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Dell Inpsiron 560 (Late 2009) User Manual

Page 344

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344

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
the computer, the memory information that was saved to the hard drive is
automatically restored.