Definitions - K to R

Key Word: A word you type into a search engine to indicate what pages you would like it to locate for you.

Kilobyte: A thousand bytes. The purists will tell you that it is actually the binary equivalent, which is 1024!
See Also: Byte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte
LAN: Local Area Network. A computer network situated within a given locality, typically one building or one site.
See Also: WAN
Leased-line: A telephone line connection between two points that is rented for exclusive use by an organisation. The advantage over redialling each time is that you get a consistent quality of line and resulting higher speed of data communication. It is usually cheaper when the line is in use for a large percentage of the time.

Link: An abbreviation for Hyperlink

Linux: A version of the UNIX operating system that is used on many of the Web Servers on the the World Wide Web.

LINX: The London Internet Exchange which provides the main connection in the UK between the various Internet Service Providers. When you connect to a web site the chances are that your request and the web page that is returned to you both pass through LYNX. It is sited in "Telehouse" in the Docklands area of London.
Login/Logon: The process of entering into a computer system is referred to as logging in or logging on. These terms are used most frequently when you have to identify yourself to the computer system by specifying and id and password. The id is a string of characters that identifies you, typically your name or initials. The password is a string of characters that only you know. The password is used to stop other people masquerading as you.
See Also: Id, Password
Mail Bomb: A very large email message (or a large number of smaller messages) that clog up the email system of the recipient.

Mailing List: A mechanism for sending copies of a single Email note to more than one recipient. The copies can be made on the user's machine. Alternatively a single copy is send to a server on the Internet for copying and sending on to the list of recipients. There are thousands of mailing lists operated on the Internet on all imaginable topics.; More Details

Megabyte: A million bytes. The purists will tell you that it is actually the binary equivalent, which is 1024 x 1024!
See Also: Byte, Kilobyte, Gigabyte
MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. The standard used on the Internet for identifying different types of file. It was initially introduced for attaching files to Internet Email messages, but is also used by Web Servers to inform browsers what type of file they are sending. Examples of MIME types are "text/html" for standard Web pages and image/jpeg for JPEG files. Recent browsers and Email systems handle a large number of MIME types automatically.

Mirror Sites: A Mirror site of a Web site is an exact copy of the original site. They are commonly used for Web and FTP sites when the original site cannot cope with the load that is being put on it. An added benefit can be that one of the mirror sites is more accessible to you and therefore provides faster access.

Modem: Modulator demodulator. A device that is used to transmit data between two computers over a normal telephone line. You have one modem at each end of the phone line. At the sending end the data is converted into an analogue signal so that the telephone system can handle it, and at the receiving end the analogue system is converted back to digital form so that the computer can handle it.

Namespace: A mechanism for qualifying element names to make them unique in an XML document. For example <carriage> would mean one thing in a railway application and another in a parcel service. If you ever combined these applications you could refer to them as <rail:carriage> and <parcel:carriage>. "rail" and "parcel" are abbreviations representing XML specifications for each of these application areas.

Navigation: The term that is used for finding your way around the Web, both from one web site to another and within a web site. There isn't any map of the World Wide Web (although many sites have local maps), so just like being on the roads it is fine if what you want is signposted but tough if it isn't.
Netiquette: Net etiquette. A set of guidelines on how you should behave when you are communicating over the Internet.

Netizen: Net citizen. Those who spend much of their time on the Internet. Used in the same way as you would talk about the citizens of Paris, for example.

Netscape: The company that is responsible for one of the leading browsers - Navigator and many other Internet products. It was the success of the early version of Navigator that started the rapid growth of the World Wide Web.

Network: Two or more computers connected together so that from one computer you can access data or run software on another computer.

Network News: An alternative name for Usenet.

Newbie: A person who is new to the Internet.

Newsgroup: A discussion groups on Usenet.

NNTP: Network News Transport Protocol. The protocol used to support the Usenet service on the Internet.
See also Protocol
Node: Any single computer on a network. Sometimes also referred to as hosts.


Open: Free for anyone to use. The opposite to proprietary. The specifications for the Internet (TCP/IP, HTML, HTTP, etc) are all open. Software products (such as Linux and Apache) where the source code is freely available and know as Open Source products.

Password: The password is a string of characters that only you know. The password is used to stop other people masquerading as you. Sometimes the computer will check that not only have you typed the correct password in but that each letter is also in the correct case (upper or lower). To be effective a password needs to be a string of characters that no one else could guess. So your name, initials, initials in reverse order are not good passwords. Mixing case and adding characters other than letters of the alphabet will help. So something like AZ9%3cG would be quite secure, the only problem being that you have to be able to remember it.

See Also: Login

Perl: A programming language that is often used to write programs that run on Web Servers.

Plug-in: A browser plug-in is a computer program that adds functionality to the browser. The plug-ins are used to handle file formats that the browser cannot itself handle. The plug-ins in effect become part of the browser, and are more efficient that helper applications.; See also Helper Applications.

A location where a you can connect to the Internet or other network, typically via the telephone system. So if an Internet Service Provider offers a Point of Presence in London you will be able to access the Internet by phoning London. Not to be confused with the other POP - post office protocol.

Abbreviation for Point of Presence and for Post Office Protocol.

Portal

A web site that sets out to provide a point of entry to the World Wide Web. Examples are Yahoo and Netscape Netcenter. They provide a wide selection of services (such as free email) and links to the rest of the Web. Their goal is to become your browser home page - the page that appears automatically each time you load your browser, or when you click on the home button.

Post Office Protocol

One of the standard protocols used by your Email software when accessing Email from the Internet. If your Internet Service Provider only supports POP, then you will need Email software that can handle that protocol. The version number is often tagged on the end. Thus POP3 is version 3 of the post office protocol.

Posting

A message sent to a newsgroup.