Internet Glossary

Access – a basic database software package bundled in Microsoft’s Office Professional.
Applets - small Java programs that enable design of Web pages to include functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks.
Application Servers – software used to provide an interface between systems to enable Web Services.
ASP – Active Server Pages, a Microsoft scripting language used to develop dynamic websites.
Back/Forward – the buttons on most browsers’ Tool Button bar that takes you back to the last document viewed or forward to the next one.
Blog (Web Log) - a blog is a type of web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal (or log) for an individual. They are usually updated daily, and tend to reflect the personality of the author.
Bookmark - the method when using the Netscape browser to store direct links in your computer to sites you wish to return to.
Broadband – a faster, more expensive Internet connection than a dial up modem.
Browser – a software program that allows you to view websites. The most common are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. They translate html-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see.
Cache - in browsers, cache is used to identify a space where web pages you have visited are stored in your computer. A copy of documents you retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, the browser first checks to see if it is in cache and will retrieve it from there because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server.
Cached link – when you get search results from Google, Yahoo and several other search engines, there is usually a Cached link which allows you to view the version of a page that the search engine has stored in its database. The live page on the web might differ from this cached copy, because the cached copy dates from whenever the search engine's spider last visited the page and detected modified content.
Case sensitive - most search engines are not case sensitive so you do not need to use capitals when entering a search question. The entry of lower case will always retrieve upper case.
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) - CGI forms are the way the most common way Web programs interact dynamically with users. Many search boxes and other applications that result in a page with content tailored to the user's search terms rely on CGI to process the data once it's submitted, to pass it to a background program in JAVA, JAVASCRIPT or another programming language, and then to integrate the response into a display using Html.
Cookie - a message from a Web Server computer, sent to your computer and stored by your browser. When your computer consults the originating server computer, the cookie is sent back to the server, allowing it to respond to you according to the cookie's contents. The main use for cookies is to provide customised Web pages according to a profile of your interests. When you log onto a customised type of invitation on a Web page and fill in your name and other information, this may result in a cookie on your computer which that Web page will access to appear to recognise you and provide what you want. If you fill out these forms, you may also receive e-mail and other solicitation independent of cookies.
CSS – Cascading Style Sheets are a particular style of web page headings & text panels.
DBA – Database Administrator is a software program that carries out the maintenance of databases, including the applications and content structure.
Dial-up access – accessing your ISP using a modem.
Domain name - this term refers to the initial part of a URL, where the domain and name of the host or Server computer are listed. The domain name gives you who published a page i.e. made it public by putting it on the Web.
Domain Name Servers - a domain name is translated into a numeric IP address unique to the host computer sought. These are stored in huge tables standardised across the Internet. These tables are maintained on computers called Domain Name Servers. Whenever you ask your browser to find a certain URL, the browser must consult the table on the domain name server that is networked to that particular computer.
Download – to download is to copy something from a primary source to a more peripheral one, as in saving something found on the Web to disk or to a file on your computer hard drive.
Email – using the Internet to send and receive messages with software like Outlook Express.
Extranet – an internal website that is a closed community accessed only by those users that have passwords. A typical application is a website provided by a company that allows access by their sales force, customers, suppliers, etc.
Favourite - the method when using the Internet Explorer browser to store direct links in your computer to sites you wish to return to.
File Extension - one or several letters at the end of a filename in Windows, DOS and some other operating systems. Filename extensions usually follow a full stop and indicate the type of file. For example, .txt denotes a plain text file, .jpg or .gif denotes an image file while .htm or .html denotes an html file.
Find – a button on the Netscape Tool Button Bar which searches for a word (or words) in a document on the screen. It is useful to be able to find a term in a long document.
Freshness – a measure of how up-to-date a search engine database is, based primarily on how often its spiders travel around the Web to update their copies of the web pages they hold, and discover new ones.
Frames - a format for web documents that divides the screen into segments, each with a scroll bar like a window within the window.
FTP – File Transport Protocol is the protocol used to quickly transfer complete files to the web server.
Google – the most popular search engine.
Go – the button on a Netscape Menu Bar which provides list of recent sites you visited, retained for the current session only.
Head (Header) – the top portion of the HTML source code behind Web pages, beginning with <HEAD> and ending with </HEAD>. It contains the Title, Description, Keywords fields and others that web page authors may use to describe the page.
History (Search History) - a more permanent record of sites you have visited/retrieved.
Host – the computer that provides web-documents to clients or users.
html – Hypertext markup Language – the basic software code that sets out the instructions for the arrangement, order and look of a webpage. When you view a Web page, you are looking at the product of this code working behind the scenes in conjunction with your browser. Browsers are programmed to interpret html for display. If you download a document as "Source," the file will contain html markup codes and can be viewed in Netscape and other browsers.
HTTP – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol for web pages, web services and email delivered using a Web browser.
HTTPS – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure is used to secure websites by using encrypted traffic to and from a user using SSL.
Internet - the huge collection of interconnected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols.
Internet Protocol Address (IP Address or IP Number) - a unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2. that is used to identify every machine that is on the Internet. 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.
Intranet – a private, internal network, usually inside a company or organisation, that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) - a company that sells Internet connections. Sometimes these companies also provide free Web page hosting services.
Java - a network-oriented programming language that is specifically 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 our computer or files.
Javascript – a popular simple programming language developed by Netscape to enable greater interactivity in Web pages. It adds features like drop down menus when the cursor is positioned over a heading.
jpeg – joint photographic experts group is a common graphic file format used to compress an image to save file space, depicted by xxx.jpg.
keywords - a word searched for in a search command. Keywords are searched in any order.
LAN – Local Area Network is a standard PC or Mac network.
Links - the way a computer retrieves another computer file (a Web page, image, sound file, or other document) on the Internet. The computer uses the URL imbedded in the other document, so that if you click on the highlighted text or button referring to the link, you retrieve the outside URL.
megabyte – a measurement of the size of information storage.
Meta Search Engines – Search engines that automatically submit your keyword search to several other search tools, and retrieve results from all their databases. They are convenient time-savers for relatively simple keyword searches.
meta tags – these are the codes hidden in the source code of html that describe a web page.
Newsgroup - a discussion group about a topic of common interest to the group, operated through the Internet.
Password – the personally-selected word you have chosen to protect entry to secure or personally-customised websites.
Personal page - a web page created by an individual. Often personal pages contain useful opinions, links to important resources, and significant facts.
Portable Document Format (PDF) – a file format with the extension .pdf, developed by Adobe Systems, that is used to capture almost any kind of document with the formatting in the original. Viewing a PDF file requires Acrobat Reader, which is built into most browsers and can be downloaded from Adobe.
Phrase - more than one Keyword, searched for exactly as keyed.
Plug-in - an application built into a browser or added to a browser to enable it to interact with a special file type (such as a movie, sound file, Word document, etc.).
Script - a script is a type of programming language that can be used to fetch and display Web pages.
Scroll – the way of moving up or down, left or right within a document in your screen.
Search Engine (SE’s) – these are programmes that maintain databases of web sites and use programmes called spiders to collect information, which is then indexed by the search engine.
Searching – using a search engine to find information on a particular subject.
Server (or host computer) - a computer running appropriate software, assigned an IP Address, and connected to the Internet so that it can provide documents via the World Wide Web. This is the computer where your site is stored and hosted. Visitors come to your server to view your site.
Spam – unsolicited email.
Spiders – these are computer robot programs, referred to sometimes as crawlers, knowledge-bots or robots that are used by search engines to roam the World Wide Web via the Internet to visit sites and databases and keep the search engine database of web pages up to date. They obtain new pages, update known pages, and delete obsolete ones. Their findings are then integrated into the home database.
Sponsor (of a Web page or site) - many Web pages have organisations, businesses, or other interests that sponsor the page by contributing to the costs.
SSL – Secure Socket Layer is a system that secures websites with encrypted traffic to and from website users.
Title -the official title of a document from the "meta" field is called title. The text of this meta title field may or may not also occur in the visible body of the document. It is what appears in the top bar of the window when you display the document and it is the title that appears in search engine results.
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) - 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.
URL – Uniform Resource Locator is the unique address of each website such as:
www.babyboomersguide.com
User-ID – the unique identification you use to log in to a particular website.
Webpage (page) – a web page is a single entity, defined by one URL and so is just one file on the Web or Internet.
Website (site) - a location or site for a collection of related pages linked to from that site.
Web Services – business applications that use web protocols
www – World Wide Web.