56k
Line A digital phone-line connection (leased line) capable of
carrying 56,000 bits-per-second. At this speed, a Megabyte will
take about 3 minutes to transfer. This is 4 times as fast as a
14,400bps modem. See Also:Bandwidth, T-1
Animation
A dynamic image, which is comprising of a number of
frames, which when turn give the impression of movements.
ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
This is the de facto world-wide standard for the code numbers
used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case
Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard
ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary
number: 0000000 through 1111111. Authorware Macromedia's
software, the leading tool for web-based multimedia and
learning, a special plugin (Shockwave) is required to view such
sites.
Bandwidth
How much stuff you can send through a connection.
Usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of English text
is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits in
one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly
10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.See Also:
56k Line, Bps, Bit, T-1.
BBS
(Bulletin Board System)
A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows
people to carry on discussions, upload and download files, and
make announcements without the people being connected to the
computer at the same time. There are many thousands (millions?)
of BBS's around the world, most are very small, running on a
single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large
and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets
crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn.
BITNET
(Because It's Time NETwork (or Because It's There NETwork))
A network of educational sites separate from the Internet, but
e-mail is freely exchanged between BITNET and the Internet.
Listservs, the most popular form of e-mail discussion groups,
originated on BITNET. BITNET machines are usually mainframes
running the VMS operating system, and the network is probably
the only international network that is shrinking.
BTW (By
The Way)
A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum.
See Also: IMHO, TTFN.
CERN
European Laboratory for Particle Physics C E R N is
one of the world's largest scientific laboratories and an
outstanding example of international collaboration of its many
member states. (The acronym CERN comes from the earlier French
title: "Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire") , located
near Geneva in Switzerland and France. CERN is the birthplace of
the World-Wide Web.
cgi-bin
The most common name of a directory on a web server
in which CGI programs are stored.The "bin" part of "cgi-bin" is
a shorthand version of "binary", because once upon a time, most
programs were refered to as "binaries". In real life, most
programs found in cgi-bin directories are text files -- scripts
that are executed by binaries located elsewhere on the same
machine. See Also: CGI
Cookie
A Cookie is a mechanism by which server side
operations (such as CGIscripts) can store and retrieve
information on the client side of the connection. In practice,
this means that information submitted by a web browser to a web
server via a form or other interactive method can be stored on
the browser machine and resubmitted when the web server URL is
accessed at some point in the future. Examples would include
login or registration information, online "shopping carts" or
user surveys. Since cookies can store user information (on the
user's own computer), they are used to personalize the WWW
experience by recognizing and acknowledging the user when
reentering a web site. Cookies are typically set to expire after
a predetermined amount of time. Cookies *do not* read your hard
drive and send your life story to the CIA.
Digerati
The digital version of literati, it is a reference to
a vague cloud of people seen to be knowledgeable, hip, or
otherwise in-the-know in regards to the digital revolution.
DHTML
Web authors today face significant challenges when
making their Web pages interactive. The static nature of HTML
pages limits their creative choices, and interactive components
can be difficult to build. Dynamic HTML gives authors creative
control so they can manipulate any page element and change
styles, positioning, and content at any time -- not only when
the page is loaded. Microsoft is working with the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) to help ensure cross-platform, cross-browser
support for Dynamic HTML.
E-mail
(Electronic Mail)
Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via
computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large
number of addresses (Mailing List).See Also: Listserv, Maillist
Electronic
Commerce (or e-commerce)
is a virtual way to physically do business where money is
exchanged and goord and/or services are rendered. E-commerce
allows business transactions over the Internet with a defined
methodology for exchanging money for good and/or services.
FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions)
FAQ's are documents that list and answer the most common
questions on a particular subject. There are hundreds of FAQs on
subjects as diverse as Pet Grooming and Cryptography. FAQs are
usually written by people who have tired of answering the same
question over and over.
Fire Wall
A combination of hardware and software that separates
a LAN into two or more parts for security purposes.See Also:
Network, LAN.
Flame
Originally, flame meant to carry forth in a
passionate manner in the spirit of honorable debate. Flames most
often involved the use of flowery language and flaming well was
an art form. More recently flame has come to refer to any kind
of derogatory comment no matter how witless or crude. See Also:
Flame War
FTP
(File Transfer Protocol)
A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites.
FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the
purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many
Internet sites that have established publicly accessible
repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by
logging in using the account name anonymous, thus these sites
are called anonymous ftp servers. Files transferred between
servers can either be ASCII or Binary. See Also: ASCII, Binary.
Gopher
A widely successful method of making menus of
material available over the Internet. Gopher is a Client and
Server style program, which requires that the user have a Gopher
Client program. Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe
in only a couple of years, it has been largely supplanted by
Hypertext, also known as WWW (World Wide Web). There are still
thousands of Gopher Servers on the Internet and we can expect
they will remain for a while. See Also: Client, Server,WWW,
Hypertext
Host
Any computer on a network that is a repository for
services available to other computers on the network. It is
quite common to have one host machine provide several services,
such as WWW and USENET.See Also: Node, Network.
HTML
(HyperText Markup Language)
The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use
on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned
typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes
that indicate how it should appear, additionally, in HTML you
can specify that a block of text, or a word, is linked to
another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed
using a World Wide Web Client Program, such as Netscape or
Mosaic. See Also: Client,Server,WWW
IMHO
(In My Humble Opinion)
A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum,
IMHO indicates that the writer is aware that they are expressing
a debatable view, probably on a subject already under
discussion. One of may such shorthands in common use online,
especially in discussion forums. See Also: TTFN, BTW
Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization
that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the
public Internet, but that is only for internal use.As the
Internet has become more popular many of the tools used on the
Internet are being used in private networks, for example, many
companies have web servers that are available only to employees.
Note that an Intranet may not actually be an internet -- it may
simply be a network. See Also: internet, Internet, Network
IRC
(Internet Relay Chat)
Basically a huge multi-user live chat facility. There are a
number of major IRC servers around the world which are linked to
each other. Anyone can create a channel and anything that anyone
types in a given channel is seen by all others in the channel.
Private channels can (and are) created for multi-person
conference calls.
ISP
(Internet Service Provider)
An institution that provides access to the Internet in some
form, usually for money. See Also: Internet
JPG /JPEG
A graphical data file format, widel supported on the
world wide web, JPG file have a quality of containing true color
palletes.
Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024 (2^10)
bytes. See Also: Byte, Bit
LAN
(Local Area Network)
A computer network limited to the immediate area, usually the
same building or floor of a building. See Also: Ethernet
Leased-line
Refers to a phone line that is rented for exclusive
24-hour, 7 -days-a-week use from your location to another
location. The highest speed data connections require a leased
line.See Also:56k Line,T-1,T-3
Login
Noun or a verb. Noun: The account name used to gain
access to a computer system. Not a secret (contrast with
Password). Verb: The act of entering into a computer system,
e.g. Login to the WELL and then go to the GBN conference.
See Also: Password.
Megabyte
A million bytes. A thousand kilobytes. See Also:
Byte, Bit, Kilobyte
Modem
(MOdulator, DEModulator)
A device that you connect to your computer and to a phone line,
that allows the computer to talk to other computers through the
phone system. Basically, modems do for computers what a
telephone does for humans.
MOO
(Mud, Object Oriented)
One of several kinds of multi-user role-playing environments, so
far only text-based.See Also: MUD,MUSE.
Mosaic
The first WWW browser that was available for the
Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX all with the same interface. Mosaic
really started the popularity of the Web. The source-code to
Mosaic has been licensed by several companies and there are
several other pieces of software as good or better than Mosaic,
most notably, Netscape. See Also: Browser, Client, WWW.
MUSE
(Multi-User Simulated Environment)
One kind of MUD - usually with little or no violence. See Also:
MOO, MUD.
NCSA
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. NCSA also defines
standards for Web Servers and Firewalls. NCSA's Mosiac was one
of the first Web Browsers on the Internet.
Netizen
Derived from the term citizen, referring to a citizen of the
Internet, or someone who uses networked resources. The term
connotes civic responsibility and participation. See Also:
Internet
Network
Any time you connect 2 or more computers together so
that they can share resources, you have a computer network.
Connect 2 or more networks together and you have an internet.See
Also: internet, Internet,Intranet
Newsgroup The name for discussion groups on USENET.See
Also:USENET.
NIC
(Networked Information Center)
Generally, any office that handles information for a network.
The most famous of these on the Internet is the InterNIC, which
is where new domain names are registered.
Packet
Switching
The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet
switching, all the data coming out of a machine is broken up
into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from
and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many
different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted
and directed to different routes by special machines along the
way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same
time.
PKNIC
(Domain name Registration) is delegated by INTERNIC,
and is mainly responsible for the registration of Internet
domain names under .PK Top Level Domain for the internet
community in Pakistan. This service is provided free of cost and
is open to every Pakistani (and others operating a network in
Pakistan).
Port
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where
information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the
serial port on a personal computer is where a modem would be
connected.On the Internet port often refers to a number that is
part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the
domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens on a
particular port number on that server. Most services have
standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port
80. Services can also listen on non-standard ports, in which
case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing
the server, so you might see a URL of the form:
gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/ shows a gopher server
running on a non-standard port (the standard gopher port is 70).
Finally, port also refers to translating a piece of software to
bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to
translate a Windows program so that is will run on a Macintosh.
See Also:Domain Name, Server, URL
Push
Technology
Internet companies are rushing to introduce products
that make repeated visits to Web sites unnecessary. Instead,
information from those sites is sent automatically to a personal
computer via push technology. Text, graphics, sound and even
software can be delivered. The technology works like this:
Online users download and install software that has a push
application. Then they choose which channels they want to
receive and how often. Channels will come from content providers
that include news organizations such as CNN and The New York
Times, and sports and entertainment sites including CBS
SportsLine and Daily Variety.
RFC
(Request For Comments)
The name of the result and the process for creating a standard
on the Internet. New standards are proposed and published on
line, as a Request For Comments. The Internet Engineering Task
Force is a consensus-building body that facilitates discussion,
and eventually a new standard is established, but the reference
number/name for the standard retains the acronym RFC, e.g. the
official standard for e-mail is RFC 822.
Server
A computer, or a software package, that provides a
specific kind of service to client software running on other
computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software,
such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is
running, e.g.Our mail server is down today, that's why e-mail
isn't getting out. A single server machine could have several
different server software packages running on it, thus providing
many different servers to clients on the network. See Also:
Client, Network
Shockwave
Flash A plugin for Netscape Navigator and Internet
Explorer to view sites enhanced by Macromaedia softwares, these
sites are dynamic and low bandwidth at the same time.
SLIP
(Serial Line Internet Protocol)
A standard for using a regular telephone line (a serial line)
and a modem to connect a computer as a realInternet site. SLIP
is gradually being replaced by PPP .See Also: Internet, PPP
SMDS
(Switched Multimegabit Data Service)
A new standard for very high-speed data transfer.
Spam
(or Spamming)
An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or USENET or
other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast
medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large
number of people who didn't ask for it. The term probably comes
from a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam
repeated over and over. The term may also have come from
someone's low opinion of the food product with the same name,
which is generally perceived as a generic content-free waste of
resources. (Spam is a registered trademark of Hormel
Corporation, for its processed meat product.)E.g. Mary spammed
50 USENET groups by posting the same message to each. See
Also: Mail-list, USENET
Sysop
(System Operator)
Anyone responsible for the physical operations of a computer
system or network resource. A System Administrator decides how
often backups and maintenance should be performed and the System
Operator performs those tasks.
T-3
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at
44,736,000 bits-per-second. This is more than enough to do
full-screen, full-motion video.See Also: 56k Line, Bandwidth,
Bit, Byte,Ethernet, T-1
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet.
Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP
software is now available for every major kind of computer
operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer
must have TCP/IP software.See Also: IP Number, Internet, UNIX
Terminal
Server
A special purpose computer that has places to plug in
many modems on one side, and a connection to a LAN or host
machine on the other side. Thus the terminal server does the
work of answering the calls and passes the connections on to the
appropriate node. Most terminal servers can provide PPP or SLIP
services if connected to the Internet.See Also:LAN, Modem, Host,
Node,PPP, SLIP
USENET
A world-wide system of discussion groups, with
comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines. Not all
USENET machines are on the Internet, maybe half. USENET is
completely decentralized, with over 10,000 discussion areas,
called newsgroups. See Also: Newsgroup
UUENCODE
(Unix to Unix Encoding)
A method for converting files from Binary to ASCII (text) so
that they can be sent across the Internet via e-mail. See Also:
Binhex, MIME
Veronica
(Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized
Archives)
Developed at the University of Nevada, Veronica is a constantly
updated database of the names of almost every menu item on
thousands of gopher servers. The Veronica database can be
searched from most major gopher menus. See Also: Gopher
WWW
(World Wide Web)
Two meanings - First, loosely used: the whole constellation of
resources that can be accessed using Gopher, FTP, HTTP, telnet,
USENET, WAIS and some other tools. Second, the universe of
hypertext servers (HTTP servers) which are the servers that
allow text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed together.See
Also:Browser, FTP,Gopher,HTTP,Telnet,URL,WAIS
|
ADN
(Advanced Digital Network)
Usually refers to a 56Kbps leased-line.
Anonymous
FTP
See Also: FTP
ARPANet
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)
The precursor to the Internet. Developed in the late 60's and
early 70's by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in
wide-area-networking that would survive a nuclear war. See Also:
Internet
Archie
A tool (software) for finding files stored on
anonymous FTP sites. You need to know the exact file name or a
substring of it.
Backbone
A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major
pathway within a network. The term is relative as a backbone in
a small network will likely be much smaller than many
non-backbone lines in a large network. See Also: Network
Baud
In common usage the baud rate of a modem is how many
bits it can send or receive per second. Technically, baud is the
number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value
- for example a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300
baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per
second). See Also:Bit, Modem.
Binhex
(BINary HEXadecimal)
A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII.
This is needed because Internet e-mail can only handle ASCII.
See Also: ASCII, MIME, UUENCODE.
Bit
(Binary DigIT)
A single digit number in base-2, in other words, either a 1 or a
zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is
usually measured in bits-per-second. See Also: Bandwidth, Bps,
Byte, Kilobyte,Megabyte.
Bps
(Bits-Per-Second)
A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to
another. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per second.See Also:
Bandwidth, Bit.
Browser
A client program (software) that is used to look at
various kinds of Internet resources.See Also: Client, URL, WWW,
Netscape, Mosaic, Home Page (or Homepage).
Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there
are 8 Bits in a Byte, sometimes more, depending on how the
measurement is being made.See Also: Bit
CGI
(Common Gateway Interface)
A set of rules that describe how a WebServer communicates with
another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other
piece of software (the "CGI program") talks to the web server.
Any piece of software can be a CGI program if it handles input
and output according to the CGI standard.Usually a CGI program
is a small program that takes data from a web server and does
something with it, like putting the content of a form into an
e-mail message, or turning the data into a database query.
You can often see that a CGI program is being used by seeing "cgi-bin"
in a URL, but not always. See Also:cgi-bin, Web.
Client
A software program that is used to contact and obtain
data from a Server software program on another computer, often
across a great distance. EachClient program is designed to work
with one or more specific kinds of Server programs, and each
Server requires a specific kind of Client. A Web Browser is a
specific kind of Client.See Also: Browser, Server.
COUNTERS
A CGI script that visually shows the number of visits
made (or hits) on a particular web page or site.
Cyberspace
Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel
Neuromancer the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe
the whole range of information resources available through
computer networks.
Domain
Name
The unique name that identifies an Internet site.
Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The
part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right
is the most general. A given machine may have more than one
Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine.
For example, the domain names:
matisse.net
mail.matisse.net
workshop.matisse.net
can all refer to the same machine, but each domain name can
refer to no more than one machine.
Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have the
same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names (matisse.net
in the examples above). It is also possible for a Domain Name to
exist but not be connected to an actual machine. This is often
done so that a group or business can have an Internet e-mail
address without having to establish a real Internet site. In
these cases, some real Internet machine must handle the mail on
behalf of the listed Domain Name.
See Also: IP Number
EDI
Electronic Data Interchange is a form of electronic messaging
used by business and government to make purchases, payments, and
other routine transactions.
Ethernet
A very common method of networking computers in a
LAN. Ethernet will handle about 10,000,000 bits-per-second and
can be used with almost any kind of computer.See Also:
Bandwidth, LAN
FDDI
(Fiber Distributed Data Interface)
A standard for transmitting data on optical fiber cables at a
rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second (10 times as fast as
Ethernet , about twice as fast as T-3).See Also: Bandwidth,
Ethernet, T-1, T-3
Finger
An Internet software tool for locating people on
other Internet sites. Finger is also sometimes used to give
access to non-personal information, but the most common use is
to see if a person has an account at a particular Internet site.
Many sites do not allow incoming Finger requests, but many do.
Flame War
When an online discussion degenerates into a series
of personal attacks against the debators, rather than discussion
of their positions. A heated exchange. See Also: Flame
Gateway
The technical meaning is a hardware or software
set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for
example Prodigy has a gateway that translates between its
internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail format.
Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any
mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g. AOL might
be called a gateway to the Internet.
GIF
(Graphical Information Format)
A widely used and supported graphical data file format made by
Compuserve. GIF89a is the animated version of a GIF file, able
to incorporate different picture frames along with
syncronization timings for presenting these frames in an
animated sequence.
Home Page
(or Homepage)
Several meanings. Originally, the web page that your browser is
set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to
the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply
the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out
so-and-so's new Home Page."Another sloppier use of the term
refers to practically any web page as a "homepage," e.g. "That
web site has 65 homepages and none of them are interesting."
See Also: Browser,Web
HTTP
(HyperText Transport Protocol)
The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet.
Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server
program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol
used in the World Wide Web (WWW) . See Also: Client, Server, WWW
Hypertext
Generally, any text that contains links to other
documents - words or phrases in the document that can be chosen
by a reader and which cause another document to be retrieved and
displayed.
Internet
(Upper case I)
The vast collection of inter-connected networks that all use the
TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late
60's and early 70's. The Internet now (July 1995) connects
roughly 60,000 independent networks into a vast global internet.
See Also:internet
internet
(Lower case i)
Any time you connect 2 or more networks together, you have an
internet - as in inter-national or inter-state.See Also:Internet,
Network
IP Number
Sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique number
consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g.165.113.245.2
Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number -
if a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the
Internet. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that
are easier for people to remember. See Also: Domain Name,
Internet
ISDN
(Integrated Services Digital Network)
Basically a way to move more data over existing regular phone
lines. ISDN is rapidly becoming available to much of the USA and
in most markets it is priced very comparably to standard analog
phone circuits. It can provide speeds of roughly 128,000
bits-per-second over regular phone lines. In practice, most
people will be limited to 56,000 or 64,000 bits-per-second.
Java
Java is a new programming language invented by Sun
Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs
that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the
Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other
harm to your computer or files. Using small Java programs
(called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as
animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks.We can expect to
see a huge variety of features added to the Web using Java,
since you can write a Java program to do almost anything a
regular computer program can do, and then include that Java
program in a Web page.
Listserv
The most common kind of maillist, Listservs
originated on BITNET but they are now common on the Internet.See
Also: BITNET, E-mail, Maillist
Maillist
(or Mailing List)
A (usually automated) system that allows people to send e-mail
to one address, whereupon their message is copied and sent to
all of the other subscribers to the maillist. In this way,
people who have many different kinds of e-mail access can
participate in discussions together.
MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
The standard for attaching non-text files to standard Internet
mail messages. Non-text files include graphics, spreadsheets,
formatted word-processor documents, sound files, etc.An email
program is said to be MIME Compliant if it can both send and
receive files using the MIME standard. When non-text files
are sent using the MIME standard they are converted (encoded)
into text - although the resulting text is not really readable.
Generally speaking the MIME standard is a way of specifying both
the type of file being sent (e.g. a Quicktime video file), and
the method that should be used to turn it back into its original
form. Besides email software, the MIME standard is also
universally used by Web Servers to identify the files they are
sending to Web Clients, in this way new file formats can be
accommodated simply by updating the Browsers' list of pairs of
MIME-Types and appropriate software for handling each type.
See Also: Browser, Client, Server, Binhex, UUENCODE
MUD
(Multi-User Dungeon or Dimension)
A (usually text-based) multi-user simulation environment. Some
are purely for fun and flirting, others are used for serious
software development, or education purposes and all that lies in
between. A significant feature of most MUDs is that users can
create things that stay after they leave and which other users
can interact with in their absence, thus allowing a world to be
built gradually and collectively. See Also: MOO, MUSE.
Netiquette
The etiquette on the Internet. See Also: Internet
Netscape
A WWW Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape
(tm) browser was originally based on the Mosaic program
developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA).Netscape has grown in features rapidly and is widely
recognized as the best and most popular web browser. Netscape
corporation also produces web server software. Netscape
provided major improvements in speed and interface over other
browsers, and has also engendered debate by creating new
elements for theHTML language used by Web pages -- but the
Netscape extensions to HTML are not universally supported.
The main author of Netscape, Mark Andreessen, was hired away
from the NCSA by Jim Clark, and they founded a company called
Mosaic Communications and soon changed the name to Netscape
Communications Corporation. See Also: Browser, Mosaic,
Server, WWW.
Node
Any single computer connected to a network. See Also:
Network, Internet, internet
Password
A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good
passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple
combinations such as virtue7. A good password might be:Hot$1-6
See Also: Login
PDF
(Portable Document Format)
Adobe's special format for documentation, Better quality then a
normal text file, still it has a low file size, readable only by
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POP
Two commonly used meanings: Point of Presence and
Post Office Protocol. A Point of Presence usually means a city
or location where a network can be connected to, often with
dialup phone lines. So if an Internet company says they will
soon have a POP in Belgrade, it means that they will soon have a
local phone number in Belgrade and/or a place where leased lines
can connect to their network. A second meaning, Post Office
Protocol refers to the way e-mail software such as Eudora gets
mail from a mail server. When you obtain a SLIP, PPP, or shell
account you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is
this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to
get your mail. See Also: SLIP, PPP
Posting
A single message entered into a network
communications system. E.g. A single message posted to a
newsgroup or message board. See Also:Newsgroup
PPP
(Point to Point Protocol)
Most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a
regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IP connections
and thus be really and truly on the Internet .See Also: IP
Number, Internet, SLIP, TCP/IP
Router
A special-purpose computer (or software package) that
handles the connection between 2 or more networks. Routers spend
all their time looking at the destination addresses of the
packets passing through them and deciding which route to send
them on.See Also:Network,Packet Switching
Search
Engines
A search engine proper is a database and the tools to
generate that database and search it; a catalog is an
organizational method and related database plus the tools for
generating it. There are sites out there, however, that try to
be a complete front end for the Internet. They provide news,
libraries, dictionaries, and other resources that are not just a
search engine or a catalog, and some of these can be really
useful. Generally speaking, there are two major types of
internet databases/search tools that assist people in locating
internet resources. The first type arranges internet
resources in some sort of classifictory schemes: alphabetical,
chronological, geographical, subject-oriented, or a combination
thereof. The main function of these general listings is
for easy browsing. Most of them provide searching as well. They
require a great deal of human effort in terms of collecting,
arranging, html coding and annotating of resources. The second
type, which we are concentrating on today, attempts to collect
and index resources in a more automatic fashion. It does not
require extensive human intervention. Searching, instead of
browsing, is the main feature of this type of tools. These
search engines/tools have two components: collection and search.
The collection (also known as automated robot Wanderer, Spider,
Harvest and Pursuit) part roams internet sites, mostly www,
gopher and ftp sites, brings back resources, sorts, indexes and
creates a database out of them. The metaphorical definition of
Lycos, one of the early and popular search engines, sheds some
interesting light on the collecting activity.
SSL
Netscape SSLRef is a reference implementation of the
Secure Sockets Layer protocol intended to aid and accelerate
developers' efforts to provide advanced security within TCP/IP
applications that use SSL. SSLRef consists of a library,
distributed in ANSI C source-code form, that can be compiled on
a wide variety of platforms and operating systems and linked
into an application program. It's free for noncommercial use.
SSL uses authentication and encryption technology developed by
RSA Data Security Inc. For example, Netscape Navigator's export
implementation of SSL (U.S. government approved) uses a 40-bit
key size for the RC4 stream encryption algorithm. The encryption
established between you and a server remains valid over multiple
connections, yet the effort expended to defeat the encryption of
one message cannot be leveraged to defeat the next message.
T-1
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at
1,544,000 bits-per-second. At maximum theoretical capacity, a
T-1 line could move a megabyte in less than 10 seconds. That is
still not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video, for
which you need at least 10,000,000 bits-per-second. T-1 is the
fastest speed commonly used to connect networks to theInternet.
See Also: 56k Line, Bandwidth, Bit, Byte, Ethernet, T-3
Telnet
The command and program used to login from one
Internet site to another. The telnet command/program gets you to
the login: prompt of another host.
Terminal
A device that allows you to send commands to a
computer somewhere else. At a minimum, this usually means a
keyboard and a display screen and some simple circuitry. Usually
you will use terminal software in a personal computer - the
software pretends to be (emulates) a physical terminal and
allows you to type commands to a computer somewhere else.
TTFN
(Ta Ta For Now)
A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum.See
Also: IMHO, BTW
UNIX A computer operating system (the basic software running on
a computer, underneath things like word processors and
spreadsheets). UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the
same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the
most common operating system for servers on the Internet.
URL
(Uniform Resource Locator)
The standard way to give the address of any resource on the
Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks
like this:http://www.matisse.net/seminars.html or telnet://well.sf.ca.us
or news:new.newusers.questions etc. The most common way to
use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program, such as
Netscape, or Lynx or Microsoft's Internet Explorer. See Also:
Browser, WWW
WAIS
(Wide Area Information Servers)
A commercial software package that allows the indexing of huge
quantities of information, and then making those indices
searchable across networks such as the Internet. A prominent
feature of WAIS is that the search results are ranked (scored)
according to how relevant the hits are, and that subsequent
searches can find more stuff like that last batch and thus
refine the search process.
WAN
(Wide Area Network)
Any internet or network that covers an area larger than a single
building or campus. See Also: Internet, internet, LAN, Network,
Web.
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