General Terms
AI
Overview
Artificial Intelligence - programs that use catalogues of information and decision-making algorithms to "think like a human" to deliver insights or answers. ChatGPT, Gemini, etc. are types of AI that use "large language models" to gather and decipher data. Similar, but not the same as Machine Learning.
tags: #BasicTerms #services
Asynchronous Collaboration
Overview
Historically, employees did their jobs at the same time and in the same place—9 to 5 in the office. But new patterns of work and new technology have allowed people to find ways of collaborating that transcend space and time—9 to 5 in the office is no longer the default, and people can work together even if they are working at different times of day.
tags: #BasicTerms #Enable_Terms
AVL
Overview
Audio, Visual, and Lighting - this term is used to specify either the department in charge of these elements, or the elements themselves. "AVL department," or "AVL gear." You may also hear "Production," or "Media." Simply put, this is the department and/or the people that make the theatrical elements of a worship or event service possible including the cameras, lights, and sound and all of the equipment that makes this possible. Often we will create an AVL VLAN that we may call the "Controls," ''Media',' or "AVL Controls" Network to isolate their traffic from other functions. This is important because a lot of equipment used by AVL use the Multicast protocol to interact with each other and this data traffic can be disruptive to normal operations. Many times, the network equipment used for these functions uses physically separate equipment that is managed by teams outside of Enable.
tags: #AVL #BasicTerms
Bluetooth
Overview
Bluetooth creates what is known as a "Personal Area Network" by linking devices together to do things like provide sound and microphone capabilities to a headset. It is possible to connect to printers this way, as well, but in an environment with lots of users connecting to Wi-Fi this can start having issues due to the fact that it still uses radio waves. Therefore, we do not recommend this for ChMS check-in applications.
tags: #BasicTerms #networking
CPU
Overview
Central Processing Unit, or just Processor. The brain of a computer, Server, etc. It is NOT the entire "box" of a computer, but one component. You may see "Intel i5" or "i7" or Mac "M3 Pro" describing types of processor. This plugs in to the Motherboard of a computer.
tags: #BasicTerms #Components #hardware
Digital Asset Management
Overview
DAM - Digital Asset Management - a program (and sometimes accompanying hardware) that can index and catalogue all of your media files for AVL or marketing purposes, etc.
tags: #AVL #BasicTerms
Digital Signage
Overview
This is a system that includes a program and hardware to connect to TVs or other displays to provide announcements or other important information. Yodeck, BrightSign, and Playlister, are often used for this purpose.
tags: #BasicTerms
Docking Station
Overview
Used primarily with laptops to provide one cable to the computer (potentially one more to power) so that you can leave monitors, mouse, keyboard, etc. plugged in to the dock, then only plug in one cable to use all of these things with your computer.
tags: #BasicTerms #hardware #Components
eFax
Overview
The ability to use a service to deliver and send faxes without relying on old fax machines or POTS lines. These are most often SaaS solutions. eFax is the name of a vendor, but others exist, like HumbleFax or MyFax.
tags: #BasicTerms #phones #networking
Email Security
Overview
Email uses SPF, DMARC, and DKIM to secure email services. The overall purpose of using all three of these protocols is the ensure that the email address listed in the "From" field really came from a server operated by a legitimate sender.
tags: #BasicTerms #security
Follow Me Printing
Overview
Also known as Find-Me printing - PaperCut, and Printix are two preferred programs that connect users to printers and allow things like accounting for who is printing how many pages, but also allows things like Follow me/Find-me. This allows you to send a print job to "Printers at Church" instead of "4th Floor Laser" and then you can go to any printer on the system and use a badge or username/password to print your job.
tags: #BasicTerms #Printing
Graphics Card
Overview
Also called a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). The part of a computer that produces the visual output to the Monitor. Programs that deal with creating videos or graphics may require "discrete Graphics Cards" as opposed to the ones that are just "built-in." Discrete cards plug in to the Motherboard. Built-in cards are usually part of the CPU.
Internet
Overview
The Internet, as a term, is used colloquially to just mean what I see "when I go online" by using a web browser. A slightly more precise definition is the world wide network of Internet service providers (ISP) who all talk to one another to make it possible to have things like web pages. See Types of Internet Delivery.
tags: #networking #BasicTerms
IT
Overview
Information Technology - The area of work that deals with all of the tools and systems that allow us to share information with each other. IT focuses on helping clients successfully use their computers, Networks, Servers, Cloud services, and a myriad of other related services and equipment.
tags: #Enable_Terms #BasicTerms
Live Stream
Overview
The Live Stream is the way AVL teams can put a real time output of the sound and video happening during an event onto the Internet. Typically there is a device used to "encode" the camera and sound feeds and "push" them to a service like YouTube, Facebook, the church website, etc. Resi is Enable's top recommendation for Live Streaming services.
tags: #AVL #BasicTerms #networking
Machine Learning
Overview
The older cousin of AI. A set of instructions are programed to detect conditions and respond with a specific action. This is a pattern based response, not "learning like a human" to do new things or provide new information.
tags: #BasicTerms
Microsoft 365
Overview
A Cloud-based group of Microsoft productivity, communication, and file storage tools including Word, Excel, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, email, SharePoint etc. Confusingly, Office 365 was both the former name of this entire group of products, and now an individual offering within the broader Microsoft 365 ecosystem. This is a SaaS product.
tags: #services #Cloud #BasicTerms
Monitor
Overview
This is the part of the computer that lets you see what the computer is doing. It plugs into the computer, or is built in as an LED Display on a laptop. Some have touch screens that allow you to use your finger like a mouse on the screen. The Resolution helps defines the visual quality of the monitor. Other terms you may hear on this subject are LCD vs LED vs OLED that describe how the screen receives light, and Aspect Ratio, that describes if the monitor is square, or rectangular and how height compares to width. In general, if you hear "24 Inch Monitor" this is the diagonal measurement. The Graphics Card provides the video signal to the monitor and has limitations on what screen quality can be achieved, so buying the "best monitor" will not always improve screen quality if the Graphics Card cannot take advantage of the monitor's capabilities. Monitors typically connect by HDMI, Display Port, or DVI. It is critical that we match the connection and cable type to what the graphics card uses for this purpose.
tags: #BasicTerms #Components #hardware
Motherboard
Overview
This is the part of a computer or Server that all other components of that system also plug into and provides the way they can work together for computing. The basic elements that plug in to a motherboard are CPU, RAM, Graphics Card, Sound Card, USB controller and ports, and Hard drives. In many computers the Graphics Card and Sound Card are not separate components; instead they are built in to the Motherboard or CPU.
tags: #BasicTerms #hardware #Components
Multicast
Overview
Networks use several different methods to send information to devices. Unicast is a two way communication between just two devices. Broadcast is one device talking to every other device on the same network. Typically this is a "short term" interaction looking for something like DHCP. Multicast is is often a ''long term" conversation in which lots of devices are constantly sharing information with each other. We often refer to this as "chatty," and it can be very disruptive to normal operations if not configured properly. Dante and QSys are protocols used by AVL to provide sound and/or video over the network that use multicast. NDI is a video protocol that uses multicast.
tags: #AVL #BasicTerms #networking
Network
Overview
Any time you allow two or more devices to share information, you create a network. These most often connect you to other networks, like the Internet, or you can do stuff to let one campus talk to another. You can think of a network sort of like electricity. You have outlets that you plug into that go to your breaker box, which goes to the power company. In a network, you have "data outlets" that connect to your computer and to switches and other network gear that connect to your Internet service provider.
tags: #networking #BasicTerms
On-Premises
Overview
On-Prem (On-Premises)- The opposite of the Cloud. You host your own Servers or services on equipment located at your physical location. A Co-Location is similar in that you own all of the gear.
tags: #servers #networking #BasicTerms
Password Manager
Overview
OnePass, Dashlane, Bitwarden, LastPass, etc. are all programs that can save all of your passwords to various websites and applications so that you don't have to remember them all and can follow best practices by using complex, hard to guess passwords instead of using one simple username/password combination for all of these which is very dangerous. When the "password vault" you create with this program has a unique Strong Password and uses MFA, or even better, when it uses SSO, these programs can be very secure.
These can be free, or purchased for individuals or entire organizations.
tags: #BasicTerms #security
Phone System
Overview
Often, this term is used synonymously with a PBX, the server that runs a phone system, like Switchvox (Digium), Teams Phones, Avaya, etc. Enable only directly supports Digium (Switchvox/Sangoma) and Teams Voice. We will work with vendors to ensure the client is getting what they need if they use another system, but rarely "push the buttons" on those systems. These are examples of VOIP phone systems.
tags: #phones #servers #services #BasicTerms #Enable_Products
RAM
Overview
Random Access Memory, or just Memory - Programs that run on a computer keep data they are currently using in Memory because it "talks faster" than the hard drive. Measured in GB for most circumstances. 16 GB of RAM is standard for workstations. You may need more for video or graphics design. Plugs into the Motherboard.
tags: #BasicTerms #Components #hardware
Raspberry Pi
Overview
This is a tiny computer that is used for things like Digital Signage or a myriad of other cases. They often do not have great security, so we may put them on VLANs or Networks that do not have access to servers or workstations.
tags: #BasicTerms #Components
Sound Card
Overview
These are either additional components to plug in, or are built-in, to the Motherboard to provide sound to plugged in speakers or USB or Bluetooth headsets..
tags: #BasicTerms #Components #hardware
Strong Password
Overview
A Strong Password is one that is difficult to guess for both a human and a computer. Length and complexity are the key elements. The longer the password, the better. The more "classes" of characters you use, the better. For instance: "password" is a terrible, easy to guess password. But: "My-Secret-Credential-1-!" would literally take beyond a billion years for a computer to guess. It has 24 characters and uses all four classes of character, Upper Case, Lower Case, Number, Symbol. But, the way it is written makes it easier to remember for YOU. Combined with MFA, this provides great security.
tags: #security #BasicTerms
Sync Tool
Overview
Programs like OneDrive or Dropbox that store your files in the cloud and make them available on your devices. It is vitally important to understand that these are SYNCHRONIZATION tools, not backup tools. When you delete from one place (without following very specific steps) you delete that file everywhere.
tags: #BasicTerms #services #Cloud
USB
Overview
USB (Universal Serial Bus) connections are used to plug in things like a mouse, keyboard, webcam, printer, or other items into your computer to be used by various programs. USB C is becoming the "gold standard"
tags: #Components #BasicTerms
Web Browser
Overview
A program like Microsoft Edge, Safari, or Firefox that allows you to browse the Internet.
tags: #networking #BasicTerms
Webcam
Overview
This is a camera that plugs in to the computer by USB to provide the ability to show yourself on screen for meetings and other recordings. Often they are built in to monitors or laptops, but these are not always as high quality as those that plug in separately. HD or 4K webcams provide better quality. Most webcams include a microphone for picking up your voice, but they are not known to have great sound quality, so a separate microphone or USB headset for sound and microphone may be appropriate.
tags: #BasicTerms #Components #hardware
Wi-Fi
Overview
Wi-Fi is the method used to connect to a Network using wireless connectivity (radio waves). It requires APs that connect to switches.
tags: #networking #BasicTerms
Workstation
Overview
Those new to MSPs may haven ever heard this term, but it is just a synonym for any computer, laptop, or desktop, provided to a user for their work.
tags: #BasicTerms #hardware