A | B | C |D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
A
- Address
- The unique code assigned to the location of a file in storage, a device in a
system or network, or any other data source on a network.
B
- Backbone
- Network of broadband connections between communication devices.
- Bandwidth
- A measure of the communication capacity or data transmission rate of a
circuit or channel.
- Baud (bps - bits per second):
- The number of data elements that can be transmitted per second on a
circuit.
- Bit
- The smallest amount of information that can be transmitted. A combination of bits
can indicate an alphabetic character, a numeric digit, or perform signaling, switching or other functions.
- BOT
- "bot" is the colloquial term for programs that listen and respond
on an IRC channel to conversation.
- Bottleneck
- A system capacity constraint that may reduce traffic during peak load
conditions.
- BPS
- Bits per second. The measure of a modems speed.
- Broadband
- A high-capacity communications circuit/path. It usually implies a speed
greater than 1.544Mbps.
- Browser
- Application software that gives you a graphical interactive interface for
searching, finding, viewing and managing information over a network.
- BBS (Bulletin board system)
- An electronic bulletin board where users can leave messages.
C
- Capacity
- The highest possible transmission speed that can be carried on a
channel, circuit or piece of equipment.
- Carrier
- A telecommunications provider which owns network switch equipment.
- CATV
- Cable Television - Community Antenna Television. A community television
system, served by cable and connected to a common (set of) antenna(s).
- Cern
- The European Laboratory for Particle Physics, site of the first
World Wide Web conference and considered the birthplace of WWW
technology. Work on WWW technology and setting standards has moved to
the World Wide Web Organization (W3O, at w3.org).
http://www.cern.ch/
- Channel
- A telecommunications path of a specific capacity (speed) between two
locations in a network.
- CGI
- The Common Gateway Interface is an interface for programmers who
build scripts or applications which run behind-the-scenes on a web
server. These scripts can generate text or other types of data.
- Chat
- "Chat" is a term used to describe real-time conferencing in "chat rooms".
- Communication Link
- A system of hardware and software connecting two end users.
- Compression / Decompression
- A method of encoding/decoding signals that allows transmission (or storage)
of more information than the media would otherwise be able to support.
- Connection
- A point-to-point dedicated or switched communication path.
D
- Database
- A multiuser collection of information. Often supports random access
selectivity and multiple "views" or levels of abstraction of the underlying
data.
- Dedicated Line
- A private line leased from a telecommunications carrier.
- Digital
- A device or method that uses discrete variations in voltage, frequency,
amplitude, location, etc. to encode, process, or carry binary (zero or one)
signals for sound, video, computer data or other information.
- Download
- To transfer programs or data from a computer to a connected device, usually
from a server to a personal computer
- Drag and Drop
- A GUI (Graphic User Interface) concept that allows one screen object to be
selected and passed as input to another screen object (icon).
E
- Nothing available
F
- FAQS
- Frequently Asked Question.
- File Server
- A computer that provides access to files for remote users (clients).
- Finger
- Protocol which allows finding information about the users on your host
network.
- FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
- A protocol used to provide file transfers across a wide variety of systems.
G
- Gateway
- Protocol converter. An application-specific node that connects otherwise
incompatible networks. Converts data codes and transmission protocols to
enable interoperability.
- GIF
- Graphics Interchange Format. GIF is a standard format for image files on the
WWW. It uses a compression method to make files smaller.
- Gopher
- Internet public database browsing and searching program.
- GUI
- Graphical User Interface.
H
- Home
- The startup page of a site, containing identity and index
information.
- HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
- A "tag" language in which web pages are formatted and web information is
distributed.
- HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol)
- The method by which documents are transferred from the host computer or
server to browsers and individual users.
- Hyperlink
- Connections between one piece of information and another.
- Hypermedia
- A method of presenting information in discrete units, or nodes, that are
connected by links. The information may be presented using a variety of
media such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation, image or executable
documentation.
- Hypertext
- Describes a type of interactive online navigation functionality. Links (URLs)
embedded in words or phrases allows the user to select (e.g. mouse click)
text and immediately display related information and multimedia material.
I
- Information Superhighway
- A Buzz word referring to the plan to deregulate communication services
allowing for the integration of all aspects of the Internet, CATV, telephone, business,
entertainment, information providers, education, etc.
- IP (Internet Protocol)
- The Internet protocol that defines the unit of information passed between
systems that provides a basis packet delivery service.
- IP Address
- The Internet protocol address which is a 32-bit address assigned to a host.
The IP address has a host component and a network component.
- ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)
- A set of standards for high-speed transmission of simultaneous voice, data
and video information over fewer channels than would otherwise be needed,
through the use of out-of-band signaling.
J
- JPEG
- Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG is a popular method used to compress
photographic images.
K
- Nothing available
L
- Link
- See Hyperlink.
- List-Serv
- "ListServ" is a free software program for automating the
maintenance and delivery of e-mail mailing lists. There are mailing lists
for many different topics - some lists are "open" and some are "closed".
M
- Media
- Information storage and distribution format (e.g. video tape, floppy disk,
optical disc, print, etc.)
- Modem (MODulator-DEModulator)
- End user computer interface that enables digital data to be transmitted over
analog transmission facilities like phone lines.
- MPEG
- Moving Pictures Expert Group. MPEG is a standard way to comrpess full-motion
video.
- Multimedia
- Computer systems that integrate audio, video and data.
N
- NCSA
- The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an educational
institute. The Mosaic web browser was created here.
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
- Network
- A system of interrelated elements that are interconnected in a dedicated or
switched linkage to provide local or remote communication (of voice, video,
data, etc.) and to facilitate the exchange of information between users with
common interests.
O
- Nothing available
P
- Page
- A hypermedia document on the web.
- PKZIP
- PKZIP is a shareware compression utility for PCs. A program called PKUNZIP is
used to decompress
these files.
- Pointer
- An address (URL) embedded in data that specifies the location of data in
another record or file. A hyperlink is an example of a pointer.
- "POP" (point of presence)
- A "pop" is an Internet service provider's
dialup connection for modem users, used particularly to describe local
connections so modem users don't have to dial long distance.
- PPP (Point to Point Protocol)
- Dial-up Internet connection speaking in TCP/IP protocol, somewhat faster
than SLIP.
Q
- Nothing available
R
- Real Time
- Rapid transmission and processing of event-oriented data and transactions as
they occur, in contrast to being stored and re-transmitted or processed as
batches.
- Robot
- "Robot"s are usually mentioned in the context of the WWW as
programs which traverse the web looking for information, perhaps for
indexing into a search engine or to find errors in web sites or some
such.
S
- Security
- Control mechanisms that prevent unauthorized use of resources.
- Server
- In a network, a host data station that provides facilities to other stations.
- SGML
- Standard Generalized Markup Language is a language for describing
other tag-based structural document languages. For example, HTML is
defined using SGML.
- Site
- Address location of a server on the Internet.
- SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol)
- Dial-up Internet connection speaking in TCP/IP protocol.
- SSL
- The Secure Socket Layer is a protocol that Netscape uses to provide people with
secure transactions over
the network.
T
- TCP/IP
- Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol is the standard network
communications protocol used to
connect computer systems across the Internet.
- Telnet
- Telnet is a network program that offers a way to log into and work from another computer. By logging into another system, users can access Internet services that they might not have on
their own computers.
U
- UNZIP
- To unzip a file means to decompress, or expand a file that has been made
smaller using a compression
utility.
- URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
- The form of the site address that reveals the name of the server where the
site's files are stored, the file's directory path, and its file name.
- Usenet (USEer NETwork)
- Internet newsgroups. One of the earliest forms of "group electronic mail".
V
- VRML - Virtual Reality Modeling Language
- A "tag" language in which web pages are formatted that can support
3D graphics and interactive spatial navigation.
W
- WAIS (Wide Area Information Server)
- A powerful system for searching large amounts of information very
quickly over the Internet.
- WAV
- "wav" is the file extension used on some types of audio files.
- Webmaster/Webmistress
- System operator for a web site server.
- Wideband
- A medium-capacity communications circuit/path. It usually implies
a speed from 64Kbps to 1.544Mbps.
- WINZIP
- Winzip is a compression utility that lets Windows 95, 3.1, and NT users make
their files smaller for faster
tranfer over the Internet. This utility also decompresses files that were
originally compressed using PKZIP
or TAR formats.
- WWW (World Wide Web)
- Internet system for world-wide hypertext linking of multimedia documents,
making the relationship of information that is common between documents
easily accessible and completely independent of physical location.
X
- Nothing available
Y
- Nothing available
Z
- ZIP
- When one "compresses" (i.e., makes a smaller but equal copy) a file
using "pkzip", the resulting file is called a "zip" file. It usually
ends with the file extension ".zip".
Definitions
