CIO

Are you a Know-It-All? Storage as a Service

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is Storage as a Service (SaaS)

Storage as a Service is a business model in which a company rents space in their storage infrastructure to individual end users or businesses. In the enterprise, Storage as a Service is being driven by economic factors, as well as runaway data growth, compliance requirements, security issues and disaster recovery mandates.

Are you a Know-IT-All? Test your knowledge of tech vocabulary!

Secret Word of the Day

This is a conventional storage model, in which space is allocated beyond current needs, in anticipation of growing need and increased data complexity.
Answer

Acronym Challenge

On a storage area network, TP is a flexible storage allocation scheme where each user is assigned a minimum amount of storage space depending on what’s required for them to do their job effectively. What does TP stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia

What’s the name of Amazon’s Storage as a Service?
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

Storage as a Service FAQ

Small storage vendors walk in the clouds, too

Tech Trivia Challenge - digital television

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is digital television

Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital rather than conventional analog methods. Advantages of DTV include better resolution and compatibility with computers and the Internet. Analog television broadcasts are scheduled to stop in 2009.

Are you a Know-IT-All? Test your knowledge of tech vocabulary!

Secret Word of the Day
This term describes the relationship between the height and the width of a display. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Tech Trivia
Where would you find an electron gun in your old TV set or monitor?
Answer

Word Scramble
Unscramble the letters to see something an older TV set needs to display digital broadcasts:
est-pot oxb
Answer

Acronym Challenge
An EPG for digital TV allows the user to interact with a guide to scheduled programming. What does EPG stand for?
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

Cisco banks on DTV for the enterprise
In 2008, Cisco announced products and applications to drive the market for enterprise video and digital television for business.

White paper: Successfully delivering Internet television
Internet television offers new opportunities for generating greater revenues and reaching wider audiences.

Tech Trivia Challenge - Ogg Vorbis

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is Ogg Vorbis

Vorbis is an open source patent-free audio compression format, developed as a replacement for proprietary digital audio encoding formats, such as MP3, VQF, and AAC. Vorbis files compress to a smaller size than MP3 files, which reduces bandwidth and storage requirements. According to many reports, a Vorbis file provides better sound quality than an MP3 file of the same size.

Are you a Know-IT-All? Test your knowledge of tech vocabulary!

Secret Word of the Day
This word describes sound in the range that’s audible to humans. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Tech Trivia
Does sound move more quickly through air or a solid?
Answer (Scroll to the second paragraph.)

Word Scramble
Unscramble the letters to see the name of the pattern created by audible energy:
undos avwe
Answer

Acronym Challenge
Vorbis is an audio codec. What does “codec” stand for?
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

USB audio glitches
Serdar Yegualp explains how to deal with USB audio problems, such as stuttering and glitching.

Tech Trivia Challenge - flash mobs

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is flash mob

A flash mob is a group of people who organize themselves, using electronic media such as cell phones or the Internet, to gather together in a public place, behave in a predetermined manner for a predetermined period of time, and then quickly disperse. The first flash mobs were considered either pranks or performance art. More recently, flash mobs have gathered for other purposes, including protests and charity. Last week, T-Mobile used the flash mob concept for an ad.

Are you a Know-IT-All? Test your knowledge of tech vocabulary!

Secret Word of the Day
In this model of human interaction, people expand their connections by accessing the connections of acquaintances. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Tech Trivia
Who first proposed the “six degrees of separation” theory?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
GPS messaging is a little like a digital sticky note that mobile users access when they enter a specific location. What does GPS stand for?
Answer

Word Scramble
Unscramble the letters for the name of a device that became prominent because of its wireless email capabilities:
rabbyclerk
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

Twitter tries to shore up security in wake of hack attack
As many as 33 high profile Twitter accounts were breached just days after a widespread phishing scam targeted users of the social network.

Sales 2.0
This white paper explores how sales and marketing professionals are using online collaboration and social networking to spark sales.

Know IT all quiz - Ubuntu

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an open source Debian-based Linux distribution that is considered suitable for users without extensive technical knowledge. Ubuntu distributions include Edubuntu (for educational users), Xubuntu (for users with limited processing power) and JeOS (for “just enough operating system,” a lightweight version for virtual appliances).

Are you a Know-IT-All? Test your knowledge of tech vocabulary!

Secret Word of the Day
Ubuntu is often run from this type of distribution — an operating system on some bootable medium.  What’s the secret word?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
GIMP is a freely available open source application for creating and manipulating graphic images. What does GIMP stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia
Fill in the missing Ubuntu codename: _____ _____; Intrepid Ibex; Jaunty Jackalope
Answer

Acronym Challenge
GIMP is a freely available open source application for creating and manipulating graphic images. What does GIMP stand for?
Answer

Word Scramble
Unscramble these letters to see a software distribution model that allows code to be copied, modified and distributed along with the same stipulation:
pycflote
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

Pam Derringer reports on the release of Ubuntu 8.10.

The Enterprise Linux Log blog covers Ubuntu.

Know IT All Quiz - Macintosh

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is Macintosh

The Macintosh was the first widely-sold personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) and a mouse. Apple introduced the Macintosh (popularly known as the Mac) on January 24th, 1984.

Are you a Know-IT-All? Test your knowledge of tech vocabulary!

Secret Word of the Day
Twenty years ago, computers were usually referred to as either Apples or ____ -compatible. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
What does the X in OS X stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia
How did people interact with computers before the introduction of the GUI?
Answer

Word Scramble
Unscramble the letters to see a word for something simulated on a computer screen:
spokedt
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

See specs for the original Mac and the commercial that introduced it.

Wikipedia has an entry about the Macintosh.

Apple offers a Macintosh product guide.

CNET News looks at the future of the Mac.

Tech Trivia Challenge - cryptography

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is cryptography.
Cryptography, the science of information security, is most often associated with scrambling plaintext into ciphertext then back again. The four main objectives of cryptography are confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation and authentication.

Are you a Know-IT-All?

Secret Word of the Day
This type of encryption makes it possible for text to be decrypted into two different messages, depending on the key used. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
FDE automatically converts data on a hard drive into a form that cannot be understood by anyone who doesn’t have the key to undo the conversion. What does FDE stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia
What’s the difference between cleartext and plaintext?
Answer (Scroll to the second paragraph.)

Learn Something New Every Day

Learn how cryptography, its components, methods and uses are employed in the enterprise to store and transmit messages safely.

IT Knowledge Exchange: Questions and answers about encryption

Tech Trivia Challenge - IPv6

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is IPv6.

IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) is the latest level of the Internet Protocol. IP addresses are lengthened from 32 bits to 128 bits to deal with an anticipated shortage. IPv4 address space allowed for four billion IP addresses, not quite enough for everyone on the planet to have one. IPv6 address space enables enormous future growth.

Are you a Know-IT-All?

Secret Word of the Day
You might hear this term used to describe the movement of birds or herds of caribou. In IT, it’s the process of moving from one operating environment to another. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
ARIN administers IP addresses in the United States. What does ARIN stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia
How can you find the dot address for a given domain name?
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

Podcast: IPv6 in 10 minutes

IT Knowledge Exchange: IPv6 questions and answers

Tech Trivia Challenge - IPTV

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is IPTV.

IPTV (Internet Protocol television) is the delivery of programming by video stream encoded as a series of IP packets. IPTV is distributed by a service provider, can be free or fee-based and can deliver either live TV or stored video. It can be bundled with other Internet Protocol services, including VoIP and high-speed Internet access.

Are you a Know-IT-All?

Secret Word of the Day
This term describes communication between a single sender and multiple receivers on a network. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
IPTV might be delivered via a CDN. What does CDN stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia
What does a triple-play network deliver?
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

This free chapter download offers a crash course in IPTV.

This Eurocomms.com article predicts battles ahead between IPTV and iTV.

Tech Trivia Challenge - Top Search Terms in 2008

Our WhatIs.com Tech Term is Top search terms of 2008
You asked for them and here they are — we’ve assembled a list of the terms most often searched on the site this past year.

Are you a Know-IT-All?

Secret Word of the Day
This term refers to any commonly used word (such as “the”) that a search engine has been programmed to ignore. What’s the secret word?
Answer

Acronym Challenge
ARPU is an expression of the income generated by a typical subscriber or device per unit time in a telecommunications network. What does ARPU stand for?
Answer

Tech Trivia
Number #1 on our list this year was SAP, a company started in Germany by five former employees of a certain technology company. What company did SAP’s founders originally work for?
Answer

Learn Something New Every Day

2008 was a challenging year for security. What will 2009 bring? See Five predictions for Web security trends and changes in 2009.

An expert explores whether security and compliance concerns in the cloud could hinder the viability of cloud computing.