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NOTE: Items highlighted in RED are defined elsewhere in this Glossary, while items highlighted in BLUE are site links for further information.
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LAMP: (Software Bundle) - This acronym refers to a common solution pack (called a “stack”) of software, usually free and open source, used to run dynamic websites or servers. The original bundle included: Linux (O/S), Apache (web server), MySQL (database server) and PHP (programming language). See also WISP, Microsoft’s version of LAMP.
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LAN: “Local Access Network”. This refers to a computer network (two or more computers connected together), cabled or wireless, in an area of restricted size, usually a home or office. See DIAGRAM.
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LANCZOS3 (or LANZOSH): A “resampling” technique often used to resize digital images. The resampling algorithm uses “multivariate interpolation” to achieve the resizing, which gives very high quality results, compared to the more commonly used and faster techniques such as linear or cubic interpolation, because it more closely approximates the optimal resampling “filter”.
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LANTASTIC: One of the early, now obsolete, PC networking products.
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LAPTOP: Originally a generic term for any self-contained battery/ac powered computer with a built-in LCD screen (monitor), laptops have evolved into many subcategories, usually depending on their size and capability. For example: 1) a “full” laptop is generally about 7 lbs. or more in weight, 2” or so in thickness and has at least a 12” x 14” screen. Usually it has a variety of ports and built-in CD/DVD/R-RW and floppy drives, rivaling the power and usability of a desktop computer. [This discussion doesn’t count the “luggables” that preceded the laptop. The very first was the Notetaker, designed by Alan Kay at Xerox; later, Osborne marketed a similar computer, which looked quite like a CPR machine. Zenith also developed a rather heavy model, the Z-180, which looked more like today’s laptop. For a photo history, click HERE.] Generally, the first laptop was considered to be the Grid Compass Model 1101, introduced in 1982, designed by British industrial designer Bill Moggridge in 1979. Now, nearly every computer manufacturer makes a laptop model, used by true road warriors. 2) A notebook laptop is generally slimmer in thickness (about an inch), lighter in weight (5 lbs or less) and sometimes without built-in drives (they may have to be added peripherally, using cables, if needed), but with a relatively full size screen. 3) The next smallest category of laptop is the sub-notebook or lightweight notebook, with an even smaller screen (11” diagonal), often requiring the use of a docking station to connect to external drives. 4) Tablet PCs are laptop computers (not the same as tablets, see #9 below) with a screen that doubles as a “slate” on which input can be made by writing or touching the keyboard on the screen, but are otherwise like most notebooks. 5) Mini-notebooks are laptop computers with screens ranging from 10 to 13 inches. 6) Ultra Mobile PCs (sometimes called MIDs, depending on their operating system; see UMPC, above) or netbooks (because their usefulness is generally limited to Internet and e-mail use) generally are the size of a paperback book, very light (due to SSDs, see above) with a 5 to 7 inch screen, relatively limited power and hard drive space, but still sporting a full keyboard and various external ports. 7) In 2011, Intel coined the term “ultrabook” to describe a new category of ultrathin laptop aimed to compete with both the emerging tablet market as well as Apple’s ultra-thin MacBook Air. These fairly pricey ($1000 or so) laptops use Intel processors, have USB 3 and SSD drives and are often on standby boot. 8) Newest in laptop design is hardware called a Thin Client that looks like a netbook, but is designed to connect with a smartphone (by Bluetooth or USB cable) and share its operating system (e.g. Windows Mobile) and software applications. These appeal to corporations because they can be much more tightly controlled by companies for security reasons, have no storage and are less expensive (example: Redfly C8N). 9) Finally, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and their successors, Internet Phones, a/k/a Smart Phones (Blackberry, iPhone, Droids, etc.) are essentially more powerful telephones that can access the Internet in some fashion, as well as retrieve e-mail, but have limited visibility (due to the small screen) and data entry capabilities (due to touch screen or tiny, often compressed, keyboards) and almost never run desktop computer software. 10) Blurring the line between these laptops is the more recent introduction of tablets, starting in 2009 with the Apple iPad, followed by copycats such as the Dell Streak, RIM Playbook and Entourage dual-screen. These tablets differ from the laptop computer tablets discussed in #4 above in that they are not attached to a computer, but instead are the computer, therefore they do not require an external mouse or keyboard to execute commands, and are generally slightly smaller (9-10 inch screen), much thinner and far lighter than a full laptop computer. They are generally offered in WiFi and 3G models, depending on the type of Internet connectivity desired. However, they have more limited memory, processing power and speed and don’t have many of the features or programs available on laptops. And they’re smaller (but also thinner and lighter) than most laptops. Many can’t be used as phones, although some of the newer ones have that capability. For more about tablets, click HERE.
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LATENCY: Referring to Internet transmission, this is the time between initiating a request for data and the beginning of the actual data transfer.
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LAWS: Computer laws have their own set of acronyms: To see what CDA, DMCA, ECPA, SARBOX and the like stand for, and their effect on your business or your life, click HERE to go the LAWS page of this site.
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LBA: Stands for Logical Block Addressing, a common scheme used for specifying the location (“addressing”) of blocks of data as stored on devices such as hard drives. In this scheme, only one number is used to address the data, which is described in a single block. Originally optional as a scheme in early IDE and SCSI drives, since 1996 most hard drives implement LBA, replacing the earlier CHS and ECHS (extended/cylinder head sector) schemes.
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LCD: Short for Liquid Crystal Display, used on watches, TVs and computer monitors. Developed in 1963 at RCA’s Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, NJ, LCD displays use two sheets of polarizing material with a liquid crystal solution sandwiched between them. When an electric current is passed through the liquid, the crystals allign so that light cannot pass through them. Each crystal is like a shutter, either allowing or blocking light. Color LCD displays use two basic techniques for producing color: Passive-Matrix (including CSTN and DSTN technologies); and Active-Matrix (a/k/a thin-film transistor or “TFT”). Most LCD screens used in laptop computers are backlight, or transmissive, to make them easier to read. PLASMA technology is similar to LCD technology in that, instead of liquid crystal, the display contains an inert ionized gas between the panels to provide the image.
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LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is an internet protocol (language) that e-mail and other programs use to look up information from the server.
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LEASE: Generally applied to the length of time that a given IP address will be valid for a particular computer. The length varies by how long the user is likely to require the internet connection at a particular location. Using short leases, DHCP can dynamically reconfigure networks in which there are more computers than there are available IP addresses.
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LED: Short for Light Emitting Diode, used for electronics indicators and low voltage display lighting. A diode is a semiconductor device (a solid electronic component that conducts electricity under specific conditions) that emits light when an electric current passes through it. The light is not terribly bright and ranges in output from red to blue, but is highly efficient, long-lived and requires very low power. See also, OLED (organic LED), which is a display technology based on the use of an organic substance, typically a polymer, as the semiconductor material in light-emitting diodes. An OLED display is created by sandwiching organic thin films between two conductors. When an electrical current is applied to this structure, it emits a bright light. OLEDs don’t require backlighting, can be thinner and weigh less than other display technologies, and offer a wide viewing angle (up to 160 degrees) and use less power (only 2 - 10 volts), they are quite popular on TVs, laptops, and PDAs. Newer OLED technology includes the FOLED (flexible organic LED), which is built into a portable, roll-up display. The newest LEDs are being created using ultrathin inorganic LEDs which are brighter and more versitile (bendable; think human body or building displays).
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LEED CERTIFICATION: The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, Green Building Rating System, an ecology-oriented building certification program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (“USGBC”).
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LEGACY: Old. Applies to software or hardware that predates the current version of a program or device. For example, Windows 98 and XP are legacy software to the current Windows Vista. Tape drives and 5.25” floppy disk drives would be legacy hardware. Opposite of nascent (new).
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LIBRARY: A type of file folder introduced in Windows 7. It is a special-purpose virtual folder. A library folder gathers files that are stored in several locations (including multiple computers) and monitors (but doesn’t copy) them in a single place. This can make searching particularly powerful. For more information about how it is intended to work, click HERE.
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lightRadio: A technology developed by Alcatel-Lucent using a lightweight module (about 2.5” square, 10.5ozs) which can be placed on roofs, bus stops, etc. and which can replace huge, bulky cell phone towers for transmitting cell signals.
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 LightScribe: A technology developed by Hewlett-Packard that enables direct burning of text and graphics labels onto specially coated CD and DVD “LightScribe” disks which chemically change when the disk drive’s laser strikes the label side of the disk. Requires a special lightscribe drive to do this.
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Lights Out: Refers to a climate-controlled computer or server room with extremely limited access (therefore using fewer lights). There is some dispute about whether this type of server room, having few personnel, is advantageous.
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LIMEWIRE: A popular open source peer-to-peer client software pack age for file sharing. Founded in 2000 by Mark Gorton, a successful Wall Street trader. Also supports Guntella and BitTorrent file sharing networks. In October, 2010, a NY Federal judge ordered the service to close its download links, essentially shutting down the site, following in the steps of its predecessors Napster and Grokster, both of which lost legal battles with the music industry, specifically the RIAA.
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LINEAR THINKING: Any process that is linear involves the organization of ideas in a step-by-step process along a straight line from definition to solution. Linear thinking is very structured and result oriented. As a result, quite often ideas “outside the box” are discarded in the process. In such cases, “Radiant” thinking, the opposite of Linear thinking is more useful, as it is a more “free form” process, like “brainstorming,” where all ideas are gathered, the later discarded, whether or not they may actually be useful.
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 LINKEDIN: A social networking site primarily aimed at business networking, founded by Reid Hoffman of PayPal (photo) and Jeff Weiner of Yahoo! in May 2003. Filed for an IPO in 1/2011 and traded first shares on 5/19/11.
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LIQUIDMETAL: A class of patented amorphous metal alloys (basically metallic glass) which has unique properties such as high strength, excellent wear resistance against scratching and denting and good strength to weight to ratio. As opposed to the bending or die-casting with an inferior alloy (aluminum, magnesium) required to shape metal, the liquidmetal can be injection molded and still have similar properties to metal. Discovered at the California Institute of Technology in 1992, Apple was granted right to use it in August, 2010, and is expected to use it on the latest generation of iPhones in 2012.
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LINUX: A free open-source operating system originally developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds as an alternative to Windows and other closed-source  operating systems. Currently developed by a world wide team of volunteer programmers and sold by several large software companies (e.g. Red Hat, Sun) called distros. Can be freely downloaded and modified. Mascot: “Tux” the penguin. For more, see LINUX.
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LISA: The first personal computer designed by Apple during the early 1980s. The thought was to design a more powerful computer which would target business customers. It was one of Apple’s few failures. Businesses balked at the high price and limited software and opted instead to run the less expensive IBM PCs, which were introduced about the same time. The two subsequent models, the Lisa 2 and the Macintosh XL didn’t fare much better, and the line was abandonned in 1986, to be replaced by the much more popular and adaptable Macintosh. Apple stated that the name Lisa was an acronym meaning “Local Integrated Software Architecture” but, since Steve Jobs’ first daughter was born in 1978 and named Lisa, there is some conjecture that the name also had a personal association and that the acronym was actually invented to fit the name.
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LISP: A programming language invented by John McCarthy  in 1960 while he was at MIT. It went on to become the programming language of choice for the artificial intelligence community. LISP was different at the time because it used symbolic expressions rather than numbers, giving AI researchers the ability to be more creative. He was also credited with coining the term “Artificial Intelligence”. He died in October, 2011 at the age of 84.
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LIVESCRIBE: A technology which uses a pen and special notepaper , used by students and others to take notes. When you tap on a word or sentence, the pen will replay a recording of what was being said or taking place at the exact instant that the words were handwritten on the paper. (See RANT for more.)
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LLTD: Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder to WinXP. This is a free utility from Microsoft that makes XP networking easier and more reliable. It can be downloaded HERE and, for XP SP3 HERE.
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LOAD BALANCING: A method of making a computer network more efficient, by distributing processes and traffic evenly across the network, making sure that no single or group of devices is overwhelmed.
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LOCALTALK: See, AppleTalk.
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LOCKER SERVICE: A service, usually a cloud service, which provides access to automated backup copies of previously purchased software or songs if the originals are damaged or lost. Apple and Google offer locker services. The opposite of a locker service is a Chop Shop, where parties who don’t know each other share copies of music for which they have not paid. In short, a site to distribute illegal copies of music for profit.
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LOOPBACK: A test signal sent back to the telephone company as the originator of the signal, showing that has been received at the destination. Used to verify connections and diagnose problems. Comparable to the ping utility which is used to verifyt the connection between a host and another computer on the Internet.
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 LOTUS: An integrated spreadsheet, database manager and graphics program developed by Mitch Kapor (formerly of Visicalc Corp) and Jonathan Sachs (in the name Lotus Development Corp.) in 1982 which, because of the triple integration, became known as Lotus 1-2-3. It’s importance was that at the time of its introduction there was no graphic user interface (“GUI”) on the early IBM PCs, so Lotus’ useful and easy-to-use WISIWIG format greatly furthered the use of these tools. Eventually Lotus brought in other products, such as Organizer, AmiPro (word processor) and Notes  (groupware and e-mail) and became known as Lotus Smart Suite. The whole company was acquired by and integrated into IBM in 1995.
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LSO: “Local Shared Objects”. An object similar to a third party cookie which is loaded onto computers to view Flash presentations. See, COOKIES.
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LTE: “Long Term Evolution (of Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network)”. Generically, this refers to, along with WiMax, to the evolution of 4G mobile technology that will deliver users the benefits of faster data speeds and new services, by creating a new radio access technology that is optimized for IP-based traffic. In some sense this is a cellular competitor to WIMAX. See WIMAX.
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 LYNC: A Microsoft program which supports audio and visual conferencing with shared whiteboard and documents. It also can dealve into Outlook 2010 on users’ machines and tell you whether they are on line and available to take your call.
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