Tough-Guy Tech Terminology

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. It’s vacation time and I was just in Vegas, which is now one of my favorite places. So, to honor the spirit of Vegas, I have compiled a random list of off-the-cuff, sort-of cool terms used by the toughest of techs…

Daisy Chain – A sequential series of uniform connections, i.e., plugging a surge protector into another surge protector for more outlets.

Data Drop – A jack or wall-outlet providing various connections and network accessibility.

Ghost – The name of a Symantec program, it is a clone or replicated image of a disk.

Hard Reboot – Forcibly restarting by unplugging or powering-off a device. Also known as a “Cold Reboot.”

Outage – A power or equipment failure that results in service unavailability or downtime.

Patch Cable – A cable used to route signal to a device.

POST – The “Power On Self Test,” is a pre-boot sequence, and is the first thing displayed after turning on a computer.

Power Cycle – Process of turning a device off and on again.

Power Strip – A surge protector or line of electrical outlets.

Ream – Unit of measurement for 500 sheets of paper.

Soft Reboot – Restarting by means of software or a system command. Also known as a “Warm Reboot.”

Swap – A spare piece of equipment that can readily replace another.

Throw – The range of distance a projector must be from its screen (has both maximum and minimum constraints).

Ticket – A notably lame and uncool term, refers to an incident documented and recorded by an Issue Tracking System.

Toggle – Switching through or between program states one at a time. A good example of toggling is pressing the button on a TV remote control to select the desired video device.

Troubleshoot – Using process of elimination to search for and diagnose the source of a problem.

WYSIWYG – Acronym for “What You See Is What You Get.” A visual text or content editor that automatically generates the code necessary for publication to the web or similar.

Enjoy the pictures!