B:

Drive letter description on PC computers. Today, most computers do not include or have a B: drive; if present the B: drive is generally the 5.25-inch disk drive, but can also be the 3.5-inch drive.

Also see: A:, Drive letter, Floppy definitions

bps

Short for bits per second, bps is a measurement of the data transmission speed. bps is an indication of how many bits that pass a certain point in one second. The larger the bps rate the faster the download and/or upload time will be.
Short for bytes per second and also sometimes abbreviated as B/s, Bps is the a speed is measured in bytes received per second. The difference between the two abbreviations is the uppercase and lowercase b.

Also see: Baud, Bit, Byte, Kbps, Measurement, Modem definitions

B2B

Short for business-to-business and also known as e-biz, B2B is where businesses deal directly with other businesses instead of business to customer.

B4

Shorthand for before, B4 is often used in text based communications such as chat.

Also see: Chat definitions

B4N

Shorthand for Bye for Now, B4N or BFN is commonly used in chat rooms and online games to let users know that they must leave but will likely be back.

Also see: BBIAB, BBL, Chat definitions, CYA, G2G, Game definitions, L8R

BAT

Short for Baby AT, Baby-AT is a motherboard form factor. Additional information about motherboards can be found on our motherboard help page.
BAT is also the file extension of a batch file.

Additional information about computer file extensions can be found on our file extensions page.

Also see: AT, Form factor, Motherboard definitions

Backup

A step or procedure that enables a user or company to make a copy of data that can be recovered at a later time if that data is deleted or corrupted at a later time. Depending on how often the data is changed, how important the data is, and how long it takes to backup the information will determine how often the data is backed up. For example, a business that has important data such as customer records that is frequently changed may backup their data every day or in some cases every few hours.

Additional information and help with making software backups can be found on document CHBACKUP.
See our MS-DOS backup command page for additional information about the MS-DOS backup command.

Also see: Archive, Differential backup, Full backup, Incremental backup, Off-line storage

Back link

Link that directs users back to the page they came from. In HTML you can create a back link button for your web page using the below source code.

Entering the above code would give you a button similar to the below example.

Also see: Link

Backbone

The main portion of a computer network that is capable of carrying the majority of traffic on the network. The backbone is commonly used to connect large networks or companies together. The first Internet backbone was made between UCLA and SLI on October 29, 1969 and today the Internet consists of dozens of large backbones that carry the majority of traffic throughout the world. In the United States, many of these backbones are run by major telecommunication companies such as: AT&T, Bell South, Congent, Qwest, MCI/Worldcom, Sprint, Time Warner, etc.

Also see: Network definitions, Network neutrality, NSFNET, Router, Trunk