The Computer Folks Glossary

Hackers	Vandals who damage, destroy, alter, and/or steal data.
Hairline rule	The thinnest line possible to position under text, one pixel thick.
Half-duplex communications	A communications technique that allows the user to alternately send and receive transmissions.
Handwriting fonts	Typefaces that simulate handwriting.
Hard disk	One or more hard disk platters and their associated read-write heads.
Hard disk drive	An electronic storage device containing a non-removable disk platter.
Hard disk platter	The component of the hard disk drive on which data is stored, a flat, rigid disk made of aluminum or glass or coated with a magnetic oxide.
Hardware	The electric, electronic, and mechanical devices used for processing data.
Hardware redundancy	Maintaining equipment that duplicates the functions of equipment critical to computing activities.
Head	The part of a HTML document that specifies the title that appears on the title bar of a Web browser when a Web page is displayed.
Head crash	A collision between the read-write head and the surface of the hard disk platter, resulting in damage to some of the data on the disk.
Header	Text that appears in the top margin of each page of a document.
Header label	An initial component of a record stored on magnetic tape, which signals the beginning of a file.
Help desk	Part of the IS department designated to assist users experiencing problems with their computers or applications.
Hierarchacil database	A database model in which record types are arranged as a hierarchy or tree: the simplest database model.
High-capacity fixed disk drive	A mainframe storage technology similar to a micrcomputer hard disk drive with platters and read-write heads, but with higher storage capacity.
High-density (HD) disk	A floppy disk that can store more data than a double-density disk.
High-density indicator hole	A hole in a disk that identifies it as a high-density disk.
High-level language	A computer language that allows a programmer to write instructions using human-like language.
Home key	The key that, when pressed, takes the user to the beginning of a line or the beginning of a document.
Home page	The first page that comes up when a Web site is accessed. It identifies the site and contains links to other pages at the site.
Horizontal market software	Any computer program that can be used by many different kinds of businesses.
Host computer	A central minicomputer or mainframe to which multiple terminals are attached. All processing takes place on the host computer. In Internet terminology, any computer connected to the Internet.
Hot swab	Switching batteries while the computer is on.
Hotspots	Locations on the screen on which the user can click to activate a hypertext link.
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) document	An electronic document that contains special instructions that tell a Web browser how to display the text, graphics, and background of a Web.
HTML authoring tools	Software that facilitates the creation of Web pages, by means of word-processor style interfaces, predesigned templates, and Wizards.
HTML tags	The instructions used by a HTML document to provide display information to a Web browser.
HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)	An Identifier that appears at the beginning of each Web page URL.
Hub	A central device used to connect nodes in a network.
Human resources management	The management of matters relating to the personnel employed by an organization.
Hypermedia	A type of multimedia hypertext that involves graphics, sound, and video, as well as text.
Hypertext	In multimedia computer applications, a component in which documents are linked to each other.
Hypertext index	A screen-based munu that allows the user to access information in specific categories by clicking a hypertext link.