Bits and Bytes

A Bit is a single piece of digital information. A Bit can only be one of two states “on” or “off” therefor a single bit can hold only 1 piece of information. To hold more information, bits are combined in groups. A Byte is a group of 8 Bits. Such a group can hold 256 distinct pieces of information.  If more information is required then it can be represented by two or more bytes.

Update
An update is usually a new version of software that fixes problems or bugs that have been reported by users. An update is often downloaded from the manufacturer’s website. An update to Microsoft Windows, for example, might be issued to protect it against a newly identified virus. Updates are usually provided free of charge, although they may only be supplied to users who have purchase a software maintenance contract.

RAID
Redundant Array of Independent Discs. This is a method for storing data across more than one hard disc in such a way to provide some protection against and recovery from the failure of one of those discs.

Macro
A small program that you can setup to perform simple tasks. For example, you can setup macros in Microsoft Excel that will carry out automatic calculations for you.

Mail server
A program that received email messages and distributes then to the correct email addresses. It is the backbone of an email system.

JPEG
Joint Photographics Experts Group. A type of image file format that uses compression techniques to reduce the size of the file on disc. These files will be of the type “anything.jpg”.

Gbyte
Giga Byte. A “byte” is 8 bits of digital information and can be thought of like a character (e.g. the letter “A”) in a text document.  A “Giga Byte” is one thousand, million bytes. This term is used to indicate the size of a file. See also KByte, Mbyte.

DAT
Digital Audio Tape. DATs are mainly used for storing back-up data. They provide a convenient medium for storing large amounts of data where immediate access to the data is not so important. DATs are gradually being replaced by DLTs which offer higher capacity and speed.

We make every effort to speak to our customers in jargon free terms.  Unfortunately some IT concepts and words simply can't be translated and their use in IT project documentation is esential.  To help you make sense of these documents we have created this jargon buster.  If you come across new jargon, please tell us and we'll add it to the list!