Create Your Shop - CreateYourShop.com

A - B C - E F - G H - I J - M N - R S - Z
A

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.

B

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. 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.

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

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

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.

C

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

D

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.

Drop-down menu field A form field that presents a list of selections in drop-down menu style. A drop-down menu form field can be configured to permit the selection of many fields or a single field.

E

E-Mail (electronic mail) A service for sending messages electronically, over a computer network.

F

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) A common type of document on the Internet that contains a list of questions and answers on a common theme. On the World Wide Web, questions are often hyperlinks to the answers.

File A named collection of information that is stored on a computer disk. Also, an Internet protocol that refers to files on the local disk.

File type The format of a file, usually indicated by its filename extension. Editors usually work on a limited set of file types.

Firewall A method of protecting one network from another network. A firewall blocks unwanted access to the protected network while giving the protected network access to networks outside of the firewall. A company will typically install a firewall to give users access to the Internet while protecting their internal information.

Folder In a URL, a single part of the path to a page. A folder is a named storage area on the computer containing files and other folders.

Form A set of data entry fields on a page that are processed on the server. The data is sent to the server when the user submits the form by clicking on a button or, in some cases, by clicking on an image.

Form field A data-entry field on a page. A user supplies information in a field either by typing text or by selecting the field.

Frame A named element of a frame set. A frame appears in a Web browser as a scrollable window in which pages can be displayed. You assign a page to a frame when you create a hyperlink to the page.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) The Internet service that transfers files from one computer to another.

G

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.

H

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 The starting point on a Web server. It is the page that is retrieved and displayed by default when a user visits the Web server. The default home-page name for a server depends on the server's configuration. On most Web servers, it is index.html or index.htm. Some servers support multiple home pages.

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 standard language for describing the contents and structure of pages on the World Wide Web.

HTML tag A symbol used in HTML to identify a page element's type, format, and structure.

HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) The Internet protocol that allows World Wide Web browsers to retrieve information from servers.

Hyperlink A jump from text or from an image map to a page or other type of file on the World Wide Web. In World Wide Web pages, hyperlinks are the primary way to navigate between pages and among Websites.

Hypertext Originally, any textual information on a computer containing jumps to other information. The hypertext jumps are called hyperlinks. In World Wide Web pages, hypertext is the primary way to navigate between pages and among Websites. Hypertext on World Wide Web pages has been expanded to include hyperlinks from text and hyperlinks from image maps.

I

Image A graphic in GIF or JPEG file format that can be inserted in a World Wide Web page. FrontPage lets you import images in the following formats and insert them as GIF or JPEG: GIF, JPEG, BMP (Windows and OS/2), TIFF, TAG, PCD, RAS, EPS, PCX, and WMF.

Internet The global computer network, composed of thousands of Wide Area Networks (WANs) and Local Area Networks (LANs), that uses TCPIP to provide world-wide communications to homes, schools, businesses, and governments. The World Wide Web runs on the Internet.

IP address (Internet Protocol address) The standard way of identifying a computer that is connected to the Internet, much the way a telephone number identifies a telephone on a telephone network. The IP address is four numbers separated by periods, and each number is less than 256, for example, 216.215.74.83. Your system administrator or Internet service provider will assign your machine an IP address.

ISP -- (Internet Service Provider) An institution that provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money.

J

Java A general-purpose programming language created by Sun Microsystems. Java can be used to create Java applets. A Java program is downloaded from the Web server and interpreted by a program running on the machine containing the Web browser.

Java applet A short program written in Java that is attached to a World Wide Web page and executed by the browser machine.

Javascript A cross-platform, World Wide Web scripting language developed by Netscape Communications. JavaScript code is inserted directly into the HTML page.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) A color image format with excellent compression for most kinds of images. JPEG is commonly used on the World Wide Web for 24-bit color images.

L

LAN (Local Area Network) A computer network technology that is designed to connect computers that are separated by a short distance. A LAN can be connected to the Internet and can also be configured as an intranet.

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.


M

Meta tag An HTML tag that must appear in the portion of the page. Meta tags supply information about the page but do not affect its display. A standard meta tag, "generator," is used to supply the type of editor that created the HTML page.

MIME type (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions type) A method used by Web browsers to associate files of a certain type with helper applications that display files of that type.
N

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.

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.

P

Page A single document in a World Wide Website written using the HTML language

Path The portion of a URL that identifies the folders containing a file. For example, in the URL http://my.web.site/hello/world /greetings.htm, the path is /hello/world/.

Plug-in One of a set of software modules that integrate into Web browsers to offer a range of interactive and multimedia capabilities.

POP3 Post Office Protocol 3

Port One of the network input/output channels of a computer running TCP/IP. In the World Wide Web, port usually refers to the port number a server is running on. A single computer can have many Web servers running on it, but only one server can be running on each port. The default port for World Wide Web servers is 80.

Push button A form field that allows the user to submit a form or reset the form to its initial state.
R

Radio Button A form field that presents the user with a selection that can be chosen by clicking on a button. Radio buttons are presented in a list, one of which is selected by default. Selecting a new member of the list deselects the currently selected item.

S

Search Engine A (usually web-based) system for searching the information available on the Web. 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.

SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Defines a way two mail servers communicate in order to transmit and receive E-Mail messages.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) A low-level protocol that enables secure communications between a server and a browser.

Server A computer that offers services on a network. On the World Wide Web, the server is the computer that runs the Web server program that responds to HTTP protocol requests by providing Web pages. Also called host.

T

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 megabyte in 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.

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) Internet networking software that controls the transmission of packets of data over the Internet. Among its tasks, TCP checks for lost packets, puts the data from multiple packets into the correct order, and requests that missing or damaged packets be resent. Computers must run TCP to communicate with World Wide Web servers.

Template A set of designed formats for text and images on which web pages can be based.

Thumbnail A small version of an image on a World Wide Web page, often containing a hyperlink to a full-size version of the image.

U

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) A string that supplies the Internet address of a resource on the World Wide Web, along with the protocol by which the resource is accessed. The most common URL type is "http," which gives the Internet address of a World Wide Web page. Some other URL types are "gopher," which gives the Internet address of a Gopher directory, and "ftp," which gives the address of an FTP resource.

W

WWW -- (World Wide Web) 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) which are the servers that allow text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed together.