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Know the Internet Lingo!
(Note: this is a long page. It will take about 10 seconds to
complete the download when you're using a 28.8K modem.)
- ADN
- (Advanced Digital Network) -- Usually refers to a
56Kbps leased-line.
-
- ADSL
- (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) -- A method for
moving data over regular phone lines. An ADSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone
connection, and the wires coming into the subscriber’s premises are the same (copper)
wires used for regular phone service. An ADSL circuit must be configured to connect two
specific locations, similar to a leased line.
A commonly discussed configuration of ADSL would allow a subscriber to receive data
(download) at speeds of up to 1.544 megabits (not megabytes) per second,
and to send (upload) data at speeds of 128 kilobits per second. Thus the
“Asymmetric” part of the acronym.
Another commonly discussed configuration would be symmetrical: 384 Kilobits per second in
both directions. In theory ADSL allows download speeds of up to 9 megabits per second and
upload speeds of up to 640 kilobits per second.
ADSL is often discussed as an alternative to ISDN, allowing higher speeds in cases
where the connection is always to the same place. See Also: bit , bps , ISDN
- Anonymous FTP
- See: FTP
-
- Applet
- A small Java program that can be embedded in an
HTML page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not
allowed to access certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial
devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most other
computers across a network. The current rule is that an applet can only make an Internet
connection to the computer from which the applet was sent.
See Also: HTML , Java
- 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.
-
- 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
- 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.
-
- AUTORESPONDER
- An e-mail that is automatically sent in reply.
Also known as a Vacation message. Example:When someone e-mails SALES, they
automatically receive a reply with the price list.
-
- 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
- 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: Bps , Bit , T-1
- 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
- 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.
-
- 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
- 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.
-
- 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)
- BTW
- (By The Way) -- A shorthand appended to a comment
written in an online forum.
See Also: IMHO , TTFN
- 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
- Certificate
Authority
- An issuer of Security Certificates used in SSL
connections.
See Also: Security Certificate , SSL
- CGI
- (Common Gateway Interface) -- A set of rules that
describe how a Web Server 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
- 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 referred 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
- 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. Each Client 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
- co-location
- Most often used to refer to having a server
that belongs to one person or group physically located on an Internet-connected network
that belongs to another person or group. Usually this is done because the server owner
wants their machine to be on a high-speed Internet connection and/or they do not want the
security risks of having the server on their own network.
See Also: Internet , Server , Network
- Cookie
- The most common meaning of “Cookie” on the
Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser
that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the
browser makes additional requests from the Server.
Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browser’s settings, the Browser may
accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a long
time.
Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online
“shopping cart” information, user preferences, etc.
When a Server receives a request from a Browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able
to use the information stored in the Cookie. For example, the Server might customize what
is sent back to the user, or keep a log of particular user’s requests.
Cookies are usually set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are usually
saved in memory until the Browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved
to disk if their “expire time” has not been reached.
Cookies do not read your hard drive and send your life story to the CIA,
but they can be used to gather more information about a user than would be possible
without them. See Also: Browser , Server
- Cyberpunk
- Cyberpunk was originally a cultural sub-genre of
science fiction taking place in a not-so-distant, dystopian, over-industrialized society.
The term grew out of the work of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and has evolved into a
cultural label encompassing many different kinds of human, machine, and punk attitudes. It
includes clothing and lifestyle choices as well.
See Also: Cyberspace
- 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.
- 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.
-
- 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:
bmiglobal.com
mail.bmiglobal.com
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 (bmiglobal.com 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
- 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
- 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
- FAQ
- (Frequently Asked Questions) -- FAQs 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.
-
- 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.
-
- 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
- Flame War
- When an online discussion degenerates into a series of
personal attacks against the debaters, rather than discussion of their positions. A heated
exchange.
See Also: Flame
- 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.
-
- 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
- (Graphic Interchange Format) -- A common format for
image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color. GIF
format files of simple images are often smaller than the same file would be if stored in JPEG
format, but GIF format does not store photographic images as well as JPEG.
See Also: JPEG
- Gigabyte
- 1000 or 1024 Megabytes, depending on who is
measuring.
See Also: Byte , Megabyte
- 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
- hit
- As used in reference to the World Wide Web,
“hit” means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a
web server; thus in order for a web browser to display a page that contains 3
graphics, 4 “hits” would occur at the server: 1 for the HTML page, and
one for each of the 3 graphics.
“hits” are often used as a very rough measure of load on a server, e.g.
“Our server has been getting 300,000 hits per month.” Because each
“hit” can represent anything from a request for a tiny document (or even a
request for a missing document) all the way to a request that requires some significant
extra processing (such as a complex search request), the actual load on a machine from 1
hit is almost impossible to define.
-
- 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
- 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
- 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.
-
- 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
- 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
- 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
- IP Number
- (Internet Protocol 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 , TCP/IP
- 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.
-
- 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.
-
- ISP
- (Internet Service Provider) -- An institution that
provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money.
See Also: Internet
- Java
- Java is a network-oriented 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. See
Also: Applet
- JDK
- (Java Development Kit) -- A software development
package from Sun Microsystems that implements the basic set of tools needed to write, test
and debug Java applications and applets
See Also: Applet , Java
- JPEG
- (Joint Photographic Experts Group) -- JPEG is most
commonly mentioned as a format for image files. JPEG format is preferred to the GIF
format for photographic images as opposed to line art or simple logo art.
See Also: GIF
- 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: T-1 , T-3
- 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
- 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
- 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.
-
- Megabyte
- A million bytes. Actually, technically, 1024 kilobytes.
See Also: Byte , Bit , Kilobyte
- 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
- Mirror
- Generally speaking, “to mirror” is to
maintain an exact copy of something. Probably the most common use of the term on the
Internet refers to “mirror sites” which are web sites, or FTP
sites that maintain exact copies of material originated at another location, usually in
order to provide more widespread access to the resource.
Another common use of the term “mirror” refers to an arrangement where
information is written to more than one hard disk simultaneously, so that if one disk
fails, the computer keeps on working without losing anything. See Also: FTP , Web
- 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
- 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
- MUSE
- (Multi-User Simulated Environment) -- One kind of MUD
- usually with little or no violence.
See
Also: MOO , MUD
- Netiquette
- The etiquette on the Internet.
See Also: 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
- 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 the HTML 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
-
- 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.
Another definition: NIC also refers to Network Interface Card which plugs into a computer
and
adapts the network interface to the appropriate standard. ISA, PCI, and PCMCIA cards are
all examples of NICs.
- NNTP
- (Network News Transport Protocol) -- The protocol used
by client and server software to carry USENET postings back and forth
over a TCP/IP network. If you are using any of the more common software such
as Netscape, Nuntius, Internet Explorer, etc. to participate in newsgroups
then you are benefiting from an NNTP connection.
See Also: Newsgroup
, TCP/IP , USENET
- Node
- Any single computer connected to a network.
See Also: Network , Internet , internet
-
- NT
- A Windows NT (New Technologies) computer.
-
- 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.
-
- 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:
Hot46logSee Also: Login
- Plug-in
- A (usually small) piece of software that adds features
to a larger piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape® browser
and web server. Adobe Photoshop® also uses plug-ins.
The idea behind plug-in’s is that a small piece of software is loaded into memory by
the larger program, adding a new feature, and that users need only install the few
plug-ins that they need, out of a much larger pool of possibilities. Plug-ins are usually
created by people other than the publishers of the software the plug-in works with.
-
- POP
- (Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol) -- 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 dial up
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
- 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
- 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
- PSTN
- (Public Switched Telephone Network) -- The regular
old-fashioned telephone system.
-
- 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.
-
- 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
- Security Certificate
- A chunk of information (often stored as a text file)
that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection.
Security Certificates contain information about who it belongs to, who it was issued by, a
unique serial number or other unique identification, valid dates, and an encrypted
“fingerprint” that can be used to verify the contents of the certificate.
In order for an SSL connection to be created both sides must have a valid Security
Certificate. See Also: Certificate Authority , SSL
- 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
- 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 real Internet 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.
-
- SMTP
- (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) -- The main protocol
used to send electronic mail on the Internet.
SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and a program receiving
mail should interact.
Almost all Internet email is sent and received by clients and servers using
SMTP, thus if one wanted to set up an email server on the Internet one would look for
email server software that supports SMTP. See
Also: Client , Server
- SNMP
- (Simple Network Management Protocol) -- A set of
standards for communication with devices connected to a TCP/IP network. Examples of
these devices include routers, hubs, and switches.
A device is said to be “SNMP compatible” if it can be monitored and/or
controlled using SNMP messages. SNMP messages are known as “PDU’s” -
Protocol Data Units.
Devices that are SNMP compatible contain SNMP “agent” software to receive, send,
and act upon SNMP messages.
Software for managing devices via SNMP are available for every kind of commonly used
computer and are often bundled along with the device they are designed to manage. Some
SNMP software is designed to handle a wide variety of devices. See Also: Network , Router
- 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: Maillist , USENET
- SQL
- (Structured Query Language) -- A specialized
programming language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many
smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will
have its own version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all
SQL-capable databases support a common subset of SQL.
- SSL
- (Secure Sockets Layer) -- A protocol designed by
Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the
Internet.
SSL used mostly (but not exclusively) in communications between web browsers and
web servers. URL’s that begin with “https” indicate that an
SSL connection will be used.
SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication, and Message Integrity.
In an SSL connection each side of the connection must have a Security Certificate,
which each side’s software sends to the other. Each side then encrypts what it sends
using information from both its own and the other side’s Certificate, ensuring that
only the intended recipient can de-crypt it, and that the other side can be sure the data
came from the place it claims to have come from, and that the message has not been
tampered with. See Also: Browser , Server
, Security Certificate , URL
- 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-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 the Internet.
See Also: Bandwidth
, Bit , Byte , Ethernet , T-3
- 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: 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
- 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.
-
- Terabyte
- 1000 gigabytes.
See Also: Byte , Kilobyte
- 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.
-
- 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
- UDP
- (User Datagram Protocol) -- One of the protocols for
data transfer that is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols. UDP is a
“stateless” protocol in that UDP makes no provision for acknowledgment of
packets received.
See Also: TCP/IP
- 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. See Also: Browser , WWW
- 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
- 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
- See: WWW
-
- 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
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