ActiveX

A set of technologies, developed by Microsoft, that enables software components to interact with one another on the same machine or across a network.  ActiveX controls are prewritten routines that can be added to a web page to provide extra functionality, ActiveX documents can be displayed in the browser window (as if they were web pages), and ActiveX Scripting allows Java applets and Active X components to be controlled from a script language. 

 

AltaVista

One of the most popular search engines. Web address is www.altavista.com

 

See also: search engines

 

Anchor

In the a web page an anchor is a  labeled locations within the page (known as bookmarks in the Microsoft world). You can create hyperlinks that take you to any position in the page that has an anchor.

 

Apache

The software that is used to run many of the Web sites on the World Wide Web. 

 

Anonymous FTP

Anonymous File Transfer Protocol. A mechanism for moving files from a user machine to or from a remote Internet machine anonymously. In other words you do not have to identify yourself with a user name or password.

 

See Also: FTP

 

Applet

A small program that runs "in a browser". Applets are usually written in Java. They differ from applications in that they have restricted functionality which is designed to protect the users machine from faulty or malicious code. The restrictions include the inability to write to the users hard disk or execute operating system functions. The applets are downloaded from Web sites along with the web page in which it was embedded. They are typically used to provide a more advanced user interface than HTML is capable of. 

See Also: ActiveX , Java

Archie

A system for finding files stored on anonymous FTP sites.

 

ARPANET

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network - The precursor to the Internet. It was created in 1969 by the US Department of Defence to conduct research into networking.

See Also: Internet

Attribute

A mechanism in HTML and XML to specify extra information about an element. They take the form 
                        attribute-name="attribute-value" 

and are placed in opening tags. e.g. <img src="logo.gif">

 

Avatar

An image such as a human figure or face that users choose to represent themselves in an on-line chat forum.

 

See Also: Chat Forum

 

Backbone

A path through a network (such as the Internet) that has a very high capacity. By taking a large part of the network traffic over large distances it helps to speed up the network as a whole.

See Also: Network

Bandwidth

A measure of how much data can be transmitted down any connection. For example a normal telephone line with the latest modems has a bandwidth of 56,000 bits per second. 

See Also: Bps , Bit

Baud

The baud rate was used as a measure of the speed of a modem. It had been replaced by bits per second (bps).

See Also: Bit , Modem

Binaries

In the context of Newsgroups the term binary is used to refer to images/photographs that are attached to an Email message. More generally it is a term used in computing to describe files which do not consist of text.

 

Bit

The basic unit of storage in a computer. It can only hold two values a 0 or 1. All data stored in computers: numbers, letters, images, etc are made up on bits. Bit is derived from Binary Digit. A byte consists of 8 bits.

See Also:  Bps , Byte

Bot

See robot.

 

Bookmark

Netscape Navigator and some other browsers use Bookmark to refer to a link to a page that you can save because you think you are likely to revisit it. Internet Explorer calls these Favorites. In the Microsoft use the term Bookmark they are talking about labeled locations within a document (sometimes referred to as anchors). In web pages you can create hyperlinks that take you to any position in the page that has a bookmark.

 

Bps

Bits per second. A measurement of speed of data transfer from one place to another. For example a 56,000 bps 8 modem can process 56,000 bits per second.

See Also: Bandwidth , Bit

Browser

A software tool which accesses Web sites, obtains Web pages and displays them on the screen. It is also used to support other Internet resources.

More Details

Byte

The standard unit of measure for computer storage. It is the unit that holds a single character (in Western Alphabets) such as the letter "A" or the dollar sign "$".  Languages such as Chinese and Japanese use two or more bytes for each character.  Each byte consists of 8 bits to represent the character and one or more bits for internal computer purposes.

See Also: Bit, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte

Cache

In the context of the Web the term is used to refer to an area on a computer's disk that is used to store files (web pages, images, etc)  that have been downloaded from a Web site for you to view in your browser. The files are stored so that if you want to view the pages or images later they can be presented far more quickly - without  waiting for them to be downloaded a second time.

 

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

A mechanism for specifying the style of a Web page separately from the Web page. The benefit is that the look and feel of a set of Web pages can be amended by altering one file that contains the style rather than having to edit each of the Web pages.

 

Certificate

A document that is used to certify that a user or organisation is who they say they are. They contain information about who it belongs to, who it was issued by, expiry date and information that can be used to check out the contents of the certificate. It is as an important part of the SSL system for establishing secure connections.

See Also: Certificate Authority , SSL

 

Certificate Authority

An authority that issues Certificates needed to authenticate users or organisations on the Internet.

See Also: Certificate , SSL

CGI

A CGI Program is one that runs on web server. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface which is a set of rules for how programs can communicate with web server software. 

See Also:  Web Server 

 

Channel

A Web site that automatically downloads information to your computer according to a pre-arranged schedule.

This is also referred to as Push Technology.

 

Chat Forum

A group of Internet users exchanging messages on a subject of common interest. Unlike Newsgroups all the participants are connected to the forum at the same time and the messages are displayed immediately for members of the forum to see.

Client

A client machine is a computer that operates by obtaining some information or service from another machine - a Server. For example your machine with a Web browser on is a client machine. To obtain Web pages the browser goes to a Web server machine. The software that supports the operation of the client is known as client software.

See Also:  Server

Client/Server

A client/server system is one where the users computer (the client) works with another computer (the Server) in order to achieve the desired results. This contrasts with the traditional mainframes where everything is done on the mainframe with the (dumb) terminals simply displaying the results. The World Wide Web is a Client/Server system with the browser on the client computer requesting Web pages from the Web Server machine.

Cookie

A piece of information sent by a Web Server to a browser for storage on the client machine. The browser sends the information back to the Web Server when the latter requests it. This mechanism is used because the Web Server has no way of recognising a particular user when they revisit the site. In fact if you link from one page on the site to another on the same Web Site,  the Web Server would not know that it is the same user looking at the two pages.

On sites that you log on to, cookies are used to hold your id and password (so you don't have to log on each page!) On shopping sites the cookie could be used to keep a list of what you have bought so far, so that you can choose things as you see them rather than having to restate what you want when you get to the checkout.

Crawler

A Web Crawler (or Spider)  is a piece of software that scans the World Wide Web finding pages to add to the index of a search engine.

 

See also: Search Engines.

 

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

 

Cyberspace

The world of the Internet. Cyberspace is used to talk about the Internet as if it is a real place. Thus just as you would say "in Japan cars drive on the left hand side of the road" you would say "in Cyberspace you can contact experts in almost any subject area".

 

Default Browser

The Browser that gets executed when you click on a link or any html file on your computer. 

 

DHTML

Dynamic HTML. Some features introduced in version 4 of HTML for making the Web pages more dynamic.

 

See also HTML

 

Domain Name

The domain name is the name that uniquely identifies organisations on the Internet. For example ual.com is the domain name of United Airlines, royal.gov.uk is the domain name of the British Royal family and my company is nmib.com. You will encounter them most frequently in Web addresses, mine is http://www.nmib.com/, and email addresses - mine is John@nmib.com.

See Also: Email, URL, Domain Name Service (DNS)

 

Directories

A World Wide Web directory is a Web Site that is used to locate web sites and web pages in predefined areas of interest. For each of these predefined areas the directory provides a set of hypertext links to all the Web pages that fall within that area of interest. More details

 

Discussion Group        

An alternative name for the Newsgroups supported by Usenet. See also Usenet

 

DNS

Domain Name System. This is the "telephone directory" of the Internet. Under the cover the Internet works by giving each web site a unique address, known as the IP address. It is in the form of a series of digits separated by dots. When you click on a link or type in a URL, the Browser passes the URL to the Domain Name System. It  looks up the URL (e.g. http://www.nmib.com) and obtains the IP address (in this case195.12.2.199) and passes it back to the Browser. The Browser uses the IP address to locate the web site. If you know the IP address you can type it in yourself, e.g. http://195.12.2.199.

 

DOM

Document Object Model: An interface used in scripting languages such as JavaScript and VBScript. There are two versions. The HTML DOM is used within a browser to find out information about the current web page and to issue instructions to the browser. Typical users are to validate data typed into forms and to swap images to cause roll over effects. The XML DOM allows the script code to extract information from an XML file, to amend XML files and to create new XML files. 

 

DSSL

Document Style Semantics and Specification Language. Used to transform or style SGML documents. Similarly to how XSL is used with XML.

 

DTD

Document Type Definition. A standard mechanism for defining what elements and attributes may be used in an XML document, where they may appear.

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Last updated: 15 May 2000