Tech Literacy Study Guide: 194 Flashcards on IT Acronyms from CPU to GDPR

Tech acronyms are everywhere: a job posting wants "SaaS + CRM experience", your IT department emails about "MFA and VPN", a product page brags about "OLED, NFC, VoLTE". Deck LI3424 – Tech Literacy: Terms & Acronyms on Flip It turns that alphabet soup into 194 flashcards you can actually retain.

What the deck covers

The 194 cards are almost all short acronym → expansion pairs, so each one takes seconds to review. They fall into clear clusters:

• Computing basics: IT, ICT, PC, CPU, RAM, ROM, HDD, SSD, USB, OS, BIOS, UEFI, GPU
• Internet & networking: URL, HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, IP, TCP, DNS, LAN, WAN, VPN, ISP, WWW, VoIP, SIP
• Web & software development: HTML, CSS, XML, SGML, JSON, API, GUI, CLI, REST, SOAP, AJAX, IDE, SDK, JDK, JRE, JVM, OOP, MVC, CI/CD, DevOps, Agile, Scrum, MVP, Git, SVN
• Data & databases: DB, DBMS, RDBMS, SQL, NoSQL, CRUD, ACID, BASE, CAP theorem, DDL, DML, DCL, TCL, ETL, BI
• Business & cloud: ERP, CRM, SCM, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, VM, VDI, cloud computing
• AI & emerging tech: AI, ML, DL, NLP, OCR, IoT, M2M, RFID, NFC, GPS, GIS, VR, AR, MR, XR
• Hardware & displays: MOSFET, IC, ASIC, FPGA, SOC, PCB, LED, LCD, OLED, CRT, DPI, PPI, HDMI, VGA, DVI, DisplayPort
• Email & marketing: SMTP, IMAP, POP3, MIME, CMS, SEO, SEM, PPC, CTR, UX, UI, A/B testing
• Security & compliance: SSL, TLS, SSH, DDoS, DoS, XSS, CSRF, SQL injection, 2FA, MFA, CAPTCHA, OAuth, SAML, JWT, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS
• Standards bodies: ISO, IEEE, W3C, IETF, RFC
• Smartphones (last ~45 cards): touchscreen, multi-touch, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, OIS, HDR, bokeh, computational photography, 5G NR, LTE, VoLTE, SIM, dual-SIM, microSD, MTP, USB-C, Qi wireless charging, Android, iOS, mobile payment

Sample cards

A study plan that fits the deck

Acronym decks reward volume, not deep thinking: 40-50 new cards per session, four sessions to see everything, then daily reviews of whatever Flip It flags as weak.

1. Computing basics + networking + web (~60 cards you already half-know, good for momentum).
2. Databases + business/cloud + AI (~45 cards).
3. Hardware + email/marketing + security + standards (~45 cards).
4. The smartphone block: definitions rather than expansions, so slow down slightly.

Two tips specific to this deck

Learn the confusable pairs side by side. The deck is full of near-twins that trip people up in interviews: DoS vs DDoS (the second D is Distributed), 2FA vs MFA, SEO vs SEM, DPI vs PPI (dots vs pixels), SSL vs TLS (TLS is the modern successor), IMAP vs POP3 (IMAP syncs, POP3 downloads), DDL/DML/DCL/TCL (Definition, Manipulation, Control, Transaction). When one of these comes up, deliberately recall its sibling before flipping the card.

Decode the pattern, not the letters. Most expansions follow a template: "X as a Service" (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS), "X Management System" (DBMS, CMS, IMS), "X Development Kit" (SDK, JDK), "X Area Network" (LAN, WAN). Once you know the template, only the first word needs memorizing, which cuts the effective deck size roughly in half.

Related reading

If you want to go deeper on the security cluster, Master Cybersecurity Fundamentals & Threats covers malware, spoofing and defense in depth, and Computer & Smartphone Hardware expands the hardware and smartphone sections.

Open Flip It, search the library for LI3424 and start with the computing basics. Two weeks of short sessions and the next tech email you get will read like plain English.