You asked for it, and you got it!
Part I of this article,
The most baffling IT terms explained, brought you a list of commonly used, but not so commonly understood, technology terms. Response was so overwhelming, that we decided to bring you an even more extensive list.
- ASCII: The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, pronounced "ask-ee," is a character encoding based on the English alphabet, representing text in computers, communications equipment and other text devices. The ASCII character encoding is used on almost all common computers, especially personal computers and workstations.
View the ASCII chart.
- BYTE: Not the kind you’d take out of a sandwich; this byte is a unit of measurement of information storage, most often made up of eight binary digits (bits). In many computer architectures, it’s a unit of memory and the primary specifications of hardware.
Ex: An 80-gigabyte (80GB) disk holds 80 billion characters of software and data. A 256-megabyte (256MB) memory holds 256 million characters of instructions and data to be held internally for processing. In other words the more bytes you have, the more memory and space you have for music, pictures, programs and more on your computer.
- GIG: For every one billion bytes (1,073,741,824 bytes to be exact), you have one GigaByte, a unit of information or computer storage. It is commonly abbreviated GB or Gbyte, not to be confused with Gb, which is used for a gigabit (another unit of storage measurement).
- Blu Ray: If you’ve ever watched a DVD in Blu Ray, you’ve probably noticed the new level of sound and color that Blu Ray brings to the movie watching and video game playing experience. Blu Ray is a high-capacity optical disc for HD movies that fits on the same size disc as a DVD. Blu Ray discs can be watched on Blu Ray players, and most recently, Playstation 3s. In 2008, it became the bona fide successor to the DVD for high-definition content, when Toshiba waved the white flag in the war between HD DVD and Blu Ray.
- 3G: What's all the hype about 3G? 3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2G, and preceding 4G. Unlike IEEE 802.11, commonly known as Wi-Fi or WLAN networks, 3G networks are wide area cellular telephone networks which evolved to incorporate high-speed internet access and video telephony.
If you’re new to working on a mobile device, here’s a great list of the latest business texting lingo so you can keep up.
- Virtualization: This is an umbrella term that refers to enhancing the way your IT environment operates. Virtualization simplifies a physical IT infrastructure, providing centralized management over your technology assets and better flexibility of resource sharing. From desktops to datacenters – virtualization lets you pool and share IT resources, while hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from users, keeping your data more secure. Learn more about HP virtualization.
- E-Discovery: Have you ever wondered if an email can be used as evidence in a court case? It can! E-Discovery is relevant evidence in a court case that resides in electronic form and includes all types of e-files—Web pages, e-mail correspondence, as well as database, word processing and spreadsheet files.
- IDN: If you’ve ever stumbled upon a URL, or web address, in another language, you’ve experienced an IDN, or Internationalized Domain Name. An IDN is a .com or .net domain name that is represented in non-English characters and symbols, with .com or .net appended at the end in English letters.
- Server farm: This is another term for a cluster of servers, usually maintained by an enterprise to accomplish needs beyond the capability of one server. Server farms most likely have a primary and a backup server allocated to a single task, so that in the event of the failure of the primary server, a backup server will take over the primary server's function.
- Rack mounted: Mounting your servers, tape drives and more on a rack helps free up space for more equipment. Typically, the rack is built into a cabinet that has a standard width of 19" or 24". If equipment is not rack mountable, it can usually be placed on shelves.
- IP: “A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there.” (1) Every PC and laptop needs an IP (Internet Protocol) address to be able to connect to the Internet or the company's network. This address consists of a string of four octets like (i.e.-172.21.8.100) and it’s unique to your system. Think of an IP address as a social security number for your PC.
- Cloud Computing: Computing in “the cloud” may refer to a company's own network, but it typically refers to the Internet and the use of Web browser-based or rich client applications. In these applications, the software comes from the Web Servers, and the data may be saved on the servers as well.
Ex: HP has developed web platforms and cloud services that are dynamically personalized based on your location, preferences, calendar and communities called HP Labs.
- WEP: Wired Equivalent Privacy is an IEEE standard security protocol for wireless 802.11 networks. Because of its weak authentication method, WEP’s secret encryption key is vulnerable to attack. As a result, WEP has become outdated and has been dropped from the Wi-Fi specification.
- VPN: When boiled down, a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a separate network that you can only connect to with encrypted access. Most people have an icon on their desktop that allows them to connect to a work network from home. The problem with a VPN is that when it doesn't work, it becomes cumbersome to understand why it failed in the first place.
For more help navigating the often-confusing world of IT, check out the
HP IT Resource Center for information and advice.
- RFC 791, "Internet Protocol". DARPA Request For Comments 6. Internet Engineering Task Force (September 1981).
For more informationIT resource center forumsHP Labs: cloud computingHP Desktops & WorkstationsServer virtualization solutionsThe most baffling IT terms: part I 
