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RESOURCES
The
Essential Internet Phrase Book
R
RBOCs
(regional Bell operating companies) - Also known as "Baby Bells," the
seven companies formed in the mid-1980's by the divestiture of AT&T (which
originated from Bell Telephone Co. through a long, colorful history of mergers
and splits). Pacific Bell is one of the RBOCs.
Random
Access Memory (RAM) - The computer memory available for creating or running
programs and for temporarily storing and changing data.
Real-time
- A description of a computer process whose speed corresponds with the human perception
of the speed of events in 'real life.'
A program that takes two hours
to render and display a frame of animation is not real-time, as the viewer must
wait for the image to be constructed and displayed. In contrast, a fast-action
video game with motions displayed at 20 or 30 frames per second are perceived
as natural motion and considered to be real-time.
In telephony, real-time
processing involves handling calls as they are received. lf callers are
put on hold or experience delays in automated menu processing systems, the system
is not providing real-time service.
Reflective
- Material on a support that reflects the image directly. Most common photo
prints are reflective in nature.
Resolution
- The sharpness or clarity of an image. Resolution is important to monitor
viewing and printer output. With monitors, the density and overall quality
of the image on the screen is determined by the size and organization of its pixels.
Generally, the higher the number of pixels per inch (ppi), the finer the display.
But the computer must have adequate memory to display all those pixels.
With printers, resolution is measured in dots per inch (dpi) and lines per inch
(lpi). The higher the number, the better the image resolution.
Rich-media
Ads - HTML or JavaScript banner ads that may offer multiple functions, such
as pull-down menus or search fields.
Router
- A central switching office of the Internet, an Intranet or a WAN. They're
highly intelligent devices that select electronic paths for data transmission
packets. They're used by everyone from backbone service providers to local
ISPs, from corporations to universities.
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S
Search
Engine - A software application designed to search and retrieve information
from a database according to user-specified parameters or keywords. It returns
a list of URLs that match some criteria such as "contains the words cotton and
blouse." Some of the main search engine sites are Alta Vista, Excite, Lycos,
infoseek, WebCrawler and Yahoo.
Server
- A shared computer that provides services to other computers connected to
it through a network. It may store and administer software applications,
security measures, access to peripherals or external systems, and so forth.
Servers performing the bulk of centralized or generalized tasks often have more
memory, processing speed and storage than other systems on the network.
Secure
Server - a computer that encodes information to insure the privacy of people
using that computer. Verisign is the most prominent secure server service and
is used most commonly for online catalog ordering to protect credit card information.
Shopping
Cart - a program or series of programs that allow a person to review product
information on web-pages, to collect the items for purchase online.
SIG
(Signature) - a small file that contains identifying information about the
sender of an email message. Roughly equivalent to attaching a business card to
your email.
Site
Traffic - An ambiguous term. Some consider the number of unique visitors
during a given period to be a site's traffic. Others consider it the number
of page views during a given period (usually a month).
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.
Most important of the protocols on which the Internet is based, it allows a packet
of information to travel over multiple networks on the way to its final destination.
SLIP is gradually being replaced by PPP.
Smart
Media - A removable storage media that includes built-in memory modules in
a wafer-thin card just over one inch square. Two different versions of Smart
Media were originally designed for different voltages and are not interchangeable.
Snail
Mail - Mail delivered by the US Postal Service.
Soap
- Simple Object Access Protocol - Soap is the fundamental message-passing protocol
that defines how to send data, typically in XML format, among applications across
a network.
Sound
Files (wav, aiff, auf, mid, midi) - different methods of reducing the amount
of information needed to reproduce sound in a computer.
Spider
- also known as robots, infobots, or agents are automated programs that search
the web for information. For example if you need information on artichoke fertilizer,
a spider like Quarterdeck's Web Compass will search the Internet for all the places
where the information resides and will report it back to you for review and use.
SSL
(Secure Sockets Layer) - A Technology for authentication and data encryption
between a Web server and a Web browser. Developed by Netscape Communications
Corp., SSL negotiates point-to-point security between a client and a server.
Sysop
(system operator) - The overseer of a PC-based electronic bulletin board/mail
service or online computer service, such as CompuServe or America online.
(Lead sysops often are called wizops.)
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T
T-1
(Trunk Level 1) - A digital transmission link with a total signaling
speed of 1,544 megabits per second (1,544,000 bits per second). T1 is standard
for digital transmission in North America. Newer European standard implementations
are faster (ITU-T, for example, runs at 2,048 Mbps), and upper limits tend to
change with more efficient technologies.
T1 is a low-loss transmissions system
when delivered over fiber-optic cable, but it is subject to cross-talk in long
metal-wire installations. Because of its high cost, T1 is used primarily
in large installations, phone trunk lines, government installations, campus backbones,
and midsize and large business networks.
T-3
- A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 44,736,000 bits-per-second
and is used to connect networks to the Internet.
TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) - A networking protocol
that provides communication across interconnected networks, between computers
with diverse hardware structures and various operating systems. It has become
the international standard implemented on most microcomputers since the mid-1990s.
TCP and IP were separate protocols; but over time, "TCP/IP" has come to be
used in the industry to denote the entire family of common Internet protocols.
TDMA
(Time-Division/Multiple Access) - A technique for transmitting a variety
of types of communications (audio and video, for example) at the same time in
one interleaved transmission.
In TDMA, a device called a multiplexer is used
to combine several signals into one and send it over a single channel in an allocated
time slot. At the receiving end, another device called a demultiplexer separates
the interleaved signal back into its original signals.
Telnet
- The command and program used to login from one Internet site to another. Used
primarily by technicians to access other computers.
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U
UDDI
- Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration - UDDI is a set of protocols
and APIs that define a registry repository where Web services and their associated
WSDL descriptions can be catalogued and searched.
UMTS - Universal
mobile telecommunications system; 3G technology for GSM and TDMA systems. Data
rates of up to 2Mbps.
Unique Users - the number of different users
who access a Web site or page during a given period. To measure this, Web
sites often employ a user registration system.
UNIX
- A computer operating system (the basic software that runs a computer) that controls
and manages the operation of a computer and the programs running on that computer.
URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) - The address of any resource on the Internet that
is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks like this: http://www.desktopinnovations.com
Usenet
- An informal group of computer systems that exchange "news" much like an
online bulletin board. Created in late 1979, Usenet actually predates the
Internet. With more than 35,000 flourishing public newsgroups, you can find
groups covering every conceivable subject--from nude sunbathing to molecular physics.
USENET
- A worldwide 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.
UUENCODE
(Unix to Unix Encoding) - A method for converting files from Binary to ASCII
(text) so that they can be sent across the Internet via e-mail.
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V
Veronica
(Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) - Developed
at the University of Nevada, Veronica is a constantly updated database of the
names of almost every menu item on thousands of gopher servers.
Visitor - An individual who interacts with a Web site. Several
methods are being used to identify visitors.
Visits
- A series of page requests by a visitor on a given site within a specified period,
usually 30 minutes. Visits usually break down into the number of pages requested
per visit per unique user. That way you know who visits your site, how often
they come and how long they stay.
VoDSL
- Voice-over DSL. A technology that digitizes and packetizes voice information
(normally analog) so that it can be integrated with data and transferred over
normal DSL lines at higher frequencies, thereby producing cost savings to phone
carriers and end users.
VPM (Virtual Private Network) - A secure,
encrypted connection that allows organizations to use a public network as a virtual,
private communications tool. It's a cost saving measure for businesses that
don't want the expense of setting up an internally funded secure network, but
do want interconnectivity between remote branches and departments. VPNs
are accessed through the relatively inexpensive services of an ISP.
VRML
(Virtual Reality Modeling Language) - a set of procedures that allow the creation
of 3 dimensional objects on a computer screen.
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W
WAN
(Wide-Area Network) - Uses common carrier-provided lines that cover
an extended geographical area. Unlike LANs (which tend to be directly cabled
and thus limited in scope), WANs can connect users over broad regions through
the use of long-distance transmission technologies, such as telephone and satellite
services.
WANs often are used to connect LANs that have a variety of hardware,
systems and protocols.
W-CDMA
- Wideband code division multiple access; 3G technology for GSM and TDMA systems.
Data rates of up to 2Mbps.
WinSock - A program that facilitates
or allows the link between Windows software and a TCP/IP program like the modem
dialer.
Wireless
Local loop - A local telecommunications services distribution system that
uses low-power radio waves instead of wires. This is particularly cost-effective
in rugged terrain or sparsely populated areas, where it is impractical to lay
cables.
Webmaster
or Webweaver - a person who designs and creates Internet Web-sites.
World
Wide Web (WWW) - the whole constellation of resources that can be accessed
using Gopher, FTP, HTTP, telnet, USENET, WAIS and some other tools. More specifically,
the universe of hypertext servers (HTTP servers) which are the servers that allow
text, graphics, sound files, etc. to be mixed together.
The World
Wide Web is the universe of information available from computers throughout the
world, accessible via the Internet. The Web is only a part of the Internet;
the two terms are not interchangeable.
The Web has a body of software, a
set of protocols and a set of defined conventions for getting at its information.
It uses hypertext and multimedia techniques to make it easy for anyone to roam,
browse and contribute to it.
The Web is widely considered to be the single
most significant implementation on the Internet because it has spurred global
access and acceptance not only by technical professionals, but also by computer
"newbies" and lay people.
WSDL - Web Services Description Language.
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X
XML
- A standard language that's used to define protocols and encode the data
stream that applications employ to communicate with each other.
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