Glossary - The Computer Book - A & B

[A]
Address:
The unique location of the Web Page on the Internet.

Address Book:
Software that stores the email addresses of the people you contact online. All popular email packages have them built in.

AltaVista:
A popular searc engine located at www.av.com.

Analogue Signal:
A continuous signal, such as that sent over the phone line.

Anti-Virus Programs:
These monitor the files of your computer for viruses. They usually give you the option to kill the virus or delete the file if a virus is found. We favour Anti-Virus Toolkit (for Windows) and Virus Scan (for Windows and Macs).

Application:
Another word fpr a computer program.

ARPANET:
The Advanced Research  Project Agency NET work the forunner to today's Internet. ARPANET was a military network built by the  US government at the height of the cold war, and was designed to withstand a nuclear attack.

AT COMMAND SET:
The Command language for modems that was originally developed by Hayes and which has since become an industry standard. If your modem is not working properly, your service provider might tell you to enter an initialization string. This will consist of AT commands and will look something like AT&F E0V1. Most modern modems are clever enough not to need them any more, however, so you don't have to worry unduly about them.

ATTACHMENT:
A separate file that can be attached to an email message. It could be a word processed document or a visual  image.

AUTOCOMPLETE:
when you type part of a web page address in a browser's location bar, the browser tries to make things easier by guessing the rest of the address for you, according to the sites which you have already visited.

AVATAR:
A  graphical onscreen representation of a person in a chat room. You can wander through different graphical rooms, meet other avatars and chat with them online.
 
 

[B]
BCC (BLIND CARBON COPY):
You can use this  to send a copy of a message to other Net users as well as to the main recipient who cant see who else you are sending the message to sneaky, huh?

BIT:
The smallest measurement of computer