Operating instructions

Passport / Mike Meyers‘ A+ Certification Passport / Meyers / 226308-3 / Glossary
disk striping Process by which data is spread among multiple (at least two)
drives. It increases speed for both reads and writes of data. Considered RAID
level 0, because it does not provide fault tolerance.
disk striping with parity A method for providing fault tolerance by writing
data across multiple drives and then including an additional drive, called a
parity drive, that stores information to rebuild the data contained on the other
drives.Requires at least three physical disks: two for the data and a third for the
parity drive. This provides data redundancy at RAID levels 3–5 with different
options.
disk thrashing A term used to describe a hard drive that is constantly being
accessed due to the lack of available system memory. When system memory
runs low, a Windows system utilizes hard disk space as “virtual” memory, thus
causing an unusual amount of hard drive access.
distro Shortened form of “distribution,” most commonly used to describe
the many different delivered packages for Linux operating systems and ap-
plications.
dithering A technique for smoothing out digitized images; using alternating
colors in a pattern to produce perceived color detail.
DMA (direct memory access) A technique that some PC hardware devices
use to transfer data to and from the memory without using the CPU.
DNS (domain name system) A TCP/IP name resolution system that trans
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lates a host name into an IP address.
DNS domain A specific branch of the DNS name space. First-level DNS
domains include .COM, .GOV, and .EDU.
documentation A collection of organized documents or the information re
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corded in documents. In the computer world, instructional material specifying
the inputs, operations, and outputs of a computer program or system; for exam
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ple, a manual and Getting Started card.
Dolby Digital A technology for sound reductions and channeling methods.
domain Term used to describe groupings of users, computers, or networks. In
Microsoft networking, a domain is a group of computers and users that
share a common account database, called a SAM (security accounts manager),
22 MIKE MEYERS’ A+ CERTIFICATION PASSPORT
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