Glossary K-O

Glossary K - O

Memory: Computer memory is what is referred to as RAM, a term you've probably heard. Memory is a special temporary holding place for data inside your computer. Everything that you do on your machine is done in memory. Your operating system (Windows) loads itself into memory when you start your machine. Every program that you open is loaded into memory. All documents that you work on are in memory. Your computer can only address or work on information that is in memory. Memory is temporary because it requires electricity to be running through the machine in order to maintain the information in memory. If you have a power outage, or the plug gets pulled on your machine, everything that was in memory is lost. That's why you need to save your work periodically. Most programs today do that for you, but not all. Modern machines typically have 128, 256 or 512 megabytes of memory. Some have even more. *See Sidebar.

Monitor: Also called the "display," and often referred to as "the screen," the monitor looks like a TV screen. It displays the programs and files that you bring up. In Windows, when you first start up your machine, before you click on anything, you are looking at the Windows "desktop." The desktop has some very important areas and properties you should be familiar with, so please see the glossary entry for Desktop.

Operating System: The operating system is the head honcho of your computer programs. It runs all the other programs. Let's say you have Microsoft Money, a financial program, and it needs to open a window for itself. It asks the operating system to draw a window for its use. It also has to ask the operating system for a chunk of memory space that it can run in. Programs can't do anything without an operating system. You can't do anything on your computer without an operating system. If you've ever seen the dreaded "No system disk found" message when you turn on your computer, that's exactly what that message means. It is saying it cannot find an operating system, and so you can't go any further. Windows is most likely your operating system, in one version or another, but there are others.

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Memory

* People often tell me they need more memory because their C drive is too full, or ask me to remove programs so they can free up some memory. Or they tell me they don't understand why they get out-of-memory messages when they have all this space on their drive. They are confusing memory with storage.

Storage

Storage is the space on the hard drive. Think of storage as a closed filing cabinet. You can't do anything with what is in it until you open a drawer, remove a folder and open it up. Similarly, the processor can't do anything with data that is on the hard drive. Taking out the folder and opening it up on your desk would be akin to bringing data up from your hard drive into memory, so that work can be done on it.