CompTIA A_ Certification All-In-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition - Michael Meyers [483]
80-wire ribbon cable PATA cable used to attach fast EIDE devices (such as ATA/100 hard drives) or ATAPI devices (such as optical drives) to a system (See PATA).
802.11a Wireless networking standard that operates in the 5-GHz band with a theoretical maximum throughput of 54 Mbps.
802.11b Wireless networking standard that operates in the 2.4-GHz band with a theoretical maximum throughput of 11 Mbps.
802.11g Wireless networking standard that operates in the 2.4-GHz band with a theoretical maximum throughput of 54 Mbps and is backward compatible with 802.11b.
802.11n Wireless networking standard that can operate in both the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands and uses MIMO to achieve a theoretical maximum throughput of 100+ Mbps.
A/V sync Process of synchronizing audio and video.
AC (alternating current) Type of electricity in which the flow of electrons alternates direction, back and forth, in a circuit.
AC’97 Sound card standard for lower-end audio devices; created when most folks listened to stereo sound at best.
access control Security concept using physical security, authentication, users and groups, and security policies.
ACPI (advanced configuration and power interface) Power management specification that far surpasses its predecessor, APM, by providing support for hot-swappable devices and better control of power modes.
activation Process of confirming that an installed copy of a Microsoft product (most commonly Windows or a Microsoft Office application) is legitimate. Usually done at the end of software installation.
active matrix Type of liquid crystal display that replaced the passive matrix technology used in most portable computer displays. Also called TFT (thin film transistor).
active partition On a hard drive, primary partition that contains an operating system.
active PFC (power factor correction) Circuitry built into PC power supplies to reduce harmonics.
ad hoc mode Decentralized wireless network mode, otherwise known as peer-to-peer mode, where each wireless node is in meshed contact with every other node.
Add or Remove Programs Applet allowing users to manually add or remove a program from the system.
address bus Wires leading from the CPU to the memory controller chip (usually the Northbridge) that enable the CPU to address RAM. Also used by the CPU for I/O addressing. An internal electronic channel from the microprocessor to random access memory, along which the addresses of memory storage locations are transmitted. Like a post office box, each memory location has a distinct number or address; the address bus provides the means by which the microprocessor can access every location in memory.
address space Total amount of memory addresses that an address bus can contain.
administrative shares Administrator tool to give local admins access to hard drives and system root folders.
Administrative Tools Group of Control Panel applets, including Computer Management, Event Viewer, and Reliability and Performance Monitor.
Administrator account User account, created when the OS is first installed, that is allowed complete, unfettered access to the system without restriction.
Administrators group List of members with complete administrator privileges.
ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) Fully digital, dedicated connection to the telephone system that provides average download speeds of 7 Mbps and upload speeds of 512 Kbps.
Advanced Startup Options menu Menu that can be reached during the boot process that offers advanced OS startup options, such as boot in Safe mode or boot into Last Known Good Configuration.
adware Type of malicious program that downloads ads to a user’s computer, generating undesirable network traffic.
Aero The Windows Vista desktop environment. Aero adds some interesting aesthetic effects such as window transparency and Flip 3D.
AGP (accelerated graphics port) 32/64-bit expansion slot designed by Intel specifically for video that runs at 66 MHz and yields a throughput of at least 254 Mbps. Later