Wi-Fi Recognition

The term Wi-Fi, first used commercially in August 1999, coined by Interbrand Corporation that was hired by the The Wi-Fi Alliance to determine a name that was somewhat catchier than IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence. Interbrand Corporation invented Wi-Fi as a play on words with Hi-Fi, and also created the yin yang-style Wi-Fi logo.

The original patents behind 802.11 Wi-Fi technology, filed in 1996, are held by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), an Australian research body. The patents have been the subject of extended and ongoing legal battles between the CSIRO and major IT corporations over the non-payment of royalties. In 2009 the CSIRO reached a settlement with 14 companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Dell, Toshiba, ASUS, Microsoft and Nintendo, on the condition that the CSIRO did not broadcast the resolution.

Apple Lisa

The Apple Lisa was a revolutionary personal computer designed at Apple Computer during the early 1980s.

The Lisa project was started at Apple in 1978 and evolved into a project to design a powerful personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI) that would be targeted toward business customers.

Around 1982, Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project, so he joined the Macintosh project instead. Contrary to popular belief, the Macintosh is not a direct descendant of Lisa, although there are obvious similarities between the systems and a later version was sold as the Macintosh XL.

Back in 1996 the base price of a Lisa was $9 995US ($20,600 in Nov. 2006 dollars). It was one of the first commercial personal computers to have a GUI and a mouse. It used a Motorola 68000 CPU at a 5 MHz clock rate and had the total of 1 MB RAM. The first Lisa had two custom 5¼ inch floppy disk drives designed with two head assemblies, one per side, which could seek independently. These drives required custom media with two head openings. They were nicknamed "Twiggy" drives. An optional external 5 MB Apple ProFile hard drive (originally designed for the Apple III) was also offered on purchace. The later Lisa 2 models used a single 3½ inch floppy disk drive and optional 5 or 10 MB internal hard disks. In 1984, at the same time the Macintosh was officially announced, Apple announced that it was providing free 5 MB hard drive upgrades to all Lisa 1 owners.

Lisa had recently (3 days ago) celebrated its 23rd birthday (in a dump or a computer collectors home) after being discontinues during August of 1986 where 2 700 were buried in a landfill in Logan, Utah. Though Apple had acheived a large tax write off on the Lisas. Though like most GUI computers Lisas are a fairly valuable collectable item and are worth a hundreds or even thousands of dollars now.

Hard Disk

A hard disk ,commonly known as a HDD (hard disk drive) or hard drive and formerly known as a fixed disk, is a digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. Strictly speaking, "drive" refers to an entire unit containing multiple platters, a read/write head assembly, driver electronics, and motor while "hard disk" (sometimes "platter") refers to the storage medium itself.

Hard disks were originally developed for use only with computers. Though in the 21st century, applications for hard disks have expanded beyond computers to include digital video recorders, digital audio players, personal digital assistants and digital cameras. In 2005 the first mobile phones to include hard disks were introduced by Samsung Group and Nokia. The need for large-scale, reliable storage, independent of a particular device, led to the introduction of configurations such as RAID, hardware such as network attached storage (NAS) devices, and systems such as storage area networks (SANs) for efficient access to large volumes of data.

NeXTcube Workstation

A NeXTcube was used by Tim Berners-Lee as the world's first web server, and also to write the first web browser. The NeXTcube was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by the NeXT computer company from 1988 until 1993. It ran the NeXTSTEP operating system. The NeXTcube was released as a modern, futuristic computer for the 1990s that would change the way computers were used. Several models were produced, including the NeXTcube 030 (25 MHz), 040 (25 MHz) and Turbo (33 MHz). It costed around US$6500. The NeXTcube came with a NeXT MegaPixel 17" monitor (with built-in speakers), a keyboard and mouse.

NeXT later released the NeXTdimension for the Cube, a board based on an intel860, which offers 32-bit PostScript color display and video sampling features. The Cube was commercially unsuccessful, due to its high price. However, some are still used around the world as servers.

ADSL

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is a form of DSL, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional modem can provide.

For conventional ADSL, downstream rates start at 128 kbit/s (though a minimum offering of 512 kbit/s is more common) and typically reach 8 Mbit/s within 1.5 km (5000 ft) of the DSLAM equipped central office or remote terminal. Upstream rates start at 64 kbit/s and typically reach 128 kbit/s or 256 kbit/s but can go as high as 1024 kbit/s. The name ADSL Lite is sometimes used for the slower versions.

A newer variant called ADSL2 provides higher downstream rates of up to 12 Mbit/s for spans of less than 2.5 km (8000 ft). More flexible framing and error correction configurations are responsible for these increased speeds. ADSL2+, also referred to as ITU G.992.5, boosts these rates to up to 24 Mbit/s for spans of less than 1.5 km (5000 feet) by doubling the downstream spectrum upper limit to 2.2MHz. ADSL2/2+ also offer seamless bonding options, allowing lines with higher attenuation or lower signal to noise (SNR) ratios to be bonded together to achieve theoretically the sum total of the number of lines (i.e., up to 50 Mbit/s for two lines, etc.), as well as options in power management and seamless rate adaptation — changing the data rate used without requiring to resynchronize.

ADSL service providers may offer either public or static IP addressing. Public addressing is preferable for people who may wish to connect to their office via a virtual private network, for some Internet gaming, and for those wishing to use ADSL to host a Web server.

Centrino Carmel Platform

Carmel was the code name for the first generation Centrino platform launched in March 2003. Carmel consisted of a Pentium M processor, an Intel 855 series chipset, and an Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 (IEEE 802.11b) or PRO/Wireless 2100AB (IEEE 802.11ab) WiFi adapter.

Industry watchers initially criticized the Carmel platform for its lack of an (IEEE 802.11g) solution because many independent WiFi chip makers like Broadcom and Atheros were already shipping 802.11g products. Intel responded that the IEEE had not finalized the 802.11g standard at the time of Carmel's launch, and that it did not want to launch products not based on a finalized standard.

Despite criticisms, the Carmel platform won quick acceptance among OEMs and consumers. Carmel was able to attain or exceed the performance of older Pentium 4-M platforms, while allowing for notebooks to operate 4-5 hours on a 48 Wh battery. Carmel also allowed notebook manufacturers to create thinner and lighter notebooks because its components did not dissipate much heat, and thus did not require large cooling systems.

In early 2004, after the finalization of the 802.11g standard, Intel added the option of a PRO/Wireless 2200BG (IEEE 802.11bg) to the Centrino lineup.

CD-ROM

CD-ROM (an abbreviation of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory") is a compact disc that contains data accessible by a computer with a CD-ROM drive. While the compact disc format was originally designed for music storage and playback, the format was later adapted to hold any form of binary data. CD-ROMs are popularly used to distribute computer software, including games and multimedia applications, though any data can be stored (though only up to the capacity limit of a disc). Some CDs hold both computer data and audio with the latter capable of being played on a CD player, whilst data (such as software or digital video) is only usable on a computer. These are called Enhanced CDs.

Although many people use lowercase letters in this acronym, the proper presentation is in all capital letters with a hyphen between CD and ROM (CD-ROM).