THE WHATIS.COM WORD-OF-THE-DAY February 7, 2003 bit
______________ TODAY'S SPONSOR: ITT Technical Institute Upgrade your IT skills. Update your resume. Get $tarted with ITT. Thinking of a transition in your IT career? Need to update your IT training skills? Visit ITT Technical Institute and find out what others have already learned: ITT has the flexibility and depth in its technology programs you need to secure your future. You'll find rograms like software applications and programming, information security, Web development, computer networking, and more! To request a brochure or stop by an ITT campus near you, Click here. http://WhatIs.com/r/0,,10035,00.htm?itt-tech ________________ TODAY'S WORD: bit See our complete definition with hyperlinks at http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213816,00.html A bit (short for binary digit) is the smallest unit of data in a computer. A bit has a single binary value, either 0 or 1. Although computers usually provide instructions that can test and manipulate bits, they generally are designed to store data and execute instructions in bit multiples called bytes. In most computer systems, there are eight bits in a byte. The value of a bit is usually stored as either above or below a designated level of electrical charge in a single capacitor within a memory device. Half a byte (four bits) is called a nibble. In some systems, the term octet is used for an eight-bit unit instead of byte. In many systems, four eight-bit bytes or octets form a 32-bit word. In such systems, instruction lengths are sometimes expressed as full-word (32 bits in length) or half-word (16 bits in length). In telecommunication, the bit rate is the number of bits that are transmitted in a given time period, usually a second. RELATED TERMS: binary http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci211661,00.html byte http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci211721,00.html nibble http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212659,00.html octet http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci212688,00.html word http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci498438,00.html bit rate http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci214389,00.html ______________________ CORRECTION TO YESTERDAY'S WORD-OF-THE-DAY MAILING | 11th dimension Yesterday's Word-of-the-Day mailing should have read: Each string has a length of only 10 to the minus 35th power meters, many times smaller than the diameter of the nucleus of an atom. See our complete definition for 11th dimension at http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci878923,00.html ______________________ QUIZ #35 | Common Vulnerabilities Take our quiz to test your knowledge about common security vulnerabilities. Learn how to defend your organization against them with the resources we've collected. http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci875285,00.html ______________________ REAL LIFE CHALLENGE | Upgrade to Win2k server or wait for .NET? Ned is an IT manager in a Windows NT environment with a couple of hundred workstations and several servers. Ned's CEO wants him to determine whether it would be better for the company upgrade to a Windows 2000 server, or wait until the Windows .NET server (now called Microsoft Windows Server 2003) comes out. Can you advise? http://whatis.discussions.techtarget.com/WebX?[EMAIL PROTECTED]@.1dcfae0e/211!viewtype=threadDate&skip=&expand= ______________________________ RECENT ADDITIONS AND UPDATES [1] EBITDA http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid19_gci877929,00.html [2] ABAP Objects http://searchsap.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid21_gci877494,00.html [3] Direct R/3 http://searchsap.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid21_gci877428,00.html [4] switch-on-a-chip http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid5_gci877286,00.html [5] switch http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid7_gci213079,00.html ____________________________________________________________________ ::::::::::::::::::: WHATIS.COM CONTACTS ::::::::::::::::::: LOWELL THING, Site Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ____________________________________________________________________ MARGARET ROUSE, Associate Editor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ___________________________________________________________________ :::::::::::::::::::: ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER ::::::::::::::::::::: Published by TechTarget (http://www.techtarget.com) TechTarget - The Most Targeted IT Media Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved. Unsubscribe from 'Word of the Day' - Simply Reply to this Email with REMOVE within the Body or Subject > or - Go to: http://WhatIs.techtarget.com/register - Log in to edit your profile. - Click on the link to Edit email subscriptions. - Uncheck the box next to the newsletter you wish to unsubscribe from. - When finished, click "Save Changes to My Profile."
