IT Jargon, buzzwords and all that guff…

Jul 25, 2022 | General

IT is full of jargon and buzzwords, and most of them are just plain old guff, they are used to bamboozle, confuse and maintain a mystique over the workings of computers and systems and in our opinion are generally unnecessary. 

Take “The Cloud” as a prime example, generally said while a wavey hand motion is done off into “the ether”. The Cloud has been in existence for years, literally since the birth of the internet. The cloud just means you are using someone else’s computer in some way, emails, web hosting are both “cloud” and yet the phrase is used indeterminately and interchangeably with anything “out there” 

Abbreviations are rife as well, VOIP, RAID, BSOD, RAM – all fairly simple thing to explain yet made difficult for end users and business owners to understand.  

Albert Einstein said “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” And this is a great test for any IT company. Ask them to explain what they are trying to sell you so you understand it, however if they are talking in acronyms, abbreviations and jargon it is more than likely to up sell or sell you something you don’t need! 

If you are sick of excessive, unnecessary jargon (some of it is necessary) and want a company that will sit with you and explain things in laymen’s terms, then please give us a call. 

To give you a small head start: 

VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) – this is a phone system that uses the internet instead of old fashioned copper cables (Wifi calling on your mobile is a good example), it is less expensive and more flexible to use)  

VPN (Virtual Private Network) – A secure connection from wherever you are connected to the internet to an internal secure network, typically at your place of work to access information on a server. 

WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) – This is just a wireless link from whatever you are using such as your mobile or a laptop to your router / firewall and off out into the internet. It is instead of using a cable, Wifi itself is not the internet, just a way of connecting to however you connect to the internet.