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A | B |
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M | N |
O | P |
Q | R |
S | T |
U | V |
W | X |
Y | Z
- Mail bombing
- The act of sending hundreds or thousands of
messages to someone you think deserves the punishment for
transgressions against the Internet. Highly discouraged
as it chews up bandwidth unnecessarily.
- Mailing list
- A list of people who all receive postings sent to the group. Mailing
lists exist on all sorts of topics. Each time you or any member of the
list posts a reply to the conversation, it is distributed to the e-mail
box of every member of the list. All of this traffic is automated and
managed by programs called mailing list managers or mail servers.
The two most frequently used programs are Listserv and Majordomo.
A mailing list is said to be "unmoderated" if all of the messages sent
to the list are automatically forwarded to each member of the list. In
a "moderated" list, all messages are sent first to a list
moderator, who decides if a message is appropriate and should be
passed on to everyone else.
Here are some tips for using mailing lists:
- Subscribe carefully. Subscribe to one or two mailing lists and
then wait and see what the volume of traffic is before you
subscribe to another. You can easily be overwhelmed by the number
of messages.
- Keep the list subscription instructions! After you send your
subscription e-mail you will get a response from the list
welcoming you and giving you instructions on how to leave the
list. Keep this mail. It is bad netiquette to send messages to the
list requesting help in unsubscribing. You are expected to keep
the initial instruction file.
- Please turn off the list when you go on vacation. A high-traffic
list can generate hundreds of messages a day, and your system
administrator will not be happy if you leave those messages in
your e-mail box while you are on vacation.
- To avoid the painful experience of being flamed, pay
attention to the instructions in the initial mail from the list
administrator, read the FAQ if there is one, and read the list for
a few days before you post.
- Mailserver
- A program that provides access to files via email.
- Majordomo
- A program which handles mailing list maintenance, such as adding and
removing addresses from mailing lists.
- Man pages
- The Unix manual pages. You must go to the man pages to find out more
about a Unix command. Accessed through use of the man command followed
by the command whose description you want to view. Of course, you need
access to a UNIX system before this works =)
- MCI
- A large telecommunications company that provides an email system called
MCI Mail.
- Megabyte
- A million bytes. A thousand kilobytes.
- Microsoft
- A premeire software company that continues to define trends in personal
computers. Their applications division includes some of the most popular
software to date, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Works. Their
systems division, of course, is responsible for bringing Windows,
Windows for Workgroups, and Windows NT to the world.
- MIME
- Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. MIME is an Internet protocol that
allows you to send binary files across the Internet as attachments to
e-mail messages. This includes graphics, photos, sound and video files,
and formatted text documents. MIME has to negotiate many different
operating systems and types of software to perform this amazing feat.
Its invention has been a major step forward in the exchange of non-text
information over the Internet.
E-mail programs that allow you to send and receive these types of files
are said to be MIME-compliant. Many of these programs now incorporate
MIME and have made it practically invisible to the user. You are
probably using MIME when you send e-mail with an "attachment" of a
formatted file. If not, then your mail program is using something very
similar called UUencoding and UUdecoding to achieve the
same result.
- Mirror site
- One FTP server provides copies of the same files as another
server. Mirror sites help distribute the load from a single popular
site. Used when an FTP site is so frequently accessed that the volume
of users accessing it keeps others from getting through. A mirror site
provides an alternate way to access the same files.
- Modem
- Stands for modulator-demodulator, because that's what it does,
technically. In reality, a modem allows your computer to talk to
another computer via the phone lines.
- Moderator
- An (overworked) volunteer who reads all of the submissions to a mailing
list or newsgroup, to make sure they are appropriate, before posting
them.
- Monospaced font
- A font whose characters are all the same width. Courier New is the most
common monospaced font in Windows, but you can find others like Letter
Gothic, Courier, and Orator. You generally want to use a monospaced font
when reading text on the Internet.
- MOO (Mud, Object Oriented)
- One of several kinds of multi-user role-playing environments.
- MPEG
- Motion Picture Experts Group. More commonly, a compression format for
video. Files compressed with MPEG generally have the extension .mpg,
although it may be .mpeg on some sites.
- MTU
- Maximum Transmission Unit. In PPP a number determined by the
connectivity software that helps determine the size of the packets of
data that will be sent over your connection.
- MUD
- Multi-User Dungeon, or sometimes Multi-User Dimension. A text-based
alternate reality where you can progress to a level at which you can
modify the environment. Mostly used for games, and extremely addictive.
A (usually text-based) multi-user simulation environment. Some are
purely for fun and flirting, others are used for serious software
development, or education purposes and all that lies in between. A
significant feature of most MUDs is that users can create things that
stay after they leave and which other users can interact with in their
absence, thus allowing a world to be built gradually and collectively.
- Multimedia
- Using more than one type of media simultaneously, like text with sound,
moving or still images, music, etc.
- MUSE (Multi-User Simulated Environment)
- One kind of MUD - usually with little or no violence.
- MX record
- Mail Exchange record. An entry in a domain name server database that
tells mail transfer agents where they should route mail.
- NCSA
- National Center for Supercomputing Applications. A group that has
produced a great deal of public domain software for the scientific
community. They wrote NCSA Telnet and have completed NCSA Mosaic for
Windows, X Window, and Macintosh.
- NetBEUI
- Stands for NetBIOS Extended User Interface. It is the common networking
protocol of Windows for Workgroups. Meant for small local area networks,
it is sometimes difficult to get a PC to "talk" NetBEUI at anything else.
- NetBIOS
- Network Basic Input/Output System. NetBIOS is a very basic
applications interface to allow an application to communicate on a
network.
- Netiquette
- A form of online etiquette. This term refers to an informal code of
conduct that governs what is generally considered to be the acceptable
way for users to interact with one another online. Not following
accepted netiquette is likely to get you flamed.
- Netizen
- Derived from the term citizen, referring to a citizen of the Internet,
or someone who uses networked resources. The term connotes civic
responsibility and participation.
- Netscape
- A WWW Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape Navigator browser
was originally based on the Mosaic program developed at the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). This is the software
provided with new Internet America accounts.
Netscape has grown in features rapidly and is widely recognized as the
best and most popular web browser, but its current competition from
Microsoft called Internet Explorer now holds the title of most
popular browser.
- NetWare
- The most popular of PC local area networks by Novell, Inc. Rather than
using TCP/IP as its "standard" protocol for intercomputer communications,
it uses IPX/SPX. It is sometimes difficult to get a PC to "talk" TCP/IP
and IPX/SPX at the same time.
- Network Information Center
- An organization that provides information about a network.
- Network Time Protocol
- A protocol for transmitting the correct time around the Internet.
- News
- Synonymous with Usenet news, or sometimes just Usenet.
- Newsgroup
- An electronic discussion group consisting of collections of postings
(also called articles) on Usenet devoted to talking about a specific
topic. There are thousands of newsgroups covering a wide range of
subjects. You must subscribe to a newsgroup in order to participate in
it or to track the discussion on an on-going basis. Unlike with a
magazine or newspaper, subscribing to a newsgroup does not cost
anything.
Various programs called newsreaders let you subscribe, read and post to
newsgroups. Newsreaders may be included with your browser, or an entire
separate program.
Before you post to a newsgroup, do yourself a big favor and read other
postings carefully for a few days. Newsgroups are famous for
flames. Read the FAQ about the newsgroup if there is one. It is
considered a major breach of netiquette to ask a question that is
clearly answered in the FAQ. It is also considered a poor use of
bandwidth to post a reply to millions of users saying "me too!" Replies
of this sort can and should be directed to the sender directly by e-mail.
- .newsrc
- The file that Unix newsreaders use to keep track of which messages in
which newsgroups you've read.
- Newsreader
- A program that helps you read news and provides capabilities for
following or deleting threads. A software program that lets you
subscribe to newsgroups as well as read and post messages to them. A
newsreader is like a friendly librarian who keeps track of the articles
posted to the newsgroups you like to read and locates them when you want
to read them.
- Nickname
- Email: an easy-to-remember shortcut for an email address. Sometimes also
called an alias.
IRC: the name that others will see when you speak. Often abbreviated
"nick." Because IRC is used by so many individuals, originality
when choosing a nick is important.
- NNTP
- Net News Transport Protocol. A transmission protocol for the transfer of
Usenet news.
- Nodename
- The name of a machine. The "node" is an addressable point on a
network. On the Internet, a node is a host computer with a unique domain
name and IP address that has been assigned to it by InterNIC. For
instance, IA mail's server is a node. Its node name is mail.airmail.net
or 206.66.12.40.
- Notepad
- Windows application that allows you to view (and edit) ASCII text files.
Typically use with files of the .txt extension.
- Offline
- Actions performed when you aren't actually connected to another computer.
- Online
- Actions performed when you are connected to another computer.
- Packet/Packet Switching
- A packet is a chunk of information sent over a network.
Packet-switching is the process by which a carrier breaks up data into
these chunks or "packets." Each packet contains the address of origin,
the address of its destination, and information about how to reunite
with other related packets. This process allows packets from many
different locations to co-mingle on the same lines and be sorted and
directed to different routes by special machines along the way.
- Page
- In the World Wide Web, the name for the basic document type.
- Parse
- Parsing data refers to the process by which programming data input is
broken into smaller, more distinct chunks of information that can be
more easily interpreted and acted upon.
- Password
- A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good passwords contain
letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7.
A good password might be: 6%wwtai8. To choose an unusual password that
you can still remember you might take the first letter of each word in a
phrase that means something to you.
For instance, if I take the first line of my favorite poem "When
I see birches bend to left and
right" -- that becomes wisbbtl8 (since it can only be 8 characters).
- Pentium
- Class of processors brought to you by Intel Corporation.
- PERL (Practical Extraction and Reporting Language)
- A robust programming language frequently used for creating CGI programs
on web servers because it is faster than UNIX shell script programs, it
can read and write binary files, and it can process very large files.
The major advantage of PERL over C as a programming language is that
PERL does not need to be compiled.
- Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
- A program, developed by Phil Zimmerman, which cryptographically protects
files and electronic mail from being read by others. It may also be used
to digitally sign a document or message, thus authenticating the creator.
- PKZIP or PKUNZIP
- Suite of utilities from PKWARE for compressing and uncompressing DOS and
Windows files. Uses the .zip extension.
- Plug-in
- A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece
of software. An examples is a plug-in for web browsers, like Real
Audio.
The idea behind plug-in's is that a small piece of software is loaded
into memory by the larger program, adding a new feature, and that
users need only install the few plug-ins that they need, out of a much
larger pool of possibilities. Plug-ins are usually created by people
other than the publishers of the software the plug-in works with.
- POP (Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol)
- Two commonly used meanings. A Point of Presence usually means a city or
location where a network can be connected to, often with dial up phone
lines. So if an Internet company says they will soon have a POP in
Belgrade, it means that they will soon 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 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 Office Protocol.
- Port
- Three meanings. First and most generally, a place where information goes
into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a personal
computer is where a modem would be connected.
On the Internet, port often refers to a number that is part of a URL,
appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service
on an Internet server listens on a particular port number on that
server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers
normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-standard
ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when
accessing the server.
Finally, port also refers to translating a piece of software to bring it
from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows
program so that is will run on a Macintosh. In software, the act of
converting code so that a program runs on more than one type of
computer. In TCP/IP networking, a number that identifies a specific
"channel" used by network services.
- Post
- Posting is what you do when you add a message to a mailing list or
Usenet discussion. Your article might be called a "post."
- PPP
- Point to Point Protocol. PPP is a communications protocol used to
transmit network data over telephone lines. It allows you to connect
your computer to the Internet itself, rather than logging on through an
Internet Service Provider's host computer and using UNIX commands
through a shell. This type of connection lets you communicate directly
with other computers on the network using TCP/IP connections. It is part
of the TCP/IP suite of programs necessary to connect to and use the
Internet.
PPP is the type of connection that Internet America provides its
customers.
- Program Group
- A mechanism in the Windows 3.x Program Manager that allows you to
collect like applications. For instance, you could have a group
consisting of all WinSock applications. Groups are not nest-able, in
that you cannot have groups within groups.
- Program Item
- An executable entity in the form of an icon that lives in a Program
Group of the Windows Program Manager. Typically, double-clicking on
these will launch applications, but in some cases the icon can launch
documents or batch files.
- Program Manager
- Windows 3.x default shell or interface. The Program Manager allows you
to launch other Windows applications.
- proportionally spaced font
- A font whose characters vary in width, so that, for example, a W is
wider than an i. Proportionally spaced fonts often work poorly when
you're reading text on the Internet.
- protocol
- A protocol is the "standard," or set of rules, that two computers use to
communicate with each other. Also known as a communications protocol or
network protocol, this is a language that assures that different network
products or programs can work together. Any product that uses a given
protocol should work with any other product using the same protocol.
Protocols dictate the "whats" and the "hows" of the various systems on
the Internet. The success of the Internet, its very existence, in fact,
depends on people voluntarily agreeing to configure their hardware and
software to the TCP/IP standard.
- Public domain
- Software that you can use freely, distribute freely, and modify in any
way you wish.
- Query
- The process by which a client requests specific information from a
server, based on a character string that is passed along. A query
typically takes the form of a database search for a particular keyword
or phrase.
- Quoting
- The act of including parts of an original message in a reply. The
standard character used to set off a quote from the rest of the text is
a column of > (greater-than) characters along the left margin. When
replying, be careful not to over-quote. Nothing can be more annoying
than scrolling through the same 200 line message quoted with only "me
too" added at the bottom.
- 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 e-mail is RFC 822.
- RGB Mode
- Short for Red, Green, and Blue, it is a color model commonly used to
display color in video systems, film recorders and computer monitors. It
represents all colors as combinations of red, green and blue light. RGB
mode is the most common color mode for viewing and working with digital
images on a screen.
- Robots
- Programs that are designed to automatically go out and explore the
Internet for a variety of purposes. Robots that record and index all of
the contents of the network to create searchable databases are sometimes
called Spiders or Worms. WebCrawler and Lycos are popular examples of
this.
- Root directory
- The topmost directory that you can see. Under DOS the root directory is
typically c:\. Each volume or disk drive will have its own root directory.
- rot13
- A method of encoding possibly offensive postings on Usenet so that those
who don't want to be offended can avoid accidentally seeing the posting.
Works by converting each letter to a number (a = 1, b = 2, and so
forth), adding 13 to the number, and then converting back into letters,
rendering the file unreadable without deciphering.
- ROFL
- Abbreviation for Rolling on the Floor Laughing, this term is used in
various online communications, such as e-mail messages or postings to
newsgroups or BBSs. It usually appears in brackets like this:
<rofl> and is another way of adding a humorous touch to a response.
- Router
- A piece of hardware or software that connects two or more networks. A
router functions as a sorter and interpreter as it looks at addresses
and passes bits of information to their proper destination. Software
routers are sometimes referred to as gateways.
- Search Engines
- A search engine is a type of software that creates indexes of databases
or Internet sites based on the titles of files, key words, or the full
text of files. The search engine has an interface that allows you to type
what you're looking for into a blank field. It then gives you a list of
the results of the search. When you use a search engine on the Web, the
results are presented to you in hypertext, which means you can click on
any item in the list to get the actual file. If the file you select
doesn't have what you're looking for, you can use the Back button on
your browser to return to the list of search results and try something
else.
The other nice feature about search engines on the web is that if you
have a website or page of your own, you can register it. When you submit
key information about your page or site, it gets added to the index. This
is a very good (but often overlooked) way to get people to visit your
site. And it doesn't cost a thing! You can register separately with each
site or take advantage of a free service called Submit It! that lets you
register with all search engines (or selected ones), in one simple
step.
Here are some of the most popular search engines:
- WebCrawler is an automated
robot (a type of program) that continuously searches and indexes
the web.
- Lycos describes itself as a
catalog of the Internet. The Lycos Web explorer uses a robot that
searches the World Wide Web every day, building a database of all
the Web pages it finds.
- Yahoo is a subject oriented index
guide for the World Wide Web and Internet. Yahoo! gets its links in
two ways:
1. Through user submissions from people who register the links of
their home pages.
2. Sending out automated search robots that look for new
announcements and collect information about new sites on the Net.
- Excite! is my personal
favorite.
- Self-extracting archive
- A compressed file or files encapsulated in a decompression program, so
you don't need any other programs to expand the archive. A
self-extracting archive will always have an extension of .exe since this
is consistent with application files under DOS and Windows.
- Server
- A machine that makes services available on a network to client programs.
A file server makes files available. An email server handles email and
so forth.
- Shareware
- A method of software distribution in which the software may be freely
distributed, and you may try it before paying. If you decide to keep and
use the program, you send your payment directly to the shareware author.
It is a good idea to actually pay for (register) your software to support
new and improved versions of your favorite programs.
- Shell
- A common interface, either command-based or graphical. Typical Unix
Shells are csh, ksh, and sh. The Macintosh shell is the Finder; the
DOS shell is COMMAND.COM; the Windows 3.x shell is the Program Manager;
the Windows 95 shell is the explorer.exe.
- Shockwave
- Shockwave is a set of programs/plugins that allow Macromedia
Director animation files to be played over the Internet with a web
browser. Possible uses for this type of animation on the Web include
online advertising, games, training, and animated logos.
- Signature
- Several lines automatically appended to your email messages, usually
listing your name and email address, sometimes along with witty
sayings and ASCII graphics. Netiquette demands that you keep them short
(4 lines or less), and leave out the ASCII graphics.
- .sit
- The filename extension used by files compressed with StuffIt, a popular
Macintosh archival and compression program.
- SLIP
- Serial Line Internet Protocol. Like PPP, a protocol that lets your
computer pretend it is a full Internet machine using only a modem and
a normal phone line. SLIP is older and less flexible than PPP. It is
part of the TCP/IP suite of programs necessary to connect to and use
the Internet.
If you have a dial-up account to an Internet service provider, you are
using either PPP or SLIP to make your connection to the Internet.
Although SLIP is easy to install and use, it does not provide the error
correction or negotiation features that PPP has. For this reason, PPP is
rapidly replacing SLIP as the more common standard. Internet America
provides PPP rather than SLIP.
- Smileys
- Another word for emoticons. They are collections of characters
meant to totally replace body language, intonation, and complete
physical presence. You may have to tilt your head to the side to see
that :) is a smile or 8) is a smile from someone wearing glasses.
- SMTP
- Simple Mail Transport Protocol. The language used by mail transfer agents
on the Internet to transfer mail. Eudora uses SMTP to send mail.
- Snail mail
- The standard name on the Internet for paper mail because email can travel
across the country in seconds, where as letter sent via the post office
could take days.
- SPAM
- Originally just a canned sandwich filler product, now this term is also
used to refer to the practice of blindly posting commercial messages or
advertisements to a large number of unrelated and uninterested
newsgroups. DON'T DO IT!!! Spamming is a violation of the Internet
America acceptable use policy, and your account could be cancelled or
suspended.
As an IA customer, if you receive spam (unsolicited email for example)
forward the message to the Policy
Enforcement Department and they will report it to the correct
individuals.
- Spamming
- The act of sending hundreds of inappropriate postings to Usenet
newsgroups and mailing lists. Do it and you'll seriously regret it.
Some people new to the internet do not recognize spam. Be aware that
chain letter promsing thousands of dollars just by sending a dollar to
the names on a list are illegal - no matter what the text says. Letting
a "few" people know your URL (in this case, a few being the thousands of
people exposed to multiple messages across usenet) is spamming.
Spamming is a violation of the Internet America terms of service, and
can result in your account being cancelled or suspended. Don't do it!
- StuffIt
- A family of programs originally developed by Raymond Lau and now
published by Aladdin Systems. Also the compression format used by those
programs. Typically used only in the Macintosh world, the extension is
.sit.
- System Administrator
- The person who runs your host machine or network. Also known as the
network administrator or just plain administrator. Be very nice to
this person.
- 10Base2
- A physical layer communications specification for 10 Mbps, baseband data
transmission over a coaxial cable (Thinnet) with a maximum cable segment
length of 200 meters.
- 10Base5
- A physical layer communications specification for 10 Mbps, baseband data
transmission over a coaxial cable (Thicknet) with a maximum cable segment
length of 500 meters.
- 10BaseF
- A physical layer communications specification for 10 Mbps, baseband data
transmission over a fiber-optic cable.
- 10BaseT
- A physical layer communications specification for 10 Mbps, basebanddata
transmission over a twisted-pair copper wire.
- T-1
- A high-speed leased line network link used on the Internet A high-speed
digital connection capable of transmitting data at a rate of
approximately 1.5 million bits per second. A T1 line is typically used
by small and medium-sized companies with heavy network traffic. It is
large enough to send and receive very large text files, graphics, sounds,
and databases instantaneously, and is the fastest speed commonly used to
connect networks to the Internet. Sometimes referred to as a leased line,
a T1 is usually too large and too expensive for individual home use
(1.54 megabits/second).
- T-3
- An even higher speed leased line network link used on the Internet A
super high-speed connection capable of transmitting data at a rate of 45
million bits per second. This represents a bandwidth equal to about 672
regular voice-grade telephone lines, which is wide enough to transmit
full-motion real-time video, and very large databases over a busy
network. A T3 line is typically installed as a major networking artery
for large corporations and universities with high volume network traffic.
For example, the backbones of the major Internet service providers are
comprised of T3 lines (45 megabits/second).
- Tags
- The set of descriptive formatting codes used in HTML documents that
instruct a web browser how to display text and graphics on a web page.
For example, to make text bold, the tag <B> is used at the
beginning and end of the text.
- .tar
- The filename extension used by files made into an archive by the Unix
tar program.
- TCP
- Transmission Control Protocol. It works with IP to ensure that packets
travel safely on the Internet.
- TCP/IP
- The combination of Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol,
which are base protocols on which the Internet is founded. This is the
language governing communications between all computers on the Internet.
TCP/IP is a set of instructions that dictates how packets of information
are sent across multiple networks. Also included is a built-in
error-checking capability to ensure that data packets arrive at their
final destination in the proper order.
IP, or Internet Protocol, is the specification that determines where
packets are routed to, based on their destination address. TCP, or
Transmission Control Protocol, makes sure that the packets arrive
correctly at their destination address. If TCP determines that a packet
was not received, it will try to resend the packet until it is received
properly.
You must be running TCP/IP to have full Internet access. In Unix, TCP/IP
is a part of the operating system. In the DOS and Windows world, the
functionality of TCP/IP is handled by Winsock. This piece of software
takes care of your TCP/IP configuration information.
- Telnet
- Both a terminal emulation protocol that lets you log in to other
machines, and programs that implement this protocol on various
platforms. Once you are logged into the remote system, you can download
files, engage in conferencing, and perform the same commands as if you
were directly connected by computer.
- Terabyte
- 1000 gigabytes.
- Terminal
- A piece of hardware like a VT100 that lets you interact with a
character-based operating system such as Unix.
- Terminal emulator
- Software that allows one computer to act like a dedicated terminal, such
as a VT100, to another computer.
- 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.
- Text
- In terms of files, a file that contains characters only from the ASCII
character set. In terms of FTP, a mode that assumes the files you will
be transferring contain only ASCII characters. You set this mode in FTP
with the ASCII command. (This is the default. If you want to transfer
binary files, you must signal this with the command "bin").
- Thread
- A group of messages in a Usenet newsgroup that all share the same
subject and topic. Most newsreaders will let you sort by thread,
that is, group all the messages together so you can read or ignore all
the messages about that topic depending on your interest.
- Timeout
- After a certain amount of idle time, some connections will disconnect.
For example, at Internet America, if your modem connection is idle (that
is, not passing any data in either direction), you will be disconnected
from our modem. Timeouts can also apply to your client-server
connections. FTP or email retrieval can timeout, and so forth.
- Traceroute
- A program available on many systems which traces the path a packet
takes to a destination. It is mostly used to debug routing problems
between hosts.
- Twisted pair
- A type of cable in which pairs of conductors are twisted together to
produce certain electrical properties.
- .txt
- The filename extension generally used for straight text files that you
can read (as opposed to text files that have been encoded by BinHex or
UUencode).
- UART
- Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter. The chip used in the serial
port of most computers and communications equipment. In older PCs it is
most common to have an 8250 UART, which typically has a maximum
throughput of 19,200 bps. The 16550 UART is far more suitable for faster
communications. Internal modems have thier own UART, and are likely to be
16550. However, external modems on older computers can have problems
because external modems use the computers own UART.
- Unix
- An extremely popular and powerful, if completely cryptic, operating
system in wide use on computers on the Internet. Many web sites are
maintained on UNIX systems. While technically the name UNIX refers to
only a few trademark-licensed versions, it is often used to refer to the
many versions currently available on the market. The differences to the
user are slight.
UNIX was commercially released in the early 1970s. By the late '70s, the
University of California, Berkeley had developed its own version, called
BSD (for Berkeley Software Distribution), which it offered for free to
other colleges and universities.
UNIX now runs on every hardware platform from PC and Macintosh to high
performance graphical workstations to multimillion dollar supercomputers.
The big difference between versions and platforms is that the more
expensive platforms run faster or support more simultaneous users. Other
operating systems work fine on the Internet, but Unix is probably the
most common.
- Upload
- To send a file to another machine. Often confused with download,
uploading a file means loading it from your computer onto a remote one.
Most people do a lot more downloading than uploading.
- Upstream
- Machines that send you most of your Usenet news are said to be upstream
from you. Machines that get most of their news from you are downstream.
- Urban legend
- A story, which may have started with a grain of truth, that has been
embroidered and retold until it has passed into the realm of myth. Some
legends that periodically make their rounds include "The Infamous Modem
Tax," "Craig Shergold/Brain Tumor/Get Well Cards," and "The $250 Cookie
Recipe."
- URL
- Uniform Resource Locator. Pronounced You-Are-Ell. An efficient mechanism
for identifying specific resources on the Internet. A URL is the address
for a resource or site (usually a directory or file) on the World Wide
Web and the convention that web browsers use for locating files and other
remote services.
Here are some examples of URL's:
http://www.yahoo.com
ftp://ftp.airmail.net/pub
news:://rec.humor.funny
The first part of a URL tells you the type of resource (or method of
access) at that address.
- http - a hypertext document or directory
- gopher - a gopher document or menu
- ftp - a file available for downloading or a directory of such
files
- news - a newsgroup
- telnet - a computer system that you can log into from across the
Internet
- WAIS - a database or document on a WAIS (Wide Area Information
Search) database
- file - a file located on a local drive (like your hard drive)
The second part of a URL is typically the address of the computer where
the data or service is located. Additional parts may specify the names
of files, the port to connect to, or the text to search for in a
database.
Most of the URLs you'll be using start with "http" which stands for
"hypertext transport protocol." HTTP is the method by which HTML files
are transferred over the Web. Here are a couple of other important
things to remember about URLs:
- A URL has no spaces.
- A URL always uses forward slashes.
- If you enter a URL incorrectly, your browser will not be able to
locate the site or resource you want.
- You can find the URL behind any link by passing your mouse pointer
over the link. The pointer will turn into a hand and the URL will
appear in the browser's status bar.
- Usenet
- Usenet refers to the collection of newsgroups (sometimes called the Big
Eight hierarchies) and a set of agreed upon rules for distributing and
maintaining them.
Usenet newsgroups are arranged hierarchically first by the name of the
group, followed by the name of the subgroups. Each name in the hierarchy
is separated by a period. For example, a discussion group about animation
is rec.art.animation. It is in the rec. (recreation) group, in the art.
subgroup, and is defined more specifically as animation.
The Usenet Big Eight hierarchies are as follows:
- comp - computer science and related topics
- news - information about the newsgroups
- rec - hobbies and recreational activities
- sci - scientific research and applications
- soc - social issues, including politics
- talk - debate on controversial topics
- misc - anything that doesn't fit in the above categories
Not all newsgroups are part of Usenet. For example, the newsgroups with
a prefix of alt. are not part of the core Usenet newsgroups, although
they may look just like Usenet newsgroups to the average user. Another
example of a non-Usenet newsgroup is the Clarinet news feed, which is
a commercial information service that also looks like any other
newsgroup to the end-user.
System administrators decide which newsgroups will be carried on their
systems. Making newsgroups available to their users means dedicating
hard-drive space for storage, so decisions have to be made about the
allocation of those resources. Many administrators will not carry the
"alt." groups. Some even refuse to carry any group with the word "sex"
in the name. You have to check with your provider to find out what
newsgroups they carry.
Internet America carries close to 25,000 groups. There is no "censorship"
based on group title, nor do we exclude a group because it takes up a lot
of hard drive space. The more popular groups will expire faster,
however.
- Usenet news
- The news that flows through Usenet. Sometimes abbreviated Usenet or news.
- User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
- An Internet Standard transport layer protocol defined in RFC 768. It is
a connectionless protocol which adds a level of reliability and
multiplexing to IP. It is just one of the types of packets used in
TCP/IP.
- Userid
- The name you use to log in to another computer. Synonymous with
username. In most cases, this information should be entered in
*exactly* as given to you. UNIX is case-sensitive.
- Username
- See userid.
- UUcode
- A file format used for transferring binary files in email, which can
only reliably carry ASCII files. See also uuencode and uudecode.
- UUCP
- Unix to Unix CoPy. UUCP is a small pun on the fact that the Unix copy
command is cp. UUCP is a transmission protocol that carries email and
news.
- uudecode
- A Unix program for decoding files in the uuencode format, turning them
from ASCII back into binary files.
- uuencode
- A Unix program that turns binary files into ASCII files for transmission
via email.
- v.34
- A standard modem protocol. Although not required, almost all v.34 modems
support all sorts of other protocols, including v.32, v.32bis, v.42 error
correction, and v.42bis data compression. Don't worry about the
specifics; just try to match protocols with the modems you call.
- v.90
- A standard modem protocol that emerged from a combination of the x2 and
K56flex protocols. This protocol allows modems to download at speeds up
to 56kbps over regular phone lines, although the FCC currently limits
the speed to 53kbps.
- v.92
- The next revision of the v.90 protocol. It added three key features to
the v.90 standard: quick connect (for quicker handshake negotiations),
modem-on-hold (like call waiting, but for your modem), and PCM Upstream
(which increases the maximum upload rate from 33.6kbps to 48kbps).
- Virus
- A program which replicates itself on computer systems by incorporating
itself into other programs which are shared among computer systems.
- VT100
- Originally, a dedicated terminal built by Digital Equipment Corporation
to interface to mainframes. The VT100 became a standard for terminals,
and as a result almost all terminal emulation programs can emulate the
VT100.
- WAIS
- Wide Area Information Servers. A set of full-text databases containing
information on hundreds of topics. You can search WAIS using
natural-language queries and use relevance feedback to refine your
search.
- WAN
- An acronym for Wide Area Network. Wide area network: A group of
geographically separated computers connected via dedicated lines or
satellite links. The Internet enables small organizations to simulate
a wide area network without the cost of one.
- Webmaster or Webmistress
- A person in charge of maintaining a web site. This can include writing
HTML files, setting up more complex programs, and responding to e-mail.
Many sites encourage you to mail comments and questions about the
site's web pages to the webmaster.
- Web Page
- A web page is a document created with HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
that is part of a group of hypertext documents or resources available
on the World Wide Web. Collectively, these documents and resources
form what is known as a website.
You can read HTML documents that reside somewhere on the Internet or on
your local hard drive with a piece of software called a web browser.
Web browsers read HTML documents and display them as formatted
presentations, with any associated graphics, sound, and video, on a
computer screen.
Web pages can contain hypertext links to other places within the same
document, to other documents at the same web site, or to documents at
other web sites. They also can contain fill-in forms, photos, large
clickable images (image maps), sounds, and videos for downloading.
- Wildcards
- Special characters such as * and ? that can stand in for other
characters during text searches in some programs. The * wildcard
generally means "match any number of characters in this spot," whereas
the ? wildcard generally means "match any single character in this spot."
- Winsock
- Windows Sockets (Winsock) is a TCP/IP extension to the Windows
Applications Interface (API). It essentially allows Windows
applications to run independently of the hardware underneath. It is just
like the device independence you gain with a Windows graphics program --
it can run independently of your video board.
- WinZip
- A compression program for Windows that allows you to "zip" and "unzip"
ZIP files as well as other standard types of archive files. Used to
expand files which have been compressed to make them smaller. See
.zip.
- World Wide Web
- The newest and most ambitious of the special Internet services. World
Wide Web browsers can display styled text and graphics. The exact
definition for the World Wide Web (popularly known as the Web) varies,
depending on whom you ask. Three common descriptions are as follows:
- A collection of resources (Gopher, FTP, http, telnet, Usenet, WAIS
and others) which can be accessed via a web browser.
- A collection of hypertext files available on web servers.
- A set of specifications (protocols) that allows the transmission of
web pages over the Internet.
You can think of the Web as a worldwide collection of text and
multimedia files and other network services interconnected via a system
of hypertext documents. HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) was created
in 1990, at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva,
Switzerland, as a means for sharing scientific data internationally,
instantly, and inexpensively. With hypertext a word or phrase can
contain a link to other text. To achieve this they developed a
programming language called HTML that allows you to easily link you
to other pages or network services on the Web.
If you encounter a page with a word that is highlighted in some way
(usually in a different color and underlined), you can click on that
word and "go to" the page or resource to which connects. Of course, you
are not actually "going" anywhere when you do this, but rather, you are
summoning the file or resource that the link points to. This non-linear,
non-hierarchical method of accessing information was a breakthrough in
information sharing and quickly became the major source of traffic on
the Internet.
- Worm
- A program that infiltrates a computer system and copies itself many
times, filling up memory and disk space and crashing the computer. The
most famous worm of all time was released accidentally by Robert Morris
over the Internet and brought down whole sections of the net.
- WWW
- See World Wide Web.
- Yahoo!
- A very popular search engine and online community. With
Yahoo!, you can doing almost
anything, from searching the internet to sending email to participiating
in online auctions.
- .zip
- The filename extension used by files compressed into the ZIP format
common on PCs. Zipped files are common on the Internet because they
are smaller and require less space to house. They must be unzipped
to use. WinZip or PKunzip are
common programs used to uncompress .zip files.
Please email our technical support team if you have any questions.
By Telephone: 1-800-232-4335 Toll-free
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