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Archie:
A tool (software) for finding files stored on anonymous FTP
You need to know the exact file name or a sub-string of it.
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.
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.
BBS: (Bulletin Board System)
-- A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows
people to carry on discussions, upload and download files, and
make announcements without the people being connected to the
computer at the same time. There are many thousands (millions?)
of BBS's around the world, most are a very small, running on
a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very
large and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe
gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn.
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.
Browser: A client program
(software) that is used to look at various kinds of Internet
resources.
Byte: A set of Bits that
represent a single character. Usually there are 8 or 10 bits
in a Byte, depending on how the measurement is being made.
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 once Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only
one machine. Usually, all of the machines on a give network
will have the same thing as the right-hand portion of their
Domain Names, e.g. gateway.border.net, mail.border.net, www.border.net,
and so on. 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.
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 the account name "anonymous",
thus these sites are called "anonymous ftp servers".
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. Many sites do not allow incoming Finger requests, but
many do.
Gateway: The technical meaning is a hardware or software
set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for
example Prodigy 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.
Gopher: A widely successful method of making menus
of material over the Internet. Gopher is a Client and Server
style program, which requires that the user have a Gopher Client
program. Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe in
only a couple of years, it is being largely supplanted by Hypertext,
also known as WWW(World Wide Web). There are still thousands
of Gopher Servers on the Internet and we can expect they will
remain for a while.
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 WWW and USENET.
HTML: (HyperText Markup Language) -- The coding language
used creat 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 Mosaic.
HTTP: (HyperText Transport Protocol) -- The protocol
for moving hypertext files 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).
IP Number: Sometimes called a "dotted quad". A unique
number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 205.218.190.2
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 that are easier for people to remember.
IRC: (Internet Relay Chat) -- Basically a huge multi-user
live chat facility. There are a number major IRC servers around
the world which are linked to each other. Anyone can create
a "channel" and anything that anyone types in a given channel
is seen by all others in the channel. Private channels can (and
are) created for multi-person "conference calls".
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network) -- Basically
a way to move more data over existing regular phone lines. ISDN
is only slowly becoming available in the USA but where it is
available, it can provide speeds of 64,000 bits-per-second over
a regular phone line at almost the same cost as a normal phone
call.
Internet: (upper case I) The vast collection of inter-connected
networks that ll use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from
the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's. The Internet now
connects roughly 60,000 bits-per-second over a regular phone
line at almost the same cost as a normal phone call.
internet: (lower case i) Any time you connect 2 or
more networks together, you have an internet - as in inter-national
or inter-state.
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.
Listserv: The most common kind of maillist, Listservs
originated on BITNET but they are now common on the Internet.
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,
e.g. "Login to the WELL and then go to the GBN conference".
MUD: (Multi-User Dimension) -- A (usually text-based)
multi-user simulation environment. Some are purely for fun and
flirting, others are used for serious software development,
or education purposes and all that lies in between. A significant
feature of most MUDs is that users can create things that stay
after they leave and which other users can interact with in
their absence, thus allowing a "world" to be built gradually
and collectively.
Maillist: (or Mailing List)
A (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 maillist. In this way, people
who have many different kinds of e-mail access can participate
in discussions together.
Mosaic: The first WWW browser
that was available for the Macintosh, Windows and UNIX all with
the same interface. "Mosaic" really started the popularity of
the Web. The source-code to Mosaic has been licensed by several
companies and there are several other pieces of software as
good or better than Mosaic, most notably "Netscape" and "Microsoft
Internet Explorer".
NIC: (Network Information
Center) -- Generally, any office that handles information for
a network. The most famous of these on the Internet is the InterNIC,
which is where new domain names are registered.
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.
Node: Any single computer connected to a network.
Also sometimes refers to a modem line for dialing in to the
network.
Packet Switching: The method used to move data around
on the Internet. In packet switching, all the data coming our
of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address
of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks
of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same
lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special
machines along the way. This way many people can use the same
lines at the same time.
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.
On 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
number, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services
can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port
number must be specified in a URL when accessing the server,
so you might see a URL of the form: gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/
which shows gopher server running on a non-standard port (the
standard gopher port is 70).
PPP: (Point to Point Protocol) -- most well known
as 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.
RFC: (Request For Comments) -- the name of the result
and the process for creating a standard on the Internet. New
standards are proposed and published on line, as a "Request
For Comments". The Internet Engineering Task Force is a consensus-building
body that facilitates discussion, and eventually a new standard
is established, but the reference number/name for the standard
retains the acronym "RFC", e.g. the official standard for e-mail
is RFC 822.
Router: A special-purpose computer (or software package)
that handles the connection between 2 or more networks. Routers
spend all their time lookin at the destination addresses of
the packets passing through them and deciding which route to
send them on.
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.
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.
Telnet: The command and program used to login from
one Internet site to another. The telnet command/program gets
you to the "login:" prompt of another host.
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 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.
UNIX: A computer operating system (the basic software
running on a computer, underneath things like word processor
and spreadsheets). UNIX is designed to be used by many people
at the same time (it is "multi-user") and has TCP/IP built-in.
It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.
URL: (Uniform Resource Language)
-- 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.border.net or telnet://well.sf.ca.us or
news:new.newusers.questions. The most common way to use 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, calles newsgroups.
Veronica: (Very Easy Rodent Oriented Net-wide Index
of 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. The
Veronica database can be searched from most major gopher menus.
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. A prominent feature of WAIS is
that the search results are ranked ("scored") according to how
relevant the "hits" are, and that subsequent searches can find
"more stuff like that last batch" and thus refine the search
process.
WAN: (Wide Area Network) -- Any internet or network
that covers an area larger than a single building or campus.
WWW: (World Wide Web) Two meanings - First, loosely
used: The whole constellatino of resources that can be accessed
using Gopher, FTP, HTTP, Telnet, Usenet, WAIS and some other
tools. Second, the universe of hypertext servers (HTTP servers)
which are the servers that allow text, graphics, sound files
etc to be mixed together. |
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