Hacker

A slang term for a computer enthusiast. Among professional programmers, the term hacker implies an amateur or a programmer who lacks formal training. Depending on how it used, the term can be either complimentary or derogatory, although it is developing an increasingly derogatory connotation. The pejorative sense of hacker is becoming more prominent largely because the popular press has coopted the term to refer to individuals who gain unauthorized access to computer systems for the purpose of stealing and corrupting data. Hackers, themselves, maintain that the proper term for such individuals is cracker.

Hamburger Menu

The hamburger menu, or the hamburger icon, is the three-stacked-lines graphic button in websites and apps that typically opens up into a side menu or navigation drawer.

HAN

Home Area Network. A HAN is a network contained within a user's home that connects a person's digital devices, from multiple computers and their peripheral devices to telephones, VCRs, televisions, video games, home security systems, "smart" appliances, fax machines and other digital devices that are wired into the network.

Hang

To crash in such a way that the computer does not respond to input from the keyboard or mouse. If your computer is hung, you usually need to reboot it, although sometimes hitting the correct sequence of control characters will free it up.

Hardware

Any computer related object that can be physically moved.

Hashtag

A type of label or metatag used in social networks or blogs to make finding messages etc easier to find for users.

HAVi

Home Audio Video Interoperability. A vendor-neutral audio-video standard aimed specifically at the home entertainment environment. HAVi allows different home entertainment and communication devices (such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, security systems, video monitors) to be networked together and controlled from one primary device, such as a PC or television.

HBA

Host Bus Adapter, is an I/O adapter that sits between the host computer's bus and the Fibre Channel loop and manages the transfer of information between the two channels. In order to minimise the impact on host processor performance, the host bus adapter performs many low-level interface functions automatically or with minimal processor involvement.

HCI

(1) Human–Computer Interaction, studies the design and use of computer technology, focused on the interfaces between people and computers.
(2) Human–Computer Interface, the means of communication between a human user and a computer system.

HCISPP

Healthcare Information Security and Privacy Practitioner.

HDD

Hard Disk Drive.

HDLC

High-level Data Link Control.

HDMI

High-Definition Multimedia Interface.

HDML

Handheld Device Markup Language, is used to format content for Web-enabled mobile phones. HDML is Openwave's (formerly known as phone.com) proprietary language, which can only be viewed on mobile phones that use Openwave browsers. HDML came before the WAP standard was created.

HDTV

High-Definition Television, a new type of television that provides much better resolution than current televisions based on the NTSC standard. There are a number of competing HDTV standards, which is one reason that the new technology has not been widely implemented. All of the standards support a wider screen than NTSC and roughly twice the resolution.

HECI

Host Embedded Controller Interface, is technology introduced in 2006.

HEDIS

Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set, is a set of standardised performance measures designed to provide purchasers and consumers with the information they need to reliably compare healthcare organizations’ performance.

HIE

Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy.

Hit

A single request from a browser for a single item from a web server.

HL7

Health Level-7 refers to a set of international standards for transfer of clinical and administrative data between software applications used by various healthcare providers. These standards focus on the application layer, which is "layer 7" in the OSI model.

HLL

High Level Language, is any programming language that enables development of a program in a much more user-friendly programming context and is generally independent of the computer's hardware architecture.

HLLAPI

High Level Language Application Program Interface. An IBM API that allows a PC application to communicate with a mainframe computer. HLLAPI requires a PC to run 3270 emulation software and then defines an interface between a PC application and the emulation software.

HLR

Home Location Register, is a database in a wireless network containing customer data, including service entitlements and call-routing information.

HMI

Human Machine Interface

Home Page

(1) For a Web user, the home page is the first Web page that is displayed after starting a Web browser.

(2) For a Web site developer, a home page is the first page presented when a user selects a site or presence on the World Wide Web. The usual address for a Web site is the home page address, although you can enter the address (URL) of any page and have that page sent to you.

Honeypot

An Internet-attached server that acts as a decoy, luring in potential hackers in order to study their activities and monitor how they are able to break into a system. Honeypots are designed to mimic systems that an intruder would like to break into but limit the intruder from having access to an entire network.

Hop

An intermediate connection in a string of connections linking 2 network devices. Every time data packets are forwarded from one device to another, a hop occurs.

Host

Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network.

Host Virtual Machine

Host Virtual Machine, is the server component of a virtual machine , the underlying hardware that provides computing resources to support a particular guest virtual machine.

Hot Key

Hot Key, is a key or a combination of keys on a computer keyboard that, when pressed at one time, performs a task more quickly than by using a mouse or other input device.

Hot Plugging

The ability to add and remove devices to a computer while the computer is running and have the operating system automatically recognize the change. Two external bus standards -- USB and Firewire support hot plugging. This is also a feature of PCMCIA. It is also called hot swapping.

Hot Spot

An area of a graphics object, or a section of text, that activates a function when selected. Hot spots are particularly common in multimedia applications, where selecting a hot spot can make the application display a picture, run a video, or open a new window of information.

Hotspot

A specific geographic location in which an access point provides public wireless broadband network services to mobile visitors through a WLAN. Hotspots are often located in heavily populated places such as airports, train stations, libraries, marinas, conventions centers and hotels. Hotspots typically have a short range of access.

HPA

High-Performance Addressing, a passive-matrix display technology the provides better response rates and contrast than conventional LCD displays.

HPFS

High Performance File System. A file system created specifically for IBM’s OS/2 to improve upon the limitations of the FAT file system.

HPGL

Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language, a set of commands for controlling plotters and printers. HPGL is part of Hewlett-Packard's PCL Level 5 PDL.

HPNA

Also referred to as HomePNA. A de facto home networking standard developed by the Home Phoneline Networking Alliance. This technology, building on Ethernet, allows all the components of a home network to interact over the home's existing telephone wiring without disturbing the existing voice or fax services.

HPSS

High Performance Storage System, is a storage management system especially designed for moving large files and large amounts of data around a nework.

HSCSD

High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data, is circuit-switched wireless data transmission for mobile users at data rates up to 38.4 Kbps, four times faster than the standard data rates of the GSM communication standard in 1999.

HSDPA

High Speed Downlink Packet Access. A packet based data service feature of WCDMA standard. It is an upgrade of the UMTS.

HSM

Hierarchical Storage Management, is policy -based management of file backup and archiving in a way that uses storage devices economically and without the user needing to be aware of when files are being retrieved from backup storage media. Although HSM can be implemented on a standalone system, it is more frequently used in the distributed network of an enterprise.

HSRP

Hot Standby Routing Protocol, is a routing protocol that provides backup to a router in the event of failure. Using HSRP, several routers are connected to the same segment of an Ethernet, FDDI or token-ring network and work together to present the appearance of a single virtual router on the LAN. The routers share the same IP and MAC addresses, therefore in the event of failure of one router, the hosts on the LAN are able to continue forwarding packets to a consistent IP and MAC address. The process of transferring the routing responsibilities from one device to another is transparent to the user.

HSSI

High-Speed Serial Interface, is a short-distance communications interface that is commonly used to interconnect routing and switching devices on LANs with the higher-speed lines of a WAN.

HSTS

HTTP Strict Transport Security, is a method used by websites to declare that they should only be accessed using a secure connection (HTTPS). If a website declares an HSTS policy, the browser must refuse all HTTP connections and prevent users from accepting insecure SSL certificates.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language - the coding language used to create documents for the web.

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol - command used to connect users to a website.

HTTPS

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure - a variation of HTTP that enables 'secure' transactions to take place on the web due to SSL encryption.

Hub

A common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN. A hub contains multiple ports.

Hyper-Threading

Hyper-Threading Technology is a groundbreaking innovation from Intel� Corporation that enables multi-threaded software applications to execute threads in parallel. This level of threading technology has never been seen before in a general-purpose microprocessor. Internet, e-Business, and enterprise software applications continue to put higher demands on processors. To improve performance in the past, threading was enabled in the software by splitting instructions into multiple streams so that multiple processors could act upon them.

HyperCard

HyperCard is an early Apple Macintosh application that enables users to author hypertext pages, called cards, without any programming knowledge.

Hyperlink (or Link)

A link within a document that once clicked will call up another document. The basis of Hypertext, the information system on which the World Wide Web is founded.

Hypertext

A system by which data, usually text, is organised through a series of clickable links between documents. The basis of all web pages.

Hypervisor

Hypervisor is also called a VMM.