slims computer dictionary

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Mac The Apple Corporation's alternative to the PC, much loved by its devotees but completely incompatible with PCs, though some popular software is also released in Mac format.
Mac address The unique serial number of an Ethernet card, required for connecting a PC to a network. (Nothing to do with Apple Macs, despite the name).
Mailbomb One or more very large emails, sent to someone maliciously to stop them being able to use their mailbox and/or internet connection, because all the available bandwidth is being used up downloading the mailbomb(s). Most ISPs will close down any account responsible for mailbombing. See also Denial of Service.
Mbps (MegaBits Per Second) A measure of speed of information flow over a network (and if it's measured in Mbps, it's pretty quick.) A Megabit is one million bits. See also bps, Kbps.
Megabyte Unit of measurement for pieces of information : approximately 1 million bytes or a thousand kilobytes. Often shortened to Meg or just M. See also Gigabyte, Kilobyte, Byte.
MegaHertz See MHz.
Megapixel A million pixels. Often used to measure the quality of digital cameras : the higher the number the better the camera.
Memory Also known as RAM. Where the computer holds whatever you are currently working on. The contents of memory are lost when the computer is switched off.
MHz (Megahertz). Millions of cycles per second. Most often used as a measurement of a PC processor chip's speed and power, with bigger numbers meaning more speed and a higher price. See also GHz.
Micro (Microcomputer) When desktop computers first appeared in the 1970's, they were often called microcomputers, later shortened to micro, to distinguish them from the so-called minicomputers of the day, which far from sitting on a desk were a good deal bigger than it! There was also a popular home computer called the BBC Micro, now obsolete.
Micro-filter A device which allows you to use an ordinary phone over a telephone line set up for an ADSL internet connection. Sometimes just called a filter.
Microsoft By far the largest software provider for PCs, they created Windows, Microsoft Office (which includes Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint), Internet Explorer and many other widely used programs.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface; pr. "middy") A very popular standard for controlling musical instruments connected to computers. Many soundcards have a built-in synthesizer which can play back MIDI files, though if it's a cheap one they probably won't sound very good. A MIDI file is a set of instructions to play particular notes at particular intervals in particular styles, not a recording.
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension; pr. "mime") An encoding system used in email, mainly for sending attachments. Email was originally designed to just use plain text, so programs, graphics etc have to be sort of disguised as text for email systems to be able to handle them. MIME is more powerful than its predecessor, UUENCODE (pr. you-you-encode), but not all systems accept it.
MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) A scam similar to pyramid selling, much in evidence on the internet, particularly in spam.
Modem (MOdulator/DEModulator) A device for allowing computers to communicate over a phone line. May be either an expansion card, or an external device plugged into one of the serial ports.
Monitor The screen of a PC.
Motherboard The main circuitboard in the computer - all the other bits and pieces are plugged into it.
Mouse A device used to move a pointer around on the computer screen. Essential to get the most out of Windows, though it is not quite impossible to use Windows without one.
Mouse, serial A serial mouse is one that plugs into one of the computer's serial ports, rather than having its own special connector (usually a PS/2 connector), which is more usual on recent PCs.
MP3 (MPeg-1 audio layer 3). A very popular standard for compressing audio and particularly music files down to a reasonable size with little or no perceptible loss of quality, and the files created using it - "an MP3" is an audio file. See MPEG, Compression.
MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group; pr. "em-peg") A set of standards for compressing video and audio files, and the committee that came up with them. Also, often used to mean movie files created to the MPEG standard.

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