Tech Check
Are you still getting comfortable with your new Christmas computer? Maybe you’re a mouse jockey from way back, or perhaps you’re someone who knows at least enough to fake it at work when the talk turns technical. Take this test and find out how you rate as a budding wonk.
1. When you hear GUI (pronounced “gooey”) do you think of:
a. Melting caramel
b. One of the seven dwarfs
c. Graphical user interface
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2. “Spam” is:
a. Military mystery meat
b. Massive unwanted e-mail
c. A Monty Python song
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3. “Foo” is:
a. Street talk, as in ‘You foo’
b. A Chinese egg dish
c. Algebraic place holder
*
4. “Follow the links” refers to:
a. A golfing vacation
b. On the trail of missing kielbasa
c. Navigating on the Internet
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5. “Insufficient memory” refers to:
a. Tendency to lose your car keys
b. Your computer’s inability to hold more information
c. Your defense in court
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6. Archie is:
a. A software tool for finding files stored on anonymous Web sites
b. Veronica’s pal
c. A bubble-gum band of the 1970s
*
7. A browser is:
a. A program (software) used to look at various kinds of Internet resources
b. A mall rat
c. A doggie bag
*
8. Cyberspace is:
a. A term originated by author William Gibson in his novel “Neuromancer”
b. Designated parking for long, thin cars
c. The mysterious place where all missing socks will be found
*
9. A gopher is:
a. A low-level studio worker
b. A rodent tunneling under your lawn
c. A method for making menus of written material available over the Internet
*
10. “Cheese” is:
a. What you say at picture-taking time
b. Content at a commercial Web site that consists mainly ofpictures of products and other advertising
c. A fine addition to your hamburger
*
11. What countries are represented by the following domain names?
a. IE
b. AR
c. ID
d. NP
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12. True or false: You can get a virus from reading your e-mail?
a. True
b. False
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13. Bandwidth is:
a. How much data you can send through a connection
b. The breadth of a symphony orchestra
c. The width of adhesive strips
*
Bonus question: What was the name of Bill Gates’ first company?
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The Answers:
1. c. Popularized by Apple’s Macintosh; it replaced text commands with icons, windows and the desktop.
2. b. Sending identical and irrelevant postings to many different newsgroups or mailing lists is considered a serious violation of “netiquette.”
3. c. Signifies origin of a Web site; for example, “.com” in https://www.latimes.com indicates the site is commercial.
4. c
5. b
6. a
7. a
8. A. Used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks.
9. c. Largely being supplanted by Hypertext, also known as WWW (World Wide Web). Named after the University of Minnesota’s Golden Gophers.
10. b
11. a. Ireland b. Argentina c. Indonesia d. Nepal
12. False. You can’t get a virus from reading your e-mail. The danger is in the attachments. Don’t open an e-mail attachment unless youknow what it is or who sent it.
13. a. Usually measured in bits per second. A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits per second.
Bonus question: Bill Gates and Paul Allen dubbed their first company Traf-O-Data. Their product was a system for tracking traffic on the freeway. Microsoft was registered as a trade name in 1982.
Score:
1-3: Still a newbie
4-7: Ahead of the pack
8-11: Well on your way to wonkdom
12-13: plus bonus question Honorary propeller-head
