The language of cyberspace changes constantly and at an alarming pace. New words are forever popping out of the screen at us and you may wonder how on earth you can be expected to keep up with the play. Or, if you're new to the internet and the IT world in general, how will you ever understand what all those “technospeaks” are actually saying!

This Web Glossary is not by any stretch of the imagination meant to be a technical and definitive work but rather a quick and easy reference guide to the more commonly used terms. So next time you're confronted by a rabid jargon-speaking geek, simply log onto your Web Glossary and dazzle him (or her) with your knowledge.

Anti-Virus Program
Software that monitors a computer for viruses and eliminates them before damage occurs.

Applets
Small software applications that download with a Web document, enhancing its presentation on your screen and eliminating the need for specialized viewing software to be permanently installed on your computer.

Application Server
Server software that manages one or more other pieces of software in a way that makes the managed software available over a network, usually to a Web server. By having a piece of software manage other software packages it is possible to use resources like memory and database access more efficiently than if each of the managed packages responded directly to requests.

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.


Bit (Binary Digit)
A single digit number in base-2, in other words, either a 1 or a zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second.

Blog (Web LOG)
A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

Bookmarking
A way of storing pointers to favourite Web sites in your browser
Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominently.

BPS (Bits per second)
The speed at which information is transmitted via a modem.

Browsers
Browsers are software programs that enable you to view WWW documents. They "translate" HTML-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. Microsoft Internet Explorer (called simply IE), Netscape, Mosaic, Macweb, and Netcruiser are examples of browsers that enable you to view text and images and many other www features. Internet Explorer and Netscape account for 98% of browsers on the web.

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.

Cache
In browsers, "cache" is used to identify a space where web pages you have visited are stored in your computer. A copy of documents you retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, the browser first checks to see if it is in cache and will retrieve it from there because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server.

Case Sensitive
Capital letters (upper case) retrieve only upper case. Most search tools are not case sensitive or only respond to initial capitals, as in proper names. It is always safe to key all lower case (no capitals), because lower case will always retrieve upper case.

Chat
Live communication over the Internet Relay Chat service or an online service. As one person enters text it appears on the other person's screen in "real time", or almost instantly.

Compression
A method of "shrinking" a file to be downloaded in order to reduce transmission time. Most downloadable files on the Internet are compressed and require a special utility in order to be restored to their original size after downloading.

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.

CPU (Central Processing Unit)
The computing part of the computer. Also called the "processor”. Today, the CPUs of almost all computers are contained on a single chip. The CPU, clock and main memory make up a computer. A complete computer system requires the addition of control units, input, output and storage devices and an operating system.

Cyberspace
Cyberspace is currently used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks.

Data Encryption
A process that transforms information into random streams of bits to create a secret code for data security.

Dial-up
To connect your computer to another computer by calling it up via a modem.

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. A given machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine.

Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names. It is also possible for a Domain Name to exist but not be connected to an actual machine. This is often done so that a group or business can have an Internet e-mail address without having to establish a real Internet site. In these cases, some real Internet machine must handle the mail on behalf of the listed Domain Name.

Download
Transferring data (usually a file) from another computer to the computer you are using. The opposite of upload.

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)
A method for moving data over regular phone lines. A DSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone connection, and the wires coming into the subscriber's premises are the same (copper) wires used for regular phone service. A DSL circuit must be configured to connect two specific locations, similar to a leased line (however a DSL circuit is not a leased line.

A common configuration of DSL allows downloads at speeds of up to 1.544 megabits (not megabytes) per second, and uploads at speeds of 128 kilobits per second. This arrangement is called ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line.

Another common configuration is symmetrical: 384 Kilobits per second in both directions.
In theory ADSL allows download speeds of up to 9 megabits per second and upload speeds of up to 640 kilobits per second.

Email (Electronic Mail)
Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses.

Extranet
An intranet that is accessible to computers that are not physically part of a company's own private network, but that is not accessible to the general public, for example to allow vendors and business partners to access a company web site.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
FAQs are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject. There are hundreds of FAQs on subjects as diverse as Pet Grooming and Cryptography. FAQs are usually written by people who have tired of answering the same question over and over.

Favourites
In the Internet Explorer browser, a means to get back to a URL you like, similar to Netscape's Bookmarks.

Fire Wall
A combination of hardware and software that separates a Network into two or more parts for security purposes.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name "anonymous", thus these sites are called "anonymous ftp servers".

Gateway
The technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for example America Online has a gateway that translates between its internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail format. Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g. AOL might be called a gateway to the Internet.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)
A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same colour. 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.

Gigabyte
1000 Megabytes.

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
Several meanings. Originally, the web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new Home Page."

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. A standardised language of computer code, imbedded in "source" documents behind all Web documents, containing the textual content, images, links to other documents (and possibly other applications such as sound or motion), and formatting instructions for display on the screen. When you view a Web page, you are looking at the product of this code working behind the scenes in conjunction with your browser. Browsers are programmed to interpret HTML for display.

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
The protocol for moving hypertextfiles across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

Hypertext (or hyperlinks)
Generally, any text that contains links to other documents - words or phrases in the document that can be chosen by a reader and which cause another document to be retrieved and displayed.

Icon
A small abstract graphic representation of an object or idea. Clicking on it takes you to the screen or task represented by the icon. E.g. Home, email, print etc.

Image Map
A graphic image that's used on a Web site as a navigational tool. It's made up of two elements: The graphic that you see on the page through your browser, and a text file that contains the link information.

Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. Compare with extranet.

IP Number (Internet Protocol Number)
Sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2. 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. Many machines (especially servers) also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.

ISP (Internet Service Provider)
An institution that provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money e.g. xtra, clearnet etc.

IT (Information Technology)
A very general term referring to the entire field of Information Technology - anything from computer hardware to programming to network management. Most medium and large size companies have IT Departments.

Java
Java is a network-friendly programming language invented by Sun Microsystems.
Java is often used to build large, complex systems that involve several different computers interacting across networks, for example transaction processing systems. Java is also becoming popular for creating programs that run in small electronic devices, such as mobile telephones.

A very common use of Java is to create programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks.

JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages, usually to add features that make the web page more interactive. When JavaScript is included in an HTML file it relies upon the browser to interpret the JavaScript.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
JPEG is most commonly mentioned as a format for image files. JPEG format is preferred to the GIF format for photographic images as opposed to line art or simple logo art.

Kilobyte
A thousand bytes.

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

LINK
The URL imbedded in another document, so that if you click on the highlighted text or button referring to the link, you retrieve the outside URL. If you search the field "link", you retrieve on text in these imbedded URLs which you do not see in the documents.

Mailing List
Discussion groups over the Internet that link a group of people together with common interests. If you belong to a mailing list, you receive every message posted to that list via email.
Megabyte
A million bytes.

Meta Tag
A specific kind of HTML tag that contains information not normally displayed to the user. Meta tags contain information about the page itself, hence the name ("meta" means "about this subject"). Typical uses of Meta tags are to include information for search engines to help them better categorize a page. You can see the Meta tags in a page if you view the page's source code.

Modem (Modulator, Demodulator)
A device that connects a computer to a phone line, or in other words a telephone for a computer. A modem allows a computer to talk to other computers through the phone system. Basically, modems do for computers what a telephone does for humans.

Netscape
A WWW Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape (tm) browser was originally based on the Mosaic program developed at the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in America.

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.

Online
You are "online" now - your computer is connected to a host computer, providing access to the Internet.

Open Source Software
Open Source Software is software for which the underlying programming code is available to the users so that they may read it, make changes to it, and build new versions of the software incorporating their changes. There are many types of Open Source Software, mainly differing in the licensing terms under which (altered) copies of the source code may (or must be) redistributed.

Packet
A block of data that can be transmitted from one computer to another on a network like the Internet. A packet contains data to be transmitted, data to guide the packet, and data that corrects errors along the way.

Password
A code used to gain access (login) to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations.

PDF (Portable Document Format)
A file format designed to enable printing and viewing of documents with all their formatting (typefaces, images, layout, etc.) appearing the same regardless of what operating system is used, so a PDF document should look the same on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, OS/2, etc. It should arrive on your computer looking exactly the same as it did when it left the sender's computer. The PDF format is based on the widely used Postscript document-description language. Both PDF and Postscript were developed by the Adobe Corporation.

Phishing
Phishing is a scam that uses spam to deceive consumers into disclosing their personal information. Phishing is considered a two-step scam. First it steals a company's identity and then uses it to victimize consumers by stealing their credit identities.

Plug-in
A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape® browser and web server. Adobe Photoshop® also uses plug-ins.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
PNG is a graphics format specifically designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG enables compression of images without any loss of quality, including high-resolution images. Another important feature of PNG is that anyone may create software that works with PNG images without paying any fees - the PNG standard is free of any licensing costs.

POP (Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol)
Two commonly used meanings:

Point of Presence
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 Eketehuna, it means that they will soon have a local phone number in Eketehuna and/or a place where leased lines can connect to their network.
A second meaning,

Post Office Protocol
Post Office Protocol refers to a way that e-mail client software gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Xtra 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.

Port
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.

Portal
A fancy name for the "start-up" page of a Web browser. This is the entry point of the Web.

Posting
A single message entered into a network communications system.

PPP (Point to Point Protocol)
The most common protocol used to connect home computers to the Internet over regular phone lines. Most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IP connections and thus be really and truly on the Internet.

RAM (Random Access Memory)
A group of memory chips, typically of the dynamic RAM (DRAM) type, which function as the computer's primary workspace. When personal computers first came on the market in the late 1970s, 64KB (64 kilobytes) of RAM was the upper limit. Today, 64MB (64 megabytes) of SDRAM is entry level for a desktop computer, a thousand times as much.

RealAudio
A helper application that allows you to download sound files over Web pages in real-time. The player can be downloaded as freeware.

ROM (Read Only Memory)
A memory chip that permanently stores instructions and data.

Router
A specialized machine that runs various protocols to direct network packets from one segment to another.

Search Engine
A (usually web-based) system for searching the information available on the Web (e.g. Google). Some search engines work by automatically searching the contents of other systems and creating a database of the results. Other search engines contain only material manually approved for inclusion in a database, and some combine the two approaches.

Security Certificate
A chunk of information (often stored as a text file) that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection and thus enable users to safely provide credit card details etc. over the net. Usually denoted by a picture of a padlock on the particular web page being viewed.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The practice of designing web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search results from search engines. There is "good" SEO and "bad" SEO. Good SEO involves making the web page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to the page.

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 (and often does) have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network. Sometimes server software is designed so that additional capabilities can be added to the main program by adding small programs known as servlets.

Shareware
Software distributed via the honour system. You download shareware from the Internet, try it out, and if you keep it, are expected to pay a shareware fee after a certain trial period. The trial period is usually 30 days, and the fee is normally lower than the cost of commercial software. Most unregistered shareware is only available in a less-powerful version, with the full version available upon registration.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
The main protocol used to send electronic mail from server to server on the Internet.

Spam (or Spamming)
An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number of people who didn't ask for it. The term probably comes from a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam repeated over and over. The term may also have come from someone's low opinion of the food product with the same name, which is generally perceived as a generic content-free waste of resources. (Spam® is a registered trademark of Hormel Corporation, for its processed meat product.)

SPIDERS
Computer robot programs, referred to sometimes as "crawlers" or "knowledge-bots" or "knowbots" that are used by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet, visit sites and databases, and keep the search engine database of web pages up to date. They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones. Their findings are then integrated into the "home" database. Most large search engines operate several robots all the time. Even so, the Web is so enormous that it can take six months for spiders to cover it, resulting in a certain degree of "out-of-datedness" (link rot) in all the search engines.

Spyware
A somewhat vague term generally referring to software that is secretly installed on a users computer and that monitors use of the computer in some way without the users' knowledge or consent. Most spyware tries to get the user to view advertising and/or particular web pages. Some spyware also sends information about the user to another machine over the Internet. Spyware is usually installed without a user's knowledge as part of the installation of other software, especially software such as music sharing software obtained via download.

SQL (Structured Query Language)
A specialised language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications have been built using SQL. Each specific application will have its own slightly different version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable databases support a common subset of SQL.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.

Terabyte
1000 gigabytes.

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.

Trojan Horse
A computer program that is either hidden inside another program or that masquerades as something it is not in order to trick potential users into running it. For example a program that appears to be a game or image file but in reality performs some other function. A Trojan Horse computer program may spread itself by sending copies of itself from the host computer to other computers, but unlike a virus it will (usually) not infect other programs.

Upload
Transferring data (usually a file) from the computer you are using to another computer. The opposite of download.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
An address for s resource available on the Internet.

Virus
A chunk of computer programming code that makes copies of itself without any conscious human intervention. Some viruses do more than simply replicate themselves, they might display messages, install other software or files, delete software of files, etc.

A virus requires the presence of some other program to replicate itself. Typically viruses spread by attaching themselves to programs and in some cases files, for example the file formats for Microsoft word processor and spreadsheet programs allow the inclusion of programs called "macros" which can in some cases be a breeding ground for viruses. They are most commonly distributed via emails but can often be found in websites to which many users make contributions.

WAN (Wide Area Network)
Any internet or network that covers an area larger than a single building or campus.

Web
Short for "World Wide Web."

Web page
A document designed for viewing in a web browser. Typically written in HTML. A web site is made of one or more web pages.

Website
The entire collection of web pages and other information (such as images, sound, and video files, etc.) that are made available through what appears to users as a single web server. Typically all of the pages in a web site share the same basic URL, for example the following URLs are all for pages within the same web site:
http://www.bi-lingsolutions.com/website_design_services.asp
http://www.bi-lingsolutions.com/website-planning-guide.asp
http://www.bi-lingsolutions.com/websites-in-spanish.asp
http://www.bi-lingsolutions.com/portfolio.asp



Worm
A worm is a virus that does not infect other programs. It makes copies of itself, and infects additional computers (typically by making use of network connections) but does not attach itself to additional programs; however a worm might alter, install, or destroy files and programs.

WWW (World Wide Web)
World Wide Web (or simply Web for short) is a term frequently used when referring to "The Internet".