The other day while giving a presentation, the client asked,
“what does RAID mean?“ We had been talking about servers,
storage and protocols for preserving and backing up data – not
roach spray. And RAID had been introduced because it would
continue to function even if one of the drives were damaged or
inoperable. Eventually, we explained that RAID was an acronym,
which stood for “redundant array of independent disks.” It’s a
form of storage technology that combines several drives into a
single unit, making it robust and reliable (and relatively
inexpensive as servers go). Reflecting on that meeting, I was
struck by the frequency with which we tech types use acronyms as
if they were common parlance. The reality is that there is so
much alphabet soup out there, that it’s difficult for techies to
keep up, much less lay folk. So today’s class will focus on
defining some of these acronyms, and building your technical
lexicon. I’m sure you’re familiar with SMS (short messaging
service), MMS (multimedia messaging s