Key Terms

Disk defragmenter-As advanced as hard drives have become, one item they are not very good at is housekeeping, or maybe that should be drive keeping. When files are created, deleted, or modified it's almost a certainty they will become fragmented. Fragmented simply means the file is not stored in one place in its entirety, or what computer folks like to call a contiguous location. Different parts of the file are scattered across the hard disk in noncontiguous pieces. The more fragmented files there are on a drive, the more performance and reliability suffer as the drive heads have to search for all the pieces in different locations. The Disk Defragmenter Utility is designed to reorganize noncontiguous files into contiguous files and optimize their placement on the hard drive for increased reliability and performance.

Disk cleanup- To keep a PC running smoothly, regular maintenance is critical. Many users shy away from maintenance tasks, thinking it is a long, drawn out manual affair, but the Disk Cleanup Utility can easily determine which files on a hard drive may no longer be needed and delete those files. In addition to freeing up potentially significant amounts of hard drive space, using Disk Cleanup on a regular basis can significantly improve system performance.

Restore Points- For example, restore points are created before new device drivers, automatic updates, unsigned drivers, and some applications are installed. These healthy system checkpoints are created without prompting or intervention from the user the first time the computer is started after Windows XP is installed and, by default, on a daily basis after that. You can also manually create restore points.
When you use System Restore, you can revert to a saved state without losing personal data including Word documents, e-mail settings and messages, and your Internet favorites list. System Restore won't lose any data you have stored in the My Documents, My Pictures, or My Music folders either.

Processor- Central Processing Unit (CPU), or sometimes simply processor, is the component in a digital computer capable of executing a program.

Ram- RAM- stores the data in memory cells that are arranged in grids much like the cells are arranged in a spreadsheet, from which data, in the binary form of 1's and 0's, can be accessed and transferred at random to the processor for processing by the system's software.

Video Card- The images you see on your monitor are made of tiny dots called pixels. At most common resolution settings, a screen displays over a million pixels, and the computer has to decide what to do with every one in order to create an image. To do this, it needs a translator -- something to take binary data from the CPU and turn it into a picture you can see. Unless a computer has graphics capability built into the motherboard, that translation takes place on the graphics card

Audio Card- Before the invention of the sound card, a PC could make one sound - a beep. Although the computer could change the beep's frequency and duration, it couldn't change the volume or create other sounds
Motherboard- A motherboard allows all the parts of your computer to receive power and communicate with one another.

Hard Drive- Nearly every desktop computer in use today contains one or more hard-disk drives. They give computers the ability to remember things when the power goes out.

Image- an image is like a copy of your hard drive. It takes all of the data stored on your computer and copies it all to one file allowing you to refer back to it at any time. It copies everything from your word documents to your music files to your software and drives.

Drivers- A device driver, or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a computer hardware device.