Tech decoded, Vol 2.
Hello, Tech-Seshers!
Back at it again with your weekly dosage of tech-nutrition. Here are this week’s 5 buzzwords:
1. Airplane Mode
What it means in Silicon Valley: n. Setting available on most smartphones, computers, and other devices. When it is activated it block the device’s radio-frequency signal by disabling telephone communication, Bluetooth, and WiFi.
How it impacts you: Besides being a function that is used for air-travel. Other great uses for Airplane Mode include: 1.) speeding up the charging on your phone when plugged in, 2.) saving battery life when disconnected, 3.) and is a great tool to avoid distractions when needing complete focus on a task.
Used in a sentence: “Airplane Mode saved my bacon and my battery life when I forgot to charge my phone last night!”
2. Geotagging
What it means in Silicon Valley: v. Is the addition of geographical information (in longitude and latitude coordinates) to websites, pictures, videos, and other sources. Geotagging can include street name, city, state, address, phone number, and even altitude.
How it impacts you: Seeing a street view of address on Google Maps is a form of geotagging. Including the location when writing a post on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter is also a form of geotagging.
Used in a sentence: John: “Shoot! I forgot where I parked the car in the parking garage.”
Jane: “It’s okay, I geotagged the car’s location before we went shopping.”
3. Zip-Filing
What it means in Silicon Valley: v. A method to compress large files into smaller ones, making it easier and faster to transfer to another computer. Filename looks in the form of: “filename.zip”
How it impacts you: Extremely common form of compressing for file sharing for both personal and work use. Sending a large file or portfolio? Better zip-file it so it is easier to send.
Used in a sentence: “My email says that the file I attached is too big to send. I guess, I need to compress it through a zip-file so I can send it.”
4. Firewall
What it means in Silicon Valley: n. A network security system that is hardware or software based that control incoming and outgoing network traffic using a specific set of criteria. This firewall acts as a barrier between trusted-networks, ie. bank websites and trusted-retailer sites, and not so trusted-networks, ie. third-party sites that possibly contain a virus.
How it impacts you: A firewall is necessary to the health of your computer. It prevents unauthorized internet users from hacking into your computer or sending viruses/worms.
Used in a sentence: “I made sure I purchases a firewall security system on my new laptop. I have a friend who didn’t want to spend the money and he got a crazy virus on his computer.”
5. HTML
What it means in Silicon Valley: n. Short for “Hypertext Markup Language”. HTML is a set of codes intended to be inserted in a file to display on a World Wide Web browser page. The code tells the web browser how the images and text should look for the web user.. aka HTML is a specific language for coding.
How it impacts you: Everything you see on a web page has been told via HTML language on what it should look like and do. Think of the puppet master behind the curtain. You don’t see him, but he is telling the puppets what to do.
Used in a sentence: “If Karlie Kloss is learning to code maybe I should learn HTML too.”
Stay tuned for next week’s Tech Decoded, Vol. 3.
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