Author Topic: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"  (Read 19461 times)

Offline MysteRy

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #15 on: April 10, 2014, 01:55:56 PM »
PCI-X

Stands for "Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended." Once again, "Ex" is abbreviated with an "X" instead of an "E." Most desktop computers include one or more PCI slots for expanding the computer's I/O capabilities. Common PCI cards include network cards, sound cards, and video cards. In the early 1990s, when PCI was first introduced, the 66 MHz speed of PCI was more than sufficient for PCI cards available at the time. However, a decade later, expansion cards supported much faster data transfer rates and therefore became faster than the PCI bus would support. To prevent the interface from becoming a bottleneck, PCI-X was introduced.

The first version of PCI-X supported data transfer rates of 133 MHz, which is more than twice as fast as the original PCI standard. Then along came PCI-X 2.0, which can run at speeds of 266 or 533 MHz. These speeds are fast enough to support Gigabit Ethernet cards and video capture devices without slowing them down. PCI-X cards can only be installed in PCI-X slots, but the slots themselves are backwards compatible with PCI cards.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #16 on: April 10, 2014, 01:56:41 PM »
PCMCIA

Stands for "Personal Computer Memory Card International Association." It can also mean, perhaps more appropriately, "People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms." This way-to-long acronym stands for an association founded in 1989 which develops standards for expansion cards for portable computers. However, the term is most commonly associated with the actual cards standardized by the organization. These cards are referred to as "PCMCIA cards," or simply "PC cards." There are three types of PCMCIA cards, all of which are rectangular and measure 8.56 by 5.4 cm., but have different widths:

Type I: up to 3.3 mm. thick, mainly used to add additional ROM or RAM.

Type II: up to 5.5 mm. thick, typically used for fax/modem cards.

Type III: up to 10.5 mm. thick, often used to attach portable disk drives.

PCMCIA slots also come in three sizes -- a Type I slot can hold one Type I card, a Type II slot can hold one Type II card or two Type I cards, and a Type III slot can hold one Type III card or one Type I and one Type II card. PC Cards can be removed or inserted "on the fly," which means you don't have to turn your computer off to exchange them and you don't have to restart for your computer to recognize them.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #17 on: April 10, 2014, 01:57:24 PM »
PDA

Stands for "Personal Digital Assistant." These are the little electronic devices you see people jotting stuff down on in public. Usually, when you see someone with a PDA, they will be holding it out far front of them for everyone to see. Fortunately, as PDAs become more common, more people will have them and we won't have to deal with the people who make sure everyone else sees that they have one.

The first PDA, called the Newton, was created by Apple in 1993. Since then, numerous other companies have jumped on the bandwagon and have added many new designs and options to the PDA market. The Palm Pilot, Handspring Visor, HP Jordana, Compaq Aero, Sharp Mobilon, and Sony Cli? are all common PDAs. Ironically, Apple's Newton was discontinued when the company was having financial difficulties in 1998. Today's PDAs allow you to organize your schedule, take notes, do math calculations, play games, write memos, and even surf the Internet and send e-mail. They are cool things to have, but if you decide to get one, please do us all a favor and don't show it off in public.

PDA also stands for "Public Display of Affection," and though this term is all too relevant at college campuses, it has nothing to do with this definition.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #18 on: April 10, 2014, 01:58:29 PM »
PDF

Stands for "Portable Document Format." PDF is a multi-platform file format developed by Adobe Systems. A PDF file captures document text, fonts, images, and even formatting of documents from a variety of applications. You can e-mail a PDF document to your friend and it will look the same way on his screen as it looks on yours, even if he has a Mac and you have a PC. Since PDFs contain color-accurate information, they should also print the same way they look on your screen.

To view a PDF file, you need Adobe Reader, a free application program distributed by Adobe Systems. Adobe also makes an Acrobat Plug-in for Web browsers that enables PDF files to be viewed inside a browser window. For more information on PDFs, visit Abobe's PDF Page.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2014, 02:01:09 PM by MysteRy »

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #19 on: April 10, 2014, 02:02:20 PM »
Pebibyte

A pebibyte is a unit of data storage that equals 2 to the 50th power, or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes.

While a petabyte can be estimated as 10^15 or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes, a pebibyte is exactly 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes. This is to avoid the ambiguity associated with the size of petabytes. A pebibyte is 1,024 tebibytes and precedes the exbibyte unit of measurement.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #20 on: April 10, 2014, 02:02:59 PM »
Peopleware

Example: "The company uses a lot of high-end technology, but values its peopleware the most."

Peopleware refers to the role of people in the computing process. While hardware and software make up a computer system, both are designed to be used by humans. Therefore, peopleware is sometimes considered the third component of computing. Peopleware can refer to many different things, including computer engineers, programmers, individual computer users, or groups of people. Anyone who designs, develops, or uses computer systems plays an important role in the computing process and may be considered peopleware.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #21 on: April 10, 2014, 02:03:55 PM »
Peripheral

A computer peripheral is any external device that provides input and output for the computer. For example, a keyboard and mouse are input peripherals, while a monitor and printer are output peripherals. Computer peripherals, or peripheral devices, are sometimes called "I/O devices" because they provide input and output for the computer. Some peripherals, such as external hard drives, provide both input and output for the computer.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #22 on: April 10, 2014, 02:04:45 PM »
Perl

Perl actually stands for "Practical Extraction and Report Language," but you don't really need to know that unless you want to impress your nerd friends. Perl is a scripting language which uses a syntax simliar to C/C++. It is commonly used by Web programmers to create scripts for Web servers. Perl is especially good at parsing text, so programmers often use it for reading and searching through text files.

As a regular computer user, you won't get to see Perl in action, since it does most of its work "behind the scenes." Perl scripts are run on the server computer before any information is sent to your Web browser. Oh well, the code looks like hieroglyphics to most people anyway.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #23 on: April 10, 2014, 02:05:41 PM »
Permalink

Short for "permanent link." A permalink is a URL that links to a specific news story or Web posting. Permalinks are most commonly used for blogs, which are frequently changed and updated. They give a specific Web address to each posting, allowing blog entries to be bookmarked by visitors or linked to from other websites.

Because most blogs are published using dynamic, database-driven Web sites, they do not automatically have Web addresses associated with them. For example, a blog entry may exist on a user's home page, but the entry may not have its own Web page, ending in ".html," ".asp," ".php," etc. Therefore, once the posting is outdated and no longer present on the home page, there may be no way to access it. Using a permalink to define the location of each posting prevents blog entries from fading off into oblivion.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #24 on: April 10, 2014, 02:06:20 PM »
Personal URL

Example: "He posted his Facebook personal URL on his website to promote his profile page."

A personal URL, or "purl," is a custom Web address that you can select for your profile page within a website. Personal URLs typically look like, "http://www.website.com/username." Some websites automatically create your purl based on your username, while others let you select a custom URL for your profile page.

Facebook and other social networking websites allow you to select a personal URL for your profile page. Purls are also supported by Web forums, photo gallery websites, and other online communities.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #25 on: April 10, 2014, 02:07:01 PM »
Petabyte

A petabyte is 2 to the 50th power, or 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes. However, petabytes are often estimated as 10 to the 15th power, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. To avoid ambiguity, the exact calculation is often referred to as a pebibyte instead of a petabyte, though both definitions are commonly accepted.

A petabyte is 1,024 terabytes and precedes the exabyte unit of measurement. Since even the largest hard drives are measured in terabytes, petabytes are only used to measure the storage space of multiple hard drives or other collections of data. And no, "petabyte" is not what you do to make a byte purr.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #26 on: April 10, 2014, 02:07:36 PM »
Petaflops

Example: "The sum of multiple computers' processing power is sometimes measured in petaflops."

Petaflops (also PFLOPS) is used to measure the performance of a computer's floating point unit (FPU). One petaflops equals 1,000 teraflops, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 FLOPS. Like gigaflops and teraflops, the term "petaflops" may be singular or plural since FLOPS is short for "Floating Point Operations Per Second." Only a few of the worlds fastest supercomputers are measured in petaflops, since most computers run at less than one petaflops.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #27 on: April 10, 2014, 02:08:17 PM »
Pharming

Pharming is yet another way hackers attempt to manipulate users on the Internet. While phishing attempts to capture personal information by getting users to visit a fake website, pharming redirects users to false websites without them even knowing it.

While a typical website uses a domain name for its address, its actual location is determined by an IP address. When a user types a domain name into his or her Web browser's address field and hits enter, the domain name is translated into an IP address via a DNS server. The Web browser then connects to the server at this IP address and loads the Web page data. After a user visits a certain website, the DNS entry for that site is often stored on the user's computer in a DNS cache. This way, the computer does not have to keep accessing a DNS server whenever the user visits the website.

One way that pharming takes place is via an e-mail virus that "poisons" a user's local DNS cache. It does this by modifying the DNS entries, or host files. For example, instead of having the IP address 17.254.3.183 direct to www.apple.com, it may direct to another website determined by the hacker. Pharmers can also poison entire DNS servers, which means any user that uses the affected DNS server will be redirected to the wrong website. Fortunately, most DNS servers have security features to protect them against such attacks. Still, they are not necessarily immune, since hackers continue to find ways to gain access to them.

While pharming is not as common as phishing scams are, it can affect many more people at once. This is especially true if a large DNS server is modified. So, if you visit a certain website and it appears to be significantly different than what you expected, you may be the victim of pharming. Restart your computer to reset your DNS entries, run an antivirus program, then try connecting to the website again. If the website still looks strange, contact your ISP and let them know their DNS server may have been pharmed.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #28 on: April 10, 2014, 02:09:09 PM »
Phishing

Phishing is similar to fishing in a lake, but instead of trying to capture fish, phishers attempt to steal your personal information. They send out e-mails that appear to come from legitimate websites such as eBay, PayPal, or other banking institutions. The e-mails state that your information needs to be updated or validated and ask that you enter your username and password, after clicking a link included in the e-mail. Some e-mails will ask that you enter even more information, such as your full name, address, phone number, social security number, and credit card number. However, even if you visit the false website and just enter your username and password, the phisher may be able to gain access to more information by just logging in to you account.

Phishing is a con game that scammers use to collect personal information from unsuspecting users. The false e-mails often look surprisingly legitimate, and even the Web pages where you are asked to enter your information may look real. However, the URL in the address field can tell you if the page you have been directed to is valid or not. For example, if you are visiting an Web page on eBay, the last part of the domain name should end with "ebay.com." Therefore, "http://www.ebay.com" and "http://cgi3.ebay.com" are valid Web addresses, but "http://www.ebay.validate-info.com" and "http://ebay.login123.com" are false addresses, which may be used by phishers. If URL contains an IP address, such as 12.30.229.107, instead of a domain name, you can almost be sure someone is trying to phish for your personal information.

If you receive an e-mail that asks that you update your information and you think it might be valid, go to the website by typing the URL in your browser's address field instead of clicking the link in the e-mail. For example, go to "https://www.paypal.com" instead of clicking the link in an e-mail that appears to come from PayPal. If you are prompted to update your information after you have manually typed in the Web address and logged in, then the e-mail was probably legitimate. However, if you are not asked to update any information, then the e-mail was most likely a spoof sent by a phisher.

Most legitimate e-mails will address you by your full name at the beginning of the message. If there is any doubt that the e-mail is legitimate, be smart and don't enter your information. Even if you believe the message is valid, following the guidelines above will prevent you from giving phishers your personal information.

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Re: Computer Terms Beginning with "P"
« Reply #29 on: April 10, 2014, 02:14:50 PM »
PHP

Stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor." (It is a recursive acronym, if you can understand what that means.) PHP is an HTML-embedded Web scripting language. This means PHP code can be inserted into the HTML of a Web page. When a PHP page is accessed, the PHP code is read or "parsed" by the server the page resides on. The output from the PHP functions on the page are typically returned as HTML code, which can be read by the browser. Because the PHP code is transformed into HTML before the page is loaded, users cannot view the PHP code on a page. This make PHP pages secure enough to access databases and other secure information.

A lot of the syntax of PHP is borrowed from other languages such as C, Java and Perl. However, PHP has a number of unique features and specific functions as well. The goal of the language is to allow Web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly and easily. PHP is also great for creating database-driven Web sites. If you would like to learn more about PHP, the official site is PHP.net.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2014, 02:16:55 PM by MysteRy »