The carrier must unlock the phones upon request. You can always find an unlocking service. An unlocked phone will accept any SIM card. Locking phones is only done to protect the company financially. SIM cards are not used as data storage on computers, although there does exists computer hardware that reads SIM cards.
SMTP: Simple Mail Transport Protocal. E-mail is sent through the SMTP server. Keep in mind that SMTP was designed before spam or other malicous e-mails were thought of. Therefore, sending mail by SMTP provides very little verification. A SMTP server will accept any information, real or fake. This lack of verification is why bad e-mails are so common.
Snail mail: Regular postal mail. Since regular mail is slower than e-mail, it has been nickednamed snail mail.
Spam: Unsolicited bulk e-mail. Unlike snail mail (your post office), spam actually costs you, not the sender. Someone has to pay the extra circuits to carry the extra e-mail, and it isn't the sender. It is the e-mail provider. And they must pass the cost onto you. But it gets worse. Spam quite frequently contains phising scams, viruses, pornographic images, and other objectionable content. Sometimes, any opt-out links are used to verify your e-mail address to send more spam. Sometimes, just viewing the e-mail will verify your e-mail address. And if that wasn't bad enough, you could be a spambot. What can you do to stop spam? First, never under any circumstances buy anything from this form of advertising. Spam is still around because it works. Just one or two people replying the e-mail is enough to justify the cost, seriously. Second, have a throw-away e-mail account. One e-mail account is your real one, the one you give only to people you know. The throw-away account is one you use on the internet, say for shopping. When that throw-away account becomes infested with spam, cancel the account and get a new one.
Spambot: Short for spam robot. Your computer is a spam sending robot. This is done to hide the tracks of spam senders and to make it easier to send spam. Most spam sent on the internet today is by spambots.
Spread Spectrum: A technique in which the frequency is constantly changed to avoid interference. In radio waves, the frequency is spread over a range of frequencies. In addition to avoiding interference from other devices, spread spectrum allows multiple users on the same frequency, more reliable transmission, and makes it difficult to eavesdrop. Spread spectrum is used in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cordless phones, and cell-phones using CDMA technology. In computer, the clock signal uses spread spectrum ideas to reduce interference. While electromagnitic interference is reduced, most hardware on the inside of a computer works fine with or without spread spectrum clock signals.
Spyware: Malware that spies on you, usually to deliver wave after wave of ads. However, some spyware monitors what you type to steal personal information. Some legitimate programs monitor actions. These programs are useful if you wish to monitor your child's activity on the internet, for example. These legitimate programs are not spyware.
Squirting: Microsoft's buzzword created for sharing songs between different Zunes, Microsoft portable media player designed to compete with iPod. Often mocked on websites for obvious reasons and now not used much by Microsoft or anybody.
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer. A encryption technique used for securely transmitting data over the internet. In order to encrypt and decrypt the message, you need two prime numbers somewhere between 0 and about 340 undecillion (or 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). The time, even with a powerful computer, to find those two numbers to break the code is huge. Enough that few people try to break the code. SSL is not perfect, there are always ways to break the code. But SSL communication on the internet is much safer than mail and telephone.
Subnet: a way of identifying how many IP addresses are available for use on a local network. A subnet is just as long as an IP address, 4 or 16 bytes long, and is also separated with a period just like an IP address. That is no coincidence because each part of the subnet corresponds to each part of an IP address. A value of 255 means this part of the IP address must be the same as the default gateway (the router or assigned by your ISP). A value of 0 means this part of the IP address can be any number between 0 and 255. For example, 255.255.255.0 is the most common subnet for home networks. Assume 192.168.0.0 is the IP address of your router. Thus, you have 255 free numbers to choose from. Your computer can be 192.168.0.x where x is any number between 0 and 255, but you cannot reuse 0 since that is the router's. For most people, that is more than enough numbers. If the subnet was 255.255.0.0, then your IP addresses can be 192.168.x.y. The total number of devices on this network is 256 x 256 or 65,536. That is enough for a large office. If the subnet was 255.255.255.128, then your IP address can be 192.168.0.x, where x is between 0 and 127. Remember, each device including the router but not switches or hubs must have a unique IP address.
Switch: A device that allows connecting multiple computer. A switch provides a guarenteed speed to all devices connected no matter how much traffic. It also sends the network traffic through the only wire needed to get to the data to its destination. See also hub.
System Board: A gender neutral name for motherboard.
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