Advertising Banners: An advertisement on a Web page that links to an advertiser’s Web site.

ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange—this is the worldwide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the uppercase and lowercase Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. It is the dominant one in Western society. The other main code is EBDIC. Oriental languages use very different code sets.

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

Bandwidth: A measurement of a network’s transmission speed, how much data a network can transfer in a given amount of time.

Baud Rate: The number of transmissions per second. Typically used to specify modem speed. For modems the baud rate and bps are the same.

bps: Bits per second—measurement of the data transmission for a modem or network.
Binhex: Binary Hexadecimal—a method for converting non-text files into ASCII and back. This is needed because many Internet E-mail systems can only handle a limited range of the ASCII code.

Bookmark: The process of saving a URL in your Web browser. Allows you to return to a particular site or entry by making a record of it.

Bot: A program that runs on the computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that performs and automates mundane tasks. In the world of Web searching, bots are also called spiders and crawlers. They explore the World Wide Web by retrieving a document and following all the hyperlinks in it; then they generate catalogs that can be accessed by search engines.

Browser: An application (client) that is used to look at various kinds of Internet resources. It’s what you use when you want to “surf the Web.” The most common are Netscape and Internet Explorer.

CGI: Common Gateway Interface—usually a small program that takes data from a Web server and does something with it, such as putting the content of a form into an E-mail message or turning the data into a database query.

CGI-bin: The most common name of a directory on a Web server in which CGI programs are stored.

Client: A software program that is used to contact and obtain data from a server software program on another computer.

Client-Server: Two computer systems linked by a network or modem connection where the client computer uses server resources by sending requests to the server computer.

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 an additional request from the server. It allows the server to “individualize” a session with a client.

Counters: Small CGI programs that record how many visits a Web page has received. These can be text or image based and can be visible or invisible to the visitor depending on how the CGI script is written.

Dial-up Service: A common method of connecting to the Internet. Your modem dials up to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) through which an Internet connection is established.

DNS: Domain Name System. A distributed client-server database system that links domain names with their numerical IP addresses.

Domain Name: The unique name that identifies an Internet site. A database translates alphabetic computer names into Internet numeric addresses, freeing you, the Internet user, from having to remember long lists of numbers. Even though the Domain Name, for example, may be amazon.com, the computer finds the site by accessing the Domain Name System database to find the numeric address of 209.191.164.20. 

Download: The transfer of a file or files from a remote computer to your computer.

DSL: Digital Subscriber Line—a method for moving data over regular phone lines. A DSL line is much faster than a regular phone connection. It is faster than ISDN and requires special equipment at the phone company’s office.

E-mail: Abbreviation for electronic mail. A letter or memo sent to a person or group electronically over a network.

E-mail Address: Your electronic mailbox name or address, needed for linking the sender of
E-mail and the recipient. An example is Jen@massage.com.

Ethernet: A very common method of networking computers in a LAN (others are token ring, ATM, and AppleTalk).

Frames: Individual “panes” on a Web page, each containing its own information. When information in one “pane” is being accessed, the other frames or “panes” remain static. Frames also make page layout much easier. 

FTP: File Transfer Protocol—an Internet tool/software utility that allows you to transfer files between two computers that are connected to the Internet. It is the protocol used when a file is downloaded using a browser and the URL starts with “ftp://.”

GIF: Graphical Interchange Format is a commonly used graphics file format for image files on the Internet. GIF files don’t use compression, and to reduce size are limited to 256 colors.

Gopher: A widely successful method of making menus of material available over the Internet. It has been largely supplanted by hypertext or www. 

Hit: Usually means a client request of a Web browser for a single item on a Web server. If a page has three graphics on it, four hits would occur—one for the HTML page and one each for the three graphics.

Home Page: 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. Originally, it meant the Web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up.

Host: Any computer on a network (Internet or LAN) that makes data available or provides access to its resources to other computers over a network. When Web pages are uploaded, the computer on which they reside is the host.

HTML: HyperText Markup Language is a formatting language that instructs a Web browser on how to display a document’s components.

HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol is an agreed-upon method for transferring Web pages and other information between a browser and a Web server.

HTTPS: Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure—a type of server software that provides the ability for “secure” transactions to take place on the World Wide Web. Most information is transmitted in clear text so that anyone can read it. HTTPS defines a method for encrypting messages so only the recipient can read it.

Hyperlink: See Link.

internet: Any time two or more networks are connected, you have an internet—as in international or inter-state, although many businesses can have an Internet. Note that “internet” and “Internet” are not the same!

Internet: The vast collection of inter-connected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and are registered with the DNS.

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network—a way to move more data over phone lines (requires a special modem and wiring). It can provide speeds up to 128,000 bps.

ISP: Internet Service Provider—an organization that provides access to the Internet in some form.

Java: Network-oriented programming language designed for writing 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.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group—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.

LAN: Local Area Network—used to connect computers over a short distance such as computers within the same company or office.

Link: The text or image you find on a Web site that can be “clicked on” with a mouse that takes you to another Web site or a different area of the same Web page. Links are created or “coded” in HTML. They are also used to load multimedia files such as AVI movies and AU sound files.

Meta Tags: An optional HTML tag that is used to specify information about a Web document. Some search engines, such as AltaVista, use “spiders” to index Web pages. These spiders read the information contained within a page’s meta tag. There is some ability to control how the site is indexed by search engines and how and when it will “come up” on a user’s search.

Netiquette: The unwritten “rules” of etiquette used on the Internet based on courtesy, fairness, and tolerance.

Network: Any time you connect two or more computers together so that they can share resources, you have a computer network. Connect two or more networks together and you have an internet.

Newsgroup: The name for discussion groups on USENET.

Search Engine: A tool or program that allows keyword searching for relevant sites or information on the Internet. For example: AltaVista, Dogpile, Google, Infoseek, Lycos and Yahoo are search engines.

Server: A computer, or software package, that provides a specific set of services to client software running on other computers. 

Spider: A program that prowls the Internet, attempting to locate new, publicly accessible resources such as www documents, files available in public FTP archives, and Gopher documents. Spiders crawl along the fibers of the “Web” (the communication lines between all the computers connected to the Internet). Also called wanderers or robots (bots), spiders contribute their discoveries to a database, which Internet users can search by using an Internet-accessible search engine. Spiders are necessary because the rate at which people are creating new Internet documents greatly exceeds manual indexing capacity (a.k.a. search directories).

TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. A group of protocols that specify how computers communicate over the Internet. All computers on the Internet need TCP/IP software.

Telnet: An Internet utility program that allows your computer to directly connect and interact with remote computers, often through a text-based “terminal” environment. 
Ticker Tape Display: A series of scrolling messages that can be placed anywhere on the Web page. 

Upload: Transferring one or more files from your computer to a remote computer.

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. A URL looks like this: [http://www.amazon.com/].

UseNET: A group of computers that exchange network news information. A worldwide system of discussion groups, with comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines. There are literally thousands of Newsgroups where people can exchange information and opinions on an extraordinary range of topics. UseNET is the vehicle that allows this to happen.

WAIS: Wide Area Information Servers—a commercial software package that allows the indexing of huge quantities of information, and then making those indices searchable across networks such as the Internet.

Web Browser: A program that is used to visit Web pages. The most well-known are Netscape and Internet Explorer.

Web Page: An HTML document that you access using the HTTP protocol. (Web pages can be accessed from your own computer or a server on a LAN.)

Web Site: An HTML page or collection of pages that are created and placed on a computer that provides an HTTP server (connects to the Internet). Anyone who knows the domain name or IP address can access and view these pages using a browser.

WebMaster: A commonly used (and sometimes misused) term that can refer to many different types of individuals involved with a particular Web site. Most correctly it is the person who administers the content and functionality of a Web site. In other words, s/he is the all-points information person or ambassador for a Web site. This person is usually an individual who either entirely or in part helped to build the Web site s/he maintains (graphics, programming or content updates).

WWW: World Wide Web—frequently incorrectly used as a synonym for “The Internet.” WWW has two major meanings. First, loosely used, is the whole constellation of resources that can be accessed using Gopher, FTP, HTTP, telnet, USENET, WAIS and some other tools (which is the Internet). Second, is the collection of (or Web of linked) hypertext servers (http servers) that allow items such as text, graphics, and sound files to be mixed together (which is an aspect of the Internet).