| ASCII | American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
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| BACKUPS | The process of making copies of important data onto a floppy disk, CD, or tape. Making backups on a regular basis is extremely important.
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| bit | A contraction of the words binary and digit. A bit is the smallest unit of storage that a computer can process. A bit can be one of two values (e.g., on/off, 0/1, true/false, etc.).
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| BMP | Windows BitMap Image.
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| boot | The process of starting, or re-starting, the computer. The computer can be booted by pressing the CTRL, ALT, and DEL keys on the keyboard, by pressing the re-set button, or by turning off the power and then turning it back on.
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| buffer | An area of memory set aside to hold information that is read from or written to a disk drive.
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| byte | A unit of measurement for data storage or memory. A byte contains 8 bits. One byte is required for each character.
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| CCD | Charge Coupled Device.
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| CD-ROM | Compact-Disk Read Only Memory. Also referred to as CD. A 4.7" plastic disk that can hold 650-700mb of data.
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| CMS | Client Management System (a powerful database for managing clients, projects, phone calls, and time records).
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| Collating
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| Sequence The sequence in which the letters (both upper and lower case), digits, and special characters in the computer or organized.
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| The sequence of printable ASCII characters is:
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| ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 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 [ \ ] ^ _ ` 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 { | }
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 As can be seen above, the lower case letters follow the upper case letters. This can cause problems because "CHARLES", "Charles" and "charles" are three distinct entities to the computer, thereby causing "charles" to appear after "MARK", "Sarah", and "TIMOTHY" in an alphabetical list.
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| This is why the software converts lower case letters to upper case letters in many instances.
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| CONFIG.SYS | A file containing instructions performed by the operating system (MS-DOS) when the computer is turned on or booted.
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| This file usually contains:
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| · | Instructions specifying the number of files that may be open at one time.
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| · | Instructions for the number of buffers for disk I/O.
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| · | Device drivers for a mouse, tape drive, and/or other hardware.
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| Windows 95/98 does not make much use of this file unless real mode drivers are needed or DOS based programs are used..
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| CPU | Central Processing Unit. The "brains" of the computer. It manipulates data and processes instructions.
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| DEFRAG | A component of the Windows operating system used to rearrange the files on a hard drive to be in contiguous order so that they load faster.
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| DMS | Data Management System (a point-of-sale software package for antique and craft malls, consignment shops, auction houses, and other businesses needing to track sales, inventory, and customers).
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| DOS | Disk Operating System.
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| EXPLORER | A component of the windows operating system used to look at files and folders.
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| GB | Giga byte, as in "this hard drive has a capacity of 80GB". A giga byte is equal to 1 billion characters (1,073,741,824 bytes actually -- 1KB * 1KB * 1KB).
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| ICO | The file extension for icon files.
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| icon | A picture or symbol used to visually identify an object, task, command, or choice.
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| I/O | Abbreviation for input/output.
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| JPEG | Proposed worldwide standard for image compression devised by the Joint Photographic Experts Group. According to the New York times, JPEG compression works by converting a color image into rows of dots, called pixels, each with a numerical value that represents brightness and color. The image is then broken down into blocks, each of 16 pixels by 16 pixels. The image is then reduced to 8 pixels by 8 pixels by subtracting every other pixel. The software uses a formula that computes an average value for each block, permitting it to be represented with less data. Further steps subtract even more information from the image. To retrieve the data, the process is simply reversed to decompress the image.
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| KB | Kilo byte, as in DMS requires 512Kb of RAM to operate. A kilo byte is equal to 1,024 bytes.
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| Menu Bar | Allows access to the various program menus and functions (File, Edit, View, Help, etc.).
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| Main Program
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| Screen Is used to access (i.e., select) various menus.
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| MB | Mega byte, as in a 540MB hard disk drive. A mega byte is equal to 1 million characters (1,048,576 bytes actually -- 1KB * 1KB).
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| mnemonic | A shorthand label or term that is easy to remember, usually made up from the initials of the words in a term or process (e.g., DOS -- Disk Operating System).
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| MOP | Method of payment.
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| MS-DOS | A collection of commands and functions used to operate a computer system. Commonly known as DOS.
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| options | User or programmer specified information used to modify how a command or program operates.
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| PACK | PACKing a file removes records marked for deletion (those records marked with an X in the DEL column).
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| parameter | A value or constant (such as code, or single) used to alter the manner in which a software program operates.
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| password | A unique word, or sequence of characters, used to validate the identity of the person attempting to access the software.
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| path | The description of the location of a file, disk, or folder (directory) on a computer. A complete path includes the drive, sub directory, file name, and file name extension. The path usually consists of a list of directories (i.e., places) where DOS will look for commands or programs that it is told to execute.
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| Paths can be either absolute or relative.
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| · | An absolute path always starts with C: (or some other designator that indicates the starting point).
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| · | A relative path begins with either . (to move parallel within the current folder structure) or .. (to move up one level in the folder structure).
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| PCX | PCX.
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| port | A connector to which an peripheral device can be connected.
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| PC-DOS | IBM's version of MS-DOS.
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| RAM | Random Access Memory.
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| RESC | Random email Signature Changer (a utility program that chooses a random quote for use as a signature on emails).
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| restore | The process of replacing corrupted, or missing, files from a backup disk, CD, or tape.
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| SCAN DISK | A component of the Windows operating system used to analyze a hard disk drive for both logical and physical errors.
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| short cut | A "shortcut" (aka, keyboard shortcut or hotkey) is one or more keys that, when pressed simultaneously, invoke a feature/task of the current running program or operating system. Shortcuts are an alternate means of invoking one or more commands that would otherwise be accessible only through a menu, or mouse.
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| For example:
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| In CMS, to invoice a client, one must select "Edit" from the main menu bar, then select "Misc" from the drop down menu, then select "Invoice Client" -- a series of three mouse clicks or several keystrokes. The shortcut is <CTRL><I> which immediately brings up the screen to invoice a client.
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| SVGA | SVGA (Super Video Graphics Array or Ultra Video Graphics Array), is an extension to the VGA standard released by IBM in 1987. Unlike VGA (which was purely IBM), SVGA was defined by VESA (the Video Electronics Standards Association), an open consortium which promoted inter operability and defined standards for PCs. SVGA normally refers to a resolution of 800 × 600 4-bit pixels. Each pixel could therefore be any of 16 colors. SVGA was quickly extended to 1024 × 768 8-bit pixels, and then even higher resolutions and color depths.
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| System Status
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| Form Displays the CCS logo, date, time, miscellaneous resource values, and whether the software is running in single user or network mode. (This form is normally displayed in the upper right hand corner or the screen -- it can be moved, but not re-sized or closed.).
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| Task Bar | The task bar contains the <START BUTTON>, launch icons, running applications, and the system tray.
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| Windows 98 taskbar
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| Windows XP taskbar
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| TIFF | Tagged Image File Format. TIFF provides a way of storing and exchanging digital image data. It was developed by Aldus Corp., Microsoft Corp., and major scanner vendors to help link scanned imaged with popular desktop publishing applications. It is now used by many different types of software applications ranging from medical imagery to fax modem data transfers, CAD programs, and 3D graphics packages. The current TIFF specification supports three main types of image data: Black and white data, halftones or dithered data, and gray scale data.
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| THIS | The Household Inventory System (a software package for recording, categorizing, and locating personal belongings and business assets. It was specifically designed for home owners, renters, and small businesses).
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| Title Bar | Displays the program name, version information and buttons to minimize, maximize, and close the program..
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| TSR | Terminate and Stay Resident.
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| UMB | Upper Memory Block.
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| UPAT | User ID, Password, and Access Table.
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| URL | Uniform Resource Locator (pronounced "earl"). Used on the WWW to identify a specific web page, file to download, etc.
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| WWW | The World Wide Web. WWW is just one aspect, or component, of the internet. Other components include FTP.
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| ZAP | Zapping is the process of removing all records from a file. Once a file is zapped none of the records can ever be recovered.
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