Dell XPS M2010 MXP061 XPS M2010 Owners Manual - Page 26

Back to Contents Page Glossary Dell™ XPS™ M2010 Owner's Manual Terms in this Glossary are provided for informational purposes only and may or may not describe features included with your particular computer. A AC - alternating current - The form of electricity that powers your computer when you plug the AC adapter power cable in to an electrical outlet. ACPI - advanced configuration and power interface - A power management specification that enables Microsoft® Windows® operating systems to put a computer in standby or hibernate mode to conserve the amount of electrical power allocated to each device attached to the computer. AGP - accelerated graphics port - A dedicated graphics port that allows system memory to be used for video-related tasks. AGP delivers a smooth, true-color video image because of the faster interface between the video circuitry and the computer memory. AHCI - Advanced Host Controller Interface - An interface for a SATA hard drive Host Controller which allows the storage driver to enable technologies such as Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and hot plug. ALS - ambient light sensor. antivirus software - A program designed to identify, quarantine, and/or delete viruses from your computer. ASF - alert standards format - A standard to define a mechanism for reporting hardware and software alerts to a management console. ASF is designed to be independent of the platform and operating system. B battery life span - The length of time (years) during which a portable computer battery is able to be depleted and recharged. battery operating time - The length of time (minutes or hours) that a portable computer battery powers the computer. BD - Blu-ray Disc™ - An optical disc format meant for high definition video (HD) and high density data storage. BD-R - BD recordable - A recordable version of a BD. Data can be recorded only once onto a BD-R. Once recorded, the data cannot be erased or written over. BD-RE - BD rewritable - A rewritable version of a BD. Data can be written to a BD-RE disc, and then erased and written over (rewritten). BD-RE drive - An optical drive that can read and write to CDs, DVDs, and BDs. BIOS - basic input/output system - A program (or utility) that serves as an interface between the computer hardware and the operating system. Unless you understand what effect these settings have on the computer, do not change them. Also referred to as system setup. bit - The smallest unit of data interpreted by your computer. ® Bluetooth wireless technology - A wireless technology standard for short-range (9 m [29 feet]) networking devices that allows for enabled devices to automatically recognize each other. boot sequence - Specifies the order of the devices from which the computer attempts to boot. bootable media - Media, such as a floppy disk or CD, that you can use to start your computer. In case your hard drive is damaged or your computer has a virus, ensure that you always have bootable media available. Your Drivers and Utilities disc is bootable media. bps - bits per second - The standard unit for measuring data transmission speed. BTU - British thermal unit - A measurement of heat output. bus - A communication pathway between the components in your computer. bus speed - The speed, given in MHz, that indicates how fast a bus can transfer information. byte - The basic data unit used by your computer. A byte is usually equal to 8 bits. C C - Celsius - A temperature measurement scale where 0° is the freezing point and 100° is the boiling point of water. cache - A special high-speed storage mechanism that can be either a reserved section of main memory or an independent high-speed storage device. The cache enhances the efficiency of many processor operations. L1 cache - Primary cache stored inside the processor.