56K Line: A digital phone-line connection, of leased line, capable of carrying 56,000 bits per second. At this speed, a megabyte of data would take about 3 minutes to transfer.
Add On: Add component installed in or connected to a computer that expands the capabilities of the entire system. This is also applies to multimedia applications that are installed to expand the capabilities of the web browsers..
Analog: An electronic device that uses a system of unlimited variables to measure or represent the flow of data.
Address: Data structure or logical convention used to identify a unique entity, such as a particular process or network device (i.e. www.spccomputers.com
ADSU: ATM DSU. A terminal adapter used to access an ATM Network.
ANSI: American National Standard Institute. A voluntary organization comprised of corporate, government and other members that coordinate standard-related activities, approve U.S. national standards, and develop positions for the United States in international standard organizations.
Apple Talk: A Series of communications protocols designed by Apple Computer.
Applet: A small niche application or utility that performs one useful task and is designed for use within larger programs.
Audiovisual Interleaving (AVI): A way of presenting a motion picture video in an application windows on a Video Graphics Array (VGA) or better monitor. To view . AVI files, some sort of .AVI player must be present on the system.
Archie: A software tool for finding files stored on anonymous FTP sites. A user needs to know the exact file name or a sub string of it.
Arpanet: Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The precursor to the Internet established in 1969 and developed in the early 1970's by U.S. Department of Defense as an experiment in wide area networking that could survive a nuclear war.
ASCII: American Standard Code for information Interchange. An 8-bit code for character representation, standard used by computers to represent all of the upper and lower case Latin letters, numbers punctuation, and other characters.
ATM: Asynchronous Transfer Mode. ATM is an international ISDN high speed, high volume, packet switching protocol standard. ATM currently accommodates transmission speeds from 64 kbps to 622 Mbps.
Backbone: The part of a network that acts as the primary path for traffic that is most often referenced from, and destined for other networks. A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network.
Bandwidth: The difference between the highest and lowest frequencies available for network signals. The term is also to describe the rated throughput capacity of a given network medium or protocol.
BBS: Bulletin Board System. A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows people to carry on dissuasions and upload and download files.
Binary: A numbering system characterized by ones and zeros (1= on, 0= off).
Bit: Binary digital. Digit used in the binary numbering system. Can be either a zero or one.
Bit Map (BMP): A type of graphics file in which one or more bits describe the color of each tiny square that makes up the image.
BPS: Bits Per Second. A measurement of how fast data moves from one place to another. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per second.
BRI: Basic Rate Interface. ISDN interface adapter composed of two B channels and one D channel for circuit -communication of voice, video, and data.
Browser: Software program that retrieve, display, and print information and HTML documents from the Worldwide Web.
Byte: Term used to a series of consecutive binary digits operate as a unit (for example, 8-bits equals one byte).
Bandwidth: The capacity of a network or data connection.
Cache: Storing or buffering data in a temporary location, so that the information can be retrieved quickly by an application.
CO: Central Office. Local telephone company office to which all local loops in a given area connect and in which circuit switching of subscriber lines occurs.
Compression: The running of a data set through an algorithm that reduce the space required to store or the bandwidth required to transmit the data set.
Cross Talk: An interference signal transferred from on circuit to another. Such as when you hear an alternate telephone conversation over your telephone line.
Cookie: A message sent from the web browsers to a web server that is meant to identify users. Cookie also can be used to create personalized web pages for visitor.
CSU: Channel Service Unit. Digital interface that connects end-user equipment (modem) to the local digital telephone loop. Often referred together with DSU, as CSU/DSU.
Decryption: The reverse application of an encryption algorithm to encrypted data, thereby restoring that data to its original, unencrypted state.
De facto Standard: Standard that exist by nature of its widespread use.
De jure Standard: Standard that exists because of its approval by an official standards body.
DMA: Direct Memory Access. The transfer of data from a peripheral device, such as a hard drive, into memory without that data passing through the microprocessor. DMA transfer data into memory at high speeds with no processor overhead.
Domain: The portion of the naming hierarchy tree that refers to general grouping of networks based on organization-type or geography. A domain name always has two or more parts separated by periods. The part to the left of the period is the most specific and the part on the right is the most general.
Dedicated Line: Communications line indefinitely reserved for transmissions rather than switched, as a transmission is required.
Dial-up Line: Communications circuit established by a switched circuit connection using the telephone company network.
Dot Address: Refers to the common notation for IP addresses in the form <n.n.n.n> where each n represents, 1 byte of the 4-byte IP address.
DSU: Data Service Unit. Device used in digital transmission that adapts the physical interface on data terminal equipment to a transmission facility such as a T1. Often referred to together with CSU, as CSU/DSU.
Dynamic Routing: Routing that adjusts automatically to network topology or traffic changes.
Electronic Mail (E-mail): Text message sent through a network to a specified individual or group.
EC: Electronic Commerce. Business environment integrating electronic transfer and automated business systems.
EDI: Electronic Data Interchange. The electronic communication of operation data such transmitted electronically between end users over various types of networks.
Encryption: The application of a specific algorithm to data so as to alter the appearance of the data transmitted electronically between end users over various type of networks.
Enterprise Network: Large and diverse network connecting most major points in a company to other organization. Differs from a wide area net work in that it is privately owned and maintained.
Error Control: Technique for detecting and correcting errors in data transmissions.
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.
Fast Ethernet: Fast Ethernet offers a speed increase ten times that of the 10BaseT Ethernet specification.
FCC: Federal Communications Commission. U.S. government agency that supervise, license, and controls electronic and electromagnetic transmission standards.
FDDI: Fiber Distributed Data Interface. LAN standard specifying a 100 Mbps redundant network using fiber optic cable.
Finger: An Internet software tool for locating people on other Internet sites.
Firewall: Router or access server, or several, routers or access servers, designated as a buffer between any connected public networks and a private network. A firewall router uses access lists and other method to ensure the security of the private network.
Flow Control: Technique for ensuring that a transmitting entity, such as a modem, does not overwhelm a device are full, a message is sent to the sending device to suspend the transmission until the data in the buffers has been processed.
Frequency: Number of cycles, measured in hertz, of an altering current signal per unit time.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. Application protocols, part of the TCP/IP protocol stack, used for transferring files between network servers.
Gateway: The technical meaning is a hardware or software setup that translates between two dissimilar protocols. Another sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for providing access to another system.
Gopher: An Internet protocol that directly preceded the WWW created by the University of Minnesota. Its is a more basic system than the Web's HTTP.
Handshake: Sequence of message extend between two or more network devices to ensure transmission synchronization.
Header: Control information placed before data when encapsulating that data for network transmission.
Hertz: Measure of frequency, abbreviated Hz. Synonymous with cycle per second.
Hit (Web Site): Web speak for successful access to a file Web page.
Home Page: The first HTML (hypertext markup language) page that users generally see on a world Wide Web site. The home page represents the image that a company or individual chooses to project to users on the Internet.
Hop: Term describing the passage of data packets between two servers, routers, or other network device.
Hop Count: Routing metric used to measure the distance between a source and a destination.
Host: Computer system on a network.
Hot Java: A new generation of browser technology developed by Sun Microsystems which allows users to observe and interact with Java programs.
HTML: Hypertext Transport Protocol. An Internet computer communication encoding standard for the exchange of multimedia documents on the Web.
Hyperlink: the path between two documents which allows the user to point-and-click on a specific words on the screen and thereby move to the requested location wherever it ISA on the Internet.
Hypertext: Electronically stored text that allows direct access to other texts by way of encoded links. Hypertext document can be created using HTML, and often integrate image, sound, and other using HTML, and often integrate images, sound and other media that are commonly viewed using browser.
IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Professional organization whose activities include the development of communication and network standards.
InterNIC: A collaborative project of three organizations to offer the Internet community a full scope of network information services.
Internet: Term used to the largest global inter network, connecting tens of thousands of networks worldwide and having a "culture" that focuses on research and standardization based on real life use. Many leading edge network technologies come from the Internet community. The Internet evolved in part from ARPANET.
IP Address: 32-bit address assigned to host using TCP/IP. An IP address belongs to one of five classes (A,B,C,D, or E) and is written as 4 octets separated with periods (dotted decimal format). Each address consists of a network number, an optional sub network numbers together are used for routing, while the host number is used to address and individual host within the host number is used work. A subnet mask is used to extract network and sub network information from the IP address.
IP Number: Sometimes called a "dotted quad". A unique number consisting of parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2 Every machine on the internet has a unique IP number.
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network. A digitalk telephonic system made up of two 64kbps " B" channels for data and one "D" channel for traffic messaging.
ISP: Internet Service Provider. A business that allows companies and individuals to connect to the internet by providing the interface to the internet backbone.
Java: A new generation of browser technology developed by Sun Microsystems which allows users to observe and interact with Java programs.
Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG): A color image graphics compression format. The JPEG standard uses a lossy compression method in which some data is sacrificed to achieve greater compression.
Leased Lines: A permanent physical connection between two locations that forms a private wide area network (WAN). They are called leased lines because they are rented from a telephone company.
Mailist: A (usually automated) system that allows people to send e-mail to one address where upon their message is copied and sent out to all other subscribers to the mailing list.
META Tag: A special HTML tag that provides information such as who created a web pages, the page's content, and keywords.
Megabyte: A million bytes. A thousand kilobytes.
Mosaic: User interface software for navigating, browsing, and accessing files on the Internet. The Mosaic browser was developed at NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University Illinois.
MPEG: Motion Picture Experts Group; A proposed international standards organization (ISO) standard for digital video and audio compression for moving images. The primary applications targeted during the MPEG-2 definition process was the all-digital transmission of broadcast-quality video.
OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturers.
Newbie: A newcomer to the internet, particularly someone who, through ignorance or indifference, violates the traditional rules of Internet etiquette or "netiqette".
Newsgroups: The name for discussion groups on Usenet.
POP: Internet Access; Point of presence, a term used by Internet service providers to indicate the number or geographical locations of their access to the Internet.
PPP: Point to Point Protocol: This is best known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and modem to make a TCP/IP connection and thus be really and truly on the Internet. PPP is gradually replacing SLIP for this purpose.
Plug-In: A software program that adds a specific features to a larger program, such as plug-in applications that expand the capabilities of web browsers.
Public Key Cryptography: A security scheme in which a different key is used for encryption and decryption. Key-1 is the public key; that is everyone knows it. Key-2 is private so that only the recipient knows it. In this scheme it is computationally impossible to derive key-2 from key-1.
RFC: Request For Comments; the name of the result as well as the process of creating standards on the Internet. New standards are proposed and published on line as RFCs.
Portable Document Format (PDF): A file format developed by Adobe System that lets users send and receive files that will appear on screen or be printed as they were originally intended. Users must have the Acrobat Reader to view. PDF files.
Router: A special purpose computer (or software package) that handles the connections between two or more networks.
Server: Any computer that allows other computers to connect to it. Most commonly, server are dedicated machines. Most machines using UNIX are servers.
SHTTP: Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol; Terisa System' implementation of secure information transmission through the Internet.
Search Engine: A program that searches through files for specific keywords.
Spam: In the Internet community, Spam is an unsolicited mass e-mail mass posting to newsgroups, The act of sending Spam is Spamming.
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer; Netscape Communications' implementation of secure information transmission through the Internet.
T-1: A high speed 1.5 mbits/sec leased line often used by companies for access to the Internet.
T-3: A leased line connection capable of carrying data at 45 mbits/sec.
Thumbnail: A smaller version of a graphic or document page that takes up less space on a screen to allow multiple pages to be viewed simultaneously. These smaller images also are faster to load that full size images.
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol; This is the suite of protocol that designs the Internet. to be truly on the Internet your computer must have TCP/IP software.
Telnet: A software service package with most operating systems that allows the user to get onto a system over a network in the someway as if he or she were using a terminal attached to the system.
UNIX: An operating system developed by AT&T that is widely used by universities. UNIX uses TCP/IP as its standard communications protocol, making UNIX a natural access, operation system for the Internet.
URL: Uniform (or Universal) Resource Locator; The URL provides information on the protocol, the system and the file name so that the user's system can find a particular document on the Internet.
VANs: Value added Networks: Privately owned and maintained computer network in which network bandwidth is lease for use between geographical disparate sites or between autonomous organizations.
Veronica: Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net wide Index to Computerized Archives: Developed at the University of Nevada, Veronica is a constantly update database of the names of almost every menu item on thousands of gopher servers.
WAIS: Wide Area Information Servers. A search capability that locates requested information on the Internet using a keyword or combination of keywords.
WAN: Wide Area Network. Any Intranet or network that covers an area lager than a single building or campus.
Web Page: An HTML document on the Web, usually one of many that together makes up a Web Site.
WWW: World Wide Web. the mechanism developed by Tim Berners-Lee for CERN physicists to be able to share documents via the Internet. The web allows computers users to access information across systems around the world using URLs (uniform resource locators) to identify files and systems and hypertext links to move between files on the same or different systems. Also called 'the Web or W3.
XML: Extensible Markup Language. An extension of the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), now a de facto standard, which is used for Push services and Smart Pull services.