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Dell Latitude D530 (Early 2008) User Manual

Page 166

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166

Glossary

FCC — Federal Communications Commission — A U.S. agency responsible for

enforcing communications-related regulations that state how much radiation

computers and other electronic equipment can emit.
fingerprint reader — A strip sensor that uses your unique fingerprint to authenticate

your user identity to help secure your computer.
folder — A term used to describe space on a disk or drive where files are organized and

grouped. Files in a folder can be viewed and ordered in various ways, such as

alphabetically, by date, and by size.
format — The process that prepares a drive or disk for file storage. When a drive or

disk is formatted, the existing information on it is lost.
FSB — front side bus — The data path and physical interface between the processor

and RAM.
FTP — file transfer protocol — A standard Internet protocol used to exchange files

between computers connected to the Internet.

G

G — gravity — A measurement of weight and force.
GB — gigabyte — A measurement of data storage that equals 1024 MB

(1,073,741,824 bytes). When used to refer to hard drive storage, the term is often

rounded to 1,000,000,000 bytes.
GHz — gigahertz — A measurement of frequency that equals one thousand million

Hz, or one thousand MHz. The speeds for computer processors, buses, and interfaces

are often measured in GHz.
graphics mode — A video mode that can be defined as x horizontal pixels by y vertical

pixels by z colors. Graphics modes can display an unlimited variety of shapes and

fonts.
GUI — graphical user interface — Software that interacts with the user by means of

menus, windows, and icons. Most programs that operate on the Windows operating

systems are GUIs.

H

hard drive — A drive that reads and writes data on a hard disk. The terms hard drive

and hard disk are often used interchangeably.
heat sink — A metal plate on some processors that helps dissipate heat.
hibernate mode — A power management mode that saves everything in memory to a

reserved space on the hard drive and then turns off the computer. When you restart