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- cable
A wire or group of wires that connect different pieces of hardware. A parallel cable typically connects a printer to a computer. A serial cable typically connects a modem to a computer. 
- cable modem
A cable modem uses the cable television backbone to provide fast access to the internet. - cache
A part of the main memory, between the central processing unit and the rest of the main store. It has extremely fast access, so sections of a program and its associated data are copied there to take advantage of its speed. The use of cache memory can greatly reduce processing time. - cache
On the internet, proxy servers can provide a cache of internet pages, which are pages stored when first accessed so they can be supplied later without the delay of again accessing the internet. - call
A program that uses a subprogram or subroutine must have an instruction to transfer control to the subprogram. This instruction is known as a call to a subprogram. When a subroutine, procedure or function is called the computer will start executing it. - callout
Text, often surrounded by a box or a shape, which points to other text or a part of an image within the main body of the page. - cancel
Stopping an operation before it is fully completed, e.g. cancelling a print job. - capacity
In memory, it is the size of the memory, often measured in kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes. - caps lock
A key which when pressed makes all letters appear in upper case. - capturing
This is the collection of data for entering into a computer. This may be done automatically, as in the scanning of bar codes in a shop, or manually as in typing in a gas meter reading. - card reader
A card reader reads or scans data already stored in electronic format on cards, e.g. credit cards, travel tickets or car park passes. The data is written on a magnetic strip on the card by a card encoder. The cards which are swiped through a slot in the card-reader are called swipe cards. The cards are easily read but contain only small amounts of data. - cascading style sheet (CSS)
In HTML documents, cascading style sheets work like a template, allowing web developers to define a style for an HTML element and then apply it to as many web pages as they like. The advantage of this is that when you want to make a change, you simply change the style once in the CSS (rather than on each and every page), and that style is updated automatically wherever it appears within the site. - case sensitive
This is when the computer program distinguishes between lower case and upper case - e.g. a program which requires a password before you can access it may be case sensitive, so that the password "letmein" would be different from "LETMEIN". If it is not case sensitive, "letmein" and "LETMEIN" are the treated as the same thing. - catch (an exception)
In programming, code which realises that an exception has been thrown and deals with it accordingly. - cathode ray tube (CRT)
The glass tube used to form the screen in a monitor or television set. The cathode ray tube looks like a large electric light bulb with a flattened end, and the viewer sees only the flatter end. The inside of the flat end is coated with phosphor, and a beam of electrons is directed at it to make the end glow with patterns of dots. - cc
Short for carbon copy. In email, this means sending a copy of an email to another person. - CD drive
The drive into which a CD is placed to read from, or write to it. - CD writer
A device for saving data onto a CD. - CD-ROM
CD-ROM stands for Compact Disk Read Only Memory. They can store large quantities of data that can be accessed easily. However, the access time for hard disks is still much faster than for CD-ROMs. Data on a CD-ROM can only be read, not changed or altered. - CD-RW
A re-writable CD, which allows previously written data to be erased and fresh data to be written to the disk.
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