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Glossary of Internet
Terms
Select the first letter of the Internet/computer word, phrase
or term you are looking for from the list above to jump to appropriate section
of the glossary.
- A -
Acrobat: Allows for the creation and distribution of
documents. Increasingly used for transmitting complex documents over the Web,
due to its agility in rendering a complex page the same way on a Macintosh,
Windows, or UNIX computer. See Amber, PDF
Amber:A plug-in that
allows Adobe Acrobat documents to be read within a World Wide Web browser
window.
Archie: A software application that allows the user to
search for software on anonymous FTP sites. Archie clients exist for all major
operating systems.
Applet: A small software application. Applet
has gained currency as the term for Java and Java-Script based applications.
Applets may display animation, or perform sophisticated database queries, or
anything else that a small application does.
ARPAnet: Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network. The Internet evolved from the ARPAnet, which
was developed in the 1960' and 1970's by the U.S. Department of Defense. The
ARPAnet was designed to survive a nuclear war: instead of depending on
vulnerable central servers, it distributed data packets over a complex mesh of
nodes. The TCP/IP networking protocols were developed for the ARPAnet.
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange. The
traditional system for encoding characters used in English, including numbers,
punctuation and other symbols. Most computers support ASCII encoding, though
other encoding statements are native to many. See also ISO
ATM:
1. Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A new standard
for very-high-speed network data transmission over long and short distances.
Unlike most other transmission modes, ATM has no inherent transfer-rate
limit.
2. Adobe Type Manager. A utility on Macintosh, Windows, and some
Unix computers for rendering typefaces on-screen. Adobe Acrobat requires this
utility
Apple: A popular fruit.
-
- B -
- Backbone: The physical connection between two or more
local area networks (LANs). A backbone is often composed of fiber-optic cables
or other high-speed transport media. See also WAN.
Bandwidth: A way to describe network capacity. If
you have a T-3 leased-line, you have a high-bandwidth connection. If you have a
9,600 bps modem, you've got a low-bandwidth connection. If you want to use
digital video, you need lots of bandwidth.
Baud: Colloquially,
the word baud is used in the term "baud rate", which describes how many bits
per second a modem can send or receive. The technical definition of baud refers
to the numbers of times per second a carrier signal changes value.
BBS: Bulletin Board System. Usually a single
computer, with a limited number of incoming telephone lines, which provide
messaging, chat, and file-transfer services to members. Some are pay services;
others are free. Bulletin boards were the main means of online exploration
before the explosive growth of the Internet.
BinHex Binary
Hexadecimal: Internet e-mail can generally only handle ASCII. BinHex
converts binary, non-text Macintosh files (non-ASCII) into e-mail-friendly
ASCII.
Bit Binary Digit: A single binary unit, the basis of
digital computing. A bit has a value of 1 or 0. Digital communications speeds
are usually measured in terms of bits per second. See Also: Bandwidth, Bps,
Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte
BITNET: Because It's Time Network. An
early network of educational sites sharing e-mail services. Most BITNET
machines are now on the Internet, and the utility of the BITNET itself has
diminished to near zero.
Bps: Bits per second. A standard
measurement of digital transmission speeds. A 28.8 modem will transfer 28,800
bits in one second.
Browser: Chances are good that you are
using a browser to look at this document. A browser is any client software that
is used for looking at World Wide Web resources. There are other kinds of
browsers as well. For example, image catalogs on CDs are accessed through
image-database browsers. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are
browsers. -
- Byte: A series of 8 bits (e.g.11111111) that represent a
single character. Languages with large character sets like Chinese, Japanese,
and Korean require two bytes (e.g. 10101010 11111111) to represent their
characters. Disk space is represented in terms of bytes used.
-
- C -
- CERN: Centre européen pour larecherche
nucléaire (European Center for Nuclear Research). The original home of
the World Wide Web, Geneva's CERN, developed Web protocols as a means for
scientific researchers to exchange documents easily.
CGI:
Common Gateway Interface. A means for adding functionality to the World
Wide Web through scripting. Among other things, CGI scripts can pull records
out of an external database. Whenever you run a search on the Internet, you are
likely to be using a CGI script.
Client: A software application
that interacts with a server application. In the case of the World Wide Web, a
browser client, like Netscape Navigator, will request a file over the Internet
from a server program.
-
- Client/Server: is the organizational model for the newer
generation of computing. Instead of a host computer running all applications
and feeding information to users via dumb terminals, an application on the
user's local machine (the client) requests information from a server, and then
does much of the processing locally.
Content-type:
See MIME.
CPU: Central Processing Unit. The
brains of the computer, the device that processes most information in the
computer.
Cyberspace: The nebulous domain that is inhabited by
computers and networks.
-
- D -
- Domain Name: The unique name for
each Internet site. The "top level" of a domain name is the last part, always
two or three letters. In the United States, the top-level domains are .com (for
commercial organizations), .org (for non-profit organizations), .net (for
network providers), .gov (for the Federal government), and .mil (for the
military). In other countries, two-letter ISO-standard codes represent each
country, e.g. .fr for France, .de for Germany, .uk for the United Kingdom, .ca
for Canada, .jp for Japan, and so forth. There are exceptions: .us is
occasionally used, especially by municipal and state governments, and foreign
companies are allowed access to the .com and .net top-level domains.
The hierarchy for domain names is represented from right to left. After the
top-level domain name comes the various sub-domain names.
"Virtual"
domain names also exist. These may be aliases to other machines, or they may
simply point to a directory on a large host machine that serves as a Mail or
Web server. This is often done for small businesses and individuals who want to
have a presence on the Internet, but who do not want to have to set up a
physical site.
DNS: Domain Name Server. A piece of software
sitting on a server computer that resolves domain names to actual IP addresses.
For example, if you wanted to open an Internet telephone call with Morty
Miller, whose workstation domain name was mortym.bigcorp.com, you would enter
mortym.bigcorp.com. The DNS would determine that mortym.bigcorp.com is actually
represented the address 158.204.12.78. The DNS would then transmit that IP
address to your computer; and your computer would initiate the telephone call.
Nodes communicate with each other using IP addresses rather than domain names,
though users may never see the actual IP addresses being used.
-
- E -
- E-mail: Electronic Mail. Electronic communications,
sending text messages. Non-text binary files can also be sent (see MIME).
E-mail extends to networks that are not part of the Internet, such as BBSs and
proprietary online services. See also: SMTP, UUCP
Ethernet: One of the most common local
area network (LAN) wiring schemes, Ethernet has a transmission rate of 10
Megabits per second. A newer standard called Fast Ethernet will carry100
Megabits per second.
- F -
- FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions. or Frequently Answered
Questions.): FAQ's are text files, posted to Usenet newsgroups, mailing
lists, or World Wide Web pages that have answers to the most commonly asked
questions on a particular subject.
FDDI: Fiber Distributed Data
Interface. A fiber-optic cabling standard for LANs and WANs. FDDI carries up to
100 Megabits per second.
FidoNet: A non-Internet e-mail
network, based on small BBSs communicating with each other. FidoNet users can
exchange e-mail with the Internet, and vice versa.
56K line: A
leased line capable of transferring 56,000 bps. Often used to connect
small-to-medium networks to the Internet.
Finger: A small
software tool that allows a client to query a server for information on
users.
Firewall: A method for protecting Internet-connected
enterprise networks from break-ins by unauthorized outsiders.
Flame: A noun or verb, flame is the vicious verbal treatment of one
Internet user at the hands of another.
Freeware: Software
developed by individuals or small companies that costs nothing to use. The
developer retains the copyright to the product, so freeware is not in the
public domain. Many Internet utilities are freeware or shareware.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. FTP is the most common method for copying
files over the Internet. Some FTP sites -- notably university
shareware/freeware archives, and software company archives -- allow you to log
on anonymously to retrieve public files.
- G -
- Gateway: A gateway is a dedicated computer that
translates among different protocols -- usually e-mail or networking protocols.
An AOL-to-SMTP e-mail gateway, for example, converts America Online e-mail to
the SMTP standard for transmission across the Internet.
GIF or .gif: Graphics Interchange Format. One of the two
major graphics file formats on the Web. The GIF format may be headed for
extinction, due both to technical obsolescence and patent disputes. GIF is a
"lossless" compression method, but is limited to 256 colors (8-bit color). GIF
files have the extension .gif. See also JPEG.
Gigabyte: A billion bytes. A thousand megabytes.
Gopher: Developed at the University of Minnesota (school mascot:
gopher), Gopher is an Internet-browsing client that was especially popular
before the advent of the World Wide Web. You use your Gopher client to log into
a Gopher server and then navigate by clicking on hierarchical directory links.
Most World Wide Web browsers allow users to access Gopher servers.
GUI: Graphical User Interface. (Pronounced "gooey.") The icons, windows,
and toolbar through which a user controls a piece of software or operating
system. All major operating systems now have some sort of GUI, either as an
add-on (DOS's Windows 3.1, Unix's X-Windows) or integrated into the operating
system (Mac OS, Windows NT). GUI was a revolutionary change from traditional
command-line interfaces. The concept was pioneered by Xerox, which developed
early GUI's at its Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970's; and it was first
successfully marketed in the mid-1980's by Apple, with its Macintosh operating
system.
-
- H -
- Host: A large computer that is accessed for remote
services. Host is a bit of an old-fashioned, mainframe-computer term, and has
become something of a synonym for server. Terminals are used for connecting to
hosts.
- Home Page: The first screen you see when you start your
Internet browser. A jumping on point to the World Wide Web. You may change your
Home Page by editing the General Preferences under the Options Icon in your
Browser's toolbar. Simply click the options icon and the general preferences,
in the Start Up box, click homepage location in "Browser Starts With":
enter http://www.cbs-inc.com
-
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. The page-coding
language for the World Wide Web. Every page that you see on the Web is
represented in HTML, whether it was written by a human or by a computer. HTML
is relatively simple: you turn attributes on and off using "tags"; and you
create graphics and text hyperlinks to pages or files anywhere else on the
Internet. HTML pages are viewed using a World Wide Web client program such as
Netscape or Mosaic. HTML files end in the file extension.html or .htm.
HTTP: Hypertext Transport Protocol. The protocol for serving files on
the World Wide Web. HTTP is what browsers and clients use to send and get
files. The string http://makes up the first part of the URL for all World Wide
Web pages.
Hypertext: Text linked to other text or other
documents. The World Wide Web is largely based upon hypertext links. Clicking
on underlined text in a Web document will prompt your browser to request
another resource, another part of the same document, another document, or
another file such as an image or sound.
- I -
- Imagemap: Graphic images that have coordinates defined
as links. See ISMAP.
Internet: The world wide net of networks
and sub-networks.
IP Address: The unique network address used
by TCP/IP. A unique number consisting of 4 numbers between 0 and 255 punctuated
by dots, e.g. 167.241.33.40. Every computer running TCP/IP has its own unique
IP number.
IRC: Internet Relay Chat. A popular medium for
online "chats", IRCs are the Internet version of chat forums on America Online,
CompuServe, and other online services. Users join IRC channels and type
messages in real-time to each other. Everyone can see everything that everyone
else in the channel is typing.
ISDN: Integrated Services
Digital Network. A technology that has been around for a while but which is
only just beginning to take off, ISDN is digital telephone service that can run
over the same copper cables used for the old-fashioned analog telephone
network. An ISDN line is capable of carrying data and voice simultaneously.
Data users generally enjoy a transfer rate of 56,000 bits per second, though it
is possible to use both the data and voice channels for data and increase
transfer rates.
ISMAP: Also called "image map". An image,
displayed in a World Wide Web browser window, containing certain regions mapped
out as links to other Web documents. ISMAP requests are processed by CGI
scripts sitting on the remote server.
ISO: International
Organization for Standardization. Organization based in Geneva that publishes
standards in industry and technology. ISO-8859 is a superset of character
encoding sets, capable of representing all European languages. ISO-8859-1, also
known as ISO-Latin-1, is used for encoding English.
ISP:
Internet Service Provider. A company that allows home and corporate users to
connect to the Internet. The connection may be part-time PPP or SLIP (for home
users), or it may be a full-time ISDN, 56k, Fractional T-1, T-1, or T-3
connection (for companies and clients running full-time servers).
- J -
- Java Sun Microsystems' new programming language, based
on C++, used to develop "applets" that load from WWW sites. Identical Java
applets can be used on any supported platform -- that is, a Macintosh machine
will run the same code as a Unix machine or a Windows NT machine.
JavaScript An implementation of the Java programming language that
allows non-programmers to build Java-based applications easily.
JPEG Joint Photographic
Experts' Group. A standard for photographic image compression. JPEG is a
"lossy" compression method, which discards data from an image and interpolates
the surrounding area. JPEG is also used for compressing frames of the QuickTime
movie format, although it is gradually being replaced by MPEG for
motion-picture compression. JPEG is capable of storing 24-bit images (millions
of colors). JPEG files on the Web have the extension .jpeg or .jpg.
- See also: GIF
- K -
- Kilobyte Literally, a thousand bytes, but actually 1,024
bytes. See also: Bit, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte
- L -
- LAN : Local Area Network. A network of computers that is
usually confined to one office or building. LANs are linked together in larger
networks as Wide Area Networks (WANs).
Leased Line: A
special-purpose telephone line that is used exclusively for high-speed digital
transmission, leased lines are necessary for linking larger networks to the
Internet. T-1 and T-3 are run on leased lines. Leased lines are maintained at a
much higher service level than regular voice lines, and are consequently very
expensive to rent. Leased lines may be composed either of copper wire or
fiber-optic cable.
Listserv: Listserv is the most common form
of mailing list. Listserv lists originated on the BITNET, but most now run over
the Internet.
Linux: A freeware version of Unix, Linux is
becoming popular among techno-geeks as a powerful, low-cost operating system
for operating servers.
Login: To "log in" is to gain access to
a protected computer. As a noun, login is the Unix term for account name.
Lynx: An early World Wide Web browser, Lynx is text-only. Though
most early World Wide Web pages were easily comprehensible when viewed with
text-only browsers, the Web's increasing dependence on graphics makes solutions
like Lynx more and more unworkable -- much to the detriment of the visually
impaired, who use text-to-speech software to "read" online text.
- M -
- Mailing List: An automated e-mail group mailing list.
They are often supported by software vendors or user groups to disseminate
information on a regular basis.
Megabit A million bits.
Transmission speed over local area networks (LANs) is often measured in terms
of Megabits per second (Mbps).
Megabyte A million bytes. A
thousand (1,024, to be exact) kilobytes. Hard-disk space is usually given in
megabytes -- but disks are getting bigger, and may be measured in gigabytes or
-- on very large server volumes -- terabytes.
MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. The
standard for sending non-text file attachments via e-mail. Any non-text files
-- images, sounds, formatted word-processing documents, etc. -- are represented
in binary digits, rather than in ASCII. Since e-mail is transmitted in ASCII,
the binary information must be encoded so that it can be sent as ASCII
information. A MIME-compliant e-mail application is capable of sending binary
files, encoded into ASCII, to any other MIME-compliant e-mail application.
MIME-encoded files always include a standard header describing the type of file
enclosure.
These content-types allow the recipient's program to determine
what to do with the incoming file.
- MIME content-types are also used on the World Wide Web. When a
browser client requests a document from a server, the server transmits a MIME
content-type along with the file. The content-type instructs the browser client
what to do with the document: display it in the browser window, or launch a
helper application to display it.
Modem: Modulator/demodulator.
A modem allows users to connect to other users over telephone lines. Since
standard phone lines carry only analog signals, a modem is needed to convert
between digital information and analog sound. It accomplishes this by
converting 1's and 0's to oscillating tones -- thus the pulsing, shrieking
sound that you hear when you hear a modem initiating a connection.
Mosaic Developed as freeware at NCSA, Mosaic was the first graphical
World Wide Web browser. It quickly lost prominence when Mark Andreessen, its
principal developer, left NCSA to form Netscape. The source code for Mosaic has
been licensed to other software companies; most online services' browsers are
based on some Mosaic code.
MPEG: Motion Pictures Experts Group.
An evolving standard for digital video compression. Often used for creating
movie files seen on the World Wide Web. See also JPEG
MUD:
Multi-User Dungeon. An interactive text game that runs over the Internet, MUDs
are much like early text computer games such as Dungeons and Zork, but in a
MUD, any number of users may play with and against each other.
-
- N -
- Netiquette: "Proper" etiquette on the Internet. This may
consist of not flooding newsgroups with spam, or being tolerant of naive
newbies.
Netscape The colloquial name for the premier World
Wide Web browser (which is actually called "Netscape Navigator"), and the name
of the company that publishes it.
Netscape has quickly become the de-facto
standard for the World Wide Web. Most Web authors write their pages to take
advantage of the Netscape Navigator browser; Netscape's server software
(Netscape Communications Server and Netscape Commerce Server) are extremely
successful commercial server packages; and Netscape Navigator was the first
browser to support Sun Microsystems' Java and JavaScript cross-platform
development languages.
Network: Any collection of two or more
computers connected together, sharing hardware or software, is a network. LAN
is a formal term for a smaller network, and WAN is a formal term for a larger
network. The Internet is sometimes referred to as "the world's biggest
network."
Newsgroup: The name for discussion groups on Usenet.
Newsgroups are arranged in a hierarchical fashion opposite to that used for
domain names. For example, the group alt has thousands of groups and subgroups
with names like alt.fan, alt.fan.elvis, alt.fan.elvis.forever,
alt.fan.elvis.songs. There is a Usenet newsgroup for every subject imaginable.
Some of them contain extremely useful or interesting information -- they can
often be a great source for technical support information, for example -- but
the majority of newsgroups are filled with worthless blabber. See also
Spam.
NIC: Network Information Center. An office that assigns
domain names on the Internet. Generally, each top-level domain has a NIC. In
the United States, the InterNIC assigns all high-level domain names ending with
.com, .org,.net, .gov, .mil, and .us. Lower-level domain names are usually
assigned by local network administrators.
Node: A single
computer on a network.
-
- O -
- Online Service A closed, pay-to-use system for e-mail,
chat groups, newsgroups, and the like. Online services are much like overgrown
BBSs in that one owner controls all the content. Although online services are
largely responsible for the initial growth in interest in the Internet, they
are beginning to lose customers, who see the Internet as more open, more
interesting, and cheaper -- though not always for the faint-of-heart
(technically or emotionally). The best-known online services are America
Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy.
OS Operating system. The
software that controls the operations of a computer. Think of the OS as the
fuel that runs the "engine" (the CPU). The operating systems an everyday user
is likely to come into contact with are Mac OS, Unix, DOS, 32-bit Windows, and
OS/2. There are numerous other operating systems, such as VAX/VMS, VM, and
AS/400, which run only on large mainframe computers.
-
- P -
- Packet: Data is broken up into packets before being
transmitted over the Internet. One file could be broken up into, say, five
packets. Each of those five packets could travel over five different computers
before reaching its destination. This decentralized approach is at the heart of
the way that the Internet functions.
PDF: Portable Document
Format. The file format used by Adobe Acrobat.
Perl: A
UNIX-based scripting language that is often used on the World Wide Web. When
you submit a complex form from your browser window, for example, the processing
of the information may be handled by a Perl script. Perl scripts usually end in
the extension .pl.
PGP: Pretty Good Privacy. An open
data-encryption standard written by Phil Zimmermann. PGP encrypts documents
using the RSA encryption algorithm. PGP is prohibited from export by the US
Government. Popular when sending email.
Plug-in: A piece of
software, often written by a third-party software developer, that loads in
conjunction with a host application and extends the functionality of that
application. Sometimes called "extension."
POP: Types of
Protocol.
1. Point of Presence. A network service provider maintains a POP
to which users connect in order to gain access to the Internet. Home users will
use modems to dial up to POPs, and larger businesses will have leased-line
connections to their local POPs.
2. Post Office Protocol. The protocol
used by single-user e-mail software to upload and
download e-mail messages
to and from an e-mail server. Programs like Eudora use the POP3 servers. POP's
utility lies in its flexibility and extremely wide acceptance.
Port
1. A physical connection to a computer through which data
flows. An "Ethernet port", for example, is where Ethernet network cabling plugs
into a computer.
2. The process of translating software written for
one operating system so that it will run under another operating system. The
current version of Microsoft Word for the Mac, for example, is a "Windows port"
-- that is, the program was written for Windows and then re-engineered, using
most of the original source code, for the Macintosh.
3. A logical
entry to a server machine. These ports are mostly invisible to the user, though
you may occasionally see a URL with a port number included in it. These ports
do not refer to physical locations; they are set up by server administrators
for network trafficking.
Posting: A message distributed to a
news group.
PPP: Point to Point Protocol. Allows a home,
dial-up user to connect to the Internet using a regular modem.
- Q -
- (empty)
- R -
- Real Audio: An Internet-based application, often used as
a plug-in to Web browsers, that allows for real-time transmission of audio
(e.g., radio broadcasts).
Robot: Robots on the Internet have
little to do with the mechanized beasts of science-fiction movies, but they
have a lot to do with the mechanized servants of Karel Capek's play R.U.R.
(czech=unpaid work.) They automate time-consuming
tasks that humans don't
like to do, such as gathering database information or checking the validity of
hypertext links.
Router Routers are network hardware or
software that serve as transport points between different networks. They
provide traffic and filtering functions.
Back to
Top
- S -
- Search Engine: A special software/hardware
implementation that allows users to search the entire World Wide Web for
information based on keywords and other search criteria. The search engine is
one of the most useful aspects of the World Wide Web. Some of the major ones
are InfoSeek, Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos, Webcrawler, and Yahoo.
Some search
engines find pages through robots that regularly crawl the Web, building
databases of information on current pages. Others solely index items that have
been submitted manually. Many search engines use both methods.
Server: Server is a generic term for hardware or software that provides
services to clients on a network. A network file server gives users on a
network access to shared hard-disk volumes. A World Wide Web server gives
Internet users access to documents on that server's volume. A mail server
distributes mail to individual users
within a local area network. Modern
computing is increasingly based upon the client/server model.
- Server Push: A technique used for animation within Web
windows. The server will force-refresh a particular image on the page, creating
an animated effect. Server push works poorly over slow networks.
Shareware: Software, usually developed by a small company or an
individual, that is distributed via the Internet, online services, and CD-ROMs,
and which costs very little (usually $10-$50) to use. Payment of shareware fees
is based on the honor system. Many Internet utilities are shareware or
freeware.
Shockwave: A plug-in written by Macromedia that
allows interactive multimedia presentations to play in a World Wide Web browser
window.
S-HTTP: Secure Hypertext Transmission Protocol. A
standard used for transferring secure documents over the World Wide Web, S-HTTP
relies upon the RSA encryption algorithm. Presently S-HTTP is used mostly for
credit-card purchases over the Web. Pages using this protocol have a URL
starting with https:// .
SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol. A
standard for connecting to the Internet via a modem and a regular dial-up
telephone line. Gradually being replaced by PPP.
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The predominant
transport protocol for Internet e-mail. Has mostly replaced the slower, older
protocol UUCP. Many enterprise e-mail systems use other protocols that must be
translated into SMTP by gateways when being sent over the Internet.
Spam: To spam is to flood Usenet newsgroups or mailing lists with
unwanted, unsolicited information. A spam may be advertising material, a
get-rich-quick scheme, or a paranoid rant.
- Start Page: The first screen
you see when you start your Internet browser. A jumping on point to the World
Wide Web. You may change your Start Page by editing the "General Preferences"
under the "Options" Icon in your Browser's toolbar. Simply click the options
icon and the general preferences. In the Start Up box, click home page
location in "Browser Starts With" and enter http://www.cbs-inc.com.
-
- T -
- T-1: A leased-line data connection with a maximum
capacity of 1.544 Megabits per second. This is the most common type of leased
data line. Fractional T-1 allows users who do not require the capacity of full
T-1 to lease one or more of the 24 channels of 64,000 bytes per second each
that T-1 can be broken up into. T-3: A leased-line data connection with
a maximum capacity of 44.736 Megabits per second. A T-3 connection is extremely
expensive to maintain, and is reserved for only the largest network
installations. As with T-1, fractional T-3 is available, providing a portion of
a T-3 pipe for a fraction of the cost of a full T-3 connection. TCP/IP:
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The suite of protocols under
which all the computers on the Internet communicate with each other. TCP/IP was
best known as the standard UNIX networking protocol, but some implementation of
TCP/IP is now available for every major operating system. To truly be on the
Internet, a computer must be running TCP/IP; but a computer running TCP/IP is
not necessarily on the Internet.
Telephony/Teleconferencing: It
is now possible to have a telephone conversation or video conference between
two or more Internet-connected workstations. Although performance is acceptable
over high-speed links, teleconferencing quality is heavily dependent upon
Internet traffic. At high-traffic times, connections are usually of mediocre
quality.
Telnet: The application used to login to a remote
host. Telnet allows your computer to emulate a terminal. You can also telnet
from a dumb terminal to a remote host.
Terabyte: A trillion
bytes. Very large server volumes -- especially those stored on optical media
like recordable CD's -- may be measured in terms of terabytes. See also bit,
byte, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte.
Terminal: The traditional
piece of computer hardware for using network services. Terminals usually have
minimal computing function, being completely dependent upon their host, and are
often referred to as "dumb terminals." Personal computers can emulate terminal
functions for the purpose of connecting to mainframe hosts. Telnet is a tool
that makes your personal computer appear as a terminal to a host. Terminal
Server: A piece of hardware that allows dial-up connections to enter a
network. An Internet service provider will have a rack of terminal servers,
each connected to a rack of modems, that answer incoming data calls. The
terminal server provides network routing from the modem lines to the
network
-
- U -
- Unix: A very fast, stable, but somewhat difficult-to-use
operating system, Unix is the predominant platform for servers on the Internet.
There are dozens of different "flavors" of Unix. Some of the major ones are
SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, AIX, HP-UX, OSF, SCO, NeXTSTEP, and Linux.
Uniform Resource Locator: The address of any document
or other resource on the Internet. URLs always start with a protocol name, like
http, ftp, gopher, or telnet, for example, and then usually list the resource's
domain name and file path. A typical World Wide Web URL goes like this:
(http://www.yahoo.com). A URL for a particular file on an FTP site would be
similar to this: (ftp://ftp.foodtvt.com/emeril/fried-clams.txt).
Usenet: A worldwide network of non-real-time discussion groups. Your
local news server probably receives a Usenet "feed" from thousands of Usenet
newsgroups. Usenet is transmitted using the old UUCP e-mail protocol.
Not all newsgroups are necessarily carried over the Internet. The Usenet is
aggressively defended by its protectors as one of the few havens of true free
speech. Usenet newsgroups often come under attack in many parts of the world.
See also: Newsgroup
URL See Universal Resource
Locator
-
- UUCP: Unix-to-Unix Copy Protocol. An
older protocol for sending e-mail between different Unix machines via regularly
scheduled modem and network connections. This is the technology utilized by the
Usenet for transmitting news postings. Most Internet mail servers now use the
SMTP protocol instead.
UUEncode: A method for encoding binary
information into ASCII data. This is how e-mailers that do not use the MIME
protocol must transfer binary information (e.g., file attachments).
- V -
- Virtual Domain: see Domain
Name
-
- VRML: Virtual Reality Modeling Language. Pronounced --
if you're inclined to pronounce abbreviations -- "vermal." A standard for
platform-independent three-dimensional description, VRML can be thought of as
the HTML of 3-D. Developed partially at Silicon Graphics, the company that
brought you the dinosaurs in the movie Jurassic Park.
- W -
- WAIS: Wide Area Information Server. Pronounced "ways."
Software that builds searchable databases from various types of Internet
resources.
WAN: Wide Area Network. A larger network, usually
consisting of a collection of LANs that spans a large geographical area. Nodes
on WANs speak to each other over a backbone.
Windows, 16-bit
(3.1): The predominant desktop operating environment. Quickly ceding its
place to the next generation of Windows, NT and 95 (see below). Called "16-bit"
because the software speaks to the processor in 16-bit "words." The operating
system in Windows 3.1 is actually DOS.
Windows, 32-bit (NT,
95): The next generation of operating systems from Microsoft. NT is
predominantly used for servers, while 95 is mainly for workstations. Unlike
Windows 3.1, both 32-bit versions of Windows are actual operating systems.
Winsock: Protocol for implementing TCP/IP on Windows computers.
World Wide Web: The collection of resources across the Internet that is
accessed using World Wide Web browsers. It is an effective means for tying
together very different types of resources that are scattered across servers
all over the world.
WWW: World Wide Web (see). Also, in
lowercase the most common domain-name prefix for World Wide Web servers, e.g.
www.netscape.com.
- X -
- X-Modem: A file transfer protocol used for transferring
binary files. Slower than Z-modem.
-
- X-Windows: The main standard for implementing a
graphical user interface (GUI) on Unix computers.
- Y -
- (empty)
- Z -
- Z-Modem : The default protocol commonly used with
windows when sending binary files.
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