Glossary of Terms:
The Internet seems to have more acronyms
and abbreviations and blah blah than Carter's has little liver pills!
With the combined help of a number of resources we've tried to expand
and explain a number of them.
A | B | C | D
| E | F | G | H
| I | J | K | L
| M |
N | O | P | Q
| R | S | T | U
| V | W | X | Y
| Z
ADN
(Advanced Digital Network) -- Usually refers to a 56Kbps leased-line.
ADSL
(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) -- A method for moving data
over regular phone lines. An ADSL circuit is much faster than a regular
phone connection, and the wires coming into the subscriber’s
premises are the same (copper, twisted pair) wires used for regular
phone service. An ADSL circuit must be configured to connect two specific
locations, similar to a dedicated leased line.
A commonly discussed configuration of ADSL would allow a subscriber
to receive data (download) at speeds of up to 1.544 megabits (not
megabytes) per second, and to send (upload) data
at speeds of 128 kilobits per second. Therefore the “Asymmetric”
part of the word.
Another commonly discussed configuration would be symmetrical: 384
Kilobits per second in both directions. In theory ADSL allows
download speeds of up to 9 megabits per second and upload speeds of
up to 640 kilobits per second.
ADSL is often discussed as an inexpensive alternative to fractional
T1, allowing higher speeds in cases where the connection is always
to the same place.
See Also: bit , bps , ISDN
, xDSL
Anonymous FTP
See: FTP
Applet
A small Java program that can be embedded in an HTML
page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they
are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer,
such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are
prohibited from communicating with most other computers across a network.
The current rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection
to the computer from which the applet was sent.
See Also: HTML , Java
Archie
A tool (software) for finding files stored on anonymous FTP
sites. You need to know the exact file name or a substring of it.
ARPANet
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) -- The precursor to
the Internet. Developed in the late 60’s and early 70’s
by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area-networking
that would survive a nuclear war.
See Also: Internet
ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) -- This is
the de facto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers
to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers,
punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which
can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111.
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. This is commonly refered to as the major bandwidth carrier
for your Internet connections.
See Also: Network
Bandwidth
How much stuff you can send through a connection. Usually measured
in bits-per-second. A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits.
A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion
full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second,
depending on compression.
See Also: 56k Line , Bps
, Bit , T-1
Baud
In common usage the baud rate of a modem is how many bits
it can send or receive per second. Technically, baud is the number
of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value - for example
a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves
4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per second).
See Also: Bit , Modem
Transfer rate
BBS
(Bulletin Board System) -- A computerized meeting and announcement
system that allows people to carry on discussions, upload and download
files, and make announcements without the people being connected to
the computer at the same time. There are many thousands (millions?)
of BBS’s around the world, most are very small, running on a
single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large and
the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at
some point, but it is not clearly drawn.
Binhex
(BINary HEXadecimal) -- A method for converting non-text files
(non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because Internet e-mail
can only handle ASCII.
See Also: ASCII , MIME
, UUENCODE
Bit
(Binary DigIT) -- A single digit number in base-2, in other words,
either a 1 or a zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth
is usually measured in bits-per-second.
See Also: Bandwidth , Bps
, Byte , Kilobyte ,
Megabyte
BITNET
(Because It’s Time NETwork (or Because It’s There NETwork))
-- A network of educational sites separate from the Internet,
but e-mail is freely exchanged between BITNET and the Internet.
Listservs, the most popular form of e-mail discussion groups,
originated on BITNET. BITNET machines are usually mainframes running
the VMS operating system, and the network is probably the only international
network that is shrinking.
Bps
(Bits-Per-Second) -- A measurement of how fast data is moved from
one place to another. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per
second.
See Also: Bandwidth , Bit
Browser
A Client program (software) that is used to look at various
kinds of Internet resources.
See Also: Client , URL
, WWW , Netscape , Mosaic
, Home Page (or Homepage)
BTW
(By The Way) -- Acomment written in an online forum or chat.
See Also: IMHO , TTFN
, Chat , IRC
Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there
are 8 Bits in a Byte, sometimes more, depending on how the measurement
is being made.
See Also: Bit
Certificate Authority
An issuer of Security Certificates used in SSL connections.
See Also: Security Certificate
, SSL
CGI
(Common Gateway Interface) -- A set of rules that describe how
a Web Server communicates with another piece of software
on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the “CGI
program”) talks to the web server. Any piece of software can
be a CGI program if it handles input and output according to the CGI
standard.
Usually a CGI program is a small program that takes data from a web
server and does something with it, like putting the content of a form
into an e-mail message, or turning the data into a database query.
You can often see that a CGI program is being used by seeing “cgi-bin”
in a URL, but not always.
See Also: cgi-bin , Web
cgi-bin
The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGI
programs are stored.
The “bin” part of “cgi-bin” is a shorthand version
of “binary”, because once upon a time, most programs were
refered to as “binaries”. In real life, most programs found
in cgi-bin directories are text files -- scripts that are executed
by binaries located elsewhere on the same machine.
See Also: CGI
Chat
A way of conferencing or communicating with one or more people simultaneously
by typing messages onto your keyboard where one or more people can
see the message on their screens. They can then respond to you in
the same manner. Usually associated with online services.
Client
A software program that is used to contact and obtain data from
a Server software program on another computer, often across
a great distance. Each Client program is designed to work with
one or more specific kinds of Server programs, and each Server
requires a specific kind of Client. A Web Browser is
a specific kind of Client.
See Also: Browser , Server
Cookie
The most common meaning of “Cookie” on the Internet refers
to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser
that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to
the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the
Server.
Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browser’s settings,
the Browser may accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the
Cookie for either a short time or a long time.
Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information,
online “shopping cart” information, user preferences, etc.
When a Server receives a request from a Browser that includes a Cookie,
the Server is able to use the information stored in the Cookie. For
example, the Server might customize what is sent back to the user,
or keep a log of particular user’s requests.
Cookies are usually set to expire or go away 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
, Cookies
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 computer may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain
Name points to only one computer. For example, the domain names:
yourname.com
anothername.yourname.com
mail.yourname.com
can all refer to the same computer, but each domain name can refer
to no more than one computer.
Usually, all of the computers on a given Network will have
the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names (yourdomain.com
in the examples above). It is also possible for a Domain Name to exist
but not be connected to an actual computer. 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 computer must handle the mail on behalf of the listed Domain
Name.
See Also: IP Number
Email
(Electronic Mail) -- Messages, usually text, sent from one person
to another via computer. Email can also be sent automatically to a
large number of addresses (Mailing List) called bulk mailing.
See Also: Listserv , Maillist
Ethernet
A very common method of networking computers in a LAN. Ethernet
will handle about 10-100,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with
almost any kind of computer. All of your home computers can now be
easily configured as an Ethernet home LAN and even share just one
printer.
See Also: Bandwidth , LAN
FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) -- FAQs are documents that list and
answer the most common questions on a particular subject. FAQs are
usually written by people who have tired of answering the same question
over and over.
FDDI
(Fiber Distributed Data Interface) -- A standard for transmitting
data on optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second
(10 times as fast as Ethernet, about twice as fast as T-3).
See Also: Bandwidth , Ethernet
, T-1 , T-3
Finger
An old Internet software tool for locating people on other Internet
sites used primarily to find specific people or computers in a WAN.
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. Most sites do not allow incoming Finger
requests, but many do.
Fire Wall
A combination of hardware and software that separates a LAN
into two or more parts for security purposes.
See Also: Network , LAN
Flame
Originally, flame meant to "carry forth in a passionate manner
in the spirit of honorable debate". Flames most often involved
the use of flowery language and doing this well would be a form of
art. Now it is just bad etiquette involving crude and unbecoming language.
See Also: Flame War
Flame War
When an online discussion degenerates into a series of personal
attacks against the debators, rather than discussion of their positions.
A heated exchange.
See Also: Flame
FTP
(File Transfer Protocol) -- A very common method of moving files
between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to
another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending
files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly
accessible deposits of material that can be obtained using anonymous
FTP, by logging in using the account name anonymous usually with your
email address as a password, thus these sites are called anonymous
ftp servers.
Gateway
The technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates
between two dissimilar protocols, for example Prodigy has a gateway
that translates between its internal, proprietary e-mail format and
Internet e-mail format. Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to
describe any mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g.
AOL tries to call itself the gateway to the Internet.
Gigabyte
1000 Megabytes
See Also: Byte , Gigabyte
Gopher
A widely successful method of making menus of material available
over the Internet. Gopher is a Client and Server style
program, which requires that the user have a Gopher Client
program. Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe in only a
couple of years, it has been largely supplanted by Hypertext, also
known as WWW (World Wide Web). There are still thousands of
Gopher Servers on the Internet and we can expect they will
remain for a while.
See Also: Client , Server
, WWW , Hypertext
hit
As used in reference to the World Wide Web, “hit” means
a single request from a web browser for a single page from
a web site; for webmasters and surfers these are the number
of visits to a page.
Home Page (or Homepage)
Several meanings. Originally, the web page that your browser
is set to use when it starts up, originally the listing of the web
root directory. The more common meaning refers to the main web page
for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of
a collection of web pages, e.g. “Check out so-and-so’s new
Home Page.”
Another sloppier use of the term refers to practically any web page
as a “homepage,” e.g. “That web site has 65 homepages
and none of them are interesting.”
See Also: Browser , Web
Host
Any computer on a network that is a functioning access for
services available to other computers on the network. It is
quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such
as WWW and USENET.
See Also: Node , Network
HTML
(HyperText Markup Language) -- The coding language used to create
Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML
looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround
a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear, additionally,
in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or a word, is linked
to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed
using a World Wide Web Client Program, such as Netscape
or MS Explorer.
See Also: Client , Server
, WWW
HTTP
(HyperText Transport Protocol) -- The protocol for moving hypertext
files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program
on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP
is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).
See Also: Client , Server
, WWW
Hypertext
Generally, any text that contains links to other documents - words
or phrases in the document that can be chosen by a reader and which
cause another document to be retrieved and displayed.
IMHO
(In My Humble Opinion) -- A shorthand appended to a comment written
in an online forum, IMHO indicates that the writer is aware that they
are expressing a debatable view, probably on a subject already under
discussion. One of may such shorthands in common use online, especially
in discussion forums.
See Also: TTFN , BTW
Internet
(Upper case I) The vast collection of inter-connected networks
that all use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET
of the late 60’s and early 70’s. The Internet connects roughly
120,000 independent networks into a vast global internet. The
Internet footings come out of the vast abandoned military communications
network of the old cold war turned into a civil tool. And NO, Al Gore
did NOT invent the Internet.
See Also: internet
internet
(Lower case i) Any time you connect 2 or more networks
together, you have an internet - as in inter-national or inter-state.
See Also: Internet , Network
Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization that
uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public
Internet, but that is only for internal use.
As the Internet has become more popular many of the tools used on
the Internet are being used in private networks, for example, many
companies have web servers that are available only to employees.
Note that an Intranet may not actually be an internet
-- it may simply be a network.
See Also: internet , Internet
, Network
IP Number
(Internet Protocol Number) -- Sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique
number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g.
165.113.245.2
Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number - if
a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet.
Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier
for people to remember. Note that these are in the changing process
with so many addresses given out to date. Presently a change is afoot
to incorporate a 16 digit IP address protocol.
See Also: Domain Name , Internet
, TCP/IP
IRC
(Internet Relay Chat) -- Basically a huge multi-user live chat
facility. There are a number of major IRC servers around the
world which are linked to each other. Anyone can create a channel
and anything that anyone types in a given channel is seen by all others
in the channel. Private channels can (and are) created for multi-person
conference calls.
ISDN
(Integrated Services Digital Network) -- Basically a way to move
more data over existing regular phone lines. ISDN or Dual Channel
Digital is rapidly becoming available to much of the USA and in most
markets it is priced very comparably to standard analog phone circuits.
It can provide speeds of roughly 128,000 bits-per-second over regular
phone lines. In practice, most people will be limited to 56,000 or
64,000 bits-per-second.
ISP
(Internet Service Provider) -- An institution that provides access
to the Internet.
See Also: Internet
Java
Java is a network-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems
that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely
downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run
without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Using
small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include
functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks.
We can expect to see a huge variety of features added to the Web using
Java, since you can write a Java program to do almost anything a regular
computer program can do, and then include that Java program in a Web
page.
See Also: Applet
JDK
(Java Development Kit) -- A software development package from Sun
Microsystems that implements the basic set of tools needed to write,
test and debug Java applications and applets
See Also: Applet , Java
Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024 (2^10) bytes.
See Also: Byte , Bit
LAN
(Local Area Network) -- A computer network limited to the immediate
area, usually the same building or floor of a building.
See Also: Ethernet
Leased-line
Refers to a phone line that is rented for exclusive 24-hour, 7
-days-a-week use from your location to another location. The highest
speed data connections require a leased line.
See Also: 56k Line , T-1
, T-3
Listserv
The most common kind of maillist, Listservs originated on
BITNET but they are now common on the Internet.
See Also: BITNET , E-mail
, Maillist
Login Username
Noun or a verb. Noun: The account name used to gain access to a
computer system. Not a secret (contrast with Password).
Verb: The act of entering into a computer system, e.g. Login to
the WELL and then go to the GBN conference.
See Also: Password
Maillist
(or Mailing List) A (usually automated) system that allows
people to send e-mail to one address, whereupon their message
is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist.
In this way, people who have many different kinds of e-mail access
can participate in discussions together.
Megabyte
A million bytes. A thousand kilobytes.
See Also: Byte , Bit ,
Kilobyte
MIDI
MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) -- The standard for attaching
non-text files to standard Internet mail messages. Non-text files
include graphics, spreadsheets, formatted word-processor documents,
sound files, etc.
An email program is said to be MIME Compliant if it can both send
and receive files using the MIME standard.
When non-text files are sent using the MIME standard they are converted
(encoded) into text - although the resulting text is not really readable.
Generally speaking the MIME standard is a way of specifying both the
type of file being sent (e.g. a Quicktime video file), and the method
that should be used to turn it back into its original form.
Besides email software, the MIME standard is also universally used
by Web Servers to identify the files they are sending to Web
Clients, in this way new file formats can be accommodated simply
by updating the Browsers’ list of pairs of MIME-Types and appropriate
software for handling each type.
See Also: Browser , Client
, Server , Binhex ,
UUENCODE
Mirror
Generally speaking, “to mirror” is to maintain an exact
copy of something. Probably the most common use of the term on the
Internet refers to “mirror sites” which are web sites,
or FTP sites that maintain exact copies of material originated
at another location, usually in order to provide more widespread access
to the resource.
Another common use of the term “mirror” refers to an arrangement
where information is written to more than one hard disk simultaneously,
so that if one disk fails, the computer keeps on working without losing
anything.
See Also: FTP , Web
Modem
(MOdulator, DEModulator) -- A device that you connect to your computer
and to a phone line, that allows the computer to talk to other computers
through the phone system. Basically, modems do for computers what
a telephone does for humans.
MOO
(Mud, Object Oriented) -- One of several kinds of multi-user role-playing
environments, so far only text-based.
See Also: MUD , MUSE
Mosaic
The first WWW browser that was available for the Macintosh,
Windows, and UNIX all with the same interface. Mosaic really started
the popularity of the Web. The source-code to Mosaic has been licensed
by several companies and there are several other pieces of software
as good or better than Mosaic, most notably, Netscape and Microsoft
Internet Explorer.
See Also: Browser , Client
, WWW
MUD
(Multi-User Dungeon or Dimension) -- A (usually text-based) multi-user
simulation environment. Some are purely for fun and flirting, others
are used for serious software development, or education purposes and
all that lies in between. A significant feature of most MUDs is that
users can create things that stay after they leave and which other
users can interact with in their absence, thus allowing a world to
be built gradually and collectively.
See Also: MOO , MUSE
MUSE
(Multi-User Simulated Environment) -- One kind of MUD - usually
with little or no violence.
See Also: MOO , MUD
Netiquette
The etiquette on the Internet.
See Also: Internet
Netizen
Derived from the term citizen, referring to a citizen of the Internet,
or someone who uses networked resources. The term connotes civic responsibility
and participation.
See Also: Internet
Netscape
A WWW Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape (tm)
browser was originally based on the Mosaic program developed
at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).
Netscape has grown in features rapidly and is widely recognized as
the best and most popular web browser. Netscape corporation also produces
web server software.
Netscape provided major improvements in speed and interface over other
browsers, and has also engendered debate by creating new elements
for the HTML language used by Web pages -- but the Netscape
extensions to HTML are not universally supported.
The main author of Netscape, Mark Andreessen, was hired away from
the NCSA by Jim Clark, and they founded a company called Mosaic Communications
and soon changed the name to Netscape Communications Corporation.
See Also: Browser , Mosaic
, Server , WWW
Network
Any time you connect 2 or more computers together so that they
can share resources, you have a computer network. Connect 2 or more
networks together and you have an internet.
See Also: internet , Internet
, Intranet
Newsgroup
The name for discussion groups on USENET.
See Also: USENET
NIC
(Networked Information Center) -- Generally, any office that handles
information for a network. The most famous of these on the Internet
is the InterNIC, which is where new domain names are registered.
Another definition: NIC also refers to Network Interface Card which
plugs into a computer and
adapts the network interface to the appropriate standard. ISA, PCI,
and PCMCIA cards are all examples of NICs.
NNTP
(Network News Transport Protocol) -- The protocol used by client
and server software to carry USENET postings back and
forth over a TCP/IP network. If you are using any of
the more common software such as Netscape, Nuntius, Internet
Explorer, etc. to participate in newsgroups then you are benefiting
from an NNTP connection.
See Also: Newsgroup , TCP/IP
, USENET
Password
A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good passwords contain
letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7.
A good password might be:
Hot$1-6
See Also: Login
Plug-in
A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger
piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape®
browser and web server. Adobe Photoshop® also uses
plug-ins.
The idea behind plug-in’s is that a small piece of software is
loaded into memory by the larger program, adding a new feature, and
that users need only install the few plug-ins that they need, out
of a much larger pool of possibilities. Plug-ins are usually created
by people other than the publishers of the software the plug-in works
with.
POP
(Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol) -- Two commonly used
meanings: Point of Presence and Post Office Protocol. A Point of Presence
usually means a city or location where a network can be connected
to, often with dial up phone lines. So if an Internet company says
they will soon have a POP in Belgrade, it means that they will soon
have a local phone number in Belgrade and/or a place where leased
lines can connect to their network. A second meaning, Post Office
Protocol refers to the way e-mail software such as Eudora gets mail
from a mail server. When you obtain a SLIP, PPP, or shell account
you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account
that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail.
See Also: SLIP , PPP
Port
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where information
goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a
personal computer is where a modem would be connected.
On the Internet port often refers to a number that is part of a URL,
appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every
service on an Internet server listens on a particular port
number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g.
Web servers normally listen on port 80, mail servers on port 25. Services
can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port number
must be specified in a URL when accessing the server.
See Also: Domain Name , Server
, URL
Posting
A single message entered into a network communications system.
E.g. A single message posted to a newsgroup or message board.
See Also: Newsgroup
PPP
(Point to Point Protocol) -- Most well known as a protocol that
allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem
to make TCP/IP connections and thus be really and truly on
the Internet.
See Also: IP Number , Internet
, SLIP , TCP/IP
PSTN
(Public Switched Telephone Network) -- The regular old-fashioned telephone
system.
RFC
(Request For Comments) -- The name of the result and the process
for creating a standard on the Internet. New standards are
proposed and published on line, as a Request For Comments. The Internet
Engineering Task Force is a consensus-building body that facilitates
discussion, and eventually a new standard is established, but the
reference number/name for the standard retains the acronym RFC, e.g.
the official standard for e-mail is RFC 822.
Router
A special-purpose computer (or software package) that handles the
connection between 2 or more networks. Routers spend all their
time looking at the destination addresses of the packets passing
through them and deciding which route to send them on.
See Also: Network , Packet
Switching
Security Certificate
A chunk of information (often stored as a text file) that is used
by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection.
Security Certificates contain information about who it belongs to,
who it was issued by, a unique serial number or other unique identification,
valid dates, and an encrypted “fingerprint” that can be
used to verify the contents of the certificate.
In order for an SSL connection to be created both sides must have
a valid Security Certificate.
See Also: Certificate Authority
, SSL
Server
A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind
of service to client software running on other computers. The
term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW
server, or to the machine on which the software is running, e.g.Our
mail server is down today, that’s why e-mail isn’t getting
out. A single server machine could have several different server software
packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients
on the network.
See Also: Client , Network
SLIP
(Serial Line Internet Protocol) -- A standard for using a regular
telephone line (a serial line) and a modem to connect a computer
as a real Internet site. SLIP is gradually being replaced by
PPP.
See Also: Internet , PPP
SMDS
(Switched Multimegabit Data Service) -- A new standard for very
high-speed data transfer.
SMTP
(Simple Mail Transport Protocol) -- The main protocol used to send
electronic mail on the Internet.
SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and
a program receiving mail should interact.
Almost all Internet email is sent and received by clients and
servers using SMTP, thus if one wanted to set up an email server
on the Internet one would look for email server software that supports
SMTP.
See Also: Client , Server
SNMP
(Simple Network Management Protocol) -- A set of standards for
communication with devices connected to a TCP/IP network. Examples
of these devices include routers, hubs, and switches.
A device is said to be “SNMP compatible” if it can be monitored
and/or controlled using SNMP messages. SNMP messages are known as
“PDU’s” - Protocol Data Units.
Devices that are SNMP compatible contain SNMP “agent” software
to receive, send, and act upon SNMP messages.
Software for managing devices via SNMP are available for every kind
of commonly used computer and are often bundled along with the device
they are designed to manage. Some SNMP software is designed to handle
a wide variety of devices.
See Also: Network , Router
Spam (or Spamming)
An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or USENET
or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast
medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number
of people who didn’t ask for it. The term probably comes from
a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam repeated over
and over.
See Also: Maillist , USENET
SQL
(Structured Query Language) -- A specialized programming language
for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many
smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific
application will have its own version of SQL implementing features
unique to that application, but all SQL-capable databases support
a common subset of SQL.
SSL
(Secure Sockets Layer) -- A protocol designed by Netscape Communications
to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.
SSL used mostly (but not exclusively) in communications between web
browsers and web servers. URL’s that begin
with “https” indicate that an SSL connection will be used.
SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication, and Message
Integrity.
In an SSL connection each side of the connection must have a Security
Certificate, which each side’s software sends to the other.
Each side then encrypts what it sends using information from both
its own and the other side’s Certificate, ensuring that only
the intended recipient can de-crypt it, and that the other side can
be sure the data came from the place it claims to have come from,
and that the message has not been tampered with.
See Also: Browser , Server
, Security Certificate , URL
Sysop
(System Operator) -- Anyone responsible for the physical operations
of a computer system or network resource. A System Administrator decides
how often backups and maintenance should be performed and the System
Operator performs those tasks.
T-1
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 1,544,000
bits-per-second. At maximum theoretical capacity, a T-1 line
could move a megabyte in less than 10 seconds. That is still
not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video, for which you
need at least 10,000,000 bits-per-second. T-1 is the fastest speed
commonly used to connect networks to the Internet.
See Also: 56k Line , Bandwidth
, Bit , Byte , Ethernet
, T-3 , xDSL
T-3
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 44,736,000
bits-per-second. This is more than enough to do full-screen, full-motion
video.
See Also: 56k Line , Bandwidth
, Bit , Byte , Ethernet
, T-1
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the
suite of protocols that defines the Internet. Originally designed
for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available
for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on
the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software.
See Also: IP Number , Internet
, UNIX
Telnet
The command and program used to login from one Internet
site to another. The telnet command/program gets you to the login:
prompt of another host.
Terabyte
1000 gigabytes.
See Also: Byte , Kilobyte
Terminal
A device that allows you to send commands to a computer somewhere
else. At a minimum, this usually means a keyboard and a display screen
and some simple circuitry. Usually you will use terminal software
in a personal computer - the software pretends to be (emulates) a
physical terminal and allows you to type commands to a computer somewhere
else.
Terminal Server
A special purpose computer that has places to plug in many modems
on one side, and a connection to a LAN or host machine
on the other side. Thus the terminal server does the work of answering
the calls and passes the connections on to the appropriate node.
Most terminal servers can provide PPP or SLIP services
if connected to the Internet.
See Also: LAN , Modem
, Host , Node , PPP
, SLIP
Transfer Rate
This
is the actual speed per second in bytes per second that information
is transfered. In application it includes the actual file bytes
tranferred. You will often see this rated in a small window in your
browser as you download from the Internet. It will often not even
be close to your modem capacity because your modem is rated at such
and such while the real world application is actual file transfer
plus the requests back to the sending server checking connection
plus error checking plus (in the case of noisy telephone lines)
lots of error checking and information resends.
TTFN
(Ta Ta For Now) -- A shorthand appended to a comment written in
an online forum (chat).
See Also: IMHO , BTW
UNIX
A computer operating system (the basic software running on a computer,
underneath things like word processors and spreadsheets). UNIX is
designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user)
and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system
for servers on the Internet.
URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) -- The standard way to give the address
of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web
(WWW). A URL looks like this:
http://www.yourname.com/
or telnet://yourname.com
etc.
The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program,
such as Netscape, or Lynx.
See Also: Browser , WWW
USENET
A world-wide system of discussion groups, with comments passed
among hundreds of thousands of machines. Not all USENET machines are
on the Internet, maybe half. USENET is completely decentralized,
with over 10,000 discussion areas, called newsgroups.
See Also: Newsgroup
UUENCODE
(Unix to Unix Encoding) -- A method for converting files from Binary
to ASCII (text) so that they can be sent across the Internet
via e-mail.
See Also: Binhex , MIME
xDSL
A generic reference to all DSL connections. The 'x' would be replaces
with an 'I', 'A', or 'S' as needed. Offering xDSL implies that the
provider offers all forms of DSL services.
See Also: 56k Line , Bandwidth
, Bit , Byte , Ethernet
, T-3 , ADSL
WAN
(Wide Area Network) -- Any internet or network that
covers an area larger than a single building or campus.
See Also: Internet , internet
, LAN , Network
Web
See: WWW
WWW
(World Wide Web) -- Two meanings - First, loosely used: the whole
constellation of resources that can be accessed using Gopher, FTP,
HTTP, telnet, USENET, WAIS and some other tools. Second, the universe
of hypertext servers (HTTP servers) which are the servers that
allow text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed together.
See Also: Browser , FTP
, Gopher , HTTP , Telnet
, URL , WAIS
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