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1xRTT -- (Single Carrier (1x) Radio Transmission Technology)

A wireless communications protocol used for connections to networks by devices such as laptop computers. 1xRTT has the capability of providing data transfer speeds of up to 144 thousand bps. 1xRTT is a built on top of another widely used protocol, CDMA and is also called CMDA2000.

See also: bps, CDMA, Network, Protocol

10base2

An ethernet standard for cable. The 10 refers to its 10 Mbps bandwidth, the base to single channel baseband, and the 2 to its 200 meter effective range. It uses thin coaxial cable.

 

10baseT

An ethernet standard for cable. The 10 refers to its 10 Mbps bandwidth, the base to single channel baseband, and the T to Twisted pair. The cable uses two pairs of unshielded twisted wires.

 

404 error

Error returned by a browser when it is unable to connect to a remote address.

Here is a full set of error codes.

100 Continue 101 Switching Protocols 200 OK 201 Created 202 Accepted 203 Non-Authoritative Information 204 No Content 205 Reset Content 206 Partial Content 300 Multiple Choices 301 Moved Permanently 302 Moved Temporarily 303 See Other 304 Not Modified 305 Use Proxy 305 (Unused) 307 Temporary Redirect

400 Bad Request 401 Unauthorized 402 Payment Required 403 Forbidden 404 Not Found 405 Method Not Allowed 406 Not Acceptable 407 Proxy Authentication Required 408 Request Time-Out 409 Conflict 410 Gone 411 Length Required 412 Precondition Failed 413 Request Entity Too Large 414 Request-URL Too Large 415 Unsupported Media Type 416 Requested range not satisfiable 417 Expectation failed 500 Server Error 501 Not Implemented 502 Bad Gateway 503 Out of Resources 504 Gateway Time-Out 505 HTTP Version not supported

 

 

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Acceptable use policy (AUP)

A definition of content and uses permitted on a site or network as conditions of using that site or network. AUP are often stated for ISPs, networks, organizations, and universities.

 

ADN -- (Advanced Digital Network)

Usually refers to a 56Kbps leased-line.

See also: bps, Leased Line

ADSL

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Technology to carry high speed data over ordinary phone lines. It is up to 70 times as fast as a 28.8 modem, and can be used concurrently with voice over the same line. It is called "asymmetric" because download speeds to the subscriber are faster than upload speeds from the subscriber. Usually the download speed is much greater. See DSL.

See also: Download, DSL, SDSL, Upload

Adware

Any software which serves banner ads or pop-up ads to you while in use. It is sometimes installed in freeware or shareware which you download from the nets, and provides one more channel for advertisers to reach you. Some adware will also track your files, net usage, and software and report it back to advertisers to help them channel relevant ads to you. See spyware.

 

afk

Chat abbreviation for "away from keyboard".

AIFF

Audio Interchange File Format. A common audio file format originally for Macs, but used with other systems, too.

Ajax -- (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)

A way of including content in a web page in which javascript code in the web page fetches some data from a server and displays it without re-fetching the entire surrounding page at the same time (hence the 'Asynchronous')

Often (but not always) the data fetched by the javascript code is in XML format.

It is common for Ajax applications to update the Ajax content multiple times without the surrounding page needing to be updated even once.

A simple example of Ajax would be a weather-forcast box in the middle of a web page. Ajax could be used to populate the box every 5 minutes without needing to refresh the surrounding page.

See also: JavaScript, Web page, XML

Aliasing, Anti-Aliasing

Pictures on your computer monitor are made up of square pixels. When the edge of a solid colored object in a GIF image is a diagonal or curved line, and it is displayed against a contrasting color, the edges appear jagged, like stair steps. This jagged appearance is called aliasing. The jagged appearance can be softened by filling in adjacent pixels with intermediate colors between the object and the background. This softening of the edges is called anti-aliasing. Software like PhotoShop can apply anti-aliasing for you automatically. It is often the default setting.

One problem with anti-aliasing GIF images is that it increases the number of colors used, necessarily increasing the file size. You must decide whether quick loading or smoothed edges serves your needs better.

A second problem can occur when you create transparent GIFs. If the edges are anti-aliased against a different color background than the background it will be displayed against, the intermediate color pixels will be the wrong color and a halo effect occurs around the image. Make sure that when you anti-alias transparent GIFs, that you do it against the final background color. If you are using a tiled background image where the background color changes, you may do better not to anti-alias at all.

 

Alpha Test

In software development, an early stage of testing by in-house personnel to identify bugs in the program. It usually involves systematically trying out all of a program's functions. Compare with beta test.

Animated GIF

A GIF graphic file, which consists of two or more images shown in a timed sequence to give the effect of motion.

 

Anonymous ftp

A traditional form of login to a public ftp site where the username is given as 'anonymous' and the password is your e-mail address.. See ftp.

 

Apache

The most common web server (or HTTP server) software on the Internet. Apache is an open-source application originally created from a series of changes ("patches") made to a web server written at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the same place the Mosaic web browser was created.

Apache is designed as a set of modules, enabling administrators to choose which features they wish to use and making it easy to add features to meet specific needs inlcuding handling protocols other than the web-standard HTTP.

See also: HTTP, mod_perl, Mosaic, Server

API

Application Program Interface. An interface between the operating system and application programs that specifies how the two communicate with each other.

 

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 common rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was sent.

See also: HTML, Java

Application Server

Server software that manages one or more other pieces of software in a way that makes the managed software available over a network, usually to a Web server. By having a piece of software manage other software packages it is possible to use resources like memory and database access more efficiently than if each of the managed packages responded directly to requests.

See also: ASP, Server

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. By 1999 Archie had been almost completely replaced by web-based search engines.

Back when FTP was the main way people moved files over the Internet archie was quite popular.

See also: FTP

Archie

One of the first search engines introduced to the nets, developed by Peter Deutsch and others at McGill U. Archie is software that indexes thousands of ftp sites and lets you search for the files and software that you want. It was short for "archiver", protested Deutsch, after the search tools VERONICA and JUGhead followed it.

To try out Archie from the web, start from NASA's Archieplex site.

Archive

1. A storage repository for software, data, or other materials to be saved and preserved.

2. A technique of combining multiple files into a single file to enable easier backup, handling or transmission. Some of the software programs used to archive files are PKZIP, WinZip, Stuffit, and tar. Files with the following extensions are likely to be archived: sea, tar, taz, taZ, tgz, and zip. See compression.

 

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 to connect together computers that were each running different system so that people at one location could use computing resources from another location.

See also: Internet (Upper case I), Network, WAN

Art

A graphics format used on AOL. Plug-ins are available for non-AOL browsers to view graphics with a .art extension.

ASCII -- (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)

This is the defacto 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.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A standard way to encode upper and lower case letters in the English alphabet, numbers, and special characters using only seven bits, and therefore limited to 128 characters. The basis for coding simple text files. To provide more characters, such as accented characters and mathematical symbols, an 8th bit is often added, providing 256 characters in all. There are different standard 256 character sets, but the most common is ISO Latin 1 (ISO 8859-1) used on the web.

ASCII art

Artwork composed entirely of ASCII characters used as lines and shapes, not as characters with meanings. The simplest ASCII art is the simple smiley faces, but at the other end of the scale, they can be large, elaborate pictures.

 

ASCII file

ASCII files are those that only use the 128 characters that can be encoded with 7 binary digits. This means that most text files are ASCII files. Word processed files, which include special characters and control codes are usually encoded with 8 binary digits. Some Internet protocols only support 7-bit text, such as simple mailers and newsgroups. Because of this, ways have been developed to encode binary files into ASCII form. The most common of these are uuencode and binhex, the latter for Macintosh files, primarily. Two more examples of 7-bit file systems are postscript(.ps files) and TeX (.tex files), which are word processing systems that allow encoding of complex information in 7-bit form. Common extensions for ASCII files are .txt, .uue, .xxe, .hqx, .ps, and .tex. Also files with names like README or index are almost always text files. The .doc extension may be text or may be 8-bit, and you need to know more about it to be sure.

a/s/l

A coded question frequently used in teenage chats. When you see someone type a/s/l?, they are asking for your age, sex, and location. Use your judgment whether to respond or not.

ASP -- (Application Service Provider)

A organization (usually a business) that runs one or more applications on their own servers and provides (usually for a fee) access to others. Common examples of services provided this way include web-based software such as Calendar systems, Human Resources tools (timesheets, benefits, etc.), and various applications to help groups collaborate on projects.

See also: Application Server, Server

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A packet switching model for fast long distance communications that uses fixed packet size and allows for intelligent decisions on routing, handling, prioritization, and costing. This allows for special handling and routing for data that must be reassembled quickly and accurately, such as live Video. See differentiated service.

 

Atom

An evolving protocol for syndication and sharing of content.

Atom is being developed as a succesor to and improvement over RSS and is more complex than RSS while offering support for additional features such digital signatures, geographic location of author, possibly security/encryption, licensing, etc.

Like RSS, Atom is an XML-based specification.

See also: RSS, XML

 

 

 

 

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B2B

Business to Business. A mode of conducting business between two or more companies over the Internet, rather than more traditional modes such as telephone, mail, and face to face.

B2C

Business to Consumer. Another business model over the Internet.

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

Backbone

A central network connecting other networks together. Formerly a network run by the National Science Foundation for the US, there are now multiple backbones run by commercial providers such as MCI, Sprint, UUNET, and AT&T.

 

Bandwidth

How much stuff you can send through a connection. Usually measured in bits-per-second (bps.) A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 57,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.

See also: Bit, bps, T-1

Bandwidth

Literally, the frequency width of a transmission channel in Hertz, kiloHertz, megaHertz, etc. Often used as an expression of the amount of data that can be sent through a circuit. The greater the bandwidth, the greater the amount of data that can travel in a given time period. See broadband.

bang address

An old system of mail addressing in UUCP networks, where the successive routing addresses were followed by exclamation points (also known as bangs) and the addressee was the last element.

 

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

 

baud

Rate of transmission speed in a signal - the number of changes of state, such as voltage or frequency, per second in a signal. Named for the French teleprinter inventor Baudot. In simplest systems, it is synonymous with bits per second. In more complex systems, a baud may include more than one bit.

 

baud rate

A nearly obsolete term for transmission rates synonymous in early, simple systems with bits per second. In faster, more complex systems of encoding and transmitting data, the term loses its simple meaning and has fallen into disuse (and frequent misuse). See baud.

 

Baudot code

The Baudot code, used by early teleprinters, represents letters, numbers, and symbols in five-character binary codes, which includes shifts to increase the number of characters beyond 32.

 

 

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. In the early 1990's there were many thousands (millions?) of BBS's around the world, most were very small, running on a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some were very large and the line between a BBS and a system like AOL gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn.

 

BBS

Bulletin Board System. A dial-up service offering messages, files, and other services over a modem. BBS were very popular in the 1980s and early 1990s, but have been largely replaced by the Internet.

Bcc

Blind Carbon Copy. Unlike the Cc option (Carbon Copy), when the Bcc address option is selected in e-mail, other addressees do not see the Bcc address.

Beta test

In software development, a stage of testing where the program is tried out with a selected trial audience to find and correct bugs, usually people of similar backgrounds to those expected to use the software. Compare to alpha test.

binary

Binary means the use of only two values, zero and one, in encoding data. All digital computers primarily use some form of binary encoding, such as 8 or 16 or 32 binary digits at a time. Characters that you see on screen or type with your keyboard are normally encoded with 8 binary digits. For example, the binary value for the letter A is 01000001.

See also: MIME, UUENCODE

 

Binary files

Binary files are files that include up to 256 different characters and are encoded by 8 binary digits (bits) for each character. Simple text or ASCII files only use 128 different characters and can be encoded by 7 binary digits. Examples of binary files are most programs, most word- processed files, most graphics files, and most sound files. If you don't know a file is ASCII, it is probably a binary file.

 

 

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

Short for binary digit (0 or 1). Lower case b is used in abbreviations to distinguish it from bytes. For example, KBps (thousand bytes per second) is 8 times as great as Kbps (thousand bits per second).

See also: Bandwidth, Bit, bps, Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte

 

 

 

bitmap

A graphic which is defined by specifying the colors of dots or pixels which make up the picture. Also known as raster graphics. Common types of bitmap graphics are GIF, JPEG, Photoshop, PCX, TIFF, Macintosh Paint, Microsoft Paint, BMP, PNG, FAX formats, and TGA. See vector graphics for a different type of graphic and metafiles for a combination of the two types.

 

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®, a popular form of e-mail discussion groups, originated on BITNET. At its peak (the late 1980's and early 1990's) BITNET machines were usually mainframes, often running IBM's MVS operating system. BITNET is probably the only international network that is shrinking.

See also: Internet (Upper case I), Listserv ®, Network

Blog -- (weB LOG)

A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominently.

It is common for blogs to be available as RSS feeds.

See also: Blogosphere or Blogsphere, RSS

 

 

Blogosphere or Blogsphere

The current state of all information available on blogs and/or the sub-culture of those who create and use blogs.

See also: Blog

Bookmark

Just as a paper bookmark is used as a reminder of the page you are on in a book, electronic bookmarks are used to bring you back to a website or other site you may want to return to. The Netscape browser lets you bookmark any site and save the bookmarks in a file you can recall at any time. Microsoft Internet Explorer uses the term "favorite" instead of bookmark for the same concept.

Boolean search

A method of searching for information in databases that combines search terms with the operators AND, OR, NOT, and parentheses.

BNC, BNC connector

Short for BayoNet Connector or Baby N Connector or Bayonet Neill-Concelman (for the inventors Paul Neill and Carl Concelman who developed the similar N and C connectors separately and the BNC and TNC connectors together). It is also sometimes called a British Naval Connector, although the origin is questionable. A twist-and-lock connector for coaxial cable, BNC connectors are used for electronic equipment and LANs and permit frequencies into the gigaHertz ranges.

 

 

Bot

Short for robot, a program designed to search the Internet looking for information. A common use of bots is the variously named spiders, worms, and crawlers that support search engines by following links from site to site and within a site to dig out information to be indexed by the search engine. Another is the MusicBot™ used by BMI to find who is putting unlicensed, copyrighted music on web pages.

Bounce

The return of an e-mail message because of an error in its address or delivery.

 

Bps

Bytes per second.

 

 

bps -- (Bits-Per-Second)

A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another. A 56K modem can move about 57,000 bits per second.

See also: Bandwidth, Bit

Bridge

A bridge is a combination of hardware and software that connects local area networks (LANs) of similar types together. See router.

Broadband

Generally refers to connections to the Internet with much greater bandwidth than you can get with a modem. There is no specific definition of the speed of a "broadband" connection but in general any Internet connection using DSL or a via Cable-TV may be considered a broadband connection.

See also: Bandwidth, DSL, Mode

 

Browser

Software that will load and display a web page. A browser interprets the HTML or XML code from the web page files, executes embedded scripts and programs, provides encryption/decryption for security where needed, displays graphics (except text-only browsers), plays music and video, and provides links to related pages. Browsers are purportedly based on standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and recognized by the Internet Engineering Task Force. The major browser software developers participate in these organizations, but each of them also builds in their own proprietary codes, whether or not approved by the organizations. These differences in browsers create a challenge for web page developers.

The principle browsers are Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Mosaic, and the text-only Lynx.

See also: Client, Server, URL, WWW

 

Bus

An electronic pathway. In networks, a configuration (topology) with a single linear cable, terminated at each end, to which computers and devices are connected. There are no loops or branches in the cable. Also called a daisy chain.

 

 

Byte

8 bits of data. Capital B is used in abbreviations to distinguish it from bits. For example, KBps (thousand bytes per second) is 8 times as great as Kbps (thousand bits per second).

See also: Bit

 

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Cache

Browsers such as Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer hold copies of recently visited web files, both HTML and binary files, in disk memory. This disk memory space is called the cache. It offers the advantage of much quicker loading when files are stored on disk than when they must be transferred from the web. The disadvantage is that it will sometimes show you an old version of a file from your disk when a newer one is available on the web. Some large Internet service providers also cache frequently visited sites and feed them to you from their own cache when you try to visit them.

You can set the size of the cache to meet the needs of your own system and the speed of your connection. You can also set how often your system will check back to see if there is a newer version. There is a definite trade-off between faster load times and the risk of seeing outdated material.

Usually, you can check for a newer version by using the Refresh or Reload selections in your browser. If something looks out of date, always try the Refresh or Reload before trying other things.

Sometimes files in cache can become corrupted and cause problems for your browser. When you have problems diagnosing freeze-ups where they didn't occur before, one of the easy solutions to try is to delete your cache and see if it solves the problems.

Case sensitive

When matching a string of letters, it is case sensitive if capital and lower case letters must match exactly. If an operating system or a piece of software is case sensitive, it will see all of the following text strings as different:

STRING
string
StrinG
etc.

Since upper and lower case are differently coded in computers, it takes programming to make them match at all. On the other hand, MSDOS, older versions of windows, and most search engines are programmed to recognize the above strings as identical. On the web and the Internet, basic addresses are never case sensitive, but paths and filenames may be, depending on the operating system. By basic addresses, I mean the part of the address that ends with the domain:

http://mountaininternet.com
http://mountaininternet.com

The above addresses will always match. The next two pairs will not necessarily match, depending on the server:

http://mountaininternet.com/Name/
http://mountaininternet.com/name/

http://forums.mountaininternet.com/matchups.html
http://forums.mountaininternet.com/MatchUps.html

 

CATP -- (Caffeine Access Transport Protocol)

Common method of moving caffeine across Wide Area Networks such as the Internet

CATP was first used at the Binary Cafe in Cybertown and quickly spread world-wide.

There are reported problems with short-circuits and rust and decaffinated beverages were not supported until version 1.5.3

See also: Internet (Upper case I), IRC, WAN

CDMA -- (Code Division Multiple Access)

A protocol for wireless data and voice communication, CMDA is widely used in cellphone networks, but also in many other data communications systems. CDMA uses a technique called "Spread Spectrum" whereby the data being transmitted is spread across multiple radio frequencies, making more efficent use of available radio spectrum. There are a number of additional protocols built on top of CDMA, such as 1xRTT (also called CMDA2000).

See also: 1xRTT, Protocol

CDSL

Acronym for Consumer Digital Subscriber Line. Rockwell's technology for digital modems that will use regular telephone lines and run at speeds up to 1 MBps. See ADSL and DSL.

 

 

Censorship

Issues frequently arise online about censorship. When does a service provider or a mail discussion list host or a message base host have a right to delete material others have posted?

When posts are clearly illegal, such as posting a copyrighted work of text or media without permission from the copyright holder, they must be deleted as soon as they are recognized. The host or provider may become liable if they don't take action.

But what about the online Forum host who deletes a political post that he or she disagrees with? Is this censorship? Are there First Amendment rights to protect such posts?

Deleting a disagreeable, but legal post is certainly a form of censorship. But it has nothing to do with First Amendment rights. The First Amendment applies to governments and their agents, not to individuals. The Forum host who deletes material does so at his or her own risk. The risk is not a legal one, but whether such a deletion meets the needs of the community that the host represents. The online host may gain or lose membership from the community, if the community at large agrees or disagrees with the action. Censorship in such cases is more a moral and social issue than a legal one.

CERN

The European Organization for Nuclear Research where the web was born. The original name in French was Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN).

Certificate Authority

An issuer of Security Certificates used in SSL connections.

See also: 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.

See also: Server, WWW

 

cgi-bin

The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGIprograms are stored.

See also: CGI

Chain letter

A form of spam which asks you to distribute the letter to many other people. They are against the policies of most Internet service providers, and almost always are hoaxes. Many of them promise quick ways to make money, usually on the basis of pyramid or Ponzi schemes, which are illegal. Some make pie-in-the-sky promises, for example, that Bill Gates will give everyone $1000 for just helping test his new mail distribution scheme. Many of them prey on your sympathy and tell stories of a sick child who has asked that word be spread about the illness by chain letters. They may involve the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which states that they support no chain letters. Many report a virus warning, and ask you tell everyone about it. The virus warnings are invariably hoaxes. None of these purposes are legitimate. If you have any doubt at all about the legitimacy of a chain letter, please check the Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Committee (CIAC) Chain Letter Pag.

Charset

Short for character set. Different character sets are used for different purposes such as the different characters used by different languages.

 

Chat

A form of real-time electronic communications where participants type what they want to say, and it is repeated on the screens of all other participants in the same chat. Internet Relay Chat or IRC is an Internet protocol for chat, and there are many other chat systems in services like Delphi. Other commonly used chat systems are iChat and ICQ.

 

Churn

Rate of change, usually high; instability caused by frequent unplanned and hard to control changes. The word evolved from its use to mean agitation in such devices as butter churns and ice cream churns. In researching the term, I found modern examples of uses of the term to refer to changes in a customer base for wireless telephone, changes in routing patterns between ISPs, changes in membership of an e-mail discussion list, changes in click-through rates in web ads, rates of change in web pages, and prolonged hard disk activity.

 

CIDR

Classless Inter-Domain Routing. This is a change in specifying ranges of IP addresses from the old Class A, B, and C address blocks. IP addresses consist of 32 bits, usually expressed in four 8-bit numbers, such as 122.47.101.17. In the old system, Class C specified 24 bits (the first three numbers in the conventional IP address), leaving all the addresses in the remaining 8 bits to be assigned by the registrant (256 addresses, less a few broadcast only addresses). Class B specified 16 bits and class A, 8 bits, leaving the balance to the registrant. Now, the IP address is followed by an IP Prefix, such as 122.47.101.14/26. The /26 IP Prefix means that the first 26 bits of the given IP address are fixed, and the registrant has the remaining 6 bits (64 addresses) to use and assign. IP Prefixes are currently used ranging from /27 (25 or 32 addresses) to /13 (219 or 524,288 addresses.

 

CLEC

Competitive Local Exchange Carrier. See LEC.

 

 

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, Client, Server

 

 

 

Client-server architecture

In client-server architecture, the computing load is distributed among the many clients (individual computers) in a network, drawing information from central servers of the information. On the Internet, a web browser is a client that runs software locally that processes information received from central servers of the information. The opposite of client server architecture is the situation where a central powerful computer does all the processing, feeding the results to dumb terminals which do little more than communicate requests and feed back the results processed centrally.

 

Coax, Coaxial cable

A type of cable which contains two conductors, one inside and the other outside around it, separated by an insulating layer. They share the same axis, giving the cable its name co-axial. It is the same kind of cable that brings cable TV into your house.

 

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 thier own network.

See also: Internet (Upper case I), Network, Server

Compression

Compression is a technique to make a file or a data stream smaller for faster transmission or to take up less storage space. There a number of programs that will compress files, such as PKZIP, WinZip, Stuffit, gnu zip, and many more. Files with the following extensions are almost always compressed files: arc, arj, gz, lha, lhz, taZ, taz, tgz, Z, zip, and zoo. See archive, second definition.

Content

Generally, the information provided on a web page, as opposed to its design and layout. Content can take the form of text, graphics, audio, video, or a searchable database.

 

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 Browsers' 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 users' 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

cookie

A cookie is a short file put on your system by a web page which includes information about your usage and facilitates the current interaction. For example, it may include the information that you have logged into a passworded area already in the current session and don't need a second password check. There are many uses for cookies, they may be erased at the end of a session or retained until the next session, and they may be encrypted or in plain text. For a more thorough explanation of cookies, see the Cookie FAQ at cookiecentral.com.

COPA

Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 act of Congress intended to protect minors from exposure to pornography. An injunction against enforcement of the Act was upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1999. The Supreme Court held hearings on the act in June 2001 and their ruling is awaited.

 

COPPA

Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act, an act of Congress requiring online services to obtain parental consent before collecting any personal information on children under 13. See the FTC Summary.

copy-and-paste, cut-and-paste

The technique of copying text from one location or file to another. If the text in the original location is deleted, it is called cut-and-paste. Whether cutting or copying, the process begins by positioning the cursor at one end of the text to be copied, and clicking and dragging to the other end to highlight the text. Or if you want to copy the entire text on a page, use Edit/Select All or press Control and the letter A simultaneously.

At this point, there are three common ways to cut or copy and then paste. Which ones work may vary by the software you are using.

1. Select Edit and then Copy or Cut from the pull-down menus in your software. Then position your cursor in the location you want to copy to, even if it is in a different window, and then select Edit and Paste.
2. Right click on the highlighted text and select Cut or Copy. Position the cursor in the location to be copied to, and right click and select Paste.
3. Press the Control key and the X key together to cut or Control and C to copy. Position the cursor and press Control and V to paste. With a Macintosh, substitute the Command key for the Control key.

 

 

copyright

The legal protection against copying and the specific rights allowing copying given to original works, which may be in printed or photographically or electronically stored words, music, visual arts, and performing arts. The purpose of copyright is not just to protect the rights, but to establish the rules under which copies or portions may be made to make a work more widely available. Copyright extends to electronic representations of these forms, too, although the laws governing new electronic copies in such forms as search engine indexes and browser caches needs better definition. Copyright exists on all original works from the moment they are published, whether formally registered or not and whether or not copyright markings appear on the works. Copyrights probably apply to public postings in e-mail, message bases, and newsgroups, but the law is not well tested in these areas. Copyrights are observed by most countries in the world.

country code

Most countries in the world that are connected to the Internet have been assigned two-letter country codes by the international standard ISO 3166. These two letter codes are the major domain addresses for the country.

cracker

A person who attempts to break into a network or computer system, often with the intent to steal material or perform malicious destruction of files--or just to show it can be done. See hacker, second definition. Crackers try to exploit weaknesses in system security or in some cases, the weaknesses of its users who can be tricked into revealing passwords. See social engineering.

 

cram, cramming

Cramming is the practice by some phone companies, yours or others, to add false charges to your phone bills for calls you never made.

crawler

See spider.

CRC

Acronym for Cyclic Redundancy Check, a technique of providing a data string added to packets of information that can be used to detect errors in the data packets. In the OSI or TCP/IP network models, CRC is added to a packet frame at the Data Link Layer.

 

 

CSS -- (Cascading Style Sheet)

A standard for specifying the appearance of text and other elements. CSS was developed for use with HTML in Web pages but is also used in other situations, notably in applications built using XPFE. CSS is typically used to provide a single "library" of styles that are used over and over throughout a large number of related documents, as in a web site. A CSS file might specify that all numbered lists are to appear in italics. By changing that single specification the look of a large number of documents can be easily changed.

See also: HTML, Web page, XPFE

(CSS) Cascading Style Sheets

Cascading Style Sheets is a technique built into version 4.0 and later browsers that support styles for pages. For example, you can set up styles for fonts and page layouts that will apply automatically to pages developed under a particular style you develop. This technique is useful, but the present version browsers from Netscape and Microsoft are quite different in their implementation, and what works with one is not likely to work for the other. For compatibility, care has to be taken to use common elements.

 

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.

See also: Cyberpunk

cyberspace

A term coined by author William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer. It represents the totality of all connected computer networks and their contents in a future world. It has become a slang term for the Internet and the information in it.

 

cybersquatting

The act of registering a company name as a domain name by someone outside the company in hopes of selling it to the company for a profit. Anti-cybersquatting legislation has been introduced to make it illegal.

 

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database

A collection of data records. On web databases, records may consist of web pages, or graphics, or audio files, or newspaper files, or books, or movies, or press releases, or almost anything from very general to very specific areas of interest. Records may or may not be further broken into fields. Database records are usually indexed and come with a search interface to find records of interest. See search engines.

datagram

In TCP/IP networks, datagram is a synonym for packet.

 

differentiated services

At present, all packets on the Internet are treated alike, regardless of their importance. If you want an important message to be delivered immediately or a streaming video signal to be distributed smoothly and without interruptions, there is no way to differentiate between immediate needs and routine transmissions which could be delayed for a long time without any problems. There are currently efforts under way to test and develop standards for differentiated services, where high priority data can be sent through or around clogged nodes ahead of low priority data. The high priority data transmission will cost more, of course. See ATM.

dither

To simulate a color that is not part of the current palette on-screen (or in print) by combining pixels of different colors close to each other. Viewed from a distance, it gives the effect of the color. Viewed closely, the dots are visible. Dithering can give a noisy appearance to a picture on-screen, but it often can be avoided by selecting non-dithering colors that are compatible with different browsers and platforms.

DHCP -- (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

DHCP is a protocol by which a machine can obtain an IP number (and other network configuration information) from a server on the local network.

See also: IP Number, Network, Server

DHTML -- (Dynamic HyperText Markup Language)

DHTML refers to web pages that use a combination of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to create features such as letting the user drag items around on the web page, some simple kinds of animation, and many more.

See also: CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Web page

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 regardsto the digital revolution.

DjVu

Pronounced "deja vu". It is a compressed graphics format for showing scanned pages on the web. It does for scanned pages what PDF format does for electronically created documents. It requires a plug-in from AT&T. It uses a combination of compression formats that handles sharp-edged text one way and photographs and color blends another way, thus giving better compression than GIF, JPEG, or PNG can do. The server the document is placed on must be set for the MIME types x-djvu, djvu, and djv. For more information, see the AT&T DjVu FAQ.

DNS -- (Domain Name System)

The Domain Name System is the system that translates Internet domain names into IP numbers. A "DNS Server" is a server that performs this kind of translation.

See also: Domain Name, IP Number, Server

(DNS) Digital Nervous System

A term used by Bill Gates in frequent speeches in 1997 and 2000. Gates describes a future merging of PCs and communications in a wireless networked environment that makes it easy for people to navigate and share information. He speaks of a wireless pocket tablet ("a computer in every pocket") that enhances communications from many sources, aids in pattern recognition, and largely replaces telephone calls and paper messages and forms in business.

 

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.

Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names. 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, TLD

Domain Name System (DNS)

Domain Name System. DNS servers are located at many strategic places on the nets to resolve the routing of e-mail and Internet connections. There are thirteen major, top-level DNS servers, which are updated daily, and these in turn feed the updated DNS information to smaller subordinate DNS servers, which hold more detailed information on their specific areas of coverage. No single DNS server has all the address information of the Internet, and successful routing may require routing through several levels of servers.

 

 

DOS (See also DoS, which follows)

Acronym for Disk Operating System. Literally, the term refers that portion of an operating system that controls writing, storage, and retrieval of data from storage media, usually spinning disks of various types. In common usage, the term refers to MS DOS, the complete operating system developed by Microsoft for IBM-compatible personal computers in text (non-Windows) modes.

 

DoS (See also DOS, preceeding)

Acronym of Denial of Service, a form of assault on an Internet site which floods the site with packets requiring a response, thus slowing down or preventing normal access to the site.

dot-com

Nickname for the many commercial businesses that have registered names in the .com domain.

 

 

Download

Transferring data (usually a file) from a another computer to the computer you are are using. The opposite of upload.

See also: Upload

DSL -- (Digital Subscriber Line)

A method for moving data over regular phone lines. A DSL 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. A DSL circuit must be configured to connect two specific locations, similar to a leased line (howeverr a DSL circuit is not a leased line.

A common configuration of DSL allows downloads at speeds of up to 1.544 megabits (not megabytes) per second, and uploads at speeds of 128 kilobits per second. This arrangement is called ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line.

Another common configuration is 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.

DSL is now a popular alternative to Leased Lines and ISDN, being faster than ISDN and less costly than traditional Leased Lines.

See also: ADSL, Bandwidth, ISDN, Leased Line, SDSL

 

 

 

DTD

Acronym for Document Type Definition or optionally Document Type Declaration, used in SGML and XML markup languages to specify the set of rules or grammar processed in a particular language. HTML versions each have their own DTD, for example.

 

Dublin Core

A proposed set of standard descriptive metadata elements used with web resources to aid in resource discovery. The elements are intended as a starting point for resource description. The elements are optional, and are intended to be extensible to richer descriptive elements when needed. The 15 elements are:

• title
• author/creator
• subject/keywords
• description
• publisher
• other contributor
• date
• resource type
• format
• resource identifier
• source
• language
• relation
• coverage
• rights management

See the Dublin Core Homepage for further information.

Dynamic HTML (DHTML)

A more powerful model for HTML that allows absolute control of positioning of elements on a page and more powerful control of events. It is supported by MSIE 4.0 and partially by Netscape 4.0.

 

 

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e- (prefix)

A prefix meaning electronic for current jargon terms, such as e-commerce, e-business, and so on.

 

Easter egg

A hidden, undocumented program sequence built into a program that only activates when you press the right keys. They are often funny, and they are often used to introduce the team that developed the program. If you are using Netscape, typing about:mozilla into the URL window will give you an example. For many more examples, see C|Net's Easter egg page.

 

 

e-mail

Electronic mail. One of the earliest standard Internet protocols which enables people with different computers and operating systems to communicate with each other. E-mail allows one-to-one or one-to-many mailings. Mail is received and held by a mail server within an organization or by an Internet service provider until the addressee logs on to collect the mail. The Internet e-mail standards include no provision for authenticating the sender, which makes it possible for spammers to use false From addresses and routing. See also: Listserv ®, SMTP

 

Ethernet

A LAN protocol developed by DEC, Intel, and Xerox as an outgrowth of Harvard graduate student Bob Metcalfe's dissertation on packet networks. Computers using TCP/IP often connect to the Internet via ethernet LANs. Ethernet typically uses a bus (daisy chain) topology. There is more than one type of Ethernet. By 2001 the standard type was "100-BaseT" which can handle up to about 100,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with almost any kind of computer. See also: Bandwidth, FDDI, LAN

 

 

Extranet

An intranet that is accesible to computers that are not hysically part of a companys' own private network, but that is not accessible to the general public, for example to allow vendors and business partners to access a company web site.

Often an intranet will make use of a Virtual Private Network. (VPN.)

See also: Intranet, Network, VPN

 

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Fair use

Fair use is the concept in copyright law that some limited copying of copyrighted material is permissible in certain circumstances. A complete work may never be copied. The broadest permissions are for educational purposes, such as copying an article from a magazine or a chapter from a book for a class to use. Other more restrictive permitted uses are short excerpts for purposes of news reporting, criticism, and parody.

 

 

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 10-BaseTEthernet, about twice as fast as T-3).

See also: Ethernet, 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.

 

 

Firewall

Firewall refers to the concept of a security interface or gateway between a closed system or network and the outside Internet that blocks or manages communications in and out of the system. The security may be provided by passwords, authentication techniques, software, and hardware. See the related term proxy server. See also: Network

 

frames

Frames are a technique used in web pages to divide the page into multiple windows, where each window is called a frame and can contain its own separate page. The advantage of frames is that one window can be scrolled or changed while other windows remain fixed for such purposes as keeping a menu in view all the time. The disadvantage is that not all browsers support them.

 

frame relay

A packet switching standard based on the older X.25 protocol that achieves greater speeds with fast, reliable networks. It lowers overhead by reducing the accounting and checking procedures used in X.25.

 

freeware

Software that is offered for free download. See shareware.

 

FTP -- (File Transfer Protocol)

A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites.

FTP is a 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".

FTP was invented and in wide use long before the advent of the World Wide Web and originally was always used from a text-only interface.

See also: Login, WWW

 

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Gateway

The technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for example America Online 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 Interchange Format. A bitmap graphical format originally developed for CompuServe that is widely used in WWW pages. It is particularly good for text art, cartoon art, poster art, and line drawings- -all types with solid colors and distinct lines or borders between different colors. GIF files use a .gif extension. See also animated GIF, transparent GIF and JPEG.

 

 

Gigabyte

1000 or 1024 Megabytes, depending on who is measuring.

See also: Byte

GMT

Greenwich Mean Time, often used as a standard time zone. In e-mail headers, you will often see references to the hours offset from GMT. For example, Eastern Standard Time is GMT minus 5 hours because of the 5 hour difference between Greenwich, England and the Eastern US.

Gopher

Invented at the University of Minnesota in 1993 just before the Web, gopher was a widely successful method of making menus of material available over the Internet.

Gopher was designed to be much easier to use than FTP, while still using a text-only interface.

Gopher is a Client and Server style program, whichrequires 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, FTP, WWW

 

 

grep

A unix search command that will search for matching text or a "regular experession" ( regexp) in a file. It derives from the intial characters of Global Regular Expression Print.

 

GUI

Graphical User Interface. Pronounced "gooey". An operating system interace between the user and the computer based on graphics. GUIs typically use a mouse or other tracking device and icons. First developed by XEROX as an easier to learn interface than text-based ones, it was adopted by Apple for the Macintosh, Microsoft for Windows, and even for unix systems as XWindows.

GUID

Globally Unique Identifier. A controversial 16-byte number generated by Microsoft programs that uniquely identifies a network or user or computer or document. It is one of the elements of information that can be passed when you connect to an Internet site, and it may be stored in cookies.

 

 

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Hacker

1. Originally, a hacker was a term of respect among computer designers, programmers, and engineers for those among them who created truly original and ingenious programs, devices, or sometimes very clever practical jokes.
2. Unfortunately, the current popular meaning of the term is to describe those who break into systems, destroy data, steal copyrighted software, and perform other destructive or illegal acts with computers and networks. See cracker.

 

Hertz, Hz

Cycles per second. Used to describe the cycle rate in radio, electronics, and audio. Abbreviated Hz, and often combined with numeric prefixes, such KHz, MHz, GHz, and so on. Named for the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who discovered electromagnetic waves.

 

Hex, hexadecimal

Base 16 arithmetic. Conventionally, the 16 digits are represented by the digits 0 through 9 and the letters A through F. The letter A, for example, represents the decimal number 10. A byte (8 bits of data) is often represented by two hexadecimal numbers. The hexadecimal values can range from 00 to FF or from decimal 0 to 255. Hexadecimal values are often differentiated from decimal by either following them with the letter h or preceding them with an angle bracket, for example 33h or >0B. Hexadecimal numbers have many applications in computer programming, and they are frequently used in RGB (red/green/blue) color coding for web pages.

 

 

Hit

1. In search terminology, every listing a search engine returns from a search is called a hit.
2. The term hit is also used to refer to calls on a web server, and it is much misunderstood. Technically, if a web page is called by a remote browser, and it includes three graphics, there are four hits on that server, one for the page, and one for each graphic. Many people and most 'hit counters' use the term hit to mean hits on the web page only, not the calls to graphics or other supporting files that come with the page. When someone quotes figures on hits, be aware that definitions and uses vary, and try to find out what definition was used in producing the figures. See also: Browser, HTML, Server

 

Hoax

There are many hoaxes continually popping up on the nets. False viruses are the most common of these with names like "Join the Crew" or "PenPal Greetings", but there are many more themes that keep recurring. Appeals to charity is a common theme for a hoax, sometimes partially based in fact. If you get a chain letter appeal about Jessica Mydek or Craig Shergold or anything involving the Make A Wish Foundation, please check it out first before spreading it.

There are also lots of stories going around about Bill Gates and money-making schemes and expensive cookie recipes and stolen kidneys, all of which are interesting stories, but usually false or even fraudulent.

When in doubt, never spread a story around. Instead, check the Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Committee (CIAC) Hoaxes Page.

 

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." On complex web sites, it is the page which a server will show when no HTML filename is listed, usually with the name index.html, home.html, or default.html or the same names with the shorter extension .htm.

See also: Browser, WWW

Hop

A message or data packet travels a path among routers on a network through a series of hops from the source to the destination.

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 SMTP (email) and HTTP (web).

See also: Network, SMTP

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.

The "hyper" in Hypertext comes from the fact that in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or an image, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a "Web Browser".

HTML is loosely based on a more comprehensive system for markup called SGML, and is expected to eventually be replaced by XML-based XHTML standards. See the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML Page for more information.

See also: Browser, Hypertext, SGML, WWW, XHTML, XML

 

 

 

HTTP -- (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program (such as Apache) on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW). Addressing to other web pages begins with "http://" and is followed by the domain name or IP address. See URL.

See also: Apache, Client, Hypertext, Server, WWW

Hub

A device that connects the cables from computers and other devices such as printers in an ethernet local area network. Traditionally, hubs are used for star topology networks, but they are often used with other configurations to make it easy to add and remove computers without bringing down the network. Smart hubs or switching hubs are often used to improve performance by managing traffic.

 

Hyperlink

A link in a web page that brings you to another location or resource when activated. Hyperlinks usually appear as underlined text and printed in a contrasting color, but they may also appear as graphics, such as buttons to click. Hyperlinks may link to another place in the same page, to a different page, to play an audio or video file, to download a file, to set up a message to an e-mail address, to search a database, to read Usenet newsgroups, and to link to other Internet resources.

 

Hypermedia

Like hypertext, but includes other interlinking media, such as graphics, audio, video, and VRML.

 

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.

See also: HTML, HTTP

 

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Image map

A graphic on a web page used for navigation. Clicking on different representative areas of the graphic links you to different related pages. Web designers should always consider alternate menus for image maps or else those without graphical browsers are unable to proceed.

 

 

IMAP -- (Internet Message Access Protocol)

IMAP is gradually replacing POP as the main protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers.

Using IMAP an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate message stored on the server, without having to actually retrieve the messages. So messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can be managed, etc.

IMAP is defined in RFC 2060

See also: Client, Email, POP, RFC, Server

Inlining

The practice of putting an IMG tag in a web page that calls a graphic from another site. Many sites, particularly those offering free storage, now view this as bandwidth theft and block remote IMG calls from other sites to their site. It is particularly bad netiquette and very likely a copyright violation to display a graphic called from someone else's web page.

intellectual property

The concept of legal protection for original creations. It encompasses copyright, trademarks, and patents.

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 (Upper case I), Network

Internet (Upper case I)

The vast collection of inter-connected networks that are connected using the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's.

The Internet connects tens of thousands of independent networks into a vast global internet and is probably the largest Wide Area Network in the world.

See also: internet (Lower case i), Network, WAN

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. Compare with extranet.

See also: Extranet, internet (Lower case i), Internet (Upper case I)

 

IP

Internet Protocol. See TCP/IP

IP address

IP addresses, together with domain addresses are the two forms of Internet addresses in common use. IP addresses consist of four numbers between 0 and 255, separated by dots.

For IP assignments, see the IP Network Index or the IP Index Mirror Site.

IP Number -- (Internet Protocol Number)

Sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g.

    165.117.245.2  

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. Many machines (especially servers) also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.

See also: Domain Name, Server, TCP/IP

IPv4 -- (Internet Protocol, version 4)

The most widley used version of the Internet Protocol (the "IP" part of TCP/IP.)

IPv4 allows for a theoretical maximum of approximately four billion IP Numbers (technically 232), but the actual number is far less due to inefficiencies in the way blocks of numbers are handled by networks. The gradual adoption of IPv6 will solve this problem.

See also: IP Number, IPv6, Network, Protocol, TCP/IP

IPv6 -- (Internet Protocol, version 6)

The successor to IPv4. Already deployed in some cases and gradually spreading, IPv6 provides a huge number of available IP Numbers - over a sextillion addresses (theoretically 2128). IPv6 allows every device on the planet to have its own IP Number.

See also: IP Number, IPv4, Network, Protocol, 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.

See also: Server

IRC

Internet Relay Chat. An Internet protocol that allows people all over the world to meet in conference groups (called channels) and chat with each other by typing.

 

 

ISDN -- (Integrated Services Digital Network)

Basically a way to move more dataover existing regular phone lines. ISDN is 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 56,000or 64,000 bits-per-second.

Unlike DSL, ISDN can be used to connect to many different locations, one at a time, just like a regular telephone call, as long the other location also has ISDN.

See also: DSL

 

 

ISP -- (Internet Service Provider)

An institution that provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money.

IT -- (Information Technology)

A very general term referring to the entire field of Information Technology - anything from computer hardware to programming to network management. Most medium and large size companies have IT Departments.

IXC

Inter eXchange Carrier. Another name for a long distance telephone company. See LEC.

 

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Java

Java is a network-friendly programming language invented by Sun Microsystems.

Java is often used to build large, complex systems that involve several different computers interacting across networks, for example transaction processing systems.

Java is also used to create software with graphical user interfaces such as editors, audio players, web browsers, etc.

Java is also popular for creating programs that run in small electronic devicws, such as mobile telephones.

Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations,calculators, and other fancy tricks.

See also: Applet, JDK

 

 

JavaScript

JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages, usually to add features that make the web page more interactive. When JavaScript is included in an HTML file it relies upon the browser to interpret the JavaScript. When JavaScript is combined with Cascading Style Sheets(CSS), and later versions of HTML (4.0 and later) the result is often called DHTML.

See also: Ajax, DHTML, HTML

 

JDK -- (Java Development Kit)

A software development package from Sun Microsystems that implements the basic set of tools needed to write, test and debugJava applications and applets

See also: Applet, Java

JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group, a graphical format that is widely used in WWW pages. It is particularly well suited to photographs and 3D or VRML images where there is a continuous range of colors or shades. It is a lossy format that can be reduced in file size by reducing the detail in the image. JPEG files use a .jpg or less commonly, .jpeg or .jpe extension. See also GIF.

JUGHEAD

Searchable index software that can be applied to a an organization's gopher menus similar to VERONICA. It supposedly was named for its inventor, Rhett Jones, as Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display. But since the search tools archie and VERONICA came before it, the name obviously preceded the acronym. See archie and VERONICA.

 

 

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K or k

Number prefix meaning 1000 or in computer usage, the similar 210. In some conventions, k means 1000 and K means 210.

 

KBps

kilobytes per second

 

Kbps

kilobits per second

 

Kermit

A common terminal emulation program and file transfer protocol that can be used across dialup and telnet connections. It is much slower than xmodem, ymodem, and zmodem in most implementations, but it has the advantage of being able to transfer 8-bit files across a 7-bit telnet connection, which the others will not do. It was developed at Columbia U and is widely used in academia, probably because it is free. It was named for the frog.

 

 

Kilobyte

A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024 (210) bytes.

See also: Byte

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LAN -- (Local Area Network)

A computer network limited to the immediate area, usually the same building or floor of a building.

See also: Network, VPN, WAN

LDAP

Acronym for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. It is a protocol for accessing information directories such as organizations, individuals, phone numbers, and addresses. It is based on the X.500 directory protocols, but it is simpler, and unlike X.500, it supports TCP/IP for Internet usage. The standards are specified in RFC 1777.

 

Leased Line

Refers to line such as a telephone line or fiber-optic cable 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: DSL, ISDN

LEC

Local Exchange Carrier. The local telephone company serving an area. There are Incumbent LECs (ILEC)--those with a local monopoly--and Competitive LECs (CLEC). Long distance companies, also known as IXCs (Inter Exchange Carriers), pay LECs a fee for access to local telephones.

Link

An active connection to another web page, location in a web page, file, or other Internet resource. Selecting the link takes you to the new location or resource. See URL.

 

Linux

A widely used Open Source Unix-like operating system. Linux was first released by its inventor Linus Torvalds in 1991. There are versions of Linux for almost every available type of computer hardware from desktop machines to IBM mainframes. The inner workings of Linux are open and available for anyone to examine and change as long as they make their changes available to the public. This has resulted in thousands of people working on various aspects of Linux and adaptation of Linux for a huge variety of purposes, from servers to TV-recording boxes.

See also: Open Source Software, Unix

Listserv

One of the earliest types of e-mail discussion lists, and still in widespread use, although there are many other types now, too. It is often incorrectly used as a term for all types. See also: BITNET, Internet (Upper case I), 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 connecting to a computer system by giving your credentials (usually your "username" and "password")

See also: Password

 

Lossy

A term coined by graphics programmers to refer to a technique of shrinking file sizes by giving away some precision of detail. JPEG is the most common of these. By reducing the so-called quality of a picture when you save it, you can make the file size smaller. Many pictures can take a lot of loss of fine detail before it becomes noticeable on a web page.

 

Lurk

Listening in to a mailing list, message base, chat room, or newsgroup without participating. Newcomers are encouraged to lurk for a while as they get the feel of things. The term "lurker" is sometimes used negatively to refer to people who take from discussions, but never give.

 

 

Lynx

A text-only web browser that was an early workhorse before the web gained its graphical face. It is still used extensively today by the visually impaired, people with limited systems, and those with slow connections who don't want to take the time to load graphics.