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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 Backbone: Network carrying the major traffic between smaller networks.
Back Door: Entrance to a system or software application that bypasses its security protocols.
Background: Tasks and processes associated with an operating system or program that run without intervention by the user.
Backslash: The character \ used to separate names within a directory path.
Backup: A copy of data, applications, or system files. It is strongly recommended that backup files be stored in a location other than the user's main hard drive.
Backup and Restore: Planned and implemented strategy for maintaining copies of system files and data that can be copied back to the original source drive.
Bad Sector: A sector of a hard drive that cannot be used for storage of information because of damage or manufacturing imperfections.
Bandwidth: Range of frequencies to which a communications channel can respond. The amount of data that can be transmitted over that channel per unit time and typically measured in bits per second (bps).
Banner: Portion of a web page usually containing an advertisement which spans the width of the web page and that contains an embedded link to a different website.
Bare Bones: Application providing only the minimal functionality required to perform a given task.
Basic Input/Output System: Essential software routines that test hardware at startup, start the operating system, and support the transfer of data among hardware devices.
Batch: Collection of files or data records that are processed as a single unit.
Batch Job: Program or series of commands that runs without user interaction.
Batch Processing: Execution of a batch file.
Batch Program: A program that initiates one or more processes or commands..
Battery Backup: Battery operated power supply, such as an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS), used as a source of electricity in the case of a power failure.
Benchmark: A standardized test procedure used to measure the performance of hardware or software.
Beta: Software currently under the second phase of active development that may still contain bugs or be unstable, and is therefore not yet ready for release to the general public.
Binary: Base 2 numbering system in which numerical values are expressed as combinations of the two digits 0 and 1. Binary is fundamental to digital computing because the two possible values can be used to represent the conditions “on” and “off”, or “true” and “false”.
BIOS: See Basic Input/Output System.
Bit (b): A single digit expressed in binary (0 or 1), corresponding to the smallest possible unit of data.
Bitmap: Two-dimensional arrangement of pixels used to represent video and graphics.
Board: A circuit card and its components.
Bookmark: Stored address of a website within browsers such as Mozilla Firefox as well as other applications that is identical in function to a Favorite within Internet Explorer.
Boot: The process of starting (cold boot) or restarting (warm boot) a computer.
Boot Disk: An optical disk or floppy disk containing the critical system files required for starting the operating system directly from the disk.
Boot Drive: The hard drive used by the BIOS to automatically load the operating system when the computer is powered on. This is generally the C: drive in Windows based systems.
Boot Failure: Inability of the computer to find or load the operating system resulting in a failure to start.
Boot Menu: A list of options available at startup enabling a user to Boot into different configurations.
Boot Partition: The partition of a hard drive containing the operating system.
Boot Sector: Portion of a disk reserved for the self-starting components (bootstrap loader) of an operating system that contains a short machine language program that loads the operating system.
Bootstrap Loader: Instruction set generally stored within Read-Only-Memory (ROM) that runs basic hardware tests and then initiates the boot process to ultimately load the operating system.
bps: Bits Per Second. Measure of the speed of transmission of computer data. NB: Bps refers to Bytes per second which is not the industrial standard.
Bridge: Hardware communications device used to connect two networks that utilize similar communication protocols.
Browser: Client program providing access to the Internet.
Buffer: A reserved region of memory used as temporary storage to compensate for differences in the rates of data transmission between devices.
Bug: An error in coding or logic that causes a program to malfunction or to produce incorrect results.
Burn: To write data electronically to any optical storage medium.
Bus: A set of hardware lines (conductors) used for data transfer among the components of a computer system.
Button: A user activated, graphic element within a dialog box that performs a specified function.
Byte (B): A unit of data consisting of 8 bits. Memory, storage capacity, and data transmission rates are generally expressed in kilobytes (1KB = 1,024 bytes), megabytes (1MB = 1,048,576 bytes), or gigabytes (1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes).
