Jargon Glossary
The Jargon File
There is a lot of jargon that gets thrown around when talking about computers. The New Hacker's Dictionary Jargon File is the definitive source of all kinds of computer and geek related jargon.
If you would like to recommend a jargon word be added to the 'Local Jargon' list, please complete the Support Request Form.
Local Jargon
ABE: Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
AerE: Aerospace Engineering
AFS: A data storage system available through ITS (Information Technology).
CLUE: College Level Unified Environment. The previous name for the Engineering network which is currently referred to as ENGR. No longer in use.
CBE: Chemical and Biological Engineering
CCEE: Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
CoE: College of Engineering
Computer Name: The hostname of a computer. It is often in the form of "something.eng.iastate.edu". To find the computer name of either a Windows or Unix (Linux) machine, open a command shell (on Windows: Start -> Run -> Open: "cmd" -> Ok) and type "hostname".
Department Logon / Username: The account name and password you use to login to a computer. This is either your ISU NetID or ENGR NetID. (Example: in your ISU e-mail address username@iastate.edu where username is your login name)
Department Print Quota: The number of pages available for you to print on a departmental printer.
ECpE: Electrical and Computer Engineering. Sometimes the acronym 'ECE' is used as well.
ECSS: Engineering Computing Support Services
ENGR NetID: This refers to your Engineering account name, which is used to access computers that are part of the ENGR network in the College of Engineering. This term is no longer in use.
Helper Application: Helper applications are usually some type of utility that help something else, like a file manager, or Flash, or Adobe Acrobat. These are not really “stand alone” applications because they all work on something else, the file manager to find, sort or view files, Flash to view web animations, or Acrobat to read things created in .pdf, the Portable Document Format.
IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol. A system used to retrieve mail, where the mail resides on the server instead of the client application.
ISU NetID: Your main ISU login name and password. You use your ISU NetID to login to ISU Webmail. Your ISU NetID is the "netid" part of "netid@iastate.edu".
IT: Information Technology. Refers to computers, servers, webpages and websites; basically anything to do with computers.
Jabber: An open and extensible instant messaging and presence protocol. See www.jabber.org for more information and client software.
ME: Mechanical Engineering
MSDNAA / ELMS: Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance. A collection of software license programs available to students.
MSE: Materials Science Engineering
NetReg: A system by which ISU is able to keep track of who owns (or is responsible for) which computers on the ISU network.
Network Drive: A hard-disk or shared space that is normally shared a mong several users over the network.
Network Space / Disk Quota: Data storage space on a shared volume(s) that is reserved specifically for users. For instance, an engineering student has space on a departmental server (currently 200-300 megabyte on most departmental servers), as well as space on the University system (currently 1 gigabyte).
Print Quota: The number of pages that can be printed in a given period of time (usually one semester).
Roaming Profile: A mechanism that Microsoft Windows uses to retain individual user application settings and data between login sessions and between different computers. In other words: your settings follow you.
Scratch Space: Temporary data storage space available for unix or windows computers.
Shared Folder: An area on a network drive created to serve a single user or a single purpose. For example, most engineering students have space in a shared folder to store academic work.
Solution Center: The combined help desks for all University level administrative and academic areas at ISU, located at 195 Durham.
U: Drive: The U: drive is the common designation for user space on a storage server. This space is mapped as drive U: when a user logs onto a computer.
