glossary of internet terms - c

A COMPLETE LIST OF DEFINITIONS OF THE TERMS USED THROUGHOUT OUR WEBSITE

Use the letters below to jump to a particular section or scroll down through the definitions.

misc 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

C++ - Programming language popular with professional computer software developers, and used to create many of today's top applications.

Cable - Shorthand for cable television and associated services.

Cache - A store for frequently-used data or files. Data can be accessed from a cache more quickly than from its original source. Internet Explorer uses a hard disk cache for web pages, while computer processors often have small amounts of very speedy memory as a cache.

CAD - Stands for Computer-Aided Design, which are special software applications that allow designers and architects to draw precise blueprints on screen, then model them in 3D to see how the design will appear in real life.

Caller ID - A system which enables a telephone caller's number to be displayed before the handset is picked up. Supported by most telecommunications companies and systems these days.

Capture cards - A video card that slots into a spare PCI slot in your computer and has the input and output sockets necessary for digitising video.

Capturing - The process of taking an ordinary analogue signal from a camcorder and converting it into digital information to be stored on a computer's hard disk.

CD changer - A device that can hold several CDs and switch between them as and when required.

CD writer - A special type of CD-ROM drive, which allows you to create, or 'burn', your own CDs.

CD-R - Standard for compact disc recordable format, or blank CDs onto which information (such as data or music) can be recorded ? but only once. Playable on most CD-ROM drives (except some older ones) and CD players. You need a CD-R drive to record onto CD-R discs.

CD-ROM - A version of the CD, which can store a lot more than just music. This small plastic disc can hold up to 650Mb of data.

CD-ROM drive - Used for installing software (on CD-ROM discs) and playing multimedia audio and video. Audio CDs can also be inserted.

CD-RW - Stands for compact disc rewritable format, or blank compact discs which can be recorded on over and over again.

Celeron - Cheaper but slower version of the Intel Pentium processor, used in budget PCs.

Cell - A spreadsheet page uses rows and columns to divide a page into cells. Rows and columns are identified with letters and numbers, so each cell has a unique co-ordinate, such as D15.

Channels - In the context of monitors, images are made up of three colour 'channels', one each to represent red, green and blue ? or RGB.

Charge-coupled device (CCD) - A light-sensitive component used in digital cameras and camcorders.

Chat rooms - Online venues for typed chat, rather like the premium-rate chat lines you see advertised on late-night TV. Some even allow you to create cartoon-style characters to represent yourself.

Checksum - Mathematical formula performed on some data to generate a result that will be statistically unique for that data.

Chipset - Broadly speaking, any group of computer chips working together to perform certain functions. For example, a graphics card will have a number of chips ? the chipset ? designed to handle all graphics output.

Chorus - An audio effect that 'fattens up' the sound of a single instrument, to simulate several playing at once.

Chromakey effects - Sometimes known as blue-screening because subjects are filmed in front of a blue screen before being 'extracted' from the video. The subject can then be placed on top of another scene, giving the appearance of being somewhere they're not. Without Chromakey, Superman would never have flown.

Click - Pressing down once and releasing a mouse button, or other key.

Client - A geeky term for an additional piece of software that runs alongside your web browser, allowing you to use services like newsgroups and internet chat.

Clipart - A library of drawings or photographs that you can use in presentations, reports or in desktop-publishing documents. You must check whether there are copyright restrictions if you are intend using the pictures commercially.

Clock speed - Term used to describe the speed of a computer processor, measured in megahertz or, increasingly, gigahertz ? 700MHz or 1GHz (1,000MHz) for example.

Clone - In image-editing software, a tool that allows you to copy one part of an image and use it as a brush.

CMOS - Stands for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor, and pronounced cee-moss. This is a special computer chip that looks after system set-up information, like date and time and so forth.

CMY - Abbreviation for cyan, magenta, yellow ? the three colours found in a colour inkjet printer cartridge. Sometimes you may see CMYK where K stands for black (if they used B this might be mistaken for Blue).

Coaxial - Cable that has one channel that carries the signal,which is surrounded (after a layer of insulation) by another concentric channel.

Code - In computing terminology, short for program code ? meaning instructions that are intended to be executed by a computer.

Colour depth - The range of colours with which an image can be displayed. Usually measured in 'bits', 1-bit colour gives two colours (usually black and white), 2-bit gives four colours, and so on. A 24-bit colour setting will allow up to 16. 7 millions distinct shades to be displayed.

Colour picker - All painting programs have one, it's the electronic equivalent of a paint palette so you can choose which colour you want to use.

COM port - Short for communications port, a PC can have up to four of these ? COM1 to COM4. It is through these ports that devices can talk to the rest of your PC. Anything fitted to a serial port will be allocated one of these, as will a modem.

Combination keystroke - Literally where you have to hold down more than one key at once to access a particular function. Holding down the Alt and Tab keys, for example, lets you cycle through any programs you're running.

Command prompt - Also known as DOS prompt. The Windows environment lets you point and click to navigate your way around the computer. However, the predecessor to Windows, DOS (disk operating system) requires typed in commands to control the PC ? and these are entered at the command prompt.

CompactFlash - Matchbook-size memory cards with no moving parts. These slot into various devices to store data. Popular with digital cameras and handheld computers.

Composite - A type of video signal in which the red, green and blue signals are mixed together.

Composite video - A type of video signal used by some camcorders, video recorders and TVs in which the red, green and blue signals are mixed together. The aerial connection on a TV set uses composite video.

Compression - To reduce the size of a file by encoding the data. This is useful for storing files which would otherwise take up lots of disk space, such as picture and video files. Compression also reduces transfer times, meaning files can be sent over the net, or to another disk, more quickly.

Configure - To tweak the functions of software or hardware to the particular settings you require. For example, Windows can be configured so that it displays a particular colour background, or so that it uses a larger typeface

Context menus - The context-sensitive menus that pop up when you right-click on something in Windows. What you see on the menu varies according to the task that you're engaged in and the program you're using.

Control Panel - A collection of icons that allow you to configure the basic functions of Windows and your PC. Within the Control Panel there are icons to define display attributes, keyboard settings, passwords ? and a host of other options.

Cookies - Text files generated by websites you visit and stored on your computer's hard disk. Cookies contain preferences and other information about your use of the sites, and are not harmful.

Copy and paste - Just like it sounds: selecting part of an image or document in order to place it elsewhere.

Coverage - In the context of mobile phones, the areas where you'll be able to get a signal. The phone networks tend to quote coverage in terms of population, not actual land area. A network may claim to cover 98 percent of the population, but with most of these people located in cities, vast tracts of the country are signal-free zones.

CPU - An abbreviation for central processing unit, or processor ? the heart of a computer. The CPU does most of the hard work and the faster it is, the better the PC is likely to be.

Crash - This is what happens when a software application or operation goes wrong, often freezing the computer. Sometimes, the only way to recover from a crash is to switch the PC off and start again ? and this in turn may cause you to lose documents or data you were working on.

CRT Cathode Ray Tube - The glass tube-based technology used to produce an image in most TV sets and computer monitors.

Cursor - A flashing shape on the screen showing where the next character you type in will appear. When entering text in a word processor, the cursor is normally a flashing vertical bar. Sometimes, the word cursor is used to describe the on-screen mouse pointer.

Cut - Just like it sounds: this function will delete selected information, such as cells in a spreadsheet or a paragraph in a text document.
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