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Welcome to our Glossary. Here you can find the meaning of words and expressions commonly used by computer-users. Use the query form below to enter a word or part of a word you are looking for. Click the "Search" button to start the search. Search for: You can also take a look at all the words starting with a particular character, select one below: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z We are looking for more words here, so please mail me any words you don't know and I'll try to find out what they mean. Or send me words you do know and their meaning, so we can add them too and get an even better glossary (either in Dutch or English is fine). Words in our glossary starting with "T" ...

T1
American transmission-standaard for telecommuncation connections (ie a leasedline) of 1.5 Mbit/s. Also known as DS1.

T2
This consists of four T1 lines which can carry 96 voice channels or up to 6.312 Mbps worth of data.

T3
American transmission-standaard for telecommuncation connections (ie a leasedline) of 45 Mbit/s. Also known as DS3.

T4
Six T3 lines make up a T4 which carries data at 274 Mbps.

T5
This consists of 240 T1 lines which can carry 5760 voice channels or up to 400.352 Mbps worth of data.

Tab Delimited
This is a text file where data elements in the text file are separated by the tab character. See also CSV.

Tachometer
This is a gauge the measures how fast a motor is running in revolutions per minute.

Tag RAM
This is a bank of SRAM that only holds addresses. Tag RAM is used to store addresses so that when the processor makes a call for memory, it first checks to see if the data is in the cache by looking for the memory address in the tag RAM. If it's there, it gets the data from cache. If not, it gets the data from main memory.

Tape
This refers to a storage medium that consists of a long band of magnetic material wound around a couple of reels. Tape can hold a lot of information, but are typically slow to access different parts of the tape, and can be unreliable, especially for long-term storage.

Tape Drive
A device that can store data on a tape.

TAPI
Telephony Applications Programming Interface. An interface between PC and telephone, so you can do telephony activities with your PC.

Tar (Tape Archive)
This is a UNIX / Linux command that was designed to allow the storage of data spread across files and directories to exist in a single tape volume. Another handy use is to squeeze a directory or group of files into a single file on a hard drive, and then compact it with a compression program, such as gzip to save some space. Simple usage includes "tar cvf" (create verbose-mode file) or "tar xvf" (x=extract) to extract a .tar file back to its original contents.

Taskbar
This refers to the the space that normally sits at the bottom of the Windows 95/98/NT4/2000 interface. It displays the list of running programs so that you can easily switch between programs even when you have a maximized window taking up the entire screen otherwise. It can be moved to either side or the top of the screen as well.

Taxonomy
The science dealing with the identification, naming, and classification of things.

TCP/IP
TCP/IP is a sum of networking protocols used for communication between computers. All protocols are packet based, i.e. all data sent through are divided into the small parts and sent across the network. The TCP/IP protocols are: IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.

Telecline (telecine)
A technique for converting analog video to digital media. Simply put: a mirror reflects the output of a projector. A digital camera records this and saves it on a digital media (ie. CDR, DVD, DV tape, etc). Commonly used to indicate the conversion from analog to digital video. Also: Cinematic film movies are shot at 24 progressive frames per second speed. A Frame is the smallest unit of a 24 fps FILM format, which is a fullsize picture. TV (NTSC for example) video is a "field-based" format of 59.94 fields per second. A Field is the smallest unit in interlaced video format (a half picture). 2 fields make up 1 fullsize picture. So, this 59.94 fields per second equals 29.97 frames per second. 1 second in FILM (24 frames) is NOT equal to 1 second in NTSC Video (29.97 frames). To be able to match the speed of an NTSC Video, conversion from a FILM format to an NTSC Video format undergoes a process called 2:3 pulldown or TELECINE. This process, in simplest terms, means "to add 6 frames so that a 24 fps becomes 30fps which is close to 29.97 fps (another trick is used to get to 29.97).

Telecom, Telecommunications
Refers to the industry and hardware involved with telephones.

Telesync
A video recorded in a cinema but usually on an expensive camera and a seperate audio source or direct audio connection (so the audience cannot be heard). The result is a video generally of very good quality.

Telnet
An old protocol for remotely logging in to another computer, based on a text-oriented userinterface (usually a Shell). It is one of the basic utilities for TCP/IP.

Temp
1) Temporary. For example files that are used temporary (like cached internet files, setup files, etc), which can be removed after use. 2) Temperature.

Terabit (Tb)
This refers to approximately 1 trillion bits. More exactly, it is 2^40 or 1,099,511,627,776 bits.

Terabyte
One trillion bytes, or one thousand gigabytes.

Text Editor
This is a class of computer programs that allow the opening, changing and saving of text files. Usually, these applications are simpelere than your averga wordprocessor application. Compare Notepad in Windows (a text editor) with for example MS Word (a wordprocessor).

Texture Mapping
Technique to add flat, 2D, images to 3D objects to give the impression of a certain texture.

Tflop (TeraFlop)
This is the ability of a system to compute 1 trillion floating point operations in one second.

TFT
Abbreviation of Thin Film Transistor, a type of LCD flat-panel display screen where each pixel is controlled by transistors. This technology provides the best resolution of all the flat-panel techniques. Also sometimes called active-matrix LCDs.

Thin Ethernet
Refers to a type of Ethernet cable that has been largely phased out. Cable speeds are typically up to 10 Mbps. It uses coaxial cable. Also known as 10Base2, and uses BNC connectors.

Thumbnail
Thumbnail is an expression used to indicate the size of a small representation of an image, usually the size of a poststamp or maybe slightly bigger.

TIFF (Tag Image File Format)
This is a bitmap graphics file format. It was developed by Aldus in 1986. It was developed to provide a common format for scanners, and is mainly used for that purpose and desktop publishing.

TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol)
TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) is a security protocol defined in IEEE 802.11i specifications for WiFi networks (Wireless LAN) to replace WEP (an encryption technique). TKIP was designed to replace WEP without replacing legacy hardware. See als WiFi and WEP.

TMPGEnc
TMPGEnc is a conversion tool for MPEG movies. It can handle several types of input files like AVI, DivX, MPG1, MPG2, etc. It can generate MPEG1 and MPEG2 files which can be used for VideoCD, Super VideoCD, DVD, etc. For more details see http://www.tmpenc.com

to Flash
To flash a BIOS or a firmware means the proces of putting new software in the Flash chip (ie. FlashBIOS).

Tokenring
A, by IBM designed, LAN with transferrates of 16 Mbit/s.

Torrent
A torrent can mean either a .torrent metadata file or all files described by it, depending on context. The torrent file contains metadata about all the files it makes downloadable How to Share a Torrent File (ie. describes where to download this particular file from using peer-2-peer). See also Bittorrent.

TrackBall
A pointing device. Essentially, a trackball is a mouse lying on its back. To move the pointer, you rotate the ball with your thumb, your fingers, or the palm of your hand.

Transistor
An electronic device that acts like an electrically activated switch but has no moving parts so it can switch millions of times per second.

Transparent
Easily understood or seen through. Transparent materials allow light to pass through them without diffusing (scattering) the light.

Transponder
The term channel is often used interchangeably with the word transponder with the same meaning. Transponder is commonly used in contex with satellite data traffic. However, the word channel refers more accurately to the absolute frequency range over which the transponder operates (e.g. 11 GHz +/- 18 MHz), rather than to the amplification process itself. A channel is normally defined by its centre frequency and its usable bandwidth.

Transversal
In a plane, a line that intersects at least two other lines in two different points.

Triggerport
The triggerport with IP networks, is the IP port that "triggers" the router to handle IP port mapping for a particular application. This is commonly used with routers that use NAT. Some routers try to get around the "one port per customer" limitation by using such "triggers". The router watches the outgoing data for a specific port number and protocol (the triggerport). When the router sees a match, it remembers the IP address of the computer that sent the matching data. When the requested data wants to come back in through the firewall, the router uses the port mapping rules that are linked to the trigger, and the IP address of the computer that "pulled" the trigger, to get the data back to the proper computer.

Trinitron
A technology developed by Sony to enhance the clarity of graphics on their monitors (CRT). The way this is done is by making the pixels more square.

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)
TFTP is used to transfer files between the TFTP client and a TFTP server. This protocol uses UDP as a transport and, unlike FTP, does not require a user to log on in order to transfer files. The TFTP protocol was designed to be small so that both it and the UDP protocol could be implemented on a PROM (Programmable Read Only Memory) chip. The TFTP protocol is limited (hence the name trivial) when compared to the FTP protocol. The TFTP protocol can only read and write files; it cannot list the contents of directories, create or remove directories, or allow a user to log on as the FTP protocol allows. The TFTP protocol is primarily used in bootprotocols and for upgrading firmware in for example routers.

Trojan (virus)
Trojans or often called backdoors are programs which will most be sent via email, instant-messengers or filesharing-tools. If you run a trojan file it will install itself on your computer to get run every time you boot up your machine. Trojans opens a port (channel) on your system which can be used by an attacker to connect to your computer. Trojans can enable almost everything for an attacker to do harmful things like viewing/modifying/deleting data, watching you when you are working or surfing the web, etc. Depending on the trojan there can be thousands of functions built in which can be remotely used by any attacker to spy you.

TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident)
This is a program that runs, loads into memory and stays out of view until you call on it. TSR's were commonly used in DOS, but are not necessary in modern operating systems, which use other techniques to achief this.

TTF (True Type Font)
This is a font standard, for scalable fonts, developed by Apple and first used in Mac OS version 7. Later, Apple licensed the technology to Microsoft who used it in Windows 3.1, and continues to use it today. Weird enough, Apple and Microsoft TrueType fonts are not compatible. See also Font and Bitmap Font.

TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic)
This is a specific method of wiring a digital circuit using bipolar transistors. TTL is often used to refer to 5 Volt cicuits which is not always a correct statement.

TTS
1) Text-To-Speech: having your computer using Speech synthesis to announce text out loud. 2) Trouble Ticket System; A System to log and track problems, issues, etc (commonly used for customer support / helpdesk like apliacations). 3) Transaction Tracking System; Feature that protects data from failures in network hardware. TTS protects the integrity of databases by backing out of incomplete transactions that result from a failure in a network component.

TTY (TeleTypewriter)
This term refers to a means of sending data one character at a time. The TTY interface is often used by dumb terminals to communicate with mainframes. TTY originates from the Telex era.

Tulip- or Cinch connectors
Connectors mostly used for analog audio and video.

Tuner
The receiver that converts radiowaves to your audio and/or videoset.

Tunneling
A technique to encapsulate a protocol X in a different protocol Y.

Turbo-Pascal
This is Borland's version of the Pascal programming language. See also Pascal.

Turing Test
The Turing test is a test where we try to distinguish a human from a computer. The Turing test is a proposal for a test of a machines capability to perform human-like conversation. Described by Alan Turing in the 1950 paper >Computing machinery and intelligence<, it proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with two other parties, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test. It is assumed that both the human and the machine try to appear human.

TVTool
Utility to enhance the viewing experience on a TV when connecting your PC (using an nVidia videocard) to that TV. Highly recommended for people that own a nVidia videocard and use the TV-Out on that card. See www.tvtool.com.

TWAIN
An image capture API for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. The standard was first released in 1992. TWAIN is typically used as an interface between image processing software and a scanner or digital camera. The word TWAIN is from Kipling's "The Ballad of East and West" - "...and never the TWAIN shall meet...", reflecting the difficulty, at the time, of connecting scanners and personal computers. It was up-cased to TWAIN to make it more distinctive. This led people to believe it was an acronym, and then to a contest to come up with an expansion. None were selected, but the entry "Technology Without An Interesting Name" continues to haunt the standard.

Tweak, Tweaking
To adjust or fine-tune. Make little changes to improve appearance, performance, etc.

Tween
Short for in-betweening. Actually, in Macromedia Flash for example, the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image.

Twisted Pair
This is a type of Ethernet cable topology that uses RJ-45 connectors and a star topology. Transmission speed is 10 Mbps.


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