Basic Computer Terminology- F

Fibre Channel: As applied to data storage and network topology - link to FC Glossary.

File Cabinet: Metaphorically, the hard drive (and other kinds of storage media like floppy disks) which store files and folders.

Folder Icons: Collections of documents and other folders.

File: The generic word for an application, document, control panel or other

computer data.

Finder: The cornerstone or home-base application in the Mac environment. The finder regulates the file management functions of the Mac (copying, renaming, deleting...)

Floppy: A 3.5 inch square rigid disk which holds data. (The earlier 5.25 and 8 inch disks were flexible).

Folder: An electronic subdirectory which contains files.

Font: A typeface that contains the characters of an alphabet or some other

Letter forms.

Footprint: The surface area of a desk or table which is occupied by a piece of equipment.

Fragmentation: The breaking up of a file into many separate locations in memory or on a disk.

Freeze: A system error which causes the cursor to lock in place.

Finger: UNIX command that provides information about users logged into a system.

Les Earnest wrote the finger program in 1971 to provide for users who wanted information about other users on a network or system. Before the finger program, the only way to get this information was with a who program that showed IDs and terminal line numbers for logged-in users; people used to run their fingers down the "who" list. Earnest named his program after this phenomenon.

Foobar: From the U.S. Army slang acronym, FUBAR. Both foo and bar are used as metasyntactic variables.

FQVS: Fully Qualified Virus Signature, the best candidate signature with

minimum false-positives and false-negatives.