The adapter, or circuit card, that allows your computer to display images on a monitor. The video adapter helps dictate your monitor's color depth and resolution. See related articles on video/graphics cards.
1: being actually such in almost every respect; "a practical failure"; "the once elegant temple lay in virtual ruin"; existing in essence or effect though not in actual fact; "a virtual dependence on charity"; "a virtual revolution"; "virtual reality"; 2: Virtual refers to anything that seems real but is actually simulated by the operating system. For example, virtual memory is really disk storage made to look like real memory; 3: An imaginary conceptualisation of something real. For example, many feel that the Internet is a virtual world unto itself. The term takes on many uses in the computer world as a wide variety of devices and software exist for the sole purpose of providing simulations of reality.
A piece of invasive code that copies itself in an attempt to infect as many computer systems and pieces of software as possible. Not all viruses are harmful -- some are just annoying, but many are destructive and can crash your computer or mangle the data on your hard drive. Viruses don't just spring up in nature; some malicious computer programmers write viruses to entertain themselves.
A computer's RAM is said to be volatile because it loses all the data it contains when it loses power. Hard-core users of IBM-compatible computers may also prove volatile if you ask them to use a Macintosh.
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