 |
Subscribe Today | Contact Us | Register Now |
| Home | Tech Support | Q&A Board | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop |
|
||
|
||
|
| Smart Computing® Encyclopedia |
| -ware | ||
| Ware is the most common suffix attached to computer-related products: For
example, in no particular order other than pure whimsy: Hardware. Hardware spends some or all of its life plugged into a power outlet, often lights up, and most commonly says “beep.” Hardware is almost always off-white in color, leaning toward tan in shade, although dead black and gray are also common. More recent variations of hardware have been spotted wearing a variety of hues rendered in translucent plastic. Software. What a computer does is add fast. Software represents the instructions, written by incredibly clever, but inevitably sleep-deprived, caffeine addicts who tell the computer what to add and what to do with the results when it’s done. Vaporware. Sometimes known as hypeware or imagineware, vaporware may refer to a hardware or software product that is going to be released any day now, real soon. Vaporware is often touted as something that will fundamentally alter the way computing as we know it will continue into the future. It also has a tendency to be announced (never released) just before or just after the release of a company’s financial results for a slow quarter, particularly when a major competitor looks to be stealing away portions of the market. Malware. Malware is a term applied to malicious code (viruses, worms, Trojan horses) and bad code (also known as bugware or bloatware). Firmware. Firmware is software masquerading as hardware. It is actually comprised of programming instructions but is permanently burned into PROM (programmable read-only memory) chips so the programmers’ mistakes are really hard to fix. The most likely places to find firmware are in printers, scanners, modems, graphics cards, motherboard chipsets, monitors, and so on. Once upon a time, firmware was also commonly found in computer BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) chips, but BIOS software has been delivered in reprogrammable chips (a.k.a. flash memory) for years. Wetware. Your brain. Mushware. Your brain after spending 24 consecutive hours online. Beware. See malware, above, and both adware and spyware, below. Never open your computer to strangers or buy version x.0 of anything. Demoware. Most commonly found bundled with bargain computers advertised as loaded with software. Although some of the products are labeled as demonstrations, others are often called “Lite,” “Express,” or “Special Edition” versions of the real thing. Oddly, these little terms are often left out of the advertising. A newer form of demoware has virtually replaced shareware (see below). Shareware. Once upon a time, intrepid programmers thought it would be a neat idea to market their products through the honor system. As silly as it sounds, folks actually made money that way. People were encouraged to copy the products and distribute them far and wide. Users were reminded, politely, from time to time, that the programmers would appreciate a donation of cash to help with development costs and (in return for a modest fee) users could get the manual and any applicable updates. Those were more innocent times. There’s very little shareware of this type left; instead, you can download many products from the Internet for free, but you must pay for them within a certain time period, lest they stop working. (See warez below.) Nagware. Nagware is shareware that isn’t content to politely remind you to pony up. Instead, it nags each time you start and end the application and possibly once or twice while you’re using it. You may also find mainstream commercial software has become nagware until you register it, unless you constantly visit the company’s Web site to check for updates (and be hit with ads) or as often as the company thinks you should upgrade. Freeware. Freeware hasn’t entirely disappeared, but it’s on the endangered species list. Again, once upon a time, benevolent programmers (the legendary “good hackers”) were so proud of what they could do and were so convinced that their efforts would help a lot of folks that they gave their work away. The closest things to freeware that we have left in the 21st century are open source products (such as Linux), scads of free clip art, and small programs for Web sites called scripts written in JavaScript and Perl. Adware. An even newer variation of shareware, adware products are software applications that permit you unlimited free use in terms of time, but only in return for giving advertisers access to your computer so they can send you fresh ads each time you use the product. Spyware. Spyware may or may not be part of an adware product or other product that you’re encouraged to use for free. Spyware collects information on your Web browsing and downloading habits and might do so without your knowledge. It may track where you go, which software you download, which music you prefer, and so on. This information is reported back to the company that supplied the original application. That company may, in turn, use the data to create a market profile of its customers to provide more focused adware or to sell to another company for who knows what use. | ||
| | ||
Home Copyright & Legal Information Privacy Policy Site Map Contact Us