| Anonymous FTP | See Also: FTP |
| 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. See Also: Network |
| Bandwidth | How much stuff you can send through a connection. Usually measured in bps (bits-per-second). A full page of English text is about 6,000 bits. A faster modem can send about 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion and full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression. |
| 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 progrm if it can handle input and output according to the CGI standard. |
| Domain Name | The
unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always
have 2 or more parts that 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. Yet, a given Domain
Name can only point to one machine. Usually, all of the machines on
a given Network would have the same right-hand portion of their Domain
Names, e.g. www.gus.net www2.gus.net It is also possible for a Domain Name to exist but not connect to an actul machine. This kind of Domain Name allows a given group or business to have an Internet e-mail address without establish a real Internet site. However, in this case, the given business must have some real Internet machine that handles the mail on behalf of the listed Domain Name. |
| (Electronic Mail) -- Messages, usually text, is sent from one person to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses (Mailing List). | |
| FTP | (File Transfer Protocol) -- A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purpose of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites establishing publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, login using the account name "anonymous". These sites are called anonymous ftp servers. |
| HTML | (Hyper Text Markup Language) -- The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicates how it should appear. In addition, you can use HTML to specify a block of text, or a word, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using World Wide Web Client Programs such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. |
| Internet | The vast collection of inter-connected networks that uses the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of late 60's and early 70's. |
| Intranet | A private network inside a company or an organization that uses the same kind of software as those found in the public Internet, but only for internal use. |
| IP Number | Sometimes
called a dotted quad. A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated
by dots, e.g.
206.13.90.1 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. Most machines have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember. |
| IRC | (Internet Relay Chat) -- Basically a huge multi-user live chat facility. There are a number of major IRC servers around the world which are linked to each other. Anyone can create a channel and anything that anyone types in a given channel is seen by all others in the channel. Private channels can (and are) created for multi-person conference calls. |
| ISDN | (Integrated Services Digital Network) -- Basically a way to move more data over existing regular phone lines. The ISDN market is growing dynamically in the United States. Its price is similar to standard analog phone circuits. It can provide speed of roughly 128,000 bits-per-second over regular phone lines. In Practically, most people are limited to 56,000 or 64,000 bits-per-second. |
| ISP | (Internet Service Provider) -- An institution that provides access to the Internet in some form. |
| Java | A
new programming language developed by Sun Microsystms that is specifically
designed for writing programs, which can be safely downloaded to your
computer through the Internet and immediately run without worrying
viruses or other hazards invading your computer or files. By using
small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include
functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks.
We can expect to see a huge variety of features added to the Web using Java, since you can write a Java program to do almost anything a regular computer program can do, and then include that Java program in a Web page. |
| Leased-line | Refers to a phone line that is rented for exclusive 24-hour, 7 -days-a-week usage from your location to another location. The highest speed data connections require a leased line. |
| MIME | (Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions) -- The standard for attaching non-text files
to standard Internet mail messages. Non-text files include graphics,
spreadsheets, formatted word-processor documents, sound files, etc.
An email program is said to be MIME Compliant if it can both send and receive files using the MIME standard. When non-text files are sent using the MIME standard, they are converted (encoded) into text - although the resulting text is not really readable. Generally, MIME standard is used to specify the type of file being sent (e.g. a Quicktime video file), and the method that should be used to turn it back into its original form. Besides email software, MIME standard is also universally used by Web Servers to identify the files they are sending to Web Clients, in this way new file formats can be accommodated simply by updating the Browsers' list of pairs of MIME-Types and appropriate software for handling each type. |
| Netscape | A
WWW Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape (tm) browser was
originated from the Mosaic program developed by the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).
Netscape has grown rapidly in features and is widely recognized as the best and most popular web browser. Netscape Corporation also produces web server software. Netscape provided major improvements in speed and interface over other browsers, and has also engendered debate by creating new elements for the HTML language used by Web pages -- but the Netscape extensions to HTML are not universally supported. The main author of Netscape, Mark Andreessen, was hired away from the NCSA by Jim Clark. They founded a company called Mosaic Communications yet was soon changed the name to Netscape Communications Corporation. |
| POP | 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 dialup phone lines. If an Internet company announced that they have a POP in Belgrade, it means that they 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 the way e-mail software such as Eudora gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain a SLIP, PPP, or shell account, most of time you would get a POP account with it. Your email software would use this POP account to get your mail. |
| PPP | (Point to Point Protocol) -- Most well known protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IP connections to establish a true and real Internet connection. |
| 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. |
| Server | A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running (e.g.Our mail server is down today, that's why e-mail isn't getting out.). A single server machine can have several different server software packages running on it in order to provide many different servers to clients on the network. |
| 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 can move a megabyte in less than 10 seconds. However, this speed still not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video; usually it needs at least 10,000,000 bits-per-second. T-1 is the fastest speed commonly used to connect networks to the Internet. |
| 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-motion video. |
| 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. |
| Telnet | The command and program used to login from one Internet site to another. The telnet command/program gets you to the "login:" prompt of another host. |
| Terminal | A special purpose computer that has ports to plug in several modems on one side, and connect to a LAN or host machine on the other side. The terminal server can perform 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. |
| 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) -- The standard way to give the address of any resource
on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks
like this:
http://www.gus.net The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program, such as Netscape, or Internet Explorer. |
| USENET | A world-wide system of discussion groups, with comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines. Not all USENET machines are on the Internet, maybe half. USENET is completely decentralized, with over 10,000 discussion areas, called newsgroups. |
| WWW | (World Wide Web) -- Two meanings - First, loosely used: the whole constellation of resources that can be accessed using Gopher, FTP, HTTP, telnet, USENET, WAIS and some other tools. Second, the universe of hypertext servers (HTTP servers) which are the servers that allow text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed together. |
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