internet tech glossary

ADSL — (Asymmetric Digital
Subscriber Line)

A DSL line where the upload speed is
different from the download speed. Usually the download speed is much
greater.

Ajax — (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML)

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

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

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

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

Apache

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

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

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.

Application Server

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

Archie

A tool (software) for finding files
stored on anonymous FTP sites. You need to know the exact file name or
a substring of it. By 1999 Archie had been almost completely replaced
by web-based search engines.

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

ARPANet — (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)

The precursor to the Internet. Developed
in the late 60’s and early 70’s by the US
Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area-networking to
connect together computers that were each running different system so
that people at one location could use computing resources from another
location.

ASCII — (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)

This is the defacto world-wide standard
for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and
lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128
standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit
binary number: 0000000 through 1111111.

ASP — (Application Service Provider)

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

Atom

An evolving protocol for syndication and
sharing of content.

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

Like RSS, Atom is an XML-based
specification.

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 (bps.) A full page of
English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 57,000
bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly
10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.

Baud

In common usage the
“baud” 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).

BBS — (Bulletin Board System)

A computerized meeting and announcement
system that allows people to carry on discussions, upload and download
files, and make announcements without the people being connected to the
computer at the same time. In the early 1990’s there were
many thousands (millions?) of BBS’s around the world, most
were very small, running on a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone
lines. Some were very large and the line between a BBS and a system
like AOL gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn.

Binary

Information consisting entirely of ones
and zeros. Also, commonly used to refer to files that are not simply
text files, e.g. images.

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.

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. Bandwidthis usually measured in bits-per-second.

BITNET — (Because It’s Time NETwork (or Because
It’s There NETwork))

A network of educational sites separate
from the Internet, but e-mail is freely exchanged between BITNET and
the Internet. Listservs®, a popular form of e-mail discussion
groups, originated on BITNET. At its peak (the late 1980’s
and early 1990’s) BITNET machines were usually mainframes,
often running IBM’s MVS operating system. BITNET is probably
the only international network that is shrinking.

Blog — (weB LOG)

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

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

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

Blogosphere or Blogsphere

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

bps — (Bits-Per-Second)

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

Broadband

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

Browser

A Client program (software) that is used
to look at various kinds of Internet resources.

BTW — (By The Way)

A shorthand appended to a comment
written in an online forum.

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.

CATP — (Caffeine Access Transport Protocol)

Common method of moving caffeine across
Wide Area Networks such as theInternet

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

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

CDMA — (Code Division Multiple Access)

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

Certificate Authority

An issuer of Security Certificates used
in SSL connections.

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.

cgi-bin

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

Client

A software program that is used to
contact and obtain data from a Serversoftware program on another
computer, often across a great distance. EachClient program is designed
to work with one or more specific kinds ofServer programs, and each
Server requires a specific kind of Client. A WebBrowser is a specific
kind of Client.

co-location

Most often used to refer to having a
server that belongs to one person or group physically located on an
Internet-connected network that belongs to another person or group.
Usually this is done because the server owner wants their machine to be
on a high-speed Internet connection and/or they do not want the
security risks of having the server on thier own network.

Cookie

The most common meaning of
“Cookie” on the Internet refers to a piece of
information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser
software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever
the browser makes additional requests from the Server.

Depending on the type of Cookie used,
and the Browsers’ settings, the Browser may accept or not
accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a
long time.

Cookies might contain information such
as login or registration information, online “shopping
cart” information, user preferences, etc.

When a Server receives a request from a
Browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able to use the
information stored in the Cookie. For example, the Server might
customize what is sent back to the user, or keep a log of particular
users’ requests.

Cookies are usually set to expire after
a predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until
the Browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to
disk if their “expire time” has not been reached.

Cookies do not read your hard drive and
send your life story to the CIA, but they can be used to gather more
information about a user than would be possible without them.

CSS — (Cascading Style Sheet)

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

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk was originally a cultural
sub-genre of science fiction taking place in a not-so-distant,
dystopian, over-industrialized society. The term grew out of the work
of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and has evolved into a cultural
label encompassing many different kinds of human, machine, and punk
attitudes. It includes clothing and lifestyle choices as well.

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.

DHCP — (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

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

DHTML — (Dynamic HyperText Markup Language)

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

Digerati

The digital version of literati, it is a
reference to a vague cloud of people seen to be knowledgeable, hip, or
otherwise in-the-know in regardsto the digital revolution.

DNS — (Domain Name System)

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

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:

matisse.net

mail.matisse.net

workshop.matisse.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 (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.

Download

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

DSL — (Digital Subscriber Line)

A method for moving data over regular
phone lines. A DSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone
connection, and the wires coming into the subscriber’s
premises are the same (copper) wires used for regular phone service. A
DSL circuit must be configured to connect two specific locations,
similar to a leased line (howeverr a DSL circuit is not a leased line.

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

Another common configuration is
symmetrical: 384 Kilobits per second in both directions.

In theory ADSL allows download speeds of
up to 9 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 640 kilobits per
second.

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

Email — (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.

Ethernet

A very common method of networking
computers in a LAN.

There is more than one type of Ethernet.
By 2001 the standard type was “100-BaseT” which can
handle up to about 100,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with
almost any kind of computer.

Extranet

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

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

FAQ — (Frequently Asked Questions)

FAQs are documents that list and
answerthe most common questions on a particular subject. There are
hundreds of FAQs on subjects as diverse as Pet Grooming and
Cryptography. FAQs are usually written by people who have tired of
answering the same question over and over.

FDDI — (Fiber Distributed Data Interface)

A standard for transmitting data on
optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second
(10 times as fast as 10-BaseTEthernet, about twice as fast as T-3).

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 Network into two or more parts for security purposes.

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
flaming well was an art form. More recently flame has come to refer to
any kind of derogatory comment no matter how witless or crude.

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.

FTP — (File Transfer Protocol)

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

FTP is a way to login to another
Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files.
There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible
repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in
using the account name “anonymous”, thus these
sites are called “anonymous ftp servers”.

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

Gateway

The technical meaning is a hardware or
software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for
example America Online has a gateway that translates between its
internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail format.
Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for
providing access to another system, e.g. AOL might be called a gateway
to the Internet.

GIF — (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.

Gigabyte

1000 or 1024 Megabytes, depending on who
is measuring.

Gopher

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

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

Gopher is a Client and Server style
program, whichrequires that the user have a Gopher Client program.
Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe in only a couple of
years, it has been largely supplanted by Hypertext, also known as WWW
(World Wide Web). There are still thousands of Gopher Servers on the
Internet and we can expect they will remain for a while.

hit

As used in reference to the World Wide
Web, ?hit? means a single request from a web browser for a single item
from a web server; thus in order for a web browser to display a page
that contains 3 graphics, 4 ?hits? would occur at the server: 1 for the
HTML page, and one for each of the 3 graphics.

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.”

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 theWorld Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like
old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with
codes that indicate how it should appear.

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

HTML is loosely based on a more
comprehensive system for markup calledSGML, and is expected to
eventually be replaced by XML-based XHTMLstandards.

HTTP — (HyperText Transfer Protocol)

The protocol for moving hypertextfiles
across the Internet. Requires a HTTPclient program on one end, and an
HTTP server program (such as Apache) on the other end. HTTP is the most
important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

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.

IMAP — (Internet Message Access Protocol)

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

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

IMAP is defined in RFC 2060

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 areexpressing a debatable view, probably on a subject already
under discussion. One of many such shorthands in common use online,
especially in discussion forums.

internet (Lower case i)

Any time you connect 2 or more networks
together, you have an internet – as in inter-national or
inter-state.

Internet (Upper case I)

The vast collection of inter-connected
networks that are connected using theTCP/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.

Intranet

A private network inside a company or
organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find
on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. Compare with
extranet.

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

IPv4 — (Internet Protocol, version 4)

The most widley used version of the
Internet Protocol (the “IP” part ofTCP/IP.)

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

IPv6 — (Internet Protocol, version 6)

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

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 dataover
existing regular phone lines. ISDN is available to much of the USA and
in most markets it is priced very comparably to standard analog phone
circuits. It can provide speeds of roughly 128,000 bits-per-second over
regular phone lines. In practice, most people will be limited to
56,000or 64,000 bits-per-second.

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

ISP — (Internet Service Provider)

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

IT — (Information Technology)

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

Java

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

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

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

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

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

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.

JDK — (Java Development Kit)

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

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.

Kilobyte

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

LAN — (Local Area Network)

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

Leased Line

Refers to line such as a telephone line
or fiber-optic cable that is rented for exclusive 24-hour,
7-days-a-week use from your location to another location. The highest
speed data connections require a leased line.

Linux

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

Listserv ®

The most common kind of maillist,
“Listserv” is a registered trademark of L-Soft
international, Inc. Listservs originated on BITNET but they are now
common on the Internet.

Login

Noun or a verb.

Noun: The account name used to gain
access to a computer system. Not a secret (contrast with Password).

Verb: the act of connecting to a
computer system by giving your credentials (usually your
“username” and “password”)

Maillist

(or Mailing List) A (usually automated)
system that allows people to sende-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.

Mashup

A web page or site made by automatically
combining content from other sources, usually by using material
available via RSS feeds and/or RESTinterfaces.

Megabyte

Technically speaking, a million bytes.
In many cases the term means 1024kilobytes, which is a more than an
even million.

Meta Tag

A specific kind of HTML tag that
contains information not normally displayed to the user. Meta tags
contan information about the page itself, hence the name
(”meta” means “about this
subject”)

Typical uses of Meta tags are to include
information for search engines to help them better categorize a page.

You can see the Meta tags in a page if
you view the pages’ source code.

MIME — (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)

Originally a standard for defining the
types of files attached to standard Internet mail messages. The MIME
standard has come to be used in many situations where one cmputer
programs needs to communicate with another program about what kind of
file is being sent.

For example, HTML files have a MIME-type
of text/html, JPEG files areimage/jpeg, etc.

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 copies of material originated at another location,
usually in order to provide more widespread access to the resource. For
example, one site might create a library of software, and 5 other sites
might maintain mirrors of that library.

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.

The maximum practical bandwidth using a
modem over regular telephone lines is currently around 57,000 bps.

mod_perl

An add-on for the Apache web server
software, mod_perl makes it possible to use the Perl language to add
new features for the Apache server, and to increase the speed of Perl
applications by as much as 30 times.

MOO — (Mud, Object Oriented)

One of several kinds of multi-user
role-playing environments.

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 was
licensed by several companies and used to create many other web
browsers.

Mosaic was developed at the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), at the University of
Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, in Illinois, USA. The first version was
released in late 1993.

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 thatlies 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 within their absence, thus allowing a world to be
built gradually and collectively.

MUSE — (Multi-User Simulated Environment)

One kind of MUD – usually with
little or no violence.

Netiquette

The etiquette on the 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.

Netscape

A WWW Browser and the name of a company.
The Netscape ™ 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.

Newsgroup

The name for discussion groups on USENET.

NIC — (Network Information Center)

Generally, any office that handles
information for a network. The most famous of these on the Internet was
the InterNIC, which was where most new domain names were registered
until that process was decentralized to a number of private companies.
Also means “Network Interface card”, which is the
card in a computer that you plug a network cable into.

NNTP — (Network News Transport Protocol)

The protocol used by clientand 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.

Node

Any single computer connected to a
network.

Open Content

Copyrighted information (such as this
Glossary) that is made available by the copyright owner to the general
public under license terms that allow reuse of the material, often with
the requirement (as with this Glossary) that the re-user grant the
public the same rights to the modified version that the re-user
received from the copyright owner.

Information that is in the Public Domain
might also be considered a form of Open Content.

Open Source Software

Open Source Software is software for
which the underlying programming code is available to the users so that
they may read it, make changes to it, and build new versions of the
software incorporating their changes. There are many types of Open
Source Software, mainly differing in the licensing term under which
(altered) copies of the source code may (or must be) redistributed.

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 along different routes by special machines along the way. This
way many people can use the same lines at the same time.

You might think of several caravans of
trucks all using the same road system to carry materials.

Password

A code used to gain access (login) to a
locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are
not simple combinations such asvirtue7. A good password might be:

5%df(29)

But don’t use that one!

PDF — (Portable Document Format)

A file format designed to enable
printing and viewing of documents with all their formatting (typefaces,
images, layout, etc.) appearing the same regardless of what operating
system is used, so a PDF document should look the same on Windows,
Macintosh, linux, OS/2, etc. The PDF format is based on the widely used
Postcript document-description language. Both PDF and Postscript were
developed by the Adobe Corporation.

Perl — (Practical Extraction and Report Language)

Perl is a programming language that is
widely used for both very simple, small tasks and for very large
complex applications.

During the 1990s it became the de-facto
standard for creating CGI programs. Perl is known for providing many
ways to accomplish the same task, with “there’s
more than one way to do it” being something of a motto in the
Perl community.

Because it is so easy to perform simple
tasks in Perl it is often used by people with little or no formal
programming training, and because Perl provides many sophisticated
features it is often used by professionals for creating complex
data-processing software, including the
“server-side” of large web sites. Perl does not
provide significant support for creating programs with a graphical user
interface.

Permalink

A “permanent link”
to a particular posting in a blog. A permalink is a URIthat points to a
specific blog posting, rather than to the page in which the posting
original occured (which may no longer contain the posting.)

PHP — (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor)

PHP is a programming language used
almost exclusively for creating software that is part of a web site.
The PHP language is designed to be intermingled with the HTML that is
used to create web pages. Unlike HTML, the PHP code is read and
processed by the web server software (HTML is read and processed by the
web browser software.)

ping

To check if a server is running. From
the sound that a sonar systems makes in movies, you know, when they are
searching for a submarine.

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.

PNG — (Portable Network Graphics)

PNG is a graphics format specifically
designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG enable compression of
images without any loss of quality, including high-resolution images.
Another important feature of PNG is that anyone may create software
that works with PNG images without paying any fees – the PNG
standard is free of any licensing costs.

podcasting or pod-casting

A form of audio broadcasting using the
Internet, podcasting takes its name from a combination of
“iPod” and broadcasting. iPod is the immensely
popular digital audio player made by Apple computer, but podcasting
does not actually require the use of an iPod.

Podcasting involves making one or more
audio files available as “enclosures” in an RSS
feed. A pod-caster creates a list of music, and/or other sound files
(such as recorded poetry, or “talk radio” material)
and makes that list available in the RSS 2.0 format. The list can then
be obtained by other people using various podcast
“retriever” software which read the feed and makes
the audio files available to digital audio devices (including, but not
limited to iPods) where users may then listen to them at their
convenience.

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 a way that e-mail clientsoftware such as Eudora gets mail
from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service
Provider (ISP) 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. Another protocol called IMAP is replacing POP for email.

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 non-standard 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/

This shows a gopher server running on a
non-standard 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.

Portal

Usually used as a marketing term to
described a Web site that is or is intended to be the first place
people see when using the Web. Typically a “Portal
site” has a catalog of web sites, a search engine, or both. A
Portal site may also offer email and other service to entice people to
use that site as their main “point of entry” (hence
“portal”) to the Web.

Posting

A single message entered into a network
communications system.

PPP — (Point to Point Protocol)

The most common protocol used to connect
home computers to the Internet over regular phone lines.

Most well known as a protocol that
allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make
TCP/IPconnections and thus be really and truly on the Internet.

Protocol

On the Internet
“protocol” usually refers to a set of rules that
define an exact format for communication between systems. For example
the HTTP protocol defines the format for communication between web
browsers and web servers, the IMAP protocol defines the format for
communication between IMAP email servers and clients, and the SSL
protocol defines a format for encrypted communications over the
Internet.

Virtually all Internet protocls are
defined in RFC documents.

Proxy Server

A Proxy Server sits in between a Client
and the “real” Server that a Client is trying to
use. Client’s are sometimes configured to use a Proxy Server,
usually an HTTP server. The clients makes all of it’s
requests from the Proxy Server, which then makes requests from the
“real” server and passes the result back to the
Client. Sometimes the Proxy server will store the results and give a
stored result instead of making a new one (to reduce use of aNetwork).
Proxy servers are commonly established on Local Area Networks

PSTN — (Public Switched Telephone Network)

The regular old-fashioned telephone
system.

RDF — (Resource Definition Framework)

A set of rules (a sort of language) for
creating descriptions of information, especially information available
on the World Wide Web. RDF could be used to describe a collection of
books, or artists, or a collection of web pages as in the RSS data
format which uses RDF to create machine-readable summaries of web sites.

RDF is also used in XPFE applications to
define the relationships between different collections of elements, for
example RDF could be used to define the relationship between the data
in a database and the way that data is displayed to a user.

REST — (REpresentational State Transfer)

A loosely defined specification for
HTTP-based services where all of the information required to process a
request is present in the initial request and where each request
receives only a single response, and where the response is in a
machine-readable form.

An example could be a service that
accepts HTTP requests for a search and returns the result as an XML
document.

RFC — (Request For Comments)

The name of the result and the process
for creating a standard on theInternet. New standards are proposed and
published on the Internet, as a Request For Comments. The proposal is
reviewed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (http://www.ietf.org/),
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
message formats is RFC 822.

Router

A special-purpose computer (or software
package) that handles the connection between 2 or more Packet-Switched
networks. Routers spend all their time looking at the source and
destination addresses of the packetspassing through them and deciding
which route to send them on.

RSS — (Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary or Real Simple
Syndication)

A commonly used protocol for syndication
and sharing of content, originally developed to facilitate the
syndication of news articles, now widely used to share the contents of
blogs. Mashups are often made using RSS feeds.

RSS is an XML-based summary of a web
site, usually used for syndication and other kinds of content-sharing.

There are RSS
“feeds” which are sources of RSS information about
web sites, and RSS “readers” which read RSS feeds
and display their content to users.

RSS is being overtaken by a newer, more
complex protocol called Atom.

RTSP — (Real Time Streaming Protocol)

RTSP is an official Internet standard
(RFC 2326) for delivering and receiving streams of data such as audio
and video.

The standard allows for both real-time
(”live”) streams of data and streams from stored
data.

SDSL — (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line)

A version of DSL where the upload speeds
and download speeds are the same.

Search Engine

A (usually web-based) system for
searching the information available on theWeb.

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.

Security Certificate

A chunk of information (often stored as
a text file) that is used by the SSLprotocol to establish a secure
connection.

SEO — (Search Engine Optimization)

The practice of designing web pages so
that they rank as high as possible in search results from search
engines.

There is “good” SEO
and “bad” SEO. Good SEO involves making the web
page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful
information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging
for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves
attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant
than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to
the page.

Server

A computer, or a software package, that
provides a specific kind of service toclient 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 toclients on the network.

Sometimes server software is designed so
that additional capabilities can be added to the main program by adding
small programs known as servlets.

Servlet

A small computer program designed to be
add capabilities to a larger piece ofserver software.

Common examples are “Java
servlets”, which are small programs written in the Java
language and which are added to a web server. Typically a web server
that uses Java servlets will have many of them, each one designed to
handle a very specific situation, for example one servlet will handle
adding items to a “shopping cart”, while a
different servlet will handle deleting items from the
“shopping cart.”

SGML — (Standard Generalized Markup Language)

Developed in 1986 SGML provides a rich
set of rules for defining new data formats. A well-known example of
using SGML is XML, which is a subset of SGML: The definition of XML is
all of SGML minus a couple of dozen items. SGML is an International
Standards Organization (ISO) standard: ISO 8879:1986.

SLIP — (Serial Line Internet Protocol)

A standard that was popular in the early
1990’s for using a regular telephone line (a serial line) and
a modem to connect a computer as a realInternet site. SLIP has largely
been replaced by PPP.

SMDS — (Switched Multimegabit Data Service)

A standard for very high-speed data
transfer.

SMTP — (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

The main protocol used to send
electronic mail from server to server on the Internet.

SMTP is defined in RFC 821 and modified
by many later RFC’s.

SNMP — (Simple Network Management Protocol)

A set of standards for communication
with devices connected to a TCP/IPnetwork. Examples of these devices
include routers, hubs, and switches.

SNMP is defined in RFC 1089

SOAP — (Simple Object Access Protocol)

A protocol for client-server
communication that sends and receives information “on top
of” HTTP. The data sent and received is in a particularXML
format specifically designed for use with SOAP. SOAP is similar to
theXMLRPC protocol except that SOAP provides for more sophisticated
handling of complex data being sent between a client and a server. SOAP
actually grew from the work that created XMLRPC.

Microsoft’s
“.NET” system is largely based on SOAP.

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.)

Spyware

A somewhat vague term generally
referring to software that is secretly installed on a users computer
and that monitors use of the computer in some way without the
users’ knowledge or consent.

Most spyware tries to get the user to
view advertising and/or particular web pages. Some spyware also sends
information about the user to another machine over the Internet.

Spyware is usually installed without a
users’ knowledge as part of the installation of other
software, especially software such as music sharing software obtained
via download.

SQL — (Structured Query Language)

A specialized 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 slightly different version of SQL
implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable
databases support a common subset of SQL.

A example of an SQL statement is:

SELECT name,email FROM people_table WHERE contry=’uk’

SSL — (Secure Socket Layer)

A protocol designed by Netscape
Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across
the Internet.

Sysop — (System Operator)

Anyone responsible for the physical
operations of a computer system or network resource. For example, 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 megabytein 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 lines are commonly
used to connect large LANs to theInternet.

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-motionvideo.

Tag

The term “tag” can
be used as a noun or verb. As a noun, a tag is a basic element of the
languages used to create web pages (HTML) and similar languages such as
XML. Another, more recent meaning of tag is related to reader-crearted
tags where blogs and other content (such as photos, music, etc.) may be
“tagged” which means to assign a keyword, such as
“politics” or “gardening”, this
enables searches for “all the blog postings in the past week
that are tagged ‘prenatal care’”

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 included with 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 siteto another. The telnet command/program gets you
to the login: prompt of another host.

Terabyte

1000 gigabytes.

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 modemson one side, and a connection to a LAN or
host machine onthe 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 providePPP or SLIP services if
connected to the Internet.

TLD — (Top Level Domain)

The last (right-hand) part of a complete
Domain Name. For example in the domain name www.matisse.net
“.net” is the Top Level Domain.

There are a large number of
TLD’s, for example .biz, .com, .edu, .gov, .info, .int, .mil,
.net, .org, and a collection of two-letter TLD’s
corresponding to the standard two-letter country codes, for example,
.us, .ca, .jp, etc.

Trojan Horse

A computer program is either hidden
inside another program or that masquerades as something it is not in
order to trick potential users into running it. For example a program
that appears to be a game or image file but in reality performs some
other function. The term “Trojan Horse” comes from
a possibly mythical ruse of war used by the Greeks sometime between
1500 and 1200 B.C.

A Trojan Horse computer program may
spread itself by sending copies of itself from the host computer to
other computers, but unlike a virus it will (usually) not infect other
programs.

UDP — (User Datagram Protocol)

One of the protocols for data transfer
that is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols. UDP is a
“stateless” protocol in that UDP makes no provision
for acknowledgement of packets received.

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/IPbuilt-in. It is the most
common operating system for servers on the Internet.

Apple computers’ Macintosh
operating system, as of version 10 (”Mac OS X”), is
based on Unix.

Upload

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

URI — (Uniform Resource Identifier)

An address for s resource available on
the Internet.

The first part of a URI is called the
“scheme”. the most well known scheme ishttp, but
there are many others. Each URI scheme has its own format for how a URI
should appear.

Here are examples of URIs using the
http, telnet, and news schemes:

http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html

telnet://well.sf.ca.us

news:new.newusers.questions

URL — (Uniform Resource Locator)
pronouunced “earl”

The term URL is basically synonymous
with URI. URI has replaced URL in technical specifications.

URN — (Uniform Resource Name)

A URI that is supposed to be available
for along time. For an address to be a URN some institution is supposed
to make a commitment to keep the resource available at that address.

USENET

A world-wide system of discussion
groups, with comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines.
Not all USENET machines are on theInternet. USENET is completely
decentralized, with over 10,000 discussion areas, called newsgroups.

UUENCODE — (Unix to Unix Encoding)

A method for converting files from
Binaryto ASCII (text) so that they can be sent across the Internet via
email.

Veronica — (Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net-wide Index to
Computerized Archives)

Developed at the University of Nevada,
Veronica was a constantly updated database of the names of almost every
menu item on thousands ofgopherservers. The Veronica database could be
searched from most majorgophermenus.

Now made obsolete by web-bases search
engines.

Virus

A chunk of computer programming code
that makes copies of itself without any concious human intervention.
Some viruses do more than simply replicate themselves, they might
display messages, install other software or files, delete software of
files, etc.

A virus requires the presence of some
other program to replicate itself. Typically viruses spread by
attaching themselves to programs and in some cases files, for example
the file formats for Microsoft word processor and spreadsheet programs
allow the inclusion of programs called “macros”
which can in some cases be a breeding ground for viruses.

VOIP — (Voice Over IP)

A specification and various technologies
used to allow making telephone calls over IP networks, especially the
Internet.

Just as modems allow computers to
connect to the Internet over regular telephone lines, VOIP technology
allows humans to talk over Internet connections.

Costs for VOIP calls can be a lot lower
than for traditional telephone calls. Because the IP networks are
packet-switched this allows for vastly different ways of handling
connections and more efficient use of network resources.

VPN — (Virtual Private Network)

Usually refers to a network in which
some of the parts are connected using the public Internet, but the data
sent across the Internet is encrypted, so the entire network is
“virtually” private.

WAIS — (Wide Area Information Servers)

Developed in the early 1990s WAIS was
the first truly large-scale system to allow the indexing of huge
quantities of information on the Web, and to make those indices
searchable across networks such as the Internet. WAIS was also
pioneering in its use of ranked (scored) results where the software
tries to determine how relevant each result it.

WAN — (Wide Area Network)

Any internet or network that covers an
area larger than a single building or campus.

Web

Short for “World Wide
Web.”

Web page

A document designed for viewing in a web
browser. Typically written inHTML. A web site is made of one or more
web pages.

WebDAV — (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning)

A set of extensions to the HTTP protocol
that allows multiple users to not only read but also to add, delete,
and change documents residing on a web server.

In order to use WebDAV you need WebDAV
client software to connect to a HTTP server that has the WebDAV
extensions installed.

Virtually all common HTTP servers have
WedDAV extensions available to them.

Website

The entire collection of web pages and
other information (such as images, sound, and video files, etc.) that
are made available through what appears to users as a single web
server. Typically all the of pages in a web site share the same basic
URL, for example the following URLs are all for pages within the same
web site:

http://www.baytherapy.com/

http://www.baytherapy.com/whatis/

http://www.baytherapy.com/teenagers/

The term has a somewhat informal nature
since a large organization might have separate “web
sites” for each division, but someone might talk informally
about the organizations’ “web site” when
speaking of all of them.

Wi-Fi — (Wireless Fidelity)

A popular term for a form of wireless
data communication, basically Wi-Fi is “Wireless
Ethernet”.

Worm

A worm is a virus that does not infect
other programs. It makes copies of itself, and infects additional
computers (typically by making use of network connections) but does not
attach itself to additional programs; however a worm might alter,
install, or destroy files and programs.

WWW — (World Wide Web)

World Wide Web (or simply Web for short)
is a term 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), more commonly called “web
servers”, which are the servers that serve web pages to
webbrowsers.

XHTML — (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language)

Basically HTML expressed as valid XML.
XHTML is intended to be used in the same places you would use HTML
(creating web pages) but is much more strictly defined, which makes it
a lot easier to create sofware that can read it, edit it, check it for
errors, etc.

XHTML is expected to eventually replace
HTML.

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.

XML is a subset of the older SGML
specification – the definition of XML is SGML minus a couple
of dozen items.

XMLRPC — (XML Remote Procedure Call)

A protocol for client-server
communication that sends and receives information “on top
of” HTTP. The data sent and received is in a particularXML
format specifically designed for use with XMLRPC.

XPFE — (Cross Platform Front End)

A suite of technologies used to create
applications that will work and look the same on different computer
operating systems. A widely used XPFE application is the Mozilla web
browser and its derivities, such as the Netscape web browser in version
7 and later.

The primary technologies used in
creating XPFE applications are Javascript,Cascading Style Sheets, and
XUL.

XUL — (eXtensible User-interface Language)

A markup language similar to HTML and
based on XML.

XUL used to define what the user
interface will look like for a particular piece of software. XUL is
used to define what buttons, scrollbars, text boxes, and other
user-interface items will appear, but it is not used to define how
those item will look (e.g. what color they are).

The most widely used example of XUL use
is probably in the Firefox web browser, where the entire user interface
is defined using the XUL language.

Creative Commons License

This Glossary of Internet Terms is licensed under the Creative Commons
“Attribution-ShareAlike” license.