A-B,

Apple,

type of computer. Apple has true plug-and-play capabilities. They are best known for their power macintosh line that can read IBM compatible and Apple compatible software. Not all apples can.

Applet,

associated with Java. An applet is an application made to usually do something on the internet. Some things that an applet can do is have the screen flash many different colors, wavy text, games such as black jack and space invaders, and scrolling text. There are many different applets each doing certain things. You cannot just get one applet and have it do these things.

Application,

term that mainly means a set of instructions for the computer. Almost anything you use for the computer fits under this category. Some examples of applications are word processors, games, internet browsers, and spreadsheets.

Back up,

to have another copy of files or applications. This is so that if your hard drive was ever erased you would have all of the information stored on that drive. Every computer should have a set of disks backing up all of the files and information on that computer.

Basic,

Microsoft's application maker using special commands to do certain things. Microsoft and other companies have other programming languages and tools that are better, but Basic is usually included with DOS. Of all of the programming languages, this is by far the simplest to learn and use, but is very limited. Some of the graphical capabilities do not compare to some of the other programming languages out there.

Batch files,

file format used for DOS ( Directory Operating System) so that you do not have to type the entire path name. This is an application type where you would type for example word at the prompt and it would be programmed to type in its path to open your word processor. The file extension for batch files is .bat.

Baud,

speed of modem. This term has not been used as much recently, but is still used in some places. For example, I have a 14.4 baud modem. 14.4 means 1,440 bytes per second.

Browser,

used for the internet and opening .Gif, .txt, .jpg, and .htm or .html formats. Those file formats are also what is used on the internet, but there can be more. The two main browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator. Both have many capabilities the same and different from each other. A browser can usually read news groups, e-mail, gopher sites, and FTP ( File Transfer Protocol) sites.

Bubble jet,

type of printer. Better than a dot matrix, but not as good as a laser printer.

Bulletin Board Services,

dial-in computers where you can usually chat, play low graphical games, and download files. Some Bulletin Board Services, also known as BBS, allow you to send e-mail to other users on that BBS.

Byte,

hard drive capacity unit. For example, there are 1,000 bytes in a kilobyte and 1,000 kilobytes in a megabyte. Also, there are 1,000 megabytes in a gigabyte.

C

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