| Term |
Description |
Desktop |
When
an Operating System that uses a Graphical User Interface (GUI)
is finished loading, the screen that is initially displayed
is called the Desktop. When you run a program or open a folder
it appears in a window on the Desktop. |
Defragment |
Your
computer can slow down when files become fragmented. This
means that the clusters the file is stored in are not physically
next to each other on the disk. The read/write heads have
to travel further to read the file. By defragmenting, files
are rewritten to the disk in contiguous clusters thus speeding
up data retrieval. |
Diffuse |
A
technique to create a gray-scale image. Pixel patterns aren't
set; they change gradually throughout the image. |
DVD |
Digital
Video Disk. A type of CD-ROM format that is faster and can
hold more data than a regular CD-ROM. It still has the ability
to read older CDs, but a DVD disk can hold more than 8 gigabytes
(as opposed to 750 Mb) and can display full-motion picture
videos. |
DriveSpace |
DriveSpace
is a Microsoft utility that is supposed to increase the amount
of space on your hard drive. What it actually does is compress
the files on your drive and create a single large file that
contains all the compressed. The compression and decompression
takes place in the background, unnoticeable to the user. |
DRAM |
Dynamic
Random Access Memory. The most common type of system RAM.
It comes in several different flavors, EDO, FPM, SDRAM. It
uses less space, less power, and is cheaper than static RAM,
but it has to be refreshed every millisecond or it loses its
information. |
Dot
Pitch |
The
distance between pixels of the same color on a monitor screen. |
Display
Adapter |
An
adapter board or interface card that fits into a slot on the
motherboard and controls the video signal sent to the monitor. |
DIP
Switch |
A
small switch on a circuit board or some other device that
holds configuration or setup information for that device. |
