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| ADSL - (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) - ADSL line where the upload speed
is different from the download speed. usually the download speed is much
greater. Commonly refered to as Broadband. |
| Applet - A small Java program that can be embedded in an HTML page. Applets differ
from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not allowed to access
certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial devices
(modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most
other computers across a network. The common rule is that an applet can
only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was
sent. |
| 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 57,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen
video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression. |
| Browser - A software program that is used to look at various kinds of Internet
resources |
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Cookie - The most common meaning of "Cookie" on the Internet refers to
a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser
software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the
browser makes additional requests from the Server. Depending on the type
of Cookie used, and the Browsers' settings, the Browser may accept or not
accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a
long time. Cookies
might contain information such as login or registration information, online
"shopping cart" information, user preferences, etc. BACK
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| Domain
Name - The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain
Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left
is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general. A given
machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points
to only one machine. For example, the domain names: specialistcars.net
- mail.specialistcars.net - admin.specialistcars.net can
all refer to the same machine, but each domain name can refer to no more
than one machine. Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have
the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names (specialistcars.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. BACK
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| Fire
Wall - A combination of hardware and software that separates
a Network into two or more parts for security purposes. |
GIF - (Graphic Interchange Format) - A common format for image files, especially
suitable for images containing large areas of the same color. GIF format
files of simple images are often smaller than the same file would be if
stored in JPEG format, but GIF format does not store photographic images
as well as JPEG. |
| Host - Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available
to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine
provide several services, such as SMTP (email) and HTTP (web). |
| 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. BACK
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| Home
Page - 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. |
| internet - Any time you connect 2 or more networks together, you have an internet
- as in inter-national or inter-state. |
Internet - The vast collection of inter-connected networks that are connected using
the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's
and early 70's.
The Internet connects tens of thousands of independent networks into a
vast global internet and is probably the largest Wide Area Network in
the world. BACK TO TOP |
| 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. |
| IP
Number - (Internet Protocol Number) - Sometimes called a dotted
quad. A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 175.234.769.5.
Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number - if a machine
does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Many machines
(especially servers) also have one or more Domain Names that are easier
for people to remember. |
| 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. BACK
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| ISP - (Internet Service Provider) - An institution that provides access to
the Internet in some form, usually for money. |
| JavaScript -
JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages,
usually to add features that make the web page more interactive. When
JavaScript is included in an HTML file it relies upon the browser to interpret
the JavaScript. When JavaScript is combined with Cascading Style Sheets(CSS),
and later versions of HTML (4.0 and later) the result is often called
DHTML. BACK TO TOP |
| JPEG - (Joint Photographic Experts Group) - JPEG is most commonly mentioned
as a format for image files. JPEG format is preferred to the GIF format
for photographic images as opposed to line art or simple logo art. |
| Modem - (MOdulator, DEModulator) -a device that connects a computer to a phone
line. A telephone for a computer. A modem allows a computer to talk to
other computers through the phone system. Basically, modems do for computers
what a telephone does for humans. BACK
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| 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). |
| 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. |
| 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. |
Search
Engine - A (usually web-based) system for searching the information available
on the Web.
Some search engines work by automatically searching the contents of other
systems and creating a database of the results. other search engines contains
only material manually approved for inclusion in a database, and some
combine the two approaches.
BACK TO TOP |
| 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 can
(and often does) have several different server software packages running
on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network. |
| 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.) |
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).
URLs look like this: http://www.specialistcars.net/files/contactus.html
The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program,
such as Netscape, or Internet Explorer. BACK
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| 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. USENET is completely decentralized, with over 10,000 discussion
areas, called newsgroups. |
| WWW - (World Wide Web) - Frequently used (incorrectly) when referring to "The
Internet", WWW has two major 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. |
XML - (eXtensible Markup Language) - A widely used system for defining data
formats. XML provides a very rich system to define complex documents and
data structures such as invoices, molecular data, news feeds, glossaries,
inventory descriptions, real estate properties, etc.
As long as a programmer has the XML definition for a collection of data
(often called a "schema") then they can create a program to
reliably process any data formatted according to those rules. BACK
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