KBps — Kilobyte(s) per second.

key combination — A command requiring you to press multiple keys at the same time (for example, <Ctrl><Alt><Del>).

kg — Kilogram(s); 1000 grams.

kHz — Kilohertz.

KMM — Keyboard/monitor/mouse.

KVM — Keyboard/video/mouse. KVM refers to a switch that allows selection of the system from which the video is displayed and for which the keyboard and mouse are used.

LAN — Local area network. A LAN is usually confined to the same building or a few nearby buildings, with all equipment linked by wiring dedicated specifically to the LAN.

lb — Pound(s).

LCD — Liquid crystal display.

LED — Light-emitting diode. An electronic device that lights up when a current is passed through it.

Linux — A UNIX-like operating system that runs on a variety of hardware systems. Linux is open source software, which is freely available; however, the full distribution of Linux along with technical support and training are available for a fee from vendors such as Red Hat Software.

local bus — On a system with local-bus expansion capability, certain peripheral devices (such as the video adapter circuitry) can be designed to run much faster than they would with a traditional expansion bus. See also bus.

LVD — Low voltage differential.

m— Meter(s).

mA — Milliampere(s).

MAC address — Media Access Control address. Your system’s unique hardware number on a network.

mAh — Milliampere-hour(s).

Mb — Megabit(s); 1,048,576 bits.

MB — Megabyte(s); 1,048,576 bytes. However, when referring to hard-drive capacity, the term is often rounded to mean 1,000,000 bytes.

Mbps — Megabits per second.

MBps — Megabytes per second.

MBR — Master boot record.

memory address — A specific location, usually expressed as a hexadecimal number, in the system’s RAM.

memory module — A small circuit board containing DRAM chips that connects to the system board.

memory — An area in your system that stores basic system data. A system can contain several different forms of memory, such as integrated memory (ROM and RAM) and add-in memory modules (DIMMs).

MHz — Megahertz.

mirroring — A type of data redundancy in which a set of physical drives stores data and one or more sets of additional drives stores duplicate copies of the data. Mirroring functionality is provided by software. See also guarding, integrated mirroring, striping, and RAID.

mm— Millimeter(s).

ms — Millisecond(s).

MS-DOS®— Microsoft Disk Operating System.

NAS — Network Attached Storage. NAS is one of the concepts used for implementing shared storage on a network. NAS systems have their own operating systems, integrated hardware, and software that are optimized to serve specific storage needs.

NIC — Network interface controller. A device that is installed or integrated in a system to allow connection to a network.

NMI — Nonmaskable interrupt. A device sends an NMI to signal the processor about hardware errors.

ns — Nanosecond(s).

NTFS — The NT File System option in the Windows 2000 operating system.

150Glossary