CompTIA ITF Cheat Sheet by Bayan.A

not owned by a single company or organi­zation.

Power source for a portable computer, typically a rechar­geable Lithiu­m-ion (Li-ion) type

works through a series of base station transm­itters (cells) that connect to the cellular and telephone networks

2G(GSM; up to about 14 Kbps)

3G(WCDMA; up to about 2 Mbps)

5G(up to 1 Gbps)

e.g:mi­cro­con­troller in a medical drip or components in a control system managing a water treatment plant.

e.g. BIOS instru­ctions stored in a ROM chip on the mother­board for instance

such as: phones, tablets, and fitness trackers, home applia­nces, home control systems, vehicles, and other items that have been equipped with sensors, software, and network connec­tivity.

comes with built-in LCD screens and input devices (keyboard and touchpad)

Peripheral devices can be connected via USB, PCMCIA, or Expres­sCard adapters.

As such, they are increa­singly the focus of viruses and other malware

UK English term for a cell phone.

typically have screen sizes of between 4 and 5.5 inches.

usually based on form factors with either 7" or 10" screens

primary user interface in Windows 7 and earlier is referred to as the desktop

ontaining the Computer, Documents, Network, and Recycle Bin objects

Part of the taskbar (on the right-hand side)

In early versions of Windows this was managed by a systray process and is sometimes still referred to as the system tray.

When selected, the referenced program or file loads.

the layout and features of the Start menu have changed in each version.

Windows devices can be set to show the Start Screen or the Desktop at startup.

It appears (by default) at the bottom of the desktop.

which is a low-level piece of code respon­sible for contro­lling the rest of the operating system

Typically used to refer to network devices designed for small-­scale LANs (up to 10 users).

developed by the Open Handset Alliance (primarily sponsored by Google)

Apple computers are built to use OS X which makes them incomp­atible with IBM PC/Win­dow­s-based software.

Chrome OS itself is propri­etary

Mobile OS developed by Apple for its iPhone and iPad devices

world's foremost supplier of operating system and Office produc­tivity software

Operating system designed by Apple for their range of iMac computers, Mac workst­ations, and MacBook portables

OS X is well supported by applic­ation vendors, especially in the design industry (Adobe­/Ma­cro­media).

now a family of more than 20 related operating systems that are produced by various companies

capable of supporting parallel processing and can run on a wide variety of platforms

UNIX servers are the main types of server that form the Internet and are able to use the TCP/IP protocol suite to provide compat­ibility between networks.

The VMs are configured via a hypervisor or VM Monitor (VMM)

It is also possible for the VMs to share data with the host (via shared folders or the clipboard for instance)

Operating systems running in Protected Mode can utilize a separate VM for various 32-bit processes.

refers to multiple operating systems installed on a single host PC using virtua­liz­ation software (a hyperv­isor), such as Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware.

Windows started as version 3.1 for 16-bit computers

Windows NT 4 workst­ations and servers (intro­duced in 1993) provided reliable 32-bit operation and secure network facili­ties, based around domains

Windows 2000 workst­ations (Windows 2000 Profes­sional) married the hardware flexib­ility and user interface of Windows 9x to the reliab­ility and security of Windows NT, while the server versions saw the introd­uction of Active Directory for managing network objects

The subsequent client releases of Windows (Vista and Windows 7) feature a substa­ntially different interface (Aero) with 3D features as well as security improv­ements

The standard interface provided for the management of files and folders under Windows

**

The last Microsoft release is MS-DOS Version 6.22, in June of 1994.

Most GUIs require a pointing device, such as a mouse, to operate effici­ently.

Therea­fter, Microsoft produced their Windows family of products based around their GUI

The registry database is the config­uration database for Windows

The registry should be backed up before system changes are made.

These services can be viewed, config­ured, and starte­d/s­topped via the Services console

You can view background services (as well as applic­ations) using the Processes tab in Task Manager.

also allows for control of running tasks, processes, and CPU/memory utiliz­ation.

enables the user to perform an action (such as running a program or a script) automa­tically at a pre-set time or in response to some sort of trigger

Actions such as installing hardware and software can be performed without changing accounts but the user must authorize the use of admini­str­ative rights by clicking a prompt or re-ent­ering user creden­tials.

When the operating system doesn't have sufficient physical memory (RAM) to perform a task (such as load a program) pages of memory are moved to the paging file (also known as a swap file)

When the paged RAM is needed again, it is re-read into memory.

The Microsoft KB is found at http:/­/su­ppo­rt.m­ic­ros­oft.co­m/s­earch.

This test sequen­tially monitors the state of the memory chips, the processor, system clock, display, and firmware itself.

Further tests are then performed and any errors displayed as on-screen error codes and messages.

requires a methodical approach

The next is to analyze the problem, again consulting docume­nta­tion, web resources, or manufa­ctu­rer's help resources if necessary.

The next step is to choose and apply the most suitable solution

The last step is to document the problem, steps taken, and the outcome

Standard ASCII can represent 127 charac­ters, though some values are reserved for non-pr­inting control charac­ters.

Computers process code in binary because the transi­stors in its CPU and memory components also have two states (off and on).

The term "bits per second­" is used to describe data transfer speed - the higher the number, the higher the transm­ission speed.

Boolean logic is a statement that resolves to a true or false condition and underpins the branching and looping features of computer code.

Data type supporting storage of floating point numbers (decimal fracti­ons).

Data type supporting storage of a variable length series of charac­ters.

These components may be part of the same computer, or may be connected across a network.

The peak (or maximum theore­tical) rate needs to be distin­guished from actual throughput (or sustained rate)

A bit can be measured in multiples using Kilobit (Kb) and Megabit (Mb)

The computer industry abuses the SI system of decimal measur­ements where kilo=1­,000, mega=1­,00­0,000 and giga=1­,00­0,0­00,000

Different units are used to describe file sizes and memory capacity. 8 bits form a byte (B). 1024 bytes make a kilobyte (that is 2 ^ 10 bytes); 1024 kilobytes (KB) make a Megabyte (MB); 1024 MB makes 1 Gigabyte (GB); 1024 GB makes 1 Terabyte (TB).

Notational system with 16 values per digit. Values above 9 are repres­ented by the letters A,B,C,­D,E,F.

The amount of data that can be transf­erred over a network connection in a given amount of time, typically measured in bits or bytes per second (or some more suitable multiple thereof).

Transfer rates are often quoted as the peak, maximum, theore­tical value; sustained, actual throughput is often consid­erably less.

Windows can run a program with settings from previous versions of Windows to try to resolve compat­ibility problems.

Desktop Publishing (DTP) is similar to word processing but with more emphasis on the formatting and layout of documents than on editing the text.

Like email, commun­ica­tions are generally unencr­ypted and unauth­ent­icated.

Terms governing the instal­lation and use of operating system and applic­ation software

Open source means that the progra­mming code used to design the software is freely available.

Presen­tation software enables users to create sophis­ticated business presen­tations that can be displayed as an on-screen slide show or printed onto overhead projector transp­are­ncies.

When values are entered into the cells, formulas can be applied to them, enabling complex calcul­ations to be carried out.

A word processor will come with features enabling the user to edit, format, and review text quickly.

Windows folder providing the default location for instal­lation of applic­ation execut­ables and supporting files

Micros­oft's protocol for operating remote connec­tions to a Windows machine (Terminal Services), allowing specified users to log onto the Windows computer over the network and work remotely.

It uses TCP port 3389.

hese are typically for CPU speed, memory, and hard disk capacity.

A system that does not meet the minimum requir­ements will not be able to run the software; one that does not meet the recomm­ended requir­ements will run the software slowly.

Voice over IP or Internet telephony refers to carrying voice traffic over data networks.

A network carrying both voice and data is said to be converged.

There is also a greater vulner­ability to DoS (without redundancy the network is a single point of failure for both voice and data traffic) and eavesd­ropping on voice commun­ica­tions.

Identifier for a value that can change during program execution.

Identifier for a group of variables of the same type.

Identifier for a group of variables of the same type

Identifier for a value that is fixed before program execution and does not change.

Assembly language is this machine code repres­ented in human-­rea­dable text.

Cloud services provide elasticity of resources and pay-pe­r-use charging models

The language (HyperText Markup Language) used to create web pages.

System of tags used to structure a document. Examples include HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

The objects have attrib­utes, methods, and proper­ties.

Software run from a web server.

A system for struct­uring documents so that they are human- and machin­e-r­ead­able.

Major database server products include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM's DB2 and Informix, and Sybase.

The freeware MySQL database is a popular choice to provide database functi­onality on websites

Database design, progra­mming, and admini­str­ation is complex and security should be considered as a critical requir­ement.

Tables can have relati­ons­hips, establ­ished by linking a unique primary key field in one table with the same value in a foreign key field in another table.

The main 64-bit platform is called AMD64 or EM64T (by Intel)

oftware can be compiled as 32-bit or 64-bit. 64-bit CPUs can run most 32-bit software but a 32-bit CPU cannot execute 64-bit software.

An adapter card fits a slot on the PC's expansion bus and often provides ports through slots cut into the back of the PC case.

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices)

CPU manufa­cturer providing healthy compet­ition for Intel.

ARM (Advanced RISC Machines)

Designer of CPU and chipset archit­ectures widely used in mobile devices.

RISC microa­rch­ite­ctures use simple instru­ctions processed very quickly

BIOS (Basic Input/­Output System)

The BIOS is firmware that contains programs and inform­ation relating to the basic operation of PC components such as drives, keyboard, video display, and ports.

BIOS can also be used to secure components not protected by the OS by specifying a supervisor password (to prevent tampering with BIOS settings) and a user password (to boot the PC).

Buses are available in industry standard formats, each with its own advantages and disadv­antages

Common bus types include PCI, PCI Express, Expres­sCard, and USB.

Chipset

The chipset provides commun­ica­tions between different components by implem­enting various contro­llers (for memory, graphics, I/O, and so on).

Histor­ically, "­fas­t" contro­llers (memory and video) were part of a "­nor­thb­rid­ge" chipset, placed close to the CPU and system memory.

In modern PC archit­ecture, video and memory contro­llers are part of the CPU (on-die), the northb­ridge would mostly handle PCI Express adapters and the southb­ridge would host SATA, USB, audio and LAN functions, plus PCI/PATA legacy bus support.

Generally, a CPU will be fitted with a heatsink (a metal block with fins) and fan

The PSU also incorp­orates a fan to expel warm air from the system.

Very high perfor­mance or overcl­ocked systems or systems designed for quiet operation may require more sophis­ticated cooling systems, such as liquid cooling.

Core Processor Series

The latest generation of Intel proces­sors.

CPU (Central Processing Unit)

The principal microp­roc­essor in a computer or smartphone respon­sible for running operating system and applic­ations software.

DDR2/DDR3 SDRAM uses lower voltage chips and higher bus speeds.

There are different pin config­ura­tions for different RAM types (SDRAM [168], DDR SDRAM [184], and DDR2/3 SDRAM [240]).

Due to the effects of leakage and the subsequent loss of electrical charge, DRAM has to be refreshed at regular intervals.

Standard DRAM is the lowest common denomi­nator of the DRAM types.

Dual Core

CPU design that puts two chips onto the same package; a cheap means of providing SMP.

Intel

Intel processors were used in the first IBM PCs and the company's CPUs and chipsets continue to dominate the PC and laptop market.

This is more efficient and allows for fewer fans and less noise.

Several mother­board standards are available each with a different layout and associated advant­ages.

This can allow operations to be shared thereby increasing perfor­mance.

Business and profes­sional editions of Windows support a type of multip­roc­essing called Symmetric Multip­roc­essing (SMP) with a maximum of 2 CPUs.

It connects the CPU, memory, and periph­erals to a 32-bit working at 33 MHz.

Later versions defined 64-bit operation and 66 MHz clock but were not widely adopted on desktop PCs.

Each device on the bus can create a point-­to-­point link with the I/O controller or another device.

Each lane supports a full-d­uplex transfer rate of 250 MBps (v1.0), 500 MBps (v2.0), or 1 GBps (v3.0)

Pentium Processor Series

Previously Intel's premium CPU brand, now re-pos­itioned as a chip for reliable "­alw­ays-on, always­-av­ail­abl­e" systems.

RAM is generally described as being volatile in the sense that once power has been removed or the computer has been rebooted, data is lost.

SDRAM can run at much higher clock speeds than previous types of DRAM

Examples of IEEE standards include the 802 protocols that describe the function and archit­ecture of different network techno­logies.

The advantage of radio-­based signals is that devices do not need line-o­f-s­ight, though the signals can still be blocked by thick walls and metal and can suffer from interf­erence from other radio sources operating at the same frequency (2.4 GHz)

BLE is not backwa­rds­-co­mpa­tible with "­cla­ssi­c" Bluetooth though a device can support both standards simult­ane­ously.

Faxing is generally accomp­lished between two fax modems, often incorp­orated into Multif­unction Devices or PC equipment.

This serial SCSI bus standard supports high data rates (up to 400 Mbps) and this in turn, makes it attractive for applic­ations requiring intensive data transfer (such as video cameras, satellite receivers, and digital media players).

HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface)

High-s­pec­ifi­cation digital connector for audio-­video equipment.

I/O (Input­/Ou­tput) Ports

An input-­output port essent­ially describes a device connection through which data can be sent and received.

Desktop keyboards can have PS/2, USB, or wireless (IrDA or Bluetooth) interf­aces.

Mouse

The essential device to implement a WIMP GUI, a mouse simply controls the movement of a cursor that can be used to select objects from the screen.

Many mice also feature a scroll wheel.

Lightning

Propri­etary connector and interface for Apple devices.

When a hardware device is added or removed, the operating system detects the change and automa­tically installs the approp­riate drivers

RCA Connector

Good quality connector with a distin­ctive collar or ring used for a variety of Audio/­Visual (A/V) functions and equipment.

Resolution

A digital image is made up of many thousands of picture elements (pixels).

On a digital printer, the resolution is the number of toner or ink dots that the print engine can put on paper (measured in dots per inch [dpi]).

RFID (Radio Frequency IDenti­fic­ation)

A chip allowing data to be read wirele­ssly.

RJ (Regis­tered Jack) Connector

Connector used for twisted pair cabling. 4-pair network cabling uses the larger RJ-45 connector.

Stylus

A digitizer usually also employs a stylus as a pointing device (rather than using a finger), often as a drawing tool.

Thunde­rbolt can be used as a display interface (like Displa­yPort) and as a general peripheral interface (like USB 3).

The touchpad allows the user to control the cursor by moving a finger over the pad's surface.

USB (Universal Serial Bus)

USB permits the connection of up to 127 different periph­erals. A larger Type A connector attaches to a port on the host; Type B and Mini- or Micro- Type B connectors are used for devices.

USB devices are hot swappable.

USB 3.0 defines a 4.8 Gbps SuperSpeed rate and can deliver 4.5W power.

The use of digital flat-panel displays rather than CRTs means that as an analog connector, it is fast becoming obsolete.

A number of connectors may be provided for the display, including VGA, DVI, and HDMI.

An adapter may support both analog and digital outputs or analog­/di­gital only (as most LCDs use digital inputs the use of analog outputs is declin­ing).

Video Standards

Video standards define the resolution and color depth for a graphics adapter and computer display.

The VGA standard defined a standard graphics mode of 640x480 in 16 colors.

There are also various XGA standards defining resolu­tions greater than 1024x768 (SXGA, UXGA), some of which are widescreen formats (WSXGA+, WUXGA).

Audio Port

A number of different audio ports exist on modern computer mother­boards or on specialist sound cards.

CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) Monitor

A CRT receives an analog signal from the graphics adapter and forms a color image on the screen by illumi­nating red, green, and blue dots (triads), The screen size is the diagonal distance across the face of the CRT, though part of this area may be obscured by the case, making the viewable area consid­erably less than the quoted screen size.

Device Driver

A small piece of code that is loaded during the boot sequence of an operating system.

Under Windows, a signing system is in place for drivers to ensure that they do not make the OS unstable.

Device Manager enables the admini­strator to disable and remove devices, view hardware properties and system resources, and update device drivers.

The sensit­ivity of the array determines the maximum resolution of the image, typically 5 megapixels (2560x­1920) or better.

Displa­yPort

Digital A/V interface developed by VESA.

DVI (Digital Video Interface)

Video adapter designed to replace the VGA port used by CRT monitors.

Flatbed Scanner

A type of scanner where the object is placed on a glass faceplate and the scan head moved underneath it.

This is typically a combin­ation of a heat and pressure roller, though non-co­ntact flash fusing using xenon lamps is found on some high-end printers.

There are two main types of ink dispersion system: thermal shock (heating the ink to form a bubble that bursts through the nozzles) and piezoe­lectric (using a tiny element that changes shape to act as a pump).

The toner is then fixed to the paper using a high-heat and pressure roller (fuser).

Monochrome laser printers are the "­wor­kho­rse­s" of office printing solutions.

Modern active matrix displays produce high quality images.

The main problem with LCDs is that they are not good at displaying an image at any resolution other than the native resolution of the display.

There are numerous sound and video file formats, including legacy Window­s-s­pecific formats such as WAV (for audio) or AVI (for video and audio).

Other file formats include those used for Apple's QuickTime player (MOV and QT), Apple's iTunes format (AIFF), and RealNe­tworks player (RA or RAM).

Network Adapter (NIC [Network Interface Card])

The network adapter allows a physical connection between the host and the transm­ission media

The card also performs error checking. Network cards are designed for specific types of networks and do not work on different network products.

NFC (Nearfield Commun­ica­tions)

Standard for peer-t­o-peer (2-way) radio commun­ica­tions over very short (around 4") distances, facili­tating contac­tless payment and similar techno­logies.

OCR (Optical Character Recogn­ition)

Software that can identify the shapes of characters and digits to convert them from printed images to electronic data files that can be modified in a word processing program.

Printer

"­Pri­nte­r" is often used to mean "­print device­" but also refers to a term used to describe the software components of a printing solution.

It consists of a spool directory, a printer driver, and config­uration inform­ation.

Projectors can use CRT or LCD mechanisms but the market­-le­ading technology is generally considered to be DLP.

The two main components of a scanner are the lamp, which illumi­nates the object, and the recording device, an array of CCDs (Charge Coupled Devices).

Scanners can output images directly to a printer or to a suitable file format (such as JPEG, PNG, or TIFF).

Test Page

When a printer is installed or reconf­igured, the installer should print a test page to verify functi­ona­lity.

TFT displays offer very high image clarity, contrast ratios of between 150:1 to 200:1, fast refresh rates, and wide viewing angles.

The key properties of toner are the colorant (dye), ability to fuse (wax or plastic), and ability to hold a charge

Touchs­creen

Back of Flashcard 24 of 27 A display screen that is responsive to touch input

Webcam

A webcam can be used to record video

While early devices were only capable of low resolu­tions, most webcams are now HD-cap­able.

The interface was very commonly called IDE [Integ­rated Drive Electr­onics] or Enhanced IDE (EIDE)

A drive is connected to the bus by a 40-pin ribbon cable.

Blu-ray

Latest generation of optical drive techno­logy, with disc capacity of 25 GB per layer.

CD-ROM (Compact Disc - Read Only Memory)

CD-ROM disc is an optical storage techno­logy.

Recordable and re-wri­table CDs (and DVDs) are a popular backup solution for home users.

Unlike magnetic media, the data on the disc cannot be changed (assuming that the disc is closed to prevent further rewriting in the case of RW media).

DVD (Digital Video/­Ver­satile Disk)

DVD discs offer higher capacities (4.7 GB per layer) than the preceding CD-ROM format.

Flash Memory

Flash RAM is similar to a ROM chip in that it retains inform­ation even when power is removed, but it adds flexib­ility in that it can be reprog­rammed with new contents quickly.

These tiny cards can provide removable, megabyte or gigabyte storage for devices such as digital cameras.

HDD (Hard Disk Drive)

High capacity units typically providing persistent mass storage for a PC (saving data when the computer is turned off).

A HDD installed within a PC is referred to as the fixed disks.

Recordable CD Drives

CD/DVD writers are now mainstream devices, used for data transfer and archiving.

CD writers use a laser to disrupt the medium of the disk - either by heating a dye, by altering the magnetic properties of the metal disk, or by changing disc structure through phase-­change techni­ques.

DVD recorders can also perform CD-R/RW recording.

Blu-ray has recordable (BD-R) and rewritable (BD-RE) formats and supports dual-layer but not double­-sided recording.

The most common types of removable media are floppy disks and optical discs.

SATA (Serial ATA)

Standard IDE/ATA uses parallel data transm­ission.

There are three SATA standards specifying bandwidths of 1.5 Gbps, 3 Gbps, and 6 Gbps respec­tively.

External drives are also supported via the eSATA interface.

Thumb Drive

A flash memory card with USB adapter.

Windows supports long file names but can also generate a short file name, based on DOS 8.3 naming rules.

Partition

A discrete area of storage defined on a hard disk using either the Master Boot Record (MBR) scheme or the GUID Partition Table (GPT) scheme.

Boot Partition

In Microsoft termin­ology, the partition that contains the operating system (that is, the \WINDOWS folder) is referred to as the boot partition.

Compre­ssion Software

To send or store a file it often needs to be compressed in some way, to reduce the amount of space it takes up on the storage media or the bandwidth required to send it over a network.

Directory

A file system object used to organize files. Direct­ories can be created on any drive (the directory for the drive itself is called the root) and within other direct­ories (subdi­rec­tory).

In Windows, direct­ories are usually referred to as folders.

The FAT contains inform­ation relating to the position of file data chunks on the disk; data is not always written to one area of the disk but may be spread over several tracks.

A 64-bit version (exFAT) was introduced with Windows 7 and is also supported by XP SP3 and Vista SP1 and some versions of Linux and OS X.

Binary data must only be modified in a suitable applic­ation or the file will be corrupted.

Files usually have a three character extension (the last 3 characters in the file named preceded by a period).

Files have primary attributes (Read-­Only, System, Hidden, and Archive) and other properties (date created or modified for instance).

File System

When data is stored on a disk, it is located on that medium in a partic­ular, standa­rdized format.

Examples of file systems include FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS (all used for hard disks) and CDFS (ISO 9660) and UDF (Universal Disk Format), used for optical media such as CD, DVD, and Blu-ray.

The system is installed with default libraries for documents, pictures, and music and the user can add locations to these or create new libraries.

MPEG

Moving Pictures Expert Group is an ISO standards committee for audio and video compre­ssion and playback

From MPEG-1, the mp3 audio compre­ssion format remains very popular.

MPEG-4 (or MP4) extends the MPEG-2 specif­ica­tion, notably providing support for Digital Rights Management (DRM), which enables playback to be tied to particular hardware devices.

PDF (Portable Document Format)

Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format for distri­buting documents

Permis­sions

To access files and folders on a volume, the admini­strator of the computer will need to grant file permis­sions to the user (or a group to which the user belongs).

Recycle Bin

When files are deleted from a local hard disk, they are stored in the recycle bin.

UDF (Universal Disk Format)

File system used for optical media, replacing CDFS (ISO 9660).