Computer Knowledge What Is... FAQs

Computer Knowledge and the related FILExt (file extension) site are not general support sites; they are, instead, repositories of certain information. However, questions come in anyhow and various issues are discussed in the FILExt forum. The information that comes out of these discussions will be documented here and/or there as appropriate. This page links to all of the FAQs dealing with What Is things with the last modified at the start.

• What is a File Named Tilde (~) on the Desktop? A file named with the single tilde character (~) appears on your desktop. What is it and why is it there?
• What Are Electronic Communication Acronyms? To simplify text communications a number of acronyms have been developed. This page expands some you may encounter.
• What is a Country Code and Top Level Domain? The last characters on a domain name are usually either a country code (e.g., .ac, .br, etc.) or a top level domain (e.g., .com, .org, etc.).
• What Was That Error? An error message flashes on the screen, and everything comes to a screeching halt and/or your system restarts. But, what was that error?
• What Do Those 404 and Other HTTP Return Codes Mean? You try to access a web page but all you get is a mysterious code number. What do they mean?
• What are Emoticons? Emoticons are ASCII glyphs originally designed to show an emotional state in plain text messages.
• What are HIBERFIL.SYS and PAGEFIL.SYS? These are system-generated files. They are used by Windows for hibernation and virtual memory control.