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What do all those Internet terms mean? I have made a list with explanations. Hope It helps
A:
ASCII:
(American Standard Code for
Information Interchange) -- This is the de facto worldwide 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.
B:
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.
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.
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).
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 or is usually measured in
bits-per-second. Block Sync (Block Synchronization) -- Two solid green lights (LANcity /Nortel Warp Speed Modems) that let us know there is connectivity.
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. Broad band A general term used to describe wide bandwidth equipment or systems that can carry a large
proportion of the electromagnetic spectrum. A broad band communications system can accommodate all broadcast and many other services.
Browser
A Client program (software) that is used to look at
various kinds of Internet resources.
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. Bytes
usually measure storage or memory.
C:
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.
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 refereed 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.
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.
Computer Specs
(Computer Specifications) – The minimum computer requirements that an ISP requires from its customers (in terms of software and
hardware components)
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. Examples of Cookie use include login or registration information, online "shopping carts" or user surveys.
When a Server receives a request from the Browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able to use the information stored in the Cookie for a variety of things such as to customize what is sent back to the user
or to track a particular user's requests. Cookies are typically set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are typically saved in memory until the Browser software is closed down, at which time
they may be saved to disk. Cookies *do not* read your hard drive and send your life story to the CIA, but that can be used to gather more information about a user than would be possible without them.
CPU
(Central Processing Unit) – Typically known as the "brain" of the computer. The hardware component that does application processing.
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.
D:
DOCSIS
(Data Over Cable Systems Interface Specifications) DOCSIS is a standard interface for cable modems.
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 (matisse.net in the examples
above). It is also possible for a Domain Name to exist but not be connected to an actual machine. This is often done so that a group or business can have an Internet e-mail address without having
to establish
a real Internet site. In these cases, some real Internet machine must handle the mail on behalf of the listed Domain Name.
Downstream
The flow of signals from the cable system headend through the
distribution network to the subscriber.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
Network settings assigned to the computer by the server.
Dynamic HTML
Dynamic HTML is an umbrella
term for several improvements in Internet Explorer 4.0, including dynamic styles, dynamic content, absolute positioning, multimedia effects, and data binding. Dynamic HTML allows you to create content
on either the server or the client side, eliminating the need to retrieve each new page from the server. You can use Dynamic HTML to deliver, sort, filter, modify, and update data on a client machine with a single hit
to the server.
E:
E-mail
(Electronic Mail) -- Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a
large number of addresses (Mailing List).
Ethernet
A very common method of networking computers in a LAN. Ethernet will handle about 10,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with almost any
kind of computer.
F:
Fiber Optics
The use of very thin and pliable tubes of glass or plastic to carry wide bands of frequencies.
Finger
An Internet software tool for locating people on other Internet sites. Finger is also sometimes used to give access to non-personal information, but the most common use is to see if a person has an account
at a particular Internet site. Many sites do not allow incoming Finger requests, but many do.
Fire Wall A combination of hardware and software that separates a LAN into two or more parts for security purposes.
FTP
(File Transfer Protocol) -- A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or
sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name anonymous, thus these sites are called
anonymous ftp servers.
Frequency
The number of times an electromagnetic signal repeats an identical cycle in a unit of time, usually one second. One Hertz (Hz) is one cycle per second. A KHz (Kilohertz)
is one thousand cycles per second; a MHz (Megahertz) is one million cycles per second; a GHz (Gigahertz) is one billion cycles per second.
G:
Gateway
The
technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for example Prodigy has a gateway that translates between its internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail
format. Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g. AOL might be called a gateway to the Internet.
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.
H:
Home Page (or Homepage)
Several meanings. Originally, the web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning
refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new Home Page." Another sloppier use of the term
refers to practically any web page as a "homepage," e.g. "That web site has 65 home pages and none of them are interesting."
Host
Any computer on a network that is a repository
for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such as WWW and USENET.
HTML
(HyperText Markup Language) -- The coding
language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it
should appear, additionally, in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or a word, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a World Wide Web Client Program, such as Netscape
or Mosaic.
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).
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks point to specific documents at specific URLs. The links are possible because of HTML. Users can click
hyperlinks to display the Web site referred to by the hypertext.
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.
I:
Internet
(Upper case I) The vast collection of interconnected networks that all use the TCP/IP
protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's. The Internet now (July 1995) connects roughly 60,000 independent networks into a vast global Internet. Internet (Lower case i) Any time you
connect 2 or more networks together, you have an Internet - as in international or interstate.
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.
IP Number
Sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique
number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g.165.113.245.2 Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number - if a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet.
Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.
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.
J:
Java
Java is a new programming language invented by Sun Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs that can
be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can
include functions such as animation's, 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.
K:
Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024 (2^10) bytes.
L:
LAN
(Local Area Network) -- A computer network limited to the immediate area, usually the same building or floor of a building.
M:
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.
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.
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 .
N:
NAP
(Network Access Point) – Connects the Rogers@Home network to other Tier 1 data communications networks and the rest of the Internet.
Netiquette
The etiquette on the 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 Super computing 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.
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.
Newsgroup
The name for discussion groups on USENET.
Node
In broad general terms, a specific location in a telecommunications network. In CATV, this term has assumed a broader context and is generally
associated with a Fiber Optic Node. A fiber optic node is those homes or businesses within a specific geographic area, that are served from a common fiber optic receiver. A fiber optic node is generally described
in terms of the number of Homes Passed that are served by that specific fiber node.
O: P:
Packet Switching
The method used to move data around on the Internet. In
packet switching, all the data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to
co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special machines along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time.
Password
A code used to gain
access to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7. A good password might be:
POP
Two commonly used meanings: Point of Presence and
Post Office Protocol. A Point of Presence usually means a city or location where a network can be connected to, often with dialup phone lines. So if an Internet company says they will soon have a POP
in Belgrade, it means that they will soon have a local phone number in Belgrade and/or a place where leased lines can connect to their network. A second meaning, Post Office Protocol refers to the way e-mail
software such as Eudora gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain a SLIP, PPP, or shell account you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to
get your mail.
Port
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a personal computer is where a modem would be
connected. On the Internet port often refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens on a particular port number on that
server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on nonstandard ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing the
server, so you might see a URL of the form: gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/
shows a gopher server running on a nonstandard port (the standard gopher port is 70). Finally, port also refers to translating a
piece of software to bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows program so that is will run on a Macintosh.
Posting
A single message entered into a network
communications system. E.g. A single message posted to a Newsgroup or message board.
Protocol
A protocol is a set of rules or standards designed to enable computers to connect with one another and
exchange information with as little error as possible.
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.
Proxy Server
A proxy server acts as a security barrier, or firewall, between your internal network (intranet) and the Internet.
Q: R:
RAM
(Random Access Memory) – Temporary Memory in your computer. This is measured in Megabytes.
ROM
(Read Only Memory) – Nonvolatile memory which the
computer uses during the startup process.
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.
S:
SCSI
(Small Computer System Interface) SCSI is a set of
evolving ANSI standard electronic interfaces that allow personal computers to communicate with peripheral hardware such as disk drives, tape drives, CD-ROM drives, etc. faster and more flexibly than previous
interfaces. 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.
SMTP
(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) – A protocol that allows the sending of mail via the Internet. Spam (or Spamming)
An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or USENET or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number of people who didn't
ask for it. The term probably comes from a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam repeated over and over. The term may also have come from someone's low opinion of the food product with the same name,
which is generally perceived as a generic content-free waste of resources. (Spam is a registered trademark of Hormel Corporation, for its processed meat product.)
Subscriber
A person who pays a fee for cable services.
T:
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.
Telnet
The command and program used to login from one Internet site to another. The telnet command/program gets you to the login: prompt of another host.
Terminal
A device
that allows you to send commands to a computer somewhere else. At a minimum, this usually means a keyboard and a display screen and some simple circuitry. Usually you will use terminal software in a personal
computer - the software pretends to be (emulates) a physical terminal and allows you to type commands to a computer somewhere else.
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.
Two-way
A term used to describe a coaxial cable television system that enables signals to pass in both directions, from the
headend to the subscriber and back.
U: V:
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.zaxie.com or telnet://well.sf.ca.us or
news:new.newusers.questions etc. The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program, such as Netscape, or Lynx.
USB
(Universal Serial Bus) – a new technology that represents a
significant advance in attaching peripheral devices to personal computers that allows the switching of devices on the fly, hence eliminating the need to install network cards.
Upstream
The flow of
data or voice signals from the subscriber or remote
origination point through the cable system to the headend.
URL
(Universal Resource Locator) – The web address of an Internet site.
USENET
A worldwide 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.
W:
WAN
(Wide Area Network) -- Any Internet or network that covers an area larger than a single building or
campus.
Web Browser
A Web browser is a client application that enables a user to view HTML documents on the Web, another network, or the user's computer.
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.
WYSIWYG
What You See Is What You Get is a way of describing an interface that allows the user to view a
document as it will appear in the final product and to edit text, graphics, and other elements within that view.
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