Select the first letter of the word from the list above to jump to appropriate section of the glossary or type the term on which you want to search.

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CD-R

(Compact Disc Recordable) a compact disc that can be used for recording. These are readable the in same way as regular CDs.

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CD-ROM

(Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) a disc with identical physical characteristics as a music CD, only containing computer data. Unlike a music CD, a CD-ROM can store both computer data and music. CD-ROM drives are able to read the data on a disc, but not record, thus the “read only” designation. The data storage capacity for a CD-ROM is nearly 700 megabytes, enabling it to hold extremely large amounts of data.

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CD-ROM drive

(CD-ROM player) an internal or external computer hardware device that reads data from a CD-ROM.

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CD-RW

(Compact Disc-ReWritable) a type of CD that may be used for recording. It may be erased and reused. These have been widely available for several years and are slightly more costly than the CD-R.

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cell

an individual unit of a table, spreadsheet, Web page layout, or database.

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center

to align text, graphics or images in the middle of a page with equal space on either side.

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central processing unit

see CPU.

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CGI

(Computer Gateway Interface) a means of transmitting information from a Web server by executing programs in response to a Web browser’s requests using HTTP. CGI programs process information requests and return the appropriate document to the client computer. see HTTP.

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channel

1. a communications path.
2. high-speed communications hardware used to interface mainframe computers.

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character

1. a symbol that can be stored by a computer requiring one byte of storage space.
2. in word processing applications, keyboard symbols such as individual letters that are used to make up words.