The letter H: A Glossary of Windows Terms

H

Hacker – a person who tries to break into another person’s computer or network.

Hard disk – the storage device inside a computer tower or laptop where data is permanently stored (or at least until it is deleted and written over).

Hardware – a generic term for devices you purchase and connect to a PC such as digital cameras, printers, scanners, and the like.

Hardware Driver – software that allows a hardware device and the PC to communicate.

Hardware Profile – in Windows XP, a specific profile created by a user to tell Windows what hardware options to enable when Windows is booted. Users may have profiles for docked and undocked laptops, for instance.

High Definition Multi-Media Interface (HDMI) – the digital interface used to transmit high definition audio and video using a single cable.

History – a person’s web “footprint”, in Windows, History is a list of web sites a user has visited.

Home Page – a page that opens automatically when a web browser is opened. A Home page can also be the first page a user sees when accessing a web page in a domain.

Home Server – an offering from Microsoft for home users that allows them to set up a personal server for storing and backing up data on their local network.

Host – a computer on a network that offers services or resources to other computers on the network. The term is often used to denote a computer being remotely accessed by another off-site.

Hotspot – a location where free wireless access to the Internet is available. Often these locations are in coffee shops, airports, and libraries.

Hub – a small network device that joins computers together for the purpose of sharing data among them. Of hubs, switches, routers, and gateways, hubs are the least sophisticated.

Hyperlink – a word, phrase, or image you can click in a web page to move to another area of the web site or another web site.

Hypertext Markup Language – the language used on the Internet to create web pages.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) – the protocol for moving HTML files across the Internet.

This post is part of the series: Windows Glossary

Learn the definitions for the terms used in the Bright Hub Windows Channel. This series starts with the letter “A” and runs all the way to “Z”.

1. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “A”
2. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “B”
3. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “C”
4. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “D”
5. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “E”
6. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “F”
7. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “G”
8. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “H”
9. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “I”
10. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “J” and “K”
11. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “L”
12. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “M”
13. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “N”
14. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “O”
15. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “P”
16. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “Q”
17. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “R”
18. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “S”
19. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “U and V”
20. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “W”
21. A Glossary of Windows Terms – “X”, “Y”, and “Z”