Information Technologies

Explanatory Dictionary - MNP

Megabyte - MB

This is a measurement used in digital systems such as PCs to describe storage capacity (usually RAM, Hard Drive capacity is mostly stated in Gigabytes these days).

Mathematically one Megabyte is 2²⁰ (1,048,576)

One megabyte is equal to 1024 Kilobytes, so a memory module with a capacity of 256MB can store 268,435,456 Bytes.

MHz - Megahertz

A frequency measurement, refers to millions of cycles per second, for example a processor running at 500 MHz can handle 500 Million cycles per second. See also GHz, 1 MHz is equal to 1,000,000 Hz. Hertz is named after Physicist Heinrich Hertz.

MODEM - MOdulator DEModulator

A communications device used to connect to a network such as the internet.

Modems come in various different forms, the most common is the internal modem which uses a PCI interface to connect to the motherboard. Some motherboards come with modems built-in.

Another type of modem is the external, which, as the name suggests is not inside the case and has it's own power supply. It is connected by way of a cable, which can be serial, USB etc.

MP3 - MPeg-1 audio layer 3

Refers to an audio file which has been compressed using the MPEG compression standard. Using this standard greatly reduces the physical size of the audio file with little or no loss of sound quality.

MPEG - Motion Picture Experts Group

A compression standard used for compressing Video and Audio files to a smaller physical size, the compression is achieved by not recording every frame but only the changes between the frames. Motion Picture Experts Group is the name given to the group of people responsible for inventing the standard.

MPEG files have either the .mpeg or .mpg file extension and are a very common format due to the high compression.

The main implementations of MPEG are:

MPEG-1 - video resolution of 352x240px at 30 frames per second

MPEG-2 - video resolution of up to 1280x720 at 60 frames per second

these are the most common and the ones you are likely to come across.

MS-DOS - MicroSoft Disk operating System

This is the system that Windows based machines use to access and maintain storage devices.

NIC - Network Interface Card

An NIC (network interface card) is an expansion card that provides connectivity between a PC and a network such as a LAN, NICs are sometimes called ethernet adapters.

Network Interface Cards (NICs) can be internal or external add-ons and come with various specifications, one of which is transfer rate although most modern network interface cards support up to 100Mbps, and the more expensive Gigabit ethernet cards supporting up to 1000Mbps.

NTFS - New Technology File System

NTFS (New Technology File System) is a file system used by the Windows NT operating system (and is also supported by Windows XP).

The NTFS file system uses a MFT (Master File Table) to locate all files within an NTFS volume, all critical data is duplicated to allow error recovery ensuring the loss of one sector will not mean the loss of the entire partition. Additionally it can recover data from a bad sector and ensure the bad sector is not used again.

NTFS also includes some advanced security features, including the ability to password protect individual files and/or folders.

PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect

Originally developed by Intel, PCI refers to a cross platform local bus technology integrated into modern motherboards.

PCI slots are used to connect a computer's internal components such as modems, sound-cards, network cards, etc.

There are 2 different implementations of PCI, one which is a 32-bit bus running at 33Mhz and the other (PCI 2.0) which is a 64-bit bus running at 66Mhz.

The development of the PCI bus specification is controlled by PCI-SIG whose board is made up of members of Adaptec, AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix Technologies and more.

PDF - Portable Document Format

PDF (Portable Document Format) is a universal file format developed by Adobe^® that preserves all the fonts, formatting, graphics, and colour of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it.

You will find PDF a very common format which is widely used on the internet due to its platform independence.

To view PDF files you need Adobe Acrobat Reader.

PIXEL - Picture Element

Refers to individual 'bits' of data that form an image, also refers to screen resolution, for example 800x600 is 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels high, 1024x768 is 1024 pixels wide and 768 pixels high.

PnP - Plug and Play

Plug and Play was developed by Intel and Microsoft and was designed to simplify the installation of new hardware. Windows 95 was the first operating system to include Plug and Play technology.

Plug and Play compatible devices communicate with the operating system allowing automated configuration, when a Plug and Play device is connected and the machine re-booted (if not USB) the operating system will acknowledge the new hardware and prompt you for the installation disk that came with the hardware. The device drivers should then be automatically installed.

POP - Post Office Protocol

A POP (Post Office Protocol) server allows you to receive your mail through an email client program such as Outlook or Netscape Messenger, this allows you to just connect to retrieve your mail from your email provider, and then you can read your mail offline and can reduce your online time.

PSU - Power Supply Unit

This regulates and distributes the power to the components inside your PC.

The standard now is ATX which can be accessed by the motherboard/software to enable the PSU to be "put to sleep", conserve energy or shut down.