8 scary computer words that mean nothing special
Anyone who has not made a career out of the inner workings of computer technology can sometimes be confused and a bit annoyed by some of the jargon they use. The thing is, most of the time they don’t need fancy words, they just make up some because they want to. Here are some fancy computer words that have really simple meanings.
1) Dongle: It’s a fun-sounding word. The dongle was originally a very short cable that plugs into a USB port and has a card reader on the other end. Now it means anything that connects to a USB port. A dongle is a flash drive.
2) Bootstrap – You’ve heard of the phrase “get up with the bootstraps” or Bootstrap Bill from Pirates of the Caribbean. In computing terms, it means a system that is self-sufficient, but a fully self-sufficient computer is a paradox. A human must initiate the process before a computer can take over. Bootstrapping is really just a cheat 22 from a computer.
3) Hot swappable – This term specifically refers to servers. It means the ability for a server to physically switch hard drives without having to turn it off first. Believe it or not, most servers cannot do this, only certain types of blade servers.
4) Java: Most of the people know that Java is a programming language. The confusion here comes from the name itself. Most people assume that Java is an acronym. But the people who created it simply chose a name from a random list. They later assigned the letters to an acronym, just to please (and possibly annoy) the public: Just Another Vague Acronym.
5) Liveware – If you have a person in charge of computers to check your system and tell you something about a liveware problem, you are being made fun of. Most computer problems are software or hardware problems. Liveware refers to a computer problem that is neither hardware nor software, but user error.
6) Nerd: Well, this one is not confusing. It just has a really interesting story. The original spelling of this word was “knurd” and it referred to college students who never partied and always studied, unlike the opposite children who were called “drunkards.” In case you haven’t noticed yet, write “drunk” backwards.
7) Wiki: we all know this word in context; Wikipedia or Wiki leaks. But what does the word itself mean? Wiki is based on a Hawaiian term that means really fast and is named after the Wiki Wiki shuttle buses at the Honolulu airport. The name refers to the speed of the information available in the groupware.
8) Chassis – This is a super fancy word with a not so fancy meaning. It’s literally just the case, the frame for the innards of the computer. The word is used a lot when talking about servers. But it’s actually kind of like the HP blade server enclosure. The skin around the head.