ADSL - Advanced Digital Subscriber Line

AGP - Advanced Graphics Port

BIOS - Basic Input Output System - provides basic instrucions, to PC hardware, coded in ROM

bit - building block of all digital systems. Has a binary value of 1 or 0. On or off

Byte - made up of 8 bits (eg: 10110111) and equating to a decimal value between 0 and 255 (binary between 00000000 and 11111111)

Blog - Abbreviation of 'Weblog' any form of instant text publishing software (blogger, movable type etc) where 'bloggers' create flexible journal like sites from their own and aggregated content

Bluetooth - Short-range two-way digital radio for device communications within a PAN

CF - Compact Flash (memory card suitable for variety of portable devices)

CGI - Common Gateway Interface

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DNS - Domain Name System

FSB - Front Side Bus

FTP - File Transfer Protocol

GIF (.gif) - Graphics Interchange Format (eg: button.gif)

GPRS - General Packet Radio Service ('Always On' Mobile Internet)

GSM - Global System for Mobile Communication (2G Mobile)

GUI - Graphical Use Interface

HTML (.html) - Hyper Text Markup Language (eg: page1.html)

HTTP - Hyper Text Transport Protocol (eg: http://www.makeitcrete.com)

IP - Internet Protocol

IP Address - 4 groups of 8 bits (converted to decimal eg: 232.97.202.47) which gives a unique number for addressing host servers and other internet connected hardware.

IP (WIPO) - Intellectual Property (World Intellectual Property Organisation)

IRC - Internet Relay Chat

ISP - Internet Service Provider

JPEG (.jpg / .jpeg) - Joint Photographic Experts Group

LAN - Local Access Network

MIME - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

NIC - Network Interface Card

OS - Operating System (eg: Windows XP Home, Red Hat Linux, OS-X, Free BSD etc)

OS - Open Source

P2P - Peer to Peer

Paired Devices - Two devices that have performed a digital handshake in a PAN (eg: phone and laptop)

PAN - Personal Area Network

.pdf - Portable Document Format - File extension associated with Acrobat (Adobe)

PHP - PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. Open source scripting language embedded in HTML pages for dynamic content

.png - Portable Network Graphic format

POP - Post Office Protocol

POST - Power On Self Test

PPP - Point to Point Protocol

.psd - File extension created by Photoshop (Adobe)

PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network

RAID - Redundant Array of Independent (Inexpensive) Disks (Drives). Way of making disks within a server act as a single storage drive that is tolerant of the loss of physical individual disks to various degrees within Level0 - Level5

RAM - Random Access Memory

ROM - Read Only Memory

SMTP - Simple Mail Transport Protocol

SQL - Structured Query Language

SSL - Secure Socket Layer

TCP - Transfer Control Protocol

TLD - Top Level Domain

URL - Universal Resource Locator (a web address)

USB - Universal Serial Bus (connect up to 127 devices)

VPN - Virtual Private Network

WAN - Wide Area Network

WAP - Wireless Application Protocol (2 1/2 G Mobile)

WiFi - Wireless Fidelity. Applied to wireless protocols

.wps - File extension created by M$ Works