Glossary - Index M

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Mbps: Megabits per second - Or one million bits per second. Referrs to how fast data packets travel, or network speed.

Megabyte: 1,000,000 (10 6 ) bytes

Memory: Also referred to as RAM, memory is a temporary storage area for programs and data when your computer is on. Anything stored in memory (RAM) is lost when the computer is shut off. Most modern computers have 128, 256, 512 or 1 gig of memory.

MFLOPS: Mega-floating point operations per second - Used as a measure of how powerful your computer is, MFLOPS gauge the capability of your system to deal with floating-point math instead of raw instructions.

Mhz: A megahertz is 1 million complete cycles per second. This unit is most commomly used to measure transmission speeds of electronic devices, such as the clock speed of a microprocessor.

Millisecond (ms): A millisecond is one-thousandth of a second. The term is most commonly used to measure data access speeds, such as the amount of time it takes to retrieve data from a hard disk. Milliseconds are sometimes confused with mbps (megabits per second), which describe data transmission speeds.

Mirror and/or Image: In computing, a mirror is an exact copy of a data set. This allows the user to create a second HDD (hard disk drive), Disk Drive without physically having said drive.

Moire: MoirГ© pattern describes the interference pattern you see when it appears there are ripples or waves on your monitor.

Motherboard: Everything attached to your computer connects to the motherboard directly or indirectly. It generally houses the CPU chip, the controller circuitry, the bus, and sockets for additional boards, which are called daughterboards.

MP3: A very popular compressed audio format. Millions of MP3's can be downloaded on the internet and played on your computer, and MP3 player or even converted to CD Audio to play in most CD players. A song that is 40 megs can often be downloaded as a 4-5 meg MP3 making it accessible to even dial up users.

MTBF: Mean Time Between Failures - The average time from start of use to failure in a large population of identical systems, computers, or devices.

Multimedia: The way computers display the use of any combination of text, graphics, animation and video.

Multiplier Lock: What is done to all modern CPU's to prevent overclocking. The multiplier of a locked CPU will remain the same even if it is changed in the BIOS.