56K Line A digital phone-line connection (leased line) capable of carrying 56,000 bits-per-second. At this speed, a Megabyte will take about 3 minutes to transfer. This is 4 times as fast as a 14,400bps
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) -- this is the de facto 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 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 15,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression.
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- so a 2400 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 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 look at various kinds of Internet resources (i.e. Netscape).
Byte A set of Bits that represent a single character.
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. Each Client program is designed to work with one or more specific kinds of Server programs, and each Server requires a specific kind of Client.
Cyberspace Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel "Neuromancer", the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks.
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 at the right-hand portion of their Domain Names, e.g.
gateway.uiowa.edu
mail.uiowa.edu
www.uiowa.edu
E-mail (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 (Mailing List)
Ethernet A very common method of networking computers in a LAN. Ethernet will handle about 10,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with almost any kind of computer.
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.
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. 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".
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) -- The coding language used create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear, additionally, in 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 Netscape or Mosaic.
HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol) -- The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet.
Hypertext 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.
Internet (upper case I) 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. The Internet now (July 1995) connects roughly 60,000 independent networks into a vast global internet.
internet (lower case i) Any time you connect 2 or more networks together, you have an internet - as in inter-national or inter-state.
IP 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. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names
Login Noun or a verb. Noun: The account name used to gain access to a computer system. Not a secret (contrast with Password) Verb: The act of entering into a computer system.
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. Basically, modems do for computers what a telephone does for humans.
Network Any time you connected 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.
Newsgroups The name for discussion groups on Usenet .
Password A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations of common words or phrases.
PPP (Point to Point Protocol) -- most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make a TCP/IP connection and thus be really and truly on the Internet . PPP is gradually replacing SLIP for this purpose.
Server (see Client) 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 could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different services to clients on the network .
SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) -- a standard for using a regular telephone line (a "serial line") and a modem to connect a computer as a real Internet site. SLIP is gradually being replaced by PPP.
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 is the fastest speed commonly used to connect networks to the Internet .
T-3 A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 45,000,000 bits-per-second. This is more than enough to do full-screen, full-motion video.
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the suite of protocols that defines The Internet . Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet , your computer must have TCP/IP software.
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.matisse.net/seminars.html
or telnet://well.sf.ca.us
or news:new.newusers.questions
etc.
The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program, such as Netscape, or Lynx.
Usenet A world-wide system of discussion groups, with comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines. Not all Usenet machines are on the Internet , maybe half. Usenet is completely decentralized, with over 10,000 discussion areas, called newsgroups .
WWW (World Wide Web) The universe of hypertext servers (HTTP servers ) which are the servers that allow text, graphics, sound files etc to be mixed together.