Glossary
Technical Terms
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 with the address of where it came from and where it is going.
This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-exist on the
same lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special machines
along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time.
- Password
- A code used to gain access, or login,
to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are
not simple, easy to guess words such as "rover". A good password
might be "big6&3"
POP (POP2, POP3) (Point Of Presence or Post Office
Protocol).
- 1. Point Of Presence
This is the place you telephone into to get a connection to the Internet
through a service provider. If it's within your local
call area communicating with people on the other side of the world is only
going to cost you the price of a local call. An important factor in making
a decision on which service provider to use is whether they have a local
POP?
2. Post office protocol.
The means by which email software
such as Eudora gets mail from a mail
server. When you obtain a SLIP, PPP,
or shell account you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is
this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail.
- Post
- An article or message which appears on a newsgroup;
the act of sending it is known as posting.
- PPP (Point to Point Protocol)
- Most well known as a protocol that allows
a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem
to make a TCP/IP connection to the Internet. PPP is
gradually replacing SLIP for this purpose
- Protocol
- Means very much the same as it means in diplomacy - its just a recognised
way of establishing who does what and in what order things happen, a standard
way of doing things.
- QuickTime
- A format for video files
- Real time
- As it happens, rather than delayed. Usually used if the delay is in
seconds.
- RFC (Request For Comments)
- The name of the result and the process for creating a standard on
the Internet . New standards are proposed
and published on line, as a "Request For Comments". The Internet
Engineering Task Force is 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 email is RFC 822.
- Router
- A special-purpose computer (or software package)
that handles the connection between 2 or more networks.
Routers spend all their time looking at the destination addresses of the
packets passing through them and deciding which route
to send them on
- Scanner
- A machine with allows you to convert pictures into digital form to
be processed by your computer.
- Search engine
- Used with databases which hold descriptions and addresses of files
on the Internet. They allow you to search the database using certain criteria
and then the search engine returns a list of matches, or hits, to you.
- Server
- A computer, or a software package, that provides
a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers
on the same network. The term can refer
to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine
on which the software is running, e.g. "Our mail
server is down today, that's why e-mail isn't getting out." A single
server machine could have several different server software packages running
on it, thus providing many different services to clients on the network
- Service provider (Access Provider, ISP, Internet
Service Provider).
- These are the people such as Demon, Compuserve etc. who supply you
with an Internet connection and associated
facilities. They collect and store your email
and may host your web pages, so that they are permanently
available to others.
The most important things you need to find out before you sign up to one
are; how much is the monthly charge, are there any online
usage charges, have they got enough help lines and to what time are they
available in the event that you should get stuck plus, of-course, have they
got a local POP?
- Shareware
- Computer software which has been made widely
available by the author, in the hope that on receiving and using it you
will return a (usually small) payment.
- Signature
- A few lines of information which are added to the end of each email
message you send, for example your name and address.
- Site
- Like a site where a building has been placed, this is where a web
home page and other related files have
been placed (or with things like FTP, a collection
of files) and from where, if you click on some of the highlighted text (see
Hypertext Links), you could be
whisked effortlessly to a site in another country without you even realising
it.
- SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol)
- A standard for using a regular telephone line (a "serial line")
and a modem to connect a computer as a
real Internet site. SLIP is gradually
being replaced by PPP
- Smiley
- A set of characters that looks like a face if you turn it sideways.Used
in E-mail messages which only allow text.
For example Frown :-( Smile :-) Wink ;-)
- Snail mail
- The letters delivered by the Post Office, and pretty useful for real
things.
- Software
- This is the programs running on a computer. Without it, your computer
(the hardware) would just be an object
d'art
- Spamming
- Usually advertising, this is sending out the same message to many
newsgroups or mailinglists.
See flaming
- SMDS (Switched Multimegabit Data Service)
- A new standard for very high-speed data transfer.
- SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
- A way of delivering E-mail
- Subscribe
- Joining a mailing list or discussion
group
- Surf
- To browse the Internet with no definite destination in mind.
- TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol)
- This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet.
Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP
software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system.
To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software.
- The "transmission control" aspect handles the division of
messages into packages and its reassembly for delivery to the user, while
the "internet protocol" aspect takes care
of addressing and routing, ensuring that the right packets get to the right
places.
Telecommunication
- Using computers linked to telephone lines for communication and to
share information.
- Telnet
- A program that allows you to Login
to another computer on the Internet. The telnet command/program gets you
to the "login:" prompt of another host. You may use to check online
library catalogues or other information services, using software on another
machine when you don't have it installed or using online
games and chat services.
- Teleworking
- The use of computers and telecommunications to change the accepted
geography of work.
Terminal
- A device that allows you to send commands to a computer somewhere
else. At a minimum, this usually means a keyboard and a display screen and
some simple circuitry. usually you will use terminal software in a personal
computer - the software pretends to be ("emulates") a physical
terminal and allows you to type commands to a computer somewhere else.
- Terminal Server
- A special purpose computer that has places to plug in many modems
on one side, and a connection to a LAN or
host machine on the other side. Thus the terminal server does the work of
answering the calls and passes the connections on to the appropriate node.
Most terminal servers can provide PPP or SLIP
services if connected to the Internet.
- Timeout
- When connecting to a remote computer, communications software will
send out a request for data. If there is too long a delay in receiving this
data, the connection will timeout and have to be reconnected.
- Upload/Download
- Upload is copying files from your computer to another. Download is
the term for copying files from another computer to yours.
- UNIX
- A computer operating system (the basic software
running on a computer, underneath things like word processors and spreadsheets).
UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is "multi-user")
and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating
system for Servers on the Internet
- URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
- This is a complicated name for the address of where a Web
page is. Once typed in, your Browser
will take you to the computer it's held on (maybe on the other side of the
planet) in moments. An example is http://www.pact.org.uk/scip which is this
the Sussex Community Internet Project home
page. It looks complicated but if you're going to go back to it, it
can be saved as a bookmark so that next
time all you have to do is click one button once.
- Usenet
- Part of the Internet that devotes itself to distributing news and
information on any subject that you care to think of. Each subject area
is known as a newsgroup. Rather than
being called "newsgroups", they might more accurately be called
"interest groups".
After email, this is probably the most
popular Internet feature. Usenet newsgroups are not specifically part of
the Internet but most Internet sites receive these discussion forums, of
which there are now more than 10,000. There also are many local and regional
newsgroups.
- Username (UserId, Account Name)
- The alias you are given for logging on to a computer system, for example
while my name is Peter Mason, my username is pmason. Used in conjunction
with passwords for logging
in.
- UUCP
- A file copying protocol - used for some mailing
lists and newsgroups on Usenet
- Veronica (Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net-wide
Index to Computerized Archives)
- This is a tool that searches for information on Gopher
(menu) systems, attempting to organise the information. It is a constantly
updated database of the names of almost every menu item on thousands of
gopher servers. The Veronica database can be searched from most major gopher
menus
- WAIS (Wide Area Information Servers)
- A commercial software package that allows
the indexing of huge quantities of information, and then making those indices
searchable across networks such as the Internet. A prominent feature of
WAIS is that the search results are ranked according to how relevant the
"hits" are, and that subsequent
searches can find "more stuff like that last batch" and thus refine
the search process.
- WAN (Wide Area Network)
- Any internet or network
that covers an area larger than a single building or campus.
- Webmaster (Webmeister, web manager)
- The person responsible for maintaining a web site.
Sometimes also used to describe someone who has a great deal on knowledge
about the Internet
- Web Pages
- Files which are used to display information across the Internet and
which make up the world wide web. They are written in
HTML and may contain references to other
such files, images or just about anything else. When they arrive at their
destination, a browser is used to display
the contents.
Winsock (Windows Sockets)
- A standard way for TCP/IP programs and Internet
client programs (E-mail, Browser,
FTP) to communicate on windows.
- WWW (World Wide Web, The Web, W3, The
Net)
- 1. The whole constellation of resources that can be accessed using
Gopher , FTP , HTTP , telnet , Usenet , WAIS and some other tools.
2. The universe of Hypertext servers
(HTTP servers) which are the servers that allow text, graphics, sound files
etc. to be mixed together. This is the part of the Internet that has caused
an explosion of interest in being online
in the last couple of years. Text can be informative but it is also quite
boring to look at; the WWW can display pictures, sounds and video along
with text. Information and stunning graphics together are a powerful tool.
Click your mouse arrow on either a piece of text or a picture or photo and
you will immediately be taken to another Web page which will expand on your
given subject and that too will have high lighted text and graphics waiting
to take you to another page.
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