internet glossary

Access Number
The number your dialer uses to connect to the Internet.

Address
The unique code assigned to the location of a file in storage on the Internet.

ARPANet
Advanced Research Projects Administration Network) -- The precursor to the Internet. Developed in the late 60's and early 70's by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area networking that would survive a nuclear war.

ASCII
(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) -- The 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

Backbone
A high-speed line or series of connections that form a major pathway within a 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.

Baud
In common usage the "baud rate" of a modem is how many bits it can send or receive per second. Technically "baud" is the number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value.

Bit
(Binary DigIT) -- A single digit number, either a 1 or a zero. This is smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second.

Bps
(Bits-Per-Second). A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another. A "28.8 modem" can move 28,800 bits per second.

Browser
A client program (software) that is used to view various kinds of information on the Internet and World Wide Web.

Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there are 8 bits in a Byte. Computer storage is often measured in bytes.

Client
A software program that is located on the user's computer. The client software interacts with Server software programs on other computers to share information.

Cyberspace
Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel "Neuromancer", the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe computer-aided communication.

Disk Space
The amount of space on a disk used to store programs and information.

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.(fairpoint.net is a domain name.)

Download
The transfer of programs or data from one computer to another - usually from a server to a personal computer.

Drag and Drop
A graphic interface that allows an object on the screen to be physically moved by the user.

E-mail
(Electronic Internet Mail) -- Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via the Internet.

FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) -- FAQ's are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject.

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 purposes of retrieving and/or sending files.

Finger
An Internet software tool for locating people on other Internet sites. Finger is also sometimes used to give access to non-personal information, but the most common use is to see if a person has an account at a particular Internet site.

Gateway
This is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols and allows them to communicate.

Gopher
A method of making menus of material available over the Internet. Gopher is a text based Client and Server style program.

Host
Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network.

HTML
(HyperText Markup Language) -- The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. With HTML you can specify that a block of text, or a word, is "linked" to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a World Wide Web Client program, such as Internet Explorer.

HTTP
(HyperText Transport Protocol)
The method by which documents are transferred from the host computer or server to browsers. Hypertext Generally, any text that contains "links" to other documents on the Web.

IP Address
The Internet protocol (IP) address is the address assigned to a server or host. This is a unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 206.97.115.1. Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP address.

ISDN
(Integrated Services Digital Network) -- A way to move more data at faster rates over existing regular phone lines.

Internet
The vast collection of inter-connected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early '70s.

Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Actually, usually, 1024 (2^10) bytes.

LAN
(Local Area Network) -- A computer network limited to the immediate area, usually the same building or floor of the building.

Internet Mail List
(Usually automated) system that allows people to send e-mail to one address, whereupon their message is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the mail list.

Memory (RAM)
The computer's temporary memory. This is erased when the user turns off the computer.

Modem
(MOdulator, DEModulator) -- a device that you connect to your computer and to a phone line, that allows the computer to talk to other computers through the phone system.

Network
Two or more computers that are linked together so that they can share resources.

Newsgroups
The name for discussion groups located on Usenet.

Node
Any single computer connected to a network.

Password
A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non letters and are in difficult combinations.

POP
Point of Presence--A 'POP' is an Internet service provider's dial-up connection. Port 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. Second, 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.

PPP
(Point to Point Protocol) Dial-up Internet connection speaking in TCP/IP protocol.

Server (see Client)
A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers.

SLIP
(Serial Line Internet Protocol) -- Dial-up Internet connection speaking in TCP/IP protocol.

TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the standard network communications protocol used to connect computers across the Internet.

Telnet
The command and program used to login from one Internet site to another.

URL
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.fairpoint.com

Usenet
A worldwide system of discussion groups, with comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines. Usenet is composed of discussion groups, called newsgroups.

WWW World Wide Web
An Internet system for worldwide hypertext linking of multimedia documents, making the relationship of information easily accessible and independent of physical location.