Business telecommunications and IT systems

i) When spelt with a lower case m, it means milli. 10 to the power of -3. One thoudsandth or 0.001

ii) When spelt with an upper case M, it means Mega. A data term meaning 2 to the power of 20 = 1,048,576

Media Access Control.

The lower sublayer of the data link layer of the OSI model.

There are different MAC protocols for the different IEEE 802 LANs.

Macro viruses are small programs written using the internal programming language of a specific application program that replicate within documents created by the application program.

Common examples of application programs that use macros include word processors such as Word and spreadsheets such as Excel.

A telephone number which is the specific number of an exchange line or channel, and which can have additional auxiliary working lines or channels added to it.

Mainframe Computers are powerful and mainly used by large organisations for critical applications such as bulk data processing in Government, and financial transaction processing.

Nowadays, the term is used to distinguish a high end commercial computer.

The voltage supplied from a country's Electricity Board to your office or home.

In the UK, the voltage used to be 240 volts AC until the European Union directed it should be lowered to 230 volts.

However, since the allowable variation is +10%, it remains at 240 volts.

The official UK mains power is therefore 230 volts +10%/-6%, 50 Hz.

In the USA, mains power is 110v AC, 60Hz.

A BT term. Maintenance

Malicious code is any code added, changed, or removed from a software system in order to intentionally cause harm or subvert the intended function of the system.

Traditional examples of malicious code include viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, and attack scripts, while more modern examples include Java attack applets and dangerous Active X controls.

Metropolitan Area Network.

A generic term for a geographically extended high speed LAN designed to interconnect users within a city or metropolitan area.

A Management Information Base (MIB) is defined as a virtual hierarchical database for managing the entities in a communications network.

Usually associated with the Simple Network Management Protocol, MIB is also used in the OSI/ISO Network management model.

WANScan uses MIBs.

Management Information System (MIS) software is a program which stores and processes information needed to manage an organisation effectively.

MIS involves three resources, namely Technology, Information (data), and People.

Of these three resources, the most important is people. Without a data policy and data entry policy for staff to follow, the entered data is highly likely to be incorrect or misinterpreted resulting in poor management information. The software is then blamed rather than the lack of policies and staff training.

An MIS can be used to analyse the stored information, enabling organisational decision making for greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Educational establishments often refer to MIS as SIS - Student Information System.

The insertion of arbitrary streams of data without the user noticing it.

Messaging Application Programming Interface.

An interface developed by Microsoft that provides messaging functions including addressing, sending, receiving and storing messages.

Simple MAPI includes some of these functions. Extended MAPI includes all of these functions.

A private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1861.

MIT comprises five schools and one college containing 32 academic departments with strong emphasis on scientific and technological research.

MIT's educational disciplines have expanded beyond the physical and engineering sciences into biology, economics, linguistics, political science, and management.

Where a business has a number of differing Service Level Agreements for differing parts or branches of their operation, with all of them coming under one Master Service Agreement.

The first telephone socket to which a Direct Exchange Line is connected.

Contains lightning protection and capacitance for bell ringing. Sometimes referred to as the Primary Socket.

Media Access Unit.

i) A single wire device that combines the function of a transmitter and receiver. Also called a transceiver.

ii)  Multistation Access Unit.

Megabyte.

A combination of mega and byte meaning a million bytes.

Abbreviated as Mbyte or MB.

Megabits per second. One million bits per second.

see Mbit/s.