Computer Terms Beginning with "C"

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Clock Speed

Clock speed is the rate at which a processor can complete a processing cycle. It is typically measured in megahertz or gigahertz. One megahertz is equal to one million cycles per second, while one gigahertz equals one billion cycles per second. This means a 1.8 GHz processor has twice the clock speed of a 900 MHz processor.

However, it is important to note that a 1.8 GHz CPU is not necessarily twice as fast as a 900 MHz CPU. This is because different processors often use different architectures. For example, one processor may require more clock cycles to complete a multiplication instruction than another processor. If the 1.8 GHz CPU can complete a multiplication instruction in 4 cycles, while the 900 MHz CPU takes 7 cycles, the 1.8 GHz processor will be more than twice as fast as the 900 MHz processor. Conversely, if the 1.8 GHz processor takes more cycles to perform the instruction, it will be less than 2x as fast as the 900 MHz processor.

Other factors, such as a computer's bus speed, cache size, speed of the RAM, and hard drive speed also contribute to the overall performance of the machine. Therefore, while the processor's clock speed is a significant indicator of how fast a computer is, it is not the only factor that matters.

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Clone

What do sheep, droids, and computers all have in common? They can all be cloned! Of the three, computer clones are by far the most common.

The term "clone" arose in the mid-1980s to describe DOS or Windows-based computers made by companies other than IBM. The machines were often referred to as "IBM clones," or "IBM compatible" computers. They were called clones because the computers functioned exactly the same way as the ones made by IBM. They used similar hardware and ran the same software.

PC clones are still around today. In fact there are dozens more manufacturers of Windows-based computers now than there were in the 1980s. Companies like Dell, Gateway, HP, Compaq, and Sony all make Windows-based computers, as well as many other manufacturers. Today, the term "PC," which technically stands for "Personal Computer," is often used to refer to IBM clones. Macintosh clones were made for a few years in the late 1990s, but Apple forced the end of their production by making the Macintosh operating system only run on the Apple-branded machines.

"Clone" can also be used to refer to software that serves the same purpose as another more mainstream software program. It can also refer to electronic devices other than computers that are similar to other electronics.

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Cloud Computing

Example: "Cloud computing allows users to backup and retrieve information online."

Cloud computing is a general term used to describe Internet services. These include social networking services like Facebook and Twitter, online backup services, and applications that run within a Web browser. Cloud computing also includes computer networks that are connected over the Internet for server redundancy or cluster computing purposes.

The "cloud" is metaphor for the Internet and represents the global interconnectedness of online services. Anyone with an Internet connection can access the cloud and share data with other online users.

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Cluster

In the computer world, a cluster can refer to two different things:

1) A group of sectors on a disk. While a sector is the smallest unit that can be accessed on your hard disk, a cluster is a slightly larger unit that is used to organize and identify files on the disk. Most files take up several clusters of disk space.

Each cluster has a unique ID, which enables the hard drive to locate all the clusters on the disk. After reading and writing many files to a disk, some clusters may remain labeled as being used even though they do not contain any data. These are called "lost clusters" and can be fixed using ScanDisk on Windows or the Disk Utility program on the Mac. This is why running a disk utility or defragmentation program may free up space on your hard disk.

2) A group of connected computers. A cluster can also refer to several machines grouped together, all performing a similar function. For example, a cluster may consist of eight PCs, all connected via high-speed Ethernet, processing scientific data. This type of setup is often referred to as "parallel computing," since all the computers in the cluster are acting as one machine. Clusters are typically used for high-end processing, such as performing scientific calculations or decrypting algorithms.

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CMOS

Stands for "Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor." This technology is typically used in making transistors. The "complementary" part of the term unfortunately does not mean these semiconductors are free. Instead, it refers to how they produce either a positive or negative charge. Because CMOS-based transistors only use one charge at a time, they run efficiently, using up very little power. This is because the charges can stay in one state for a long period of time, allowing the transistor to use little or no power except when needed. Because of their wonderful efficiency, processors that use CMOS-based transistors can run at extremely high speeds without getting too hot and going up in flames. You may also find CMOS memory in your computer, which holds the date and time and other basic system settings. The low power consumption of CMOS allows the memory to be powered by a simple Lithium battery for many years.

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CMYK

Stands for "Cyan Magenta Yellow Black." These are the four basic colors used for printing color images. Unlike RGB (red, green, blue), which is used for creating images on your computer screen, CMYK colors are "subtractive." This means the colors get darker as you blend them together. Since RGB colors are used for light, not pigments, the colors grow brighter as you blend them or increase their intensity.

Technically, adding equal amounts of pure cyan, magenta, and yellow should produce black. However, because of impurities in the inks, true black is difficult to create by blending the colors together. This is why black (K) ink is typically included with the three other colors. The letter "K" is used to avoid confusion with blue in RGB.

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Codec

No, this is not just a cheap rip-off of Kodak. The name "codec" is short for "coder-decoder," which is pretty much what a codec does. Most audio and video formats use some sort of compression so that they don't take up a ridiculous amount of disk space. Audio and video files are compressed with a certain codec when they are saved and then decompressed by the codec when they are played back. Common codecs include MPEG and AVI for video files and WAV and AIFF for audio files. Codecs can also be used to compress streaming media (live audio and video) which makes it possible to broadcast a live audio or video clip over a broadband Internet connection.

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Command Prompt

A command prompt is used in a text-based or "command-line" interface, such as a Unix terminal or a DOS shell. It is a symbol or series of characters at the beginning of a line that indicates the system is ready to receive input. It other words, it prompts the user for a command (hence the name).

The command prompt is often preceded by the current directory of the system the user is working with. For example, the default prompt in DOS may be C:\, which indicates the user is working at the root level of the main C: drive. In Unix, the prompt may be ~ user$, where "user" is the name of the current user. The tilde (~) indicates the current directory is the user's home folder.

A user can type commands at the command prompt, such as cd /, which means "change directory to the root folder." The "cd" command allows the user to browse through different directories of files on a hard disk or network. There are dozens of other commands that a user can type, which can be used to list, move, delete, and copy files, run programs, or perform other operations. While the "cd" command is the same in both DOS and Unix, many other commands have different syntax.

Since a command prompt requires specific input, it is basically useless if you don't know the syntax of the command you want to enter. Therefore, knowledge of some basic commands is required to use a command-line interface. Fortunately, most operating systems now use a graphical user interface GUI as their main way of requesting input from the user. This means you don't have to learn any special commands in order to use the computer. However, learning to use a command-line interface is kind of like learning to drive a car with a manual transmission. You never know when it might come in handy.

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Commercial Software

Computer software comes in three different flavors: freeware, shareware, and commercial software. Freeware is free to use and does not require any payment from the user. Shareware is also free to use, but typically limits the program's features or the amount of time the software can be used unless the user purchases the software. Commercial software requires payment before it can be used, but includes all the program's features, with no restrictions or time limits.

Commercial software programs typically come in a physical box, which is what you see displayed in retail stores. While it's true that the software boxes are not as big as they used to be, they still contain the software CD or DVD and usually a "getting started" manual along with a registration key used for registering the product. Most commercial software programs ask that the user register the program so the company can keep track of its authorized users. Some commercial software programs, such as newer versions of Microsoft and Adobe programs, require the user to register the programs in order to continue using them after 30 days.

While most commercial software programs are sold in the physical box, many software titles are now available as downloads. These downloads are typically made available from the company's website. The user pays for the program directly on the website and instead of receiving the software in the mail, the user downloads it to his computer. Another popular way of purchasing commercial software online is simply paying for a registration key, which unlocks the features of a shareware program. This upgrades the shareware program to the commercial version, which removes any feature limitations from the shareware version.

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Compact Flash

Often abbreviated as simply "CF," Compact Flash is a type of flash memory. Compact flash cards are most commonly used for storing pictures in digital cameras, but are also used in devices such as PDAs and portable music players.

There are two types of Compact Flash cards, creatively named "Type I" and "Type II." Type I cards are 3.3 mm thick, while Type II are 5 mm thick. IBM makes a "MicroDrive" card that has the same dimensions as a Type II CF card, but uses an actual hard drive construction rather than flash memory. Compact Flash cards originally could only store a few megabyes of data, but now can store several gigabytes. The new CF+ standard can store a possible 137 GB of data. I don't know about you, but I'd think about backing up that information before throwing the card in my pocket.

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Compile

When programmers create software programs, they first write the program in source code, which is written in a specific programming language, such as C or Java. These source code files are saved in a text-based, human-readable format, which can be opened and edited by programmers. However, the source code cannot be run directly by the computer. In order for the code to be recognized by the computer's CPU, it must be converted from source code (a high-level language) into machine code (a low-level language). This process is referred to as "compiling" the code.

Most software development programs include a compiler, which translates source code files into machine code or object code. Since this code can be executed directly by the computer's processor, the resulting application is often referred to as an executable file. Windows executable files have a .EXE file extension, while Mac OS X programs have an .APP extension, which is often hidden.

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Compiler

A compiler is a software program that compiles program source code files into an executable program. It is included as part of the integrated development environment IDE with most programming software packages.

The compiler takes source code files that are written in a high-level language, such as C, BASIC, or Java, and compiles the code into a low-level language, such as machine code or assembly code. This code is created for a specific processor type, such as and Intel Pentium or PowerPC. The program can then be recognized by the processor and run from the operating system.

After a compiler compiles source code files into a program, the program cannot be modified. Therefore, any changes must be made in the source code and the program must be recompiled. Fortunately, most modern compilers can detect what changes were made and only need to recompile the modified files, which saves programmers a lot of time. This can help reduce programmers' 100 hour work weeks before project deadlines to around 90 or so.

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Component

Computers are made up of many different parts, such as a motherboard, CPU, RAM, and hard drive. Each of these parts are made up of smaller parts, called components.

For example, a motherboard includes electrical connectors, a printed circuit board (PCB), capacitors, resistors, and transformers. All these components work together to make the motherboard function with the other parts of the computer. The CPU includes components such as integrated circuits, switches, and extremely small transistors. These components process information and perform calculations.

Generally speaking, a component is a element of a larger group. Therefore, the larger parts of a computer, such as the CPU and hard drive, can also be referred to as computer components. Technically, however, the components are the smaller parts that make up these devices.

Component may also refer to component video, which is a type of high-quality video connection. A component connection sends the video signal through three separate cables — one for red, green, and blue. This provides better color accuracy than composite video (typically a yellow connector), which combines all the color signals into a single cable.

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Computer

Technically, a computer is a programmable machine. This means it can execute a programmed list of instructions and respond to new instructions that it is given. Today, however, the term is most often used to refer to the desktop and laptop computers that most people use. When referring to a desktop model, the term "computer" technically only refers to the computer itself -- not the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Still, it is acceptable to refer to everything together as the computer. If you want to be really technical, the box that holds the computer is called the "system unit."

Some of the major parts of a personal computer (or PC) include the motherboard, CPU, memory (or RAM), hard drive, and video card. While personal computers are by far the most common type of computers today, there are several other types of computers. For example, a "minicomputer" is a powerful computer that can support many users at once. A "mainframe" is a large, high-powered computer that can perform billions of calculations from multiple sources at one time. Finally, a "supercomputer" is a machine that can process billions of instructions a second and is used to calculate extremely complex calculations.

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Computer Ethics

Ethics is a set of moral principles that govern the behavior of a group or individual. Therefore, computer ethics is set of moral principles that regulate the use of computers. Some common issues of computer ethics include intellectual property rights (such as copyrighted electronic content), privacy concerns, and how computers affect society.

For example, while it is easy to duplicate copyrighted electronic (or digital) content, computer ethics would suggest that it is wrong to do so without the author's approval. And while it may be possible to access someone's personal information on a computer system, computer ethics would advise that such an action is unethical.

As technology advances, computers continue to have a greater impact on society. Therefore, computer ethics promotes the discussion of how much influence computers should have in areas such as artificial intelligence and human communication. As the world of computers evolves, computer ethics continues to create ethical standards that address new issues raised by new technologies.