Tech Terms That Are Not as Complex as You Might Think.

Talk Tech to Me

Do you want to know a secret? Most techies aren’t imbued with special powers. We once didn’t know how to debug a program causing Windows to stall—just like you don’t suddenly know how to pilot a nuclear submarine... unless, of course, you’re reading this 8,600 meters deep.

We had to learn all the terminology, all the keyboard shortcuts, and endless menus of options. The easiest part of being a tech is the one that confounds most people, and that is slinging the lingo

I’m going to go over 15 of the most common terms that confuse and befuddle non-technical users, explain what they mean in everyday language, and why they are important. By the time you’re finished, you will know the difference between your SSD and your HDD and be able to hold your own in a conversation with any friendly neighbourhood tech guy.

Bits and Bytes

Your computer or digital device exists for the sole purpose of processing data.  Be that checking your emails, looking up train times, or just looking at photos on Facebook. The way your device processes all of these disparate types of data is to break them down into a series of zeros and ones.

The smallest portion of data you can process is a single zero or a single one, this is called a bit.

A single bit on its own can’t hold much data, however, once you string a few of them together, you get a byte (8 bits). A byte can store a password, or any word for that matter. Group together 1024 bytes, and you get a kilobyte. Most small Word documents will be in the kilobyte range. If you want to store many words, you need a megabyte; this is roughly enough to store a novel and consists of 1024 kilobytes. Next is a gigabyte. If you want to store a movie, you will be looking at a gigabyte or more to save it. A gigabyte is 1024 megabytes and would very roughly fill about 1600 novel-sized books.

As our devices deal with larger and larger files (high-quality video and audio files, for example), the need for more storage becomes exponentially greater.  It was once unthinkable that your computer would need any more than a gigabyte of storage; now the rather humble laptop I write this on has a drive 505 times that size.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is like renting a storage unit or a workspace on the Internet instead of having it in your home or office. Instead of storing all your files, photos, and software on your personal computer, you store them on remote servers that you access through the internet. This means you can access your stuff from anywhere, anytime, as long as you have an internet connection.

Think of it as using a streaming service for movies. Instead of downloading and storing all the movies on your device, you stream them from the service's servers. Similarly, with cloud computing, you use and store data and applications on remote servers, which can be more convenient and flexible.

Netflix is a great example of cloud computing; at no point do you store any of the films or television shows available, but provided you have access to the internet and you have a valid username and password, you can watch your shows without having to download anything.

IP Address

An IP address is a string of numbers that serves as your device’s unique identifier on the internet.  They were, until a few years ago, 15 characters long and were all numbers; this all changed because we were running out of unique numbers, so they are now often using a newer system called IPv6, which uses a mix of letters and numbers to vastly increase the number of possible addresses. The difference in the pool of addresses is massive, there are trillions upon trillions of possible combinations.

Much as you need a phone number to make a call, if you want to get onto the internet, you need an IP address in order to communicate.

A lot of internet security revolves around masking or in some way disguising your IP address, but most of that happens behind the scenes. In the normal course of events, you don’t need to know what your IP address is any more than you need to know your computer's serial number.

VPN

If you have spent any time on YouTube, you will have seen adverts for VPNs. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network; it’s a clever program that not only masks your own IP address (see above) but can also make it look like a completely different one.  What this means is if you are in the UK, you can make your computer look like it is communicating from the States.  This is handy if, for example, you are concerned about your privacy or you are just security-conscious.

You can also use it to circumvent local content locks on streaming services like Netflix.  If there is a show you want to watch in the UK, but it isn’t available in the UK, but it is in the US, you just need to log in, spoof an American address, and just like that, you’re watching the show.

This is a legal grey area in some countries, but in general, using a VPN to access content is perfectly safe and widely practised.

2FA

2FA or Two-factor authentication is a security measure that uses a password in addition to a second factor, like a code sent to your mobile phone. Think of 2FA like a double lock on your front door—if someone picks the first lock (your password), they still have to get past the second.

Two-factor authentication is important because it stops cybercriminals and bad actors from stealing, damaging, or otherwise compromising your data or digital devices.

There are many advantages of using 2FA, from enhanced security to being a cost-effective way to ensure compliance with some security regulations.

When you’re logging onto a site, it can be aggravating to ‘jump through’ hoops to log in, but remember that a password can be guessed or stolen or ‘cracked’ by brute force if the bad actor is determined enough, a second level of security makes it orders of magnitude more difficult for them to gain access to your system.

Cookies

When you visit almost any website now, you will get a little message pop-up telling you to accept or decline cookies. But what are they? Cookies can be quite complicated, but in reality, all they consist of is a very small text file that looks like a random string of letters and numbers.

Cookies are used by websites to do a number of things, like remembering your preferences, keeping items you have put into your basket but not checked out, and keeping track of the number of unique visitors a site has received.

There are some valid concerns about cookies, and some targeted marketing uses them to funnel ads to you depending on sites that you have visited, so if you spend a lot of time looking at polo shirts, you will get ads for them.

Bandwidth

Simply put, bandwidth is a measure of the capacity of a network. It can be thought of as being like a hose pipe; the wider the pipe (the bigger the bandwidth), the more water (data) your hose (network) can deliver. The higher the capacity of the communication link, the more data can flow through it per second.

The upshot of this is that the higher the bandwidth, the faster the connection.  Years ago, the fastest speed you could get was a comparative crawl and then came the broadband revolution, broadband literally meaning wider bandwidth, a natural ceiling was reached with the speed that was possible with copper cables, and the latest technology deals with exquisitely thin strands of glass and pulses of light, rather than electronic oscillations providing speeds unthought of just a few years ago.

Firewall

Firewalls are network security devices that monitor and selectively filter both the incoming and outgoing data that goes across the network.  They can be massive, highly complex hardware and software devices that government agencies use to protect sensitive data, or they can be relatively simple pieces of software that run unobtrusively in the background.

If you are a Windows user, you are probably already using one without even knowing about it in the form of Windows Defender.  For commercial and domestic use, firewalls, sometimes in conjunction with VPNs (see above), are all that you need to stay safe online.

As threats evolve, it is important to keep your software up to date and current.  Cybercriminals are always refining and improving their techniques, and keeping your software up to date is paramount in protecting your systems and data.

Malware

Malware is a generic term that means any software that is in some way bad for your device.  There are all kinds of programs that can impede the smooth working of your device, from a virus that can slow things down to a crawl or corrupt important files that make your computing device…well, compute.

There are slightly different versions of this, like a Trojan, which is a program designed to harm your system but cunningly made to look like something benign. Adware is a relatively new threat and one that focuses on shovelling an ungodly amount of advertisements towards you.

Phishing

Phishing is the underhanded social engineering practice of sending out thousands of fraudulent emails or other messages through social media sites such as Facebook that purport to be from reputable companies, friends or family members in order to convince users to reveal personal information like passwords and credit card numbers.

Phishing schemes are a modern epidemic, with more than 3.4 billion fraudulent emails sent every day; in fact, over 48% of emails sent in 2022 were spam.  (Spam is a generic term for unwanted emails.) Around one-fifth of the total came from Russia.

Companies like Google and Microsoft work hard at blocking phishing emails; Google alone blocks around 100 million phishing emails daily.

Conclusion

These are some of the fundamental terms that can confuse newcomers, and hopefully, there was even something in there for more advanced users.

Got a term that’s always confused you? Drop it in the comments—I’d love to cover it in a future post.

TL;DR

This guide breaks down some common tech terms—no jargon, just simple explanations to help you feel more confident with tech.