PRECISE NETWORKING SOLUTIONS' ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NET-WORDS... THE MCGATNEY/WOLF CLASSIC

Precise Networking's

TECHNICAL AND CULTURAL
INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA

BY
DAwn McGatney And Dog Wolf!^©

Dr. Steve Goldbloom, Technical Consultant

Last Updated 15 August 2008

INTRODUCTION
Hi... I'm DAwn's dog Wolf. (In Cyberspace, even an Aussie dog like me can write a Web page like this one.)
Anyway, welcome to the 2006 Edition of the official dog Wolf techno-cultural survival Encyclopedia to Cyber-Networking. In here, I shall try to lovingly explain each geeky Net-Word that folks have asked me to take a shot at over the last ~~year, two years, three years, four years, five years, six years, seven years, eight years, nine years~~ ten years (1996-2006).
Some Net-Words, like "ROFL" are very easy to explain; but others, like "Domain" have started a fair number of pub brawls. Some Net-words that were very cool back in 1996 (like "Archie") have have cooled off, and I've respectfully retired them. (However, you can probably locate them languishing on one or more of my unofficial "mirror" servers... i.e., sites where folks have "borrowed" my dog Wolf definitions.) Others terms, like "Wireless Networking Diagram" and "Network Access Point" and "WiFi" and "Broadband" have rapidly become terms of endearment; and I've scurried about to add them as quickly as I possibly could.
As always, my thanks to the usual suspects (Net-gurus, professors of computer science, DAwn, DAwn's ex-boyfriends (hackers, nerds), and surely DAwn's brother, etc.) for periodically reviewing my page here and screaming at me until I more fully understand why I am an idiot. (And they wonder why DAwn plays bluegrass on the oboe.) In a few cases, I have lost my cool and asked the folks at Precise Networking Solutions to actually let me "touch" some Net-word... e.g., the chipset.
(I am totally amazed at the number of senior engineers who know precisely what a Net-word means, who can design an elegant state-of-the-art network, who know networking solutions like the back of their hand... but who cannot explain in people-words why they did what they did. In such cases, we have sat down (one of us, at least) and played Q&A... in one instance for over an hour... when I insisted that I wanted to learn wireless networking. (I am nothing if not dogged.) )
Sometimes, when someone has raised a nugget that I think is cool, but it's a little obscure and not really directly related to the subject, I'll mark it with something that looks like... IMPRESS YOUR WOMBAT--> I really look nothing at all like a wolf, save perhaps for my yellow eyes; and I do have a penchant for howling at the most inappropriate of times. And though I'm an Aussie, I have done my best to use Americanised spellings.
If YOU would like some Net-Word defined and explained, or if you'd like to elaborate on an exisiting definition of mine, feel free to contact me via the Precise Networking Solutions e-mail link at the bottom of this page, and we'll take a peek. (Think the summer of 2006 is going to set a record for the warmest and rainiest in history? Yoiks.)
Ok... let the adventure begin...

32-Bit

The operating system in a hospital is the way they like to do surgery. The operating system on a computer is a bunch of programs and some data... Windows and Linux are two popular operating systems.
Unlike "useful" application programs such as TurboTax (urghh), the operating system programs (and data) simply provide a warm, cozy environment for the application programs to run over... just as the furnace in my basement provides a warm, cozy environment in all the upstairs rooms in winter.
Think of your PC as a large house. The application programs each occupy one of the smaller upstairs rooms... Internet Explorer in the master bedroom, Outlook Express in the dining room, etc. But the operating system programs, they fill the whole basement.
And coming into the basement are wires from our monitor, from our cable modem's router, from our mouse, from our hard drive, and so on.
Let's say that a program who is living upstairs, like TurboTax, wants to read or write directly to our hard drive. Can he do it? Yeah, but it means that TurboTax has to add ALL kinds of extra instructions to deal with reading the hard drive. Netscape, if he wanted to read directly from our hard drive, he'd have to add all the same extra instructions.
Instead, because we have the operating system in the basement, each application program (upstairs program) simply issues a brief "call" to the operating system down in the basement when he wants to read from or write to the hard drive... or when he wants to access almost any system resources... and the operating system takes care of all the grizzly details. And as a result, our application programs are much smaller and simpler.
And because the operating system is interfacing between our upstairs application programs and our hardware, we can have lots of programs at one time accessing our hard drive... lots of programs "running" at one time... and the operating system routes the right piece of data to the correct program.
AND... because the operating system is managing all of our hardware resources, we are able to run many programs (almost) simultaneously... which keep our processor chip busier, and thus makes our computer run more efficiently... now we can do a virus scan while we are surfing the Web... in other words, the operating system allows us to "multi-task."
Now... operating systems like Windows NT/2000/XP and 95/98 and UNIX and and Mac OS are called "32-bit Operating Systems"... they can run 32-bit programs. (A bit is a 0 or a 1. Strings of bits can represent characters and numbers... like 1100 represents a decimal 12.)
32-bit programs can send and receive 32 bits of data at one time to and from your PC's hardware (like your CD ROM reader). And since today's PCs can operate on ALL 32 bits at once, 32-bit programs run faster than the older 16-bit programs.
BUT... Operating systems like DOS 3.0 and Windows 3.1 are called "16-bit operating systems"... they can run 16-bit (but not 32-bit) programs; 16-bit operating systems and 16-bit programs are pretty much a pre-1995 thing.
AND... 32-bit programs also can instantly access ALL of the real memory... all of the RAM... in modern PCs... something that 16-bit applications programs cannot do.
What is RAM (random access memory)? It's the place in your PC that your programs (or the currently running "pieces" of your programs) have to be living when they are executing; only program instructions in RAM (real memory... hardware that you can touch and that you have to pay real money for) can execute. (No, you cannot download real memory from KAZAA; you have to buy it or borrow it.)
And only DATA in real memory can be read and written by programs that are executing.
To say it another way, 32-bit operating systems like Windows 98 need processing chips (like Intel's Pentium IV chip) that can access all the RAM on your PC at once. Hence, Windows 98 will not run on the ancient Intel 80286 chip, because this chip can access only 16 Meg of RAM at once. (A Meg is slightly more than a million 8-bit strings (bytes). And a GIG is slightly more than a billion 8-bit bytes.)
IMPRESS SATURDAY'S DATE--> Since 1964, most "mainframe" computers (like IBM's S/360 and S/370 and S/390) and their operating systems (MFT, VS1, MVS, etc.) have been 32-bit. With 32-bit operating systems, you can access up to 2-4 GIG of RAM; in 1964 this was an unbelievable amount of memory... In 1964, A Meg of RAM filled a large room. Today, a few GIG of PC memory sticks from Staples would fit in a small purse. (Don't try this at home.)
(By the late '80s, 2 GIG was not enough for the mainframes.)
Anyway, dog Wolf says... When in doubt, go with 32-bit programs AND with a 32-bit operating system (though today (2006) it's hard to find application programs or operating systems that are NOT 32-bit... I guess this advice was more relevant back in 1995.)
And now... watch for 48 and 64-bit operating systems and programs, coming soon to a PC near you.

AGENT

Usenet is the world's greatest source of information, bar none. Usenet is filled with articles on every imaginable subject, available to anyone on the Net... and you can post an article for zillions of other folks to read... perhaps a question. (Think of Usenet as being like chat, but for Netizens who are literate.)
To read and post articles from/to Usenet, you need a client program on your PC called a newsreader. Your newsreader client links across the Net to a news (Usenet) server. Thus, like most stuff on the Net, Usenet works in a "client-server" fashion... the client program runs on your PC, and the server program runs out there on the Net somewhere.
Many Web browsers (like Internet Explorer) also have a built in newsreader. These newsreaders do not have as many functions as a standalone newsreader programs. AOL also provides a built in newsreader (which has been the butt of jokes for several years).
One of the most popular newsreader client programs is Agent. Also available, with fewer features, is Free Agent... for free, what else? Dog Wolf recommends- Install the excellent Free Agent newsreader on your PC and check out Usenet. If you really get into reading and posting articles, then upgrade to Agent by paying a few dollars. Only then will you truly appreciate the additional features.
BACK TO THE FUTURE--> Today (2006), using the popular Google website, you can read virtually every Usenet article posted within the LAST TEN YEARS; and you can post replies to Usenet articles (written within the last month); or, you can post new articles. Google-posting requires a brief registration process; it's not quite as sophisticated as Agent, but it's close... and it's free... and you don't need a newsreader client to enjoy Usenet... and you have ten years of unbelievable articles in countless newsgroups to peruse. (Today (2006),You are very lucky today if your ISP saves 2-4 weeks of articles.) Your dog Wolf highly recommends the Google Groups.

ANONYMOUS FTP

In the beginning (before 1996-97 or so), the Net was a friendlier place. Folks loaded up their FTP servers with every file imaginable and invited the rest of the Net to download these treasures using an FTP client like WS_FTP; a unique userid and password was not even required.
And so, from an anonymous FTP server out there on the Net, you could (and still can) download files of every type to your PC ... programs, MP3s, JPGs, you name it... without even having an account on the FTP server. You just log on using a USERID of ANONYMOUS, and you enter your e-mail address as the password (as a courtesy).
Some anonymous FTP servers will also allow you to "donate" files to other Netizens, allowing you to upload files from your PC to the FTP server. (But in 2006, some frisky hackers use this capability to install "interesting" daemon programs on willing UNIX computers about the world.)
Dog Wolf says... Anonymous FTP is among the world's greatest treasure chests, just waiting to be plundered. There are more free programs and pictures and music files and whatever out there on the Net than you can check out in a thousand and one nights.
Data downloads faster via FTP than it does from the Web. FTP establishes two data "pipes" when you log onto an FTP server, and these pipes are connected for the entire duration of your download... one pipe for data, the other for commands. Data coming from a Web server, however, bounces about the Net like balls on a pinball machine until it finally reaches you; there are no dedicated pipes. (Thus the Web is called "connectionless," no connection is established to a Web server; but TWO connections are established to an FTP server.)

AOL

(America Online) The largest BBS (and arguably the largest ISP). AOL uses a Windows or Mac-based client-server format.
You install AOL's client software on your PC (from a CD or from their Web site or from AOL itself), and then you link to AOL's servers through your modem. (You also can connect to AOL through your ISP via the Net; if you do this, you'll avoid the busies that have become AOL's signature in many minds, and you'll also save $$$... $14.95/mo vs. $23.90/mo) AOL's CDs are free, and they're everywhere; they recently were taped to the bags of dogfood at the Giant SuperMart.
As of August 2006, AOL began offering free service to non-dialup customers (folks accessing AOL via the Internet, also known as BYOA (Bring Your Own Access) customers. According to AOL CEO Randy Falco, as of December 2007, the conversion rate of accounts from paid access to free access was over 80%.
While AOL dominated the dial-up modem market until recently (slightly less than 1 out of 3 dial-up ISP accounts in the US are with AOL), AOL now (2003) seems to be having difficulty making the transition to broadband (cable, DSL, or satellite... all much faster than a dial-up modem); only 1 out of 30 US broadband customers were connected to the Internet through AOL as of early 2003.
In late 2002, AOL began losing membership for the first time; and it posted a 4th quarter loss of almost $45 billion (announced January 2003). During 2003, things only worsened for AOL; the service lost two million subscribers, leaving it with 24.7 million users by the end of 2003.
As of August 2008, AOL was down to 8.7 million dial-up subscribers, and dropping.
AOL is very easy for the newbie to install and fairly easy to configure, and it features an "all in one" approach to the Net. Dog Wolf Suggests--> Try it... only then will you truly appreciate the superiority of individual client software programs like Netscape, Outlook Express, etc. connected to the Net via an ISP (dial-up or broadband).
AOL also features copious parental controls, which some maintain are aimed at adults who let their kids play unsupervised on the PC and the Net.

ASCII

ASCII is a code using integers from 0 to 127. Each of the 128 numbers in the ASCII code stands for a letter, a number, a punctuation character, etc. And since any number from 0-127 can be represented by just 7 bits, any ASCII character can be represented by just 7 bits. PCs often store and send plain text using the ASCII code; E-mail and Usenet send and receive ASCII 7-bit text. Programs and pictures and music, on the other hand, use an 8-bit binary code, and they are not sent or received as ASCII characters.
(IMPRESS YOUR AARDVARK--> ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange).

ATM

No... these are not bank machines... though if you build an ATM network, you may need to make multiple visits to your ATM machine to finance it. ATM stands for Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and it's been around now (2006) for 15 years. It evolved because of a desire by telephone companies both in the US and in Europe to send voice, video, and data over their networks... and over the SAME networks. ATM can thus carry voice, ordinary data, fax, real-time video, CD-quality audio, imaging, and BIG (multi-megabit) data transmission.
ATM is a STANDARD (a "protocol") for sending and receiving data, both on LANs (over a small area, like an office building) and on WANs (over wide areas, like the whole ATT US network). ATM is a protocol "by committee;" many of its standards were compromises (like the 48-byte "payload" in each ATM cell... the US telcos wanted 64 bytes and the European phone companies wanted 32 bytes; (64+32)/2 = 48). (A byte is 8 bits grouped together, usually representing something, like a character or a program instruction code.)
ATM can transmit stuff (in theory) at 1.2 billion bits per second (bps), though ATM usually runs at 155 million bps to 622 million bps (the speed of many fiber-optic networks)... but 622 million bps is FAR from shabby... at 622 million bps, an ATM network could transmit the entire Encyclopedia Britannica (1997 printed edition, including graphics) in ONE SECOND. Yeah... Whew. (Many computers have trouble keeping up with this speed.)
ATM sends all data types as 53-byte "cells"... the 48 byte payload and a 5 byte address header. Thus if you dump a 1,000 byte TCP/IP packet into an ATT or Sprint ATM wide-area network, the 1,000 byte packet will first be chopped into 21 data frames, and each frame will be placed in one ATM cell.
Because ATM cells are 1.) small, and 2.) all the same size, ATM can move things along MUCH faster than if the frames were of variable sizes... network routers and other equipment can move fixed size frames MUCH more quickly... AND because all the cells are tiny (53 bytes), no one type of data can monopolize an ATM network... a tiny voice packet cannot get stuck behind a big old lumbering data packet. (Can you now begin to sense the influence of the phone comanies in ATM's design?)
Unlike TCP/IP, where data packets bounce around like balls in a pinball machine, and different packets during a single transmission often take many different routes, ATM fixes the route between the sender and receiver BEFORE the data transfer begins... it establishes, at the start, a circuit, a "virtual channel connection" (VCC)... another reason for its speed.
ATM supports QoS (quality of service)... a guarantee that your data will get through no matter how busy the network may be... if you're important enough. (It pays to be important, and you'll pay for ATM to think you're important.) Before ATM sends anything, it negotiates the speed of the path it'll be using... it decides in advance if your stuff will travel over I-95 (when traffic is very light) or the old US Route #1 (at rush hour).
ATM has grown slowly over the last 15 years becuase 1.) it requires exceptional bandwidth to reach its full potential, 2.) it requires specialized ATM hardware throughout its entire network, hardware made by a relatively small number of vendors, and 3.) installing and maintaining an ATM network (LAN or WAN) requires folks with mucho ATM experience... it's not trivial.

BACKBONE

The Net is like a lot of cars running along highways. On the Net, the cars are data packets. And each car sports a large sign saying where it would like to to end up (like "Key West or bust") and where it came from.
Let's call our longest, fastest, and widest highways "Interstates" (since that's what most folks call them). And we'll have our Interstates cross each other or terminate at wide, high-speed "Beltways."
So, we arrive in Houston on I-10; we drive around the Beltway (I-610) until we come to I-45; and then we leave Houston on I-45.
The Net's highways are especially cool, because our circular Beltways have friendly traffic cops stationed about them. We don't even need to know which road to take out of Houston.
The friendly cops read those signs on our cars ("Key West or bust"), and when we come to the correct highway to take us toward Key West, they wave us onto it. Cool, yes? Yes.
On the Net, our Interstates are called National Backbones. The beltways are called NAPs... Network Access Points. And the friendly traffic cops are called Routers. (Not to be confused with these massive routers are the small inexpensive routers that folks use to protect their privacy at home when they go with a cable ISP... D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, and SMC are some popular brands that require few repairs.)

BACK END

The back end of an ISP is the telephone cable(s) and associated hardware that connect the ISP to the Internet. An ISP can have an excellent "front end" (with plenty of fast modems, so you never get a busy when your modem dials the ISP), but the ISP still may run like a slug in Hunt Valley in January if its back end connection to the Net is overloaded.
(SMALL TIDBIT--> Small ISPs often don't connect directly to the Net. They connect to bigger ISPs. Then the bigger ISPs connect to the Net. See my excellent dog Wolf article How ISPs Work for all the juicy details.)

BANDWIDTH

The bandwidth of a highway is how many cars you can get through it per hour. The bandwidth of my bathtub is how fast the pipes in my house will let me fill the tub with water. And the bandwidth of something on the Net is how many bits of data you can get through it in a second.
The bandwidth of I-95 is perhaps 50,000 cars per hour. The bandwidth of a cable ISP is 36 million bits per second. (Slow tractor trailers, accidents, slow Ethernet cards, data errors, interference, etc, keep both highways and cable ISPs from realizing these maximum theoretical bandwidths.)
The term bandwidth is also used by folks on the Net to mean a vague, ephemeral thing that pervades cyberspace; the ether of the cyberverse. People will sometimes accuse you of wasting this vague bandwidth thing; as in, "You quoted the whole article and only added a one line comment? What a waste of bandwidth, you idiot." (Actually, you've wasted a little of the disk space at countless ISPs, not the Net's bandwidth.)
(NETIQUETTE--> When responding to an article on Usenet, don't quote more of the original article than you need to; but do quote something, so people will have an idea of what you're talking about. People who respond to posts and quote nothing are often called "idiots." (The nitty gritty of the Net has a culture and lifestyle all its own.)

BAUD

Even a lot of "gurus" are often confused by the difference between baud and bits per second. So we'll start at the start.
Binary things have (by definition) only two states. The Giant Supermart is either open or closed... two states. A regular light bulb is either on or off... two states. The Giant and the light bulb are binary things. Binary things are represented by a bits. And a bit can only have a value of 0 or 1... it's either off (0) or on (1).
Every character transmitted across the Net is represented by either 7 or 8 bits. And strings of characters are sent through modems and phone lines as strings of bits, like... 0110101011000.
Bits per second (bps) is the number of bits sent or received per second. Like, 56K modems send and receive 56,600 bits per second (in theory; in practice, good luck).
But BAUD is something different. BAUD is the number of times per second that the frequency or the voltage of a signal on a phone line (the sound or the tone on the phone line) changes.
If the frequency or the voltage of the electricity on a communications line changes 2400 times per second, we say the line is running at 2400 BAUD. And 2400 baud is about the maximum speed at which a plain old telephone line can carry changes of states.
BUT... and here's the rub... one baud... that is, one change of the electrical state of the phone line... can cleverly be made to represent MORE than just one bit. SO... maybe a 2400 BAUD modem, by using some secret code (like four different tones), can send FOUR BITS for every change of state on the phone line... four bits PER BAUD... four bits with every electrical state change. Then a 2400 BAUD phone line could carry data at 2400 x 4 = 9600 bits per second (bps).
Typically, a 9600 bps modem sends out four bits 2400 times per second (2400 baud). The voltage on the phone line (the sound) changes 2400 times per second. And that's what baud is all about. Simple, yes? Yes.
The only part that is confusing is that many folks incorrectly use BPS and BAUD interchangeably.

BBS

Bulletin Board System. An electronic bulletin board on some remote computer. Folks have discussions (just like Usenet), download files and pictures (like FTP), make announcements, etc. There once were a zillion BBSs in the world, and most were really just PCs with a few phone lines connected (one or two customers at a time). Some well-known BBSs are dedicated to just one topic, like home repairs. And many BBSs will even connect you to the Net. AOL is the largest of the BBSs.
Today (2002) many BBS's have switched over to the Net; thus many former Bulletin Board Systems are Web sites now... you no longer have to dial up each BBS on your modem; you just connect to your ISP and "surf" the Web.

BEETHOVEN'S STRING QUARTETS

Yes... chat ala AOL, E-mail, and The Web (tada) are the biggies today (2002), but IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and Usenet (post an article or reply to one) and anonymous FTP (download programs, pictures, music, movies) are the true treasures of the Net.
IRC and Usenet and FTP are pure fun. Getting to love them may take a bit of effort, but the same is true of Beethoven's string quartets, and think of how much pleasure they give if one does make the effort.

BINARIES

Some parts of the Net, like E-mail and Usenet, were originally designed to carry only text. These parts of the Net use 7-bit ASCII codes to represent each text character.
Other parts of the Net (like FTP and the Web) can handle 8-bit binary codes just fine. These 8-bit binary codes represent the bytes of picture files, programs, sounds, etc.
BUT THEN... how do you attach a program or picture with 8-bit bytes to E-mail or to your Usenet post? Q.E.D. (Quite Easily Done.)
Your E-mail program and your newsreader (for Usenet) will convert the 8-bit binary code to a 7-bit ASCII text code, and then back again. These 7-bit characters representing 8-bit bytes are called "binaries" on Usenet. In fact, on Usenet, there are many newsgroups are dedicated to binaries, like alt.binaries.pictures and alt.binaries.collies.
CAUTION--> Do not post binaries to non-binary newsgroups; you will be called an "idiot" (or even worse, a "Fluque-wit").

BINHEX

BinHex is a method, similar to UU-encoding, used to convert 8-bit binary files like programs and pictures to 7-bit ASCII text files, so that you can attach these files to 7-bit text e-mail letters. (BUT... today (2002), most E-mail uses a code called MIME for its attachments. Whatever.)

BLERS

(Impress Your Analyst--->) Blers (Bit Link Error RateS) are errors in data and blocks of data that have been received by your modem.
If there are more than two block errors (more than 2 blers) during several minutes of connection, your modem may be experiencing problems receiving data from your phone line.
Thus we often hear, "That $@#@!!! Courier modem had 231 blers in just 5 minutes!" (not cool). On the other hand, just one bler every 12 minutes is considered very cool by gamers playing Quake.
(If you give a USR modem the famous "ATI6" command, it will respond with lots of cool statistics, including blers. Well, you asked.)

BROADBAND

Broadband is sending and receiving stuff to/from the Internet by CABLE or by DSL or by SATELLITE or by WIRELESS or by HIGH SPEED PHONE LINES. The advantages of broadband are 1.) it's much faster than a 56k dialup modem (Precise Networking Solutions requires that data be transmitted at 256 kilobits per second or faster to be considered broadband); 2.) you don't tie up a phone line when you're online; and 3.) you don't dial up, your connection is always on. Because of the higher speed of broadband, you can receive streaming-video and live TV feeds.
By the end of this year (2003), over 22 million homes (21% of all households) and over 7 million businesses in the US will have high speed Broadband Internet access.
Your broadband modem communicates with your PC by Ethernet; you should connect your broadband modem to your PC through an INTERNAL ETHERNET CARD. (It's faster than a USB-Ethernet adapter... we've tried both.) And visit the NAVAS Web site after you're up and running with broadband to optimize your speed, especially if you're running Windows 98.
If you have more than one PC, you may want to share your connection to broadband (e.g., the output of your cable modem) across two or more PCs... in effect, set up a small network in your home or office. This is easily done by having an inexpensive router installed; the router controls the single static IP address that you received with your broadband connection. The router gives each of your PCs a secret, internal IP addresses... an IP address invisible to the outside world... invisible from the Net. The router "routes" all the packets coming in from the Net to the correct PC; and it merges the packets that are heading out onto the Net coming from all of your PCs.
Thus you can be browsing the Web from your bedroom PC, while your significant other browses the Web from the Den; and your ferret browses the Web using a laptop on your sofa... all simultaneously, all at high speed. The router routes the right packets to the correct PC. It seems to everyone as if they are the only one connected to the Net. And the laptop thing works because a router can include a transmitter and receiver... it can be both a wired and wireless router.
Almost all external mischief from "out there" on the Net that hits your router goes "poof"... it fails instantly. This is why most folks who have only one PC in their home or office still install routers. Routers are especially important if your broadband connection to the Internet is via cable... because you and all of your neighbors will be on the same local loop... a privacy problem. Having a router installed is a must for anyone doing broadband through a cable modem.

BROWSER

The client program that you run on your PC when you want to retrieve and look at stuff out there on the Web is called a browser. Many browsers, like Internet Explorer, can also send and receive E-mail, read and post to Usenet newsgroups, download via FTP, and perform various other tricks.
Put another way, a browser is a way to view the stuff on the Net, including multimedia. And where do we find pictures and animation and sounds on the Net? On the World Wide Web? Right. Hence the name, Web Browser.

BROWSER CACHE

Cache stores stuff close by us, so that we can get to it fast. A Web browser's cache stores a page's HTML code, as well as any graphics and multimedia files embedded in the page. Then, when you want to view a previous page, everything doesn't have to be downloaded from a Web server out on the Net all over again. Since accessing your hard disk is much faster than Net access, this speeds things up.
Many ISPs also cache Web pages. Most time-sensitive pages on the Web... like stock quotes... use the "http expires header," so that after a certain amount of time has elapsed, your Browser will be forced to request a new page from the Web server.
BUT... an ISP with a proxy server (like AOL) may ignore such refresh requests, and just give you the same cached page again and again. (We say that it doesn't "punch through.")
Dog Wolf's Tip- Clear your browser's cache periodically. The main reason that you want to clear your browser cache is for better performance... especially on a slow or low-memory PC. Cleaning out the browser cache (and the browser's history list) can dramatically improve the speed of a browser. (Reducing the size of the cache and the history list can also speed up your Web browser.)

BTW

Shorthand for "By The Way." Shorthand is used in E-mail and when chatting and on Usenet to "save bandwidth." (Right.) In reality, shorthand is often used by newbies in an attempt to demonstrate that they're not newbies (newcomers to the Net). And shorthands do save you time when you're typing.

CAT-5

When you connect computers together over a small area (like in an office building, or in a home office) so that they can exchange data, we call that a Local Area Network, or LAN. The wires and hardware (e.g., coupling, junctions, etc) are called the CABLING.
The cabling is a critical factor in how fast a PC can send and receive data from a LAN. Precise Networking Solutions recommends Category-5 for the cabling connecting each PC to the LAN... to the actual wires that connect each PC together. In general, the more Cat-5 cabling the better, on an Ethernet network.
Cat5 cabling consists of four twisted copper pairs, and it is pre-tested to assure operation at 100 MHz (100 Million bits/sec); if the routers and Ethernet cards are sufficiently fast, Cat5 cabling can support one GHz (one billion bits per second Ethernet, or gigabit Ethernet). The Cat5 cable can be shielded on the outside to reduce interference; shielding does not allow data to move any faster in CAT-5 cabling, but it does reduce interference and thus it reduces data errors.
Cat3 looks similar to Cat5, but Cat5 has been tested at 100 MHz and passed. Cat-1 is simply twisted pair used on a phone line; it cannot pass data even at one million bps. The gist here... when wiring a LAN, know what cabling to use, whether it needs to be shielded (perhaps it runs next to a noisy transformer)... know what hardware constitutes a Cat5 cabling, etc. And match the cabling to your routers
MORAL--> Know what you're doing, use the proper wire, hardware, routers, shielding or not, and so on; almost anyone can put together an Ethernet LAN... but how it works when there is interference, the actual maximum consistent data speed depends on a lot of inter-related factors. The LAN is even more complex when it includes wireless routers. Let the gurus wire your LAN; then it works just fine 24 hours a day.

CGI

Usually, when you give your Web browser a URL (like... http://www.learn.com/~internet/ethernet.html), your browser contacts a Web server out there on the Net named www.learn.com, and that Web server scans its hard drive directory internet and returns to you a file called ethernet.html.
HOWEVER... a Web server can also be set up so that when files in certain directories are requested, instead of the file being sent back to you, the file is instead executed on the server. So, for example, when you give your browser a URL like... www.learn.com/isp-cgi/networks.html, file networks.html in directory isp-cgi is executed on host www.learn.com as a program, and the output of that program (whatever it may be) is then sent back to your browser for display.
This capability to execute programs on a Web server and send back the output is called Common Gateway Interface or CGI; and the programs stored in the special CGI directory at the Web server are called CGI Scripts.

CHANNEL

A channel on IRC is like a chat room on AOL. Each IRC channel usually focuses on a specific topic, or is desgned to appeal to certain folks (e.g., Aussies). BUT... on IRC, you can be on up to four channels at one time.
If a channel name starts with a #, then that channel exists on all IRC networks (for instance- #chatzone), but the #chatzone's on each IRC network are completely unrelated to each other, and they are not (normally) connected in any way with each other. IRC is a wondrous and mysterious thing to explore.

CHATTING

Talking to other folks on the Net by typing and reading their typed responses on your monitor in real time is called chatting.
You now can also chat by having actual voice conversations and/or seeing other folks on the Net via video. (These are surely exciting times in which to live.)

CHIP

PCs contain various types of "chips." Here, we'll look at the PROCESSOR CHIP. And in the next definition, we'll take a peek at the ever mysterious CHIPSET. So what's this chip thing all about?
Well... The part of a computer that actually does the computing is made from "switches."
A computer switch works just like my refrigerator door; sometimes it's open, sometimes it's closed. When it's open, I can binge; when it's closed, I have to make do with Cheez-Its. (You know the drill here.)
Now... I have two neighbors, George and Saddam (no, not their real names). Imagine that, after a massive Merlot drinking contest, we all decide to wire our three refrigerator doors together... so that my fridge only OPENS when George and Saddam's fridge doors both are CLOSED. Why? Who knows, it was good Merlot. So?
So, what we have built with our refrigerator doors is what engineers like to call a GATE. Dawn is open only when 1.) George is closed AND, 2.) Saddam is closed. That's a gate.
Ok... In the part of the computer that does the ACTUAL COMPUTING, we have similar gates, called LOGIC GATES. A gate in a computer might allow current to pass through my transistor only when there is no current coming from neighboring transistors A and B. Right... So?
So this. With logic gates like this, and other gates of various simple sorts similar to these, you can compute anything in the world that can be computed.
(No, you can't compute the last digit of PI... that can't be computed, PI goes on forever (we think)... but you CAN compute my Federal and State taxes (Oy! And if only you could pay them while you're in the neighborhood).)
BUT... Anything that can be computed CAN be computed using just a few simple gates. (Trust me on this one... or peruse Marvin Minsky's classics on computation.)
Early computers ('40s and '50s) built their gates out of relays and vacuum tubes... big, hot, frequently burned-out, slow vacuum tubes. By the '60s, computer gates were built from transistors... smaller, cooler, longer-lasting... and FASTER.
As the years passed, transistors grew smaller and smaller; very, very small. By the '90s, millions of transistors could fit on a chip of material the size of my unbroken fingernail... and in fact the transistors (and a few other components) WERE actually placed on a CHIP from a silicon crystal... hence the name "CHIP."
The zillions of transistors forming gates on a chip of silicon... gates that do our PC's actual computing... form THE PROCESSOR CHIP. (Tada.)
And just add a few trimmings around the processor chip and stick it in a little case perhaps 1-2" square and about 1/2" thick and you have a Pentium chip or some such. Simple stuff... just millions of gates (not to be confused with Gates' millions) opening and closing on a chip... opening and closing to do your computer processing... your PC's PROCESSOR CHIP.
Of course (why of course?) there are OTHER chips on your computer besides the ones with the gates that actually compute. Read on, mate...

CHIPSET

Just like routers control the flow of data on a NETWORK, the CHIPSET controls the flow of data in your PC.
The chipset is a couple of chips inside your PC. These chips, like the processor chip (e.g., Pentium, etc), also have a zillion transistors (and even a lot of gates), but they don't compute taxes (thank Goodness). The chipset is NOT to blame for the HUGE sum of money that TurboTax says I owe to Uncle Sam (and Uncle Maryland).
No... The chipset is (are?) your PC's friendly traffic cop chips, NOT your PC's computing chip.
The chipset traffic cops control the flow of data to and from THE PROCESSOR CHIP, and to and from memory (RAM), and pretty much to and from everywhere else in your PC.
In the spring of PCs, there were MANY traffic cop chips (lots of transistors sitting on chips of silicon crystal)... like one chip for the modem and this little chip for the monitor and this little chip went to market...
As things in PCs became cooler (smaller, faster, cheaper), all these diverse traffic cop chips were gradually collected together into (usually) two little chips called the CHIPSET... two chips that control which bytes go where in your PC.
Chipsets DO actually exist; after I asked, the folks at Precise Networking Solutions opened up a PC and showed me a chipset... it looks like two tiny black boxes, each about 1" by 1" (each like half the size of the Pentium chip)... the Pentium processor chip (or Celeron processor chip or whatever) being the guy who does the actual computing.

CLIENT-SERVER

If I connect to a host computer somewhere out on the Net that is running an FTP server program, and I want to download some files from him to my PC, I need to be running a program on my PC called an FTP client.
FTP server program on the host computer out there, FTP client program on my PC.
Voila, stuff downloads to my PC. That's an example of a client-server.
Another example... if I connect to AOL in Virginia (the "AOL server") using my modem, and if I'm running AOL's client program on my PC, then I can chat in AOL's chat rooms. (Whoop.)
If I have mIRC running on my PC (an IRC client), and I connect to an IRC server out there on the Net, then I can do some real, manly, robust IRC chat.
The client progam on our PCs gets stuff from (or sends stuff to) a server program running on a host computer out there on the Net, maybe 10,000 miles away from us. Each server program (like a POP3 server from which we download our E-mail) needs a specific kind of client program (like Eudora) to work. Almost everything on the Net that's fun to do is client-server... that is, it requires a server program out there somewhere on the Net and an associated client program on our PCs.
And that is the secret of the Internet... installing some client program on our PCs and then connecting to a related server program out there on the Net... Newsreader on our PC, connect to news server out there on the Net... Voila, we can do Usenet. And on and on and on... the Web, whatever, you name it... chess client on my PC, connect to a chess playing server "out there"... I can play chess.

COMPUTER NAME

If a host is named learn.networks.net, then learn is called the computer name... it's the name of one of the computers at some site out there on the Net. isp.networks.net is the name of another computer at the very same site.
Names on the Net are structured like learn.networks.glossary.hopkins.edu. The last two labels on the right are the name of the "little network" where the computer we want to reach lives. (Our desired computer lives at hopkins.edu in this example.)
And the label(s) to the left of these last two are the name of the specific computer on the little network that we want to reach... learn.networks.glossary in this example. And this is the computer name.

COOKIE

If you're surfing the Web, going from site to site, then some Web sites may write a tiny text file on your hard drive called a cookie. Most browsers give you the option of blocking these cookies, or they will warn you before the tiny cookie file is written. Sites that write cookies usually do so only the first time that you visit them. The cookie that they write usually contains a code number that they read from your hard drive on your subsequent visits to the site... so that they can uniquely identify you.
Cookies can be beneficial... a Web site may use your tracking number that it writes in your cookie to keep track of your preferences... or perhaps to remember the particular stocks that you're interested in. But cookies can also allow a site to track everything that you do while visiting their site. A site that sells stuff could use a cookie to track merchandise that you looked at but didn't buy. Or, a news site might track whether you read a story about John McCain or Jennifer Lopez.
And if you've given a site your real name or address, the site can begin building a detailed file on your habits.
If you're curious about your cookies and you're running Netscape, look in C:\Program Files\ Netscape\ Users\ Your_Name\ cookies.txt. If you're running Internet Explorer, look in C:\Windows\Cookies. On the left side of each line, you can see the name of the site that wrote the cookie.
One way that cookies can become intrusive is by using clear GIFs. A clear GIF is a tiny picture that you don't see that can be embedded by an advertiser in a page that he returns to you. Even though you don't see the clear GIF, its presence allows the advertiser to write a cookie to your PC. Some Web sites feed you a clear GIF to prove to their advertisers that their hit statistics are valid.
This Web site feeds you NO cookies... bad for you, except to save your password and preferences, in our dog Wolf's opinion. And so, while you can't eat these Web cookies, you can surely purge them off of your hard drive.

CYBERSPACE

Cyberspace is everything in the known (and unknown) universe that folks can access via some computer network. It's the cyber universe (or cyberverse). It's the mystical, magical world you enter when you log onto the Net... as opposed to old-fashioned, boring non-cyberspace Reality, where you have to work for money, and you have to pay taxes, and where bills come in the mail, and where you get shy when you have to meet real people, and where everyone is not brilliant and beautiful and imposingly endowed. In cyberspace, even a dog like your dog Wolf can create a Web page like this one. And in cyberspace, at 430 AM on Sundays, all cats are gray, and all ISPs are equal.
And cyberspace is independent of physical geography.

DAEMON

Unix machines have lots of programs called daemons (pronounced dee' - menz) running endlessly in the background. A daemon usually spends most of its time sleeping. Daemons either wake up periodically and search for tasks to perform, or they wake up when some event takes place.
For example, the cron daemon wakes up periodically and performs all of the tasks specified in a particular Unix directory. And many computers running the Unix operating system run a print daemon, which wakes up and prints whatever is in the print queue whenever a program writes something there.
Most Net functions, like serving up Web pages or FTP or E-mailing, are performed by daemons running on a Unix computer out there on the Net somewhere. Daemons are also popular with some hackers; daemons can be placed on some willing server, and they sleep undetected in the background until awakened by the hacker to perform some function... such as denying folks access to some popular Web site. Not very impressive... breaking is always easier than building. (See second law of thermodynamics.)

DEDICATED PHONE LINE

This is something you can get from many ISPs. It can be a leased phone line (where you're connected without dialing), or it can be a phone number that only you have.
The line will never be busy, and you can use it to stay connected to your ISP forever and ever; which is cool, if you're running your own server. The rub is that dedicated lines usally cost hundreds of dollars per month.
But... with a dedicated line connected to a real ISP, your PC can have a direct, permanent connection to the Net. Dedicated lines may be expensive, but they're also very cool. (Cable connections work just like dedicated phone lines, though most cable companies frown upon you running your own server.)

DHCP

DHCP stands for "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol." DHCP is a way that your PC can get a unique, working IP address when you dial into your ISP (some heavy alphabet soup here).
Why? Well, you need an IP address in order to be able to direct good stuff from out on the Internet to your PC, like the Web pages your browser requests. (It's like your telephone number... you usually need one to be able to receive calls.)
DHCP is a better way for an ISP to assign you an IP address than just picking one out of the air and then seeing if anyone else is already using it. Well, you asked.
Also, the knowledgeable folks at Precise Networking Solutions in Baltimore, Md (aka "The Boss") tell me that DHCP is a cool way to assign IP addresses to all the PCs in your home or business if they're connected to the Net via a router. And, they remind me, if you have a cable modem in your home, you'd best also have a router between that modem and your PC or PCs to protect your privacy; i.e., to keep the computer nerd down the road out of your hard drive.

DIAL-UP NETWORKING (DUN)

Dial-Up Networking, included with Windows, allows your computer, connected to a network through a modem, to communicate with other computers on the network just as if your computer were a part of the network (only more slowly).
Using DUN, you can get your E-mail from your network at work, you can send a file to your printer at work, you can run programs on your computer at work... all from home.
DUN allows you to connect to one or to many different ISPs, using different USERIDs and/or different modems if you like, just by clicking on the proper icon. And DUN takes care of the winsock and the TCP/IP and the dialing and all of that stuff. If you have DUN, flaunt it... it's the greatest idea since female intuition.

DIGITAL

Pay attention to this one, because many folks (including some comp sci professors) muck it up (threw in an Aussie-ism there). Ok... If something is digital, it has discrete states. Whoop. So what does that mean?
The pole lamp in my bedroom has three bulbs. It has FOUR states... all bulbs off, bulb #1 on, bulbs #2 and #3 on, and all three bulbs on... dark, romantic, brighter, and very bright. My pole lamp has four discrete states. Things which have a finite number of states are called DIGITAL. My pole lamp is digital; it only has four states, and four is a finite number.
The Giant FoodMart is either open or closed; it has two discrete states (it's digital). And it's also BINARY. Why? One more example first.
The light in the bathroom off of my bedroom has two states; it's on or it's off. It is DIGITAL (two discrete states). And it's also BINARY. Why? Digital things with only two discrete states are called binary.
LOVE is binary (he loves me, he loves me not... ). The circuits in PCs are almost entirely binary... their voltages are always in one of two states, ON or OFF. Why are PCs designed to be (digital and) binary?... because binary technology is very, very cheap. It's the $$$. Most (but not all) computers are digital and binary.
Returning to my bedroom, I have a reading lamp with a dimmer. It has MANY states. How many, you ask me? MANY. In fact, in theory, it has an endless number of states, an INFINITE number of states. Things which have an infinite number of states are called ANALOG. My weight is analog. (I'm not saying here that MY WEIGHT is infinite, just that it can be in an infinite number of states... 107.00, 107.10, 107.15, etc.)
But, when I get on my digital scale however, the scale displays some "digits" from 0 to 300. The display on the scale can be in one of 301 discrete states; thus, the scale is digital (but not binary). This scale is an example of an analog to digital converter... it converts my analog weight to a digital display. Special purpose computers (often used for simulations and for solving differential equations) have ANALOG circuits. Programming analog computers by rewiring their front panels can be very theraputic.
In late 2004, we are seeing almost everything in the entertainment aisle switching to DIGITAL. (PCs always were digital, primarily because you can make very fast digital chips for computers very VERY cheaply.) Now... digital cameras, camcorders, TVs, and video recorders deliver sharper, clearer, cleaner pictures with more details than their older analog counterparts. And with digital equipment, the functionality is nothing short of unbelievable. For example, with digital cameras, you can preview your photos, delete the bad ones, crop out the tour guide in front of the Grand Canyon, etc.
THE FUTURE--> Your PCs are digital, your digital cameras (etc) are digital. Watch what happens when the entertainment devices and your PCs are smoothly integrated by 2006... like you could take your camera to a restaurant near Niagra Falls... a restaurant with a "hot spot"... and VOILA, all of your pictures are magically uploaded to a space on the Net; your friends and family can see all your vacation photos (should they desire) just a few minutes after you've snapped them... and now your photos have departed from your camera and are safely tucked away out on the Net... so you can start shooting pictures again on the same memory card. And that's just the beginning.

DNS

MEMORIZE THIS TO IMPRESS EVERYONE--> Ok, let's assume that you want to browse www.dogwolf.edu. Well... you can't. Because www.dogwolf.edu is a DOMAIN NAME, and IP (the part of TCP/IP that actually moves stuff around the Net) can only work with IP ADDRESSES.
SO you can't get a Web page from www.dogwolf.edu (an easy-to-remember domain name) until it gets translated into an impossible to remember "IP Address," like 216.163.77.8.
So... who translates these DOMAIN NAMES into IP ADDRESSES? TADA... DNS to the rescue. (DNS = Domain Name System.) How does DNS translate a domain name into an IP address? (This is the kind of stuff that will make your SO think of marriage for sure; or you may just scare him or her with the power of your mind.)
When an ISP or an organization (like precisenetworking.com) wants to connect to the Internet, it has to register with some organization... like InterNIC. And as part of this registration process, the organization has to list at least TWO "DNS Servers;" these DNS servers must return an IP address for every domain name in the organization. And it's the organization's job to keep the data on its DNS servers current. Hold this thought.
Every TCP/IP product contains a special program called "The Resolver." (Great movie title.) When you want to browse or FTP or telnet or whatever, you specify the domain name you want to go out to, and the resolver converts that domain name to an IP address.
You want to browse www.dogwolf.edu? The resolver program in TCP/IP on your PC converts that domain name to 207.65.74.114. How does it perform this modern miracle, you ask your dog Wolf? Stay tuned.
STEP ONE. The resolver looks in YOUR local DNS server. If you're on an ISP, it looks in the ISP's DNS server. And if the domain name that you want converted belongs to your local domain... that is, if it's on YOUR DNS server, the resolver reads the record for it, retrieves the IP address, we're done. Not very exciting.
STEP TWO. Pay attention here, because this is important. When the resolver asks your local DNS server for an IP address, and the domain name is not on your local server, then your DNS server goes "out there" onto the Net for help. (We'll tell you how in a minute.) When it gets the IP address from "out there," it not only gives it to you, but it also stores the name and address on a local hard drive, called a cache. In STEP TWO, the resolver checks its local cache to see if the name and address are stored in there. If it finds a match, we're in business, we're done.
BUT NOT ALWAYS. Ever try to reach a bunch of Web sites and find some of them giving you "Resolving host www.aardvark.edu" and never getting any further; then in a few hours all is well again? Think your ISP's local DNS cache may be having problems? Uh Huh. But assume that STEP TWO here goes Ok, and the resolver just doesn't find a match in the local cache. To review and preview the whole process-->
NEED IP---------RESOLVER---------DOMAIN NAME ADDRESS PROGRAM ON LOCAL DNS--------Get it. SERVER? yes | |no | GO TO A ROOT SERVER-------------DOMAIN NAME "OUT THERE." GET ADDRESS no IN LOCAL DNS---------Get it. OF DNS SERVER FOR DESIRED CACHE? yes DOMAIN | | GO TO THIS REMOTE DNS SERVER. GET IP ADDRESS. RETURN IT TO RESOLVER PROGRAM. ALSO CACHE IT ON LOCAL DNS SERVER.

STEP THREE. We're still trying to resolve www.dogwolf.edu. Our local DNS server now sends the dogwolf portion of the name to the .EDU Root Server "out there" on the Net somewhere. The .EDU root server knows about dogwolf.edu (and every other domain name ending in .EDU).
(There are actually multiple identical root servers "out there" on the Net for .EDU and for .COM and for .ORG and so on... for every domain.)
The .EDU Root Server has information in its tables that tell it the address of dogwolf.edu's DNS server. It sends that address to OUR DNS server. OUR DNS SERVER then queries the dogwolf.edu REMOTE DNS SERVER, and it gets the IP address of www.dogwolf.edu. And now you can rock 'n' roll and start actually browsing www.dogwolf.edu.
As we said, your local DNS server (the one at YOUR ISP, or at your organization) also caches this IP address on a disk drive, so the lookup process usually goes pretty fast. The next time your ISP sees www.dogwolf.edu, it ALREADY has the IP address, it "remembers" it from the DNS query that it did the first time.
The long process described above with the DNS root server only happens when your ISP has never been asked about a certain remote domain name before (or if a locally cached entry has expired).
(IMPRESS JOHN NASH--> How, pray tell, does your local DNS server know how long to keep an entry in its cache? A deep secret--> when the remote DNS server sent the entry with the IP address, recall? Well, it also included in its entry the MAXIMUM TIME that the entry can be cached (one day is a common value). Of course, the organization running the DNS server may de-cache the entry earlier than recommended, perhaps because cache is running out of disk space, or because there are too many entires in its cache and things are running slowly, OR... the ISP/ Organization may be getting angry calls and realize that its cache is mucked up. (Aussie term, sorry.) ...is it common to worry about unmatched parentheses in prose?)
Yeah, there ARE a few steps to it. But it's not rocket science. (More like meeting a beautiful woman and chatting with her and courting her and... and...) And this DNS system, where there is actually a "distributed database," almost always works... millions of times each hour. And it's pretty much transparent. And this is how the DNS (Domain Name System) REALLY does its thing, no hooey.
And you're now among the 0.05% of Netizens who know and understand this.
And once YOU know that Aunt Biddie's phone number is 410-936-1212... uh, sorry... that www.dogwolf.edu's IP address is 216.163.77.8, you're free to bypass the whole DNS lookup process and simply give your browser http://216.163.77.8, which will work just fine, and may even save you a second or two.
(Ok... it will USUALLY work fine... there are some "party lines" on the Net. Just like sometimes folks in different houses will share the same phone number, sometimes a few Web sites on the Net will share the same IP address... and you cannot get the Web page you want just by sending the correct IP address... you also have to send the host name. Sharing IP addresses is a type of Web virtual hosting.)
If you're running certain versions of Windows, you can go to the DOS (command) window, give it the line command "NSLOOKUP WHATEVER" where "WHATEVER" is some domain name, and watch it return an IP address for you from your local DNS server.

DOMAIN

Names on the Net are made from labels separated by dots. The labels themselves are arranged in a tree-like structure... a naming tree.
If a host name (the name of a specific computer on the Net) is dog.wolf.net, then (a very small part of) the naming tree would look like...
Tree Structure --------------------- | NET | -------------------- | WOLF | ---------------------- | DOG

...and the DOMAIN NAME for the label dog would be dog.wolf.net... we CLIMB the tree to get DOMAIN NAMES.
The DOMAIN NAME for wolf would be wolf.net.
And the DOMAIN NAME for net would be net.
To identify DOMAINS, we go DOWN the tree. Our tree above shows the DOMAINS net, wolf.net, and dog.wolf.net.
We call the the highest level domain, in this case net, THE TOP-LEVEL DOMAIN.
We call the two rightmost labels THE SECOND-LEVEL DOMAIN. Here, that would be wolf.net. This is the SITE or "little network" (or LAN) name.
We call the second label from the right the OWNER; here, wolf owns this specific computer.
Everything to the left of two rightmost labels constitutes the name of the specific computer; here, it is dog.
For an in-depth explanation of naming on the Net, with copious examples, see my excellent dog Wolf article How The Net *REALLY* Works.

DOWNLOAD

If you copy something (a picture, a program, a song, whatever) from some computer "out there" on the Net to a disk on your PC, you've downloaded it. When your browser requested this page from a Web server out on the Net somewhere, and you got a copy of it to display on your monitor, you downloaded it.
For example, E-mail programs like Eudora will download your accumulated E-mail from your ISP's (POP) mail server down to your PC.
And UPLOAD is just the reverse... when you copy a file from your PC's disk to a computer (server) "out there" on the Net, you've done an upload. If you have your own Web site, you'll be uploading files from your PC to some Web server "out there" on the Net.
WS_FTP32 is a popular program that uploads and downloads files between your PC and some computer out on the Net.

DSL

DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line (Technology). It's also called xDSL, and ADSL is a common variant. DSL runs over POTS (plain old telephone service) lines. (Lotta alphabet soup going on.)
Like cable, DSL is a faster way to access the Net than a 56k dial-up modem. And like cable and satellite, DSL is a form of BROADBAND. (Cable (11%), DSL (4%), and satellite (1%) are the three primary forms of broadband... that is, they allow accessing the Net faster than you can with a 56k dial-up modem. The percentages are the percent of home Internet subscribers using that technology in March 2003.
With DSL, your Net packets travel over your old regular copper telephone lines along with your voice; a "splitter" separates your voice from Internet data. (In fact, DSL cannot travel over fiber-optic phone lines, and it often has problems with the newer "thin" copper wires... it's a technology conceived in 1988 that works best on the old copper phone lines... as long as they are in good condition.
A negative of DSL is that the lines from your computer to the local phone company are not always DSL ready; sometimes, a whole lot of fiddling is required. And your DSL Internet provider may NOT be your local phone company = finger-pointing. And you generally must be within three miles of your local phone comapny for DSL to work... three "copper wire" miles, not three "crow flying" miles.
DSL can carry data at speeds up to 6 million bits per second (vs 56,600 bits per second at best with your v.90 dial-up modem). Often, folks can download using DSL at 1.5 million bits per second; and (using ADSL) you can upload (send stuff to your ISP) at 128,000 bits per second.
DSL is superior to cable in some ways, in your dog Wolf's opinion... you're not sharing "the line" with everyone else in your neighborhood, so DSL is more secure. (You still should have a router between your DSL modem and your PC.)
And the download speed doesn't drop off as more and more of your neighbors begin watching Victoria's Secret via RealVideo, as happens with cable... many cable networks are like apartment buildings... there's not a lot of hot water when everyone takes a shower at once.
However, DSL is finicky; it needs to be installed carefully... if you've done some rewiring of your home phones to add extensions, etc, all that rewiring may need to be redone; and there can be interference if two copper wires carrying DSL data are in close proximity in bundles of wires (a problem commonly called cross-talk.). And as we mentioned, DSL can only work if there is less than three miles of copper wire between your PC and the local phone company's central office. (We already mentioned the fiber-optic problem.) And if your phone line runs through one of those boxes that permits multiple conversations using a single pair of wires... forget DSL. Don't sign anything in stone until you first try DSL from your home or office.
When your DSL line reaches the local phone company central office, the data is "split off" from any voice conversation on the line... yes, with DSL you can talk on your phone line and use it to carry data at the same time (though you may hear a clicking sound when you use your DSL line for talking while doing a data transfer); and then, your phone company sends the data portion to your ISP. So, with DSL, you have more flexibility in chossing an ISP than you do with cable.
With DSL, you're always connected to your ISP... there is no dial tone for the Internet. This makes it a bit harder to change ISPs; and obviously, since you never disconnect from the Net, your IP address will never change (static IP address) with a DSL connection to your ISP... a potential security problem here... hence the need for a broadband router.
HINT--> Most DSL will connect to your PC using the PPPoE (Point-To-Point Over Ethernet Protocol). The overhead for this protocol is usually handled by software, like the client Windows XP provides. BUT... you can increase speed and stability by letting your ROUTER do the PPPoE processing. (You need the router anyway between your DSL modem and your PC for security reasons.)
CONCLUSION--> In Maryland, Comcast cable downloads three times as fast (3 Mbits/ sec) as does Verizon DSL. But DSL is still plenty fast; if you convert from a 56K dialup modem to DSL, the speed of DSL will shock you for the first few days. And remember that DSL is private, while cable is shared with all of your neighbors.

E-Mail

E-mail is by far the most popular Internet activity (2006).
E-mail allows you to use your PC to send letters and files across the Net to specific folks (or groups of folks) at other computers that are also connected to the Net. (If you send huge quantities of big letters containing unsolicited garbage, that's called mail-bombing. Sending small to moderate quantities of unsolicited garbage is called spamming. Folks who do mail-bombing are called "supreme idiots" (unless it's justified (if you do it, it's always justified)). Folks who do spamming are simply called "idiots."

E-MAIL ADDRESS

If you stick a user name to the left of a host computer name and if we separate the two names with an @, you get an E-mail address, like collie@dog.wolf.net. Every E-mail address in the world is a unique mailbox somewhere out there on the Net. Whew, whole lotta mail boxes out there.

E-MAIL LIST

(Also called mail groups, listservs, and majordomos.) You send E-mail to a group address, and it goes to everyone subscribed to the group. Similarly, every E-mail that someone sends to the group goes to you; it's a neat way to have conversations on specialized topics (or just to socialize). You join by subscribing, you unjoin by unsubscribing. Many e-mail lists are private (MDs like to exchange secrets via private e-mail lists), and many others are open. (There are a LOT of E-mail lists.) Just be careful, you can begin getting a HUGE QUANTITY of mail after you join a popular mail list. Quickly.
(ADVICE--> Mail lists have TWO addresses. One address you use when you want everyone subscribed to the list to see what you have to say. The other is for administrivia... like subscribing and unsubscribing. If you send your unsubscribe request to the entire group, you'll likely be called an "idiot". But it happens. What will scar you for life is complaining bitterly to the entire group with several letters sent over a week or two complaining that you want to stop receiving "this junk.")
You can easily find most of the public e-mail groups. Just click here on CataList, the official catalog of LISTSERV lists.

ETHERNET

We can connect PCs that are fairly close together into a network. Maybe they're all in the same office park. Connected in such a network, they can easily exchange E-mail, they can share printers and files, etc. Such a setup is called a Local Area Network, or a LAN.
Ethernet is one type of LAN, one way of connecting the computers together. PCs connected by Ethernet can swap data at 10 million (or more) bits per second... pretty fast compared to the 56,600 bits per second folks using modems connect to the Net.
(IDEA--> Hey, what if we connected our LAN to an ISP with just one very fast connection, like a T-3? Then all the PCs on our LAN would have VERY fast access to the Net. Sounds great. Works great, too.)
(NUGGET OF KNOWLEDGE--> ISPs usually have several PCs (or bigger computers than PCs) in the same room or building... and a cool way to connect them, so that they can exchange data, is via ETHERNET... In fact, Ethernet IS a popular way for ISPs to link their internal computers.) See my excellent dog Wolf article How ISPs Work for all the exciting details.)

EUDORA

Eudora is a popular E-mail client ("client" means that its a program that runs on your PC) for retrieving your E-mail that's been queued up (or "spooled") on your ISP's server out there somewhere on the Net; and it's also great for sending E-mail. Eduora comes in "Lite" (free to non-commercial users) and "Pro" (you pay a few $) versions, as well as Pro with an advert on the screen (which comes free).
(Dog Wolf Suggests--> Start with Eudora Lite; then after a few months, you'll be able to tell if you really need "PRO." Or download the Pro version, and see if the small advert really bothers you.)
Releases of Eurora for the last few years have been able to interpret and display HTML documents, very similar to Web pages; most commonly, such documents are included with commercial mail... advertisements and coupons, etc.
(EGO TRIP--> Your importance on the Net is proportional to the amount of E-mail that you receive; ALWAYS claim that you get lots of E-mail (from friends... everybody gets lots of E-mail advertisements these days)... only your ISP knows for sure anyway, and it makes you sound important... and you can always subscribe to E-mail groups and get as much e-mail as you like.
(This hint does not apply to AOL, where EVERYONE who chats in chat rooms gets LOTS of E-mail. AOL allows up to seven screen names (as of January 2003); dedicate one screen name to E-mail only (never chat or post using this name); you will get no junk E-mail on this screen name... none of the spammers know it.)
(Again, be certain that you know how to un-subscribe from a mail group; sending the word "unsubscribe" to everyone in the group will brand you as a newbie (or worse, as an "idiot").)

FAQ

FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers). You'll see this all over the Net. FAQs are just a list of the most common questions that folks ask along with their answers, written by people who got tired of answering the same questions over and over... this encyclopedia is a kind of FAQ.
Your ISP may have a FAQ on its Web site. Usenet newsgroups (message boards) and IRC channels (chat rooms) frequently have FAQs. Asking a question that's answered in the FAQ makes you an "idiot"; so read any FAQs before you ask a question. (It's Ok to ask if there IS a FAQ and where it is... In fact, it makes you look cool... because many "regulars" (the opposite of newbies) have never bothered to read the FAQ.)

FINGER

Finger is a utility program that you can run as a client on your PC to locate people on other sites (or you can type it on the command line, if you have a UNIX shell account).
Type finger dog@wolf.net, and you may get the real name of the person with that E-mail address. You can see if "dog" has an account at domain "wolf.net." But only if wolf.net lets you. And only if the person with that E-mail address lets you.
You may also be able to see when that person logged on last, WHERE they logged on FROM (good for identifying and locating unsophisticated trolls), and other information. Finger is an attempt to link cyberspace with Reality. (But it can't be done.)

FIREWALL

Sometimes, curious folks try to use the Internet to visit the internal networks in banks, the CIA, hospitals, the Nuclear Defense Agency, your ISP, you name it. A FIREWALL is a combination of programs and computer hardware that folks use, in an attempt to prevent such visits by the curious.
A firewall is designed to allow only specific kinds of messages, perhaps from specific folks, to flow between private (trusted) networks and the "untrusted" Internet.
Do firewalls work? Does the lock on your front door work? Yes, usually. But never say never. The CIA's Web page has been "enhanced" at least once.
If you subscribe to a cable ISP, you are sharing your cable connection with other folks in your neighborhood = potential for playfulness; have a router installed to act as your firewall. (The router will also allow you to connect 4 or more PCs to a single cable modem. And if you get a wireless router for a few dollars more, you can access the Internet from your laptop. Lying on the sofa or on your bed and chatting with friends on the Net can be cool.)
IMPRESS YOUR BANDICOOT--> Many folks wonder--> If I have a router between my PCs and my cable (or DSL) modem, do I still need firewall software? There are a number of answers to this question; Wolf has asked me to give you the CORRECT answer. OK...
If your router contains a decent hardware firewall, it will HIDE your PCs from hackers and spies and perverts out there on the Net... and it will make it a LOT harder for folks out there to attack your local network... it will surely hinder incoming intrusions and bozo attacks.
BUT... if you already have naughty programs ON your PCs, your router CANNOT prevent these rogue programs on your PCs from sending out data about your activities onto the Net; nor can it prevent rogue programs that have sneaked onto your PCs from launching attacks on other computers out there on the Net.
To gain OUTBOUND protection, you need a software firewall; we recommend ZoneAlarm. AND ALSO... it never hurts to have an extra layer of protection... BOTH hardware and software protection... both a router AND ZoneAlarm.

FLAME

A flame is a zinger, an attempt to denigrate or insult or make someone look like an "idiot." And if you receive a flame (usually in response to a post on Usenet), then you've been "flamed." [Actually, you haven't, but thanks for attempting a viewpoint.] <--This is a flame, just kind of a subtle one. More intense--> "You know, you CAN break the Prozacs in half." Or... "What, they don't sell decaf in your trailer park?"
If you post a message to a mailgroup or a Usenet newsgroup that has nothing to do with its topic, you can usually expect a nasty E-mail containing a flame; no big deal. Flames upset some folks who are on the receiving end; others could not care less. The Net has elevated really great flaming (stuff beyond "You're an idiot") to a creative artform.
When two or more users flame each other in an escalating manner that threatens to continue into the next millennium, we have what is called a FLAME WAR. If you like flames and flame wars, check out Usenet newsgroup alt.flame (or enter some friendly Usenet newsgroup like alt.aol-sucks and say some nice things about AOL; affecting an arrogant, know-it-all, condescending, and pompous demeanor always helps.)
Use Web site www.dejanews.com to scan newsgroup alt.aol-sucks from 1996-97 for some of the all-time great flames.

FLAT RATE

This is the account plan that most Internet Providers (ISPs) offer (2002). It's the opposite of your long-distance telephone service, where the longer you stay connected, the more you pay.
Flat rate is like an all-you-can-eat buffet... as long as you're hungry, you can stay and keep feasting on the Internet. However, you can't camp out there after dinner and wait for breakfast; when you're done, you leave (log off).
Flat rate is often called "unlimited," but "unmetered" is a better name. If you think you want to move into the restaurant and have ALL of your meals at the a.y.c.e. buffet, it's best to tell your ISP that you want a "dedicated" account... piggies can make the phone lines busy for others... sometimes. Just be honest here, and you'll be cool.
And note that a cable ISP allows you to stay connected to your ISP forever, without any dial-up or login... it is the logical limit of flat-rate(if your cable ISP is working correctly).

FTP

FTP is a service that the Internet provides, like E-mail or the Web. FTP is a fast way to download stuff to your PC from some server out there on the Net (pictures, programs, whatever you can find out there)... FTP is one of the Net's vast treasure troves.
You can also use FTP to move stuff FROM your PC to some server out there on the Net. (You'll usually do this if you have a Web site; then, you'll want to "upload" stuff from your PC to your Web hosting service on the Net, for all the world to see).
IMPRESS YOUR LOCAL CONSTRUCTION WORKER--> FTP = File Transfer Protocol. And see my excellent dog Wolf article How The Net REALLY Works for ALL the exciting details on FTP.)

GIF

GIF is a format for representing a picture on the Net (or on a computer) in a file. GIFs are compressed, and so they're usually smaller than pictures in many other formats (except for JPEGs, which are compressed even more... so much that some of the color or detail has been thrown away, though this may not be noticeable. Because JPEGs are even smaller than GIFs, GIFs are becoming scarce these days (2002).
(IMPRESS YOUR DATE--> GIF = Graphic Interchange Format, JPEG = Joint Photographic Experts Group.)

GOPHER

Use a gopher client program on your PC to connect to some gopher server out there on the Net. Then pick an entry from the menu he gives you. Pick another... the menus become more and more detailed. Ultimately, you'll get the names of lots of files on some topic. Gophers are very cool, but they have now (2002) been pushed aside 99% by the Web (sight and sound and hypertext on the Net) together with search engines such as Google. As a result, lots of stuff that you find using Gophers is old (but much is still excellent, all the better for having been forgotten). Try it, you may like it; especially if you're doing research, as opposed to surfing. And think of gophers as what the Web was before 1995.

GUI

GUI stands for "Graphical User Interface," and it's pronounced "goo'-ey." If a program on your PC is NOT GUI, then you communicate with it by typing text on a command line. (This is called a "CLI" system, for "Command Line Interface." GUI and CLI are "opposites.")
DOS isn't GUI; it's CLI. UNIX isn't GUI; it's a CLI, to name just two. Non-GUI is considered uncool today (2002) by many folks.
If your program or operating system IS GUI, you can click on things and drag and drop icons with your mouse pointer, or you can click on lists of menu items, or you can select menu items from your keyboard, or you can press a button on some toolbar. Windows is GUI, and Mac OS is GUI, to name just two. And programs that run on these are usually GUI also. And many folks today consider GUI cool. Some have never even seen a CLI program.
Reality check... While GUI is often very convenient, and while GUI is easy for the newbie to use, command lines can input incredibly powerful commands that can move large cyberspace mountains with just a few symbols, as in the infamous DOS command-
DELTREE /Y \*.* (I am the thought you are now thinking... DON'T TRY IT).

HOST

A host is computer on the Net that performs some service for us. Perhaps it has files that it lets you download to your PC. Or it may retrieve Web pages. Or it may send your E-mail out to folks. Or it posts your Usenet articles. Or it lets you chat on IRC. Maybe it plays a game of chess with you. And on and on... all of these are examples of hosts on the Net.
IMPRESS YOUR LOVER--> The host is the computer out on the Net that performs some service; but the program on that computer that actually performs the service is called a "server," like a Web server.

HOST NAME

A host name is the name of a host computer out there somewhere on the Net, usually the host computer that you want to reach. Host names look something like dog.wolf.net. The dog part is the name of a specific computer at location wolf.net.

HTH

Hope This Helps. A shorthand, often used sarcastically or in a flame, at the end of a correction of another... or after an explanation. Usually used in posts to Usenet or in E-mail.
Example... Folks who remember to break their Prozacs in half usually end up spelling "ferrette" (see your post) as "ferret." HTH. Now go home.
Or... What we learned about you, DAwn, is not that you changed nicks on IRC, but that you're a liar. HTH. (You had to be there.)

HTML

HTML is the language your Web browser interprets. The nicely formatted documents your browser returns to you were written (at least partly) in HTML. And for the last few years, E-mail readers like Eudora and Outlook have been able to display E-mail containing HTML... usually commercial mailings with advertisements, coupons, etc.
In HTML, this definition looks like-->
 <hr width="90%" size="3"><center>
HTML</center>
<IMG src="./smiley2.gif">
HTML is the language your Web browser interprets. The nicely formatted
documents your browser returns to you were written (at least partly)
in HTML.
 In HTML, this definition looks like-->

[HTML snipped here to prevent infinite recursion and a possible black hole.]

HTTP

A way for moving HYPERTEXT files around the Net. HTTP is the way that most of the stuff moves about the Web. In fact, HTTP is the underlying protocol for the Web.
(IMPRESS YOUR DATE--> HTTP = "HyperText Transfer Protocol.")
(IMPRESS YOUR LOVER--> There are four phases to HTTP (you can follow them on your browser's status bar at the bottom). 1.) Makes a connection with the specified server on some host computer; usually, your browser tries to make a connection with port 80 on that server. 2.) The request phase... your browser makes a request of the server. 3.) The server responds and sends some control information along with the requested page to your browser. And 4.) the close phase, initiated when the requested page is sent, or when you press stop on your browser.)
(Reality Check... someone realized that doing many connections and disconnections, when most of the items retrieved were coming from the same Web server, was kind of silly. And so HTTP version 1.1 added the ability to maintain a socket connection and make multiple requests to a server with just one connection.)

HYPERTEXT

Hypertext is text that has links to other files. This page has some links that will take you to other documents (like the buttons at the top and bottom). Click on a hypertext link, and you can retrieve another document or picture or whatever.

ICQ

ICQ is a cute abbreviation for "I Seek You." You download the ICQ program, and it tells you when your friends are on the Net... and then you can page them and chat with them. (They too will need to download the ICQ program.) With ICQ, you can also send files to your buddies; and lately, you can even initiate voice and video sessions with your mates.

IE

IE (Internet Explorer) is the most popular Web browser (2002) and was developed by Microsoft. IE is in many ways similar to Netscape, which is now owned by AOL.
Both IE and Netscape are clients (programs that run on your PC). You tell your Web browser which Web server you want to access out there somewhere on the Net, and which page you want from the Web server. If all goes well (and it usually does), the server returns the page to your browser. And your browser then displays the page on your PC.
Thus, if you give your browser- http://www.precisenetworking.com/~mcgatney/gloss.html, it will try to get page gloss.html from directory mcgatney out there on server www.precisenetworking.com.

IMHO

In my humble opinion. A shorthand used to indicate that the writer is expressing a debatable opinion, as... "IMHO, dog Wolf has no equal as both a philosopher and a lover." Also occasionally IMNSHO... "In my not so humble opinion."

IMAP

When you send me an E-mail, your message is queued (spooled) in my password protected mailbox somewhere out there on the Net in what is usually called a "POP Mail Server."
To retrieve your letter (and all the others that have accumulated for me), I log onto the E-mail server at MY ISP, using MY e-mail client (like Eudora or Outlook); and, using the POP3 protocol, I check for letters, download any that are there, and delete them from my ISP's POP mail server. POP enables my desktop client, my Eudora or Outlook, to download my mail from some mail server out there on the Net.
OR... perhaps my ISP has the newer "IMAP mail server and archive," instead of a POP mail server. IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) servers can store mail just about forever. And I can view the headers first before downloading my mail, and so I can download only stuff that I really want to read, using an "IMAP Session," instead of POP3.
Another way to look at it is that IMAP permits a "client" E-mail program on your PC (like Eudora, or Outlook, or whatever) to access remote message stores at your ISP just as if they were local and on your PC.
IMAP is also superior to POP in another way... The widely used Post Office Protocol (POP) works best when you download your mail to just ONE PC. POP was designed to download your messages and then delete them from the mail server. But this mode of access is not always cool with multiple computers, since it tends to sprinkle messages across all of your PCs... not good. IMAP allows massages to be selectively downloaded to selected PCs.

INTERNET

(It's also called The Net.)
A network is two or more computers connected together with a wire or by radio waves so that they can communicate and exchange data. This collection of computers and wires (or radio transmitters and receivers) we call a network (little "n" for "little network.")
The Internet is simply a bunch ( a BIG bunch) of these little networks connected together into a network of networks. The Internet is not the only "network of networks", but it's the BIGGEST. And every little net on The Internet communicates with every other little net using the TCP/IP language and the TCP/IP set of rules (protocols).
Actually, the Internet is a lot like the public switched telephone system, except that it carries tiny data packets instead of voices (and in 2006, pictures and live action). (Yeah, when you send an e-mail, it's torn up into lots of tiny data packets, sent to its destination, and then reconstructed... the packets don't even all have to take the same path... VOILA, it's magic.) And like the phone system, the Internet covers the whole world; it's BIG business.

IRQ

Every PC has a bunch of things called IRQs. An IRQ is a "phone line" that a peripheral (such as a modem or a hard disk) can use to tell the main processor chip that it needs control of the system... FAST. IRQs are a way for a device (keyboard, sound card, CD ROM, etc.) to signal and interrupt your Intel Pentium IV processor, or whatever.
For instance, assuem that your modem has just received a character of data... it HAS to store it in your PCs memory (RAM) BEFORE the next character of data arrives. So like all good modems, it "raises" his IRQ. Each device has his own personal IRQ. And wham-o, the Intel or AMD (or whatever) processor chip stops whatever else it was processing and instead starts to handle this mundane but extremely time-critical task of retrieving the character from your modem.
This happens hundreds of times a second on your PC; and if all goes well... and it almost always does... you are never aware of your IRQs... these Interrupt Requests.
(Two devices can NEVER "share" an IRQ path. (Can two 4th grade students agree that Brad will raise his hand when EITHER of them has something to say, without creating chaos?) In your PC, when the processor looked to see what the the device wanted that was SO important, it would find TWO devices and get extremely confused. (Yes, you can assign two devices to one IRQ; and yes, there will be chaos.))

ISP

So what's all this business about an ISP (Internet Service Provider), and why do we need one?
It would be intensely cool if we could just install some program on our PCs that would allow our modems to dial up the Net directly.
But our modems connect to phone lines... to the switched public voice phone lines... phone lines which are analog and switched. We want to hear the weather forecast here, we dial 410-936-1212.
But if we want www.weather.com... with IP address 208.134.241.155 on the Net, can't we just dial with our modems to...? BZZZT, but thanks for playing...
Because our modems can't dial an IP address. They can only dial telephone numbers. And the Net is definitely NOT on the switched voice analog network, the public phone network that we all know and love and use to chat with Aunt Biddie. NO... The Internet lives on its own "semi-private" network.
And an ISP is the link, the interface, that lets folks with PCs and modems who have a connection to the regular telephone network connect to the Internet. An ISP interfaces between the public phone system (or some cable TV system) and the Internet's digital phone lines... digital phone lines that carry PACKETS on the Net instead of voice conversations.
When our modem dials our ISP, we get our own "Internet phone number" (called an IP address); then we can use software on our PC (called "clients") to connect to other computers somewhere out there on the Internet (and they can connect to us). For example, Netscape may ask some distant server for some Web page; the server sends the page to our PC.
Most ISPs also provide a "mail box" to save our e-mail, so that we don't need to be connected to the Net constantly. And most ISPs provide a "newsfeed," so that we can get articles from Usenet. Many ISPs will also let us store our Web pages on their servers, so that folks around the world can view them. Some large ISPs are AT&T, MSN, and Earthlink.

INTRANET

A network is two or more computers connected togetherwith wires so that they can exchange data with each other. They can used the IPX language to talk to each other, or Ethernet, or TCP/IP, or whatever language they both speak. Since we rarely connect more than a few thousand computers together in a network, we call these networks "little networks."
Now... suppose that you and I both have our computers on our own little networks. My computers use the IPX language to communicate with each other, and yours use the Ethernet language to communicate with each other. And suppose that you and I decide that we want our two "little networks" to communicate with each other; that is, I want one of the computers on my little network to exchange data with one of the computers on your little network... in effect, you and I want to make a "network of networks."
And suppose further that you and I decide that our two "little networks" will talk to each other using the TCP/IP language. VOILA... we have just created an internet... a network of networks, where the little networks communicate with other little networks using TCP/IP.
Ok, that's an internet... and the biggest internet of them all is called the Internet (capital "I"), or The Net. Millions and millions of computers talking to each other, exchanging e-mail, retrieving pages from the Web, allowing folks to chat using IRC, whatever. Tada.
To state it another way... an inTERnet is what you get when you connect together a bunch of little networks, and each little network speaks the TCP/IP language to the other little networks when it transfers data between them. All the little networks on the InTERnet speak the same language when they communicate with each other; they follow a set of rules (a "protocol") called TCP/IP.
And remember, the computers on each little networks can speak anything they like when they exchange data internally... IPX, Swahili, Ethernet, even TCP/IP will work... you name it... whatever internal protocol they like.
BUT... if computers on a little network speak TCP/IP when they communicate with other computers on the SAME little network, then that little network is called an inTRAnet. In other words, an inTRAnet is a little network that speaks TCP/IP when its own computers communicate with each other... a little network where all its own computers use the TCP/IP protocol when they exchange data.
An inTRAnet also may be connected to the big InTERnet. Or it may not... it may be a private little network.
Thus, a the computers on a LAN (Local Area Network)... where the computers communicate with each other using the TCP/IP protocol, is an INTRANET. Tada.
(IMPRESS YOUR FERRET--> If you connect two or more inTRAnets together, and if the inTRAnets communicate with each other using TCP/IP, then you get what's called an EXTRAnet. Every computer, no matter which network it is on in an EXTRAnet, communicates with every other computer on the EXTRAnet using the TCP/IP protocol.
Like, maybe I'm Ford Motors, and I have an inTRAnet connecting all my internal company computers, and all the companies that supply me with parts also have inTRAnets connecting their computers; and if we connect all of these inTRAnets together using TCP/IP, then wham... we have just created an EXTRAnet... in effect, a little private little version of The Net. Very cool.)

IP ADDRESS

A thing that looks like nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn, where each nnn is some number from 0-255 (like 206.80.150.1), is called an IP address. Every computer on the Net has a unique IP address. (It's the same as your telephone number on the telephone net.) Host names must first be converted to an IP addresses before TCP/IP (and you) can use them.
There are STATIC IP addresses (you get the same IP number every time you log onto your ISP), and DYNAMIC IP addresses (you don't). Because folks have trouble remembering IP addresses like 204.168.83.2, many IP addresses are represented by host domain names that are easier to remember. So you may type in host name www.dogwolf.com on your browser, but 204.113.5.87 (the IP address for this host name) will go out onto the Net.

IRC

IRC is a service on the Net that can be extremely valuable for folks who know how to use it. IRC lets you chat with other folks (one or many others) online in real time; and it allows you to exchange files with other people somewhere out there.
Like everything on the Net, you crank up your IRC client (program) on your PC (mIRC is a popular client), and then you connect to an IRC server "out there" somewhere on the Net. Then you can create a "channel," and once you do that, other folks can drop in and chat with you and with each other. Or you can can drop into an existing channel when you join it with your IRC server.
There are IRC servers around the world, and they're getting increasingly busy. Groups of servers then can link to each other. EFNet is the biggest group of servers. The Undernet is another popular group of servers, along with DalNet.
BUT... if I'm on channel #DAwn on EFNet, and you enter channel #DAwn on the Undernet, we won't even see each other, and we can't talk. Parallel universes. Each group of servers is its own cyberverse of thousands of chat channels. It's a big galaxy out there waiting to be explored, which is part of the fascination of IRC and the Net.
Chat on AOL is like hamburger compared to the IRC filet mignon. Get to know some folks, and they'll give you the names of some servers that comprise "secret" IRC nets. And you never know who you'll meet (or have met) on IRC. Literally. (Why, you could even meet ME some night out on IRC cyberverse. What a treat.)
And no, you cannot access chat in AOL's chat rooms using IRC, nor can you get to IRC from AOL's chat rooms. Two more separate universes.

ISDN

IMPRESS YOUR SATURDAY NIGHT DATE--> ISDN = Integrated Services Digital Network. The "integrated" part refers to ISDN's ability to deliver two simultaneous connections of data, voice, fax, video... whatever.
Why ISDN? Your plain old analog telephone service was never intended to connect you to the Net. ISDN to the rescue. You get it from the same phone company, but it transmits stuff in digital format across the phone lines. Because of this, ISDN transmits data much more reliably than an analog line. And because your data stays digital, there's no need to have a modem with ISDN... just plug your ISDN adapter into a phone jack.
The most common ISDN configuration for Net access is called BRI (Basic Rate Interface). An ISDN BRI connection supports TWO 64,000 bit per second channels over a regular phone line. To get BRI ISDN service (yes, you guessed it), you usually have to be within 18,000 feet of your phone local phone company's central office building. And you'll need an ISDN terminal adapter and an ISDN Router at your PC.
An ISDN BRI configuration also includes a 16,000 bps channel that's used for signaling between your home and the phone company. By combining both of the 64 kbps channels, you can send and receive data to/from the Net at 128 kbps (or using compression, as fast as 250,000 bps). And unlike the 30 to 60 seconds required to set up a call through a modem on an analog line, because IDSN uses a separate channel for signaling, it's ready to go in about 2 seconds.
Some ISPs charge a little more for a 64k ISDN connection, others do not. Most ISPs will charge about $30-40/ mo for a 128k ISDN connection. And of course you also have to pay your phone company for the ISDN phone line.
Today (2002), the cable ISP has taken over ISDN's spot in the home (assuming it ever had one... many folks think ISDN just took too long to get its act together) for folks who want to connect instantaneously and receive data from the Net fast. (Cable is very fast when it works... an entire new release of AOL can be downloaded to your PC in a minute or two with a cable ISP.)

JAVA

Java is a "language" that programs can be written in, like COBOL. But unlike COBOL, Java is intended to be downloaded to your PC from Web sites somewhere out there on the Net (without infecting your PC with viruses).
Little Java programs are called APPLETS, and they can be quickly downloaded to your PC. Using Java applets, Web pages can do weird and exotic stuff, like displaying animations. And each applet adds new and exciting features, on the fly, to the Web. In fact, Java programs can do almost anything that "ordinary" programs can do; and then, these Java programs can be inserted into a Web page... these are truly exciting times in which to live.
NOTE--> Java and JavaScript are not the same. JavaScript resembles Java, but the difference is that Java is a general purpose object language, while JavaScript is a quicker and simpler language for enhancing your Web pages.

JAVA BEANS

A Java Bean is a reusable software component that works with Java. Reusable component? Like the tires on your car- Goodyear, Michelin... they all work because they all follow the standards. But Java applets don't always work well together.
BUT... Java Beans fixes this problem by standardizing things. For example, you can tie an Alarm Java Bean to the contents of a Spreadsheet Java Bean, which can then be tied to an On-line Stock Feed Java Bean. And as the stock prices change, the values in the spreadsheet change... and finally the Alarm goes off if any watched stock changes significantly.
Using Java Beans, applications are assembled from reusable components, not written from scratch. That's all, folks.

KLINE

If you're banned from an IRC channel or from an entire IRC server, you've been K-lined, or klined. Usually, klining is not a personal thing; the folks running an IRC channel or or IRC server typically have had a bad experience with customers from your ISP or from your commercial service like AOL), and so they've banned all of them.

LAMER

A Netizen (citizen of the Net) who behaves in a foolish or uneducated way is often called a "lamer." Newbies (newcomers to the Net) are often called lamers, as are AOL users. (The latter are occasionally called AOLamers).

LAN

A LAN is a network that connects computers in an office, in a building, or in a few buildings that are relatively close together. LAN stands for Local Area Network. Computers on a LAN can share printers, and they can share files.
If the computers on a LAN communicate with each other using the TCP/IP protocol, the LAN is called an Intranet. Ethernet is the most popular protocol for LAN computers to use when communicating with each other.
Many LANs have a single high speed cable (like a T-1) connecting them to the Internet... so that every computer on the LAN gets very high speed access.

LURKER

Frustrated Netizens who peek into your bedroom in the middle of the night? Nah... just folks who read discussions on Usenet newsgroups but don't participate by posting replies. Good netiquette says that you should lurk for a bit before posting to a newsgroup; if you don't, claim you have been lurking anyway. (No one knows.)

MAIL-BOMB

Mail-bombing is sending someone a large quantity of unsolicited e-mail, usually garbage and usually as a "punishment". (Mail-bombers are often "idiots," but so are some of those who provoke it (sometimes).)
HINT--> Don't bother mail-bombing folks with ISP shell accounts. Shell accounts run on UNIX-based computers; and UNIX has E-mail readers like "PINE," which while not GUI (you have to type line commands) can delete huge amounts of E-mail with just one or two commands, without you ever having to download it.
In 1996, many Usenet newsgroups and various hapless Netizens were targetted by one or more mail-bombers using a special Usenet server to throw dozens of tens of thousands of messages at various hapless recipients and newsgroups... possibly the worst mail-bombing ever. This incident and the associated technique used by the mail-bomber have become known as the "McGatney Bomb" (no relation); it affected many locations worldwide.
Games for the emotionally mature and mentally secure, yes? Nope.

MAIL-BOX

It's just like the postal box that you rent in the post office. Since your PC doesn't run ALL the time, your ISP saves all your incoming e-mail into some disk space on a mail server computer, reserved just for you, out there somewhere on the Net; this disk space out there on the Net, on some mail server computer, is called your mail box. (To be precise, the mail server is a program running on some computer "out there" on the Net. This program directs your mail to your dedicated space... your mailbox... on the computer's hard drive.)
NOTE that your mail box is NOT on your PC. When we turn on our PCs and connect to our ISPs and start up our Outlook or Eudora e-mail program, then we can download the mail from our mailbox "out there" somewhere to the disk on our PC; and once it's on our PC, Eudora or Outlook lets us read it.

MEGA-POP

Ok... let's assume that we're an ISP in Mytown, and we want to extend service to Littletown. We lease some phone lines there so folks can dial in, we install modems in a phone exchange in Littletown, and we connect the modems to our main facility back home with a dedicated wide-band phone line. And we hope that the location of this new "POP" (point of presence) isn't too far from our home base to drive there in the middle of the night to fix something. Pretty straightforward stuff.
But now assume we now want to extend our service to Bigtown, population 10 million. The main problem with entering the Bigtown market and offering access to all those new customers is that MANY local POPS are required, like say 30; because customers hate making toll calls to ISPs. They want to call local numbers. And we might need 30 local numbers so that no one in Bigtown has to make a toll call to call one of our modems.
Well, until recently, our ISP would need modems and phone lines in 30 different physical locations to support all of Bigtown. And we'd have to run dedicated wide-band phone lines (like T-1s) to each phone exchange, rent space, install modems, juggle the modems with the demand in each location... it used to be the stuff that ISP nightmares were made of.
Enter the megapop. A megapop lets us support all of Bigtown with just ONE BIG POP. The megapop (often a service provided by a local phone company) provides all 30 dial-up numbers at 30 local exchanges all across Bigtown. Our customers calls to ANY of these exchanges are routed by the megapop to just ONE digital connection... so that our ISP can put ALL of its modems here, and then we run our dedicated line from that connection point to our home base, and voila... we're in business.
Because the megapop routes all of our calls to one point, our ISP can set up shop in Bigtown just like we did in Littletown. Simple? Yes.

MIME

E-mail was intended to send only text. But you can trick E-mail and send pictures and programs and stuff like that as attachments to your text letters IF the mail programs at both ends support MIME. MIME is a set of rules (a protocol) for E-mail that lets us send non-text data, like graphics, audio, video and other "binary" types of files.
An e-mail program like Eudora is said to be "MIME Compliant" if it can send and receive files using the MIME standard. When non-text files are sent using the MIME standard, they get converted (encoded) into text... although the resulting text looks like some gerbil walked across the keyboard.
Besides e-mail, the MIME standard is also used by Web Servers to identify the files they are sending to our Web browsers; in this way, new file formats can be accommodated simply by updating our browsers' list of "MIME-Types" along with the software for handling each type. (IMPRESS YOUR S.O.--> MIME = Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions.)

mIRC

A cool client program (many say the best) to run on your PC if you want to chat with others on the Net using IRC (Internet Relay Chat). But no, you can't use IRC to access AOL's chatrooms for free; and no, you can't use AOL's chatrooms to access IRC... different bizarro worlds.

MODEM

A modem is a piece of hardware that lets your computer talk to another computer using the regular telephone system or your cable TV line. A modem is like your computer's handheld telephone. And if you have an ISP, modems can connect your PC to the Net using your phone line or your cable TV line.

MUSH

"MUltiuser Shared Hallucinations." MUSH are (is?) fantasy role playing games, like Dungeons and Dragons. Mush is very popular on the Net, and you can play by IRC, Telnet, and (yes) even by E-mail. Many otherwise serious, educated, and normal men and women are deeply into MUSH. (No, I don't know why.)

NAP

"Network Access Point." Ever see a traffic circle? (Yeah, they take some getting used to.) Several roads all run into a circle. You come in on one, and you circle around until you can get to the road you want to get out on. A NAP is exactly the same thing.
Big networks come in, drop their data into the NAP, and it circles around to another network that it wants to get onto. And just like the highway NAP, when traffic is heavy, it doesn't work too well. NAPs are one way that networks (highways) owned by different ISPs can communicate with each other... so that E-mail can get from aardvark.net customers to ferret.com customers, for example.
Sometimes, NAPs are high-speed cables and routers that actually circle a city; othertimes, they are individual buildings filled with cables and hardware

NETCOP

If you do something on the Net that annoys somebody, they may report you to your ISP (or on AOL, to the ubiquitous "TOS" (Terms Of Service). This is called netcopping (sometimes writen as net.copping); and the person doing the reporting is called a "netcop."
Many folks on the Net dislike netcops. Netcopping is normally reserved for serious offenses (like spamming), since you can easily make longterm enemies by netcopping folks... which can provoke counter-netcopping and mail-bombing... which can all be rather amusing, when you're watching from afar and not directly involved.
All of this stuff helps to give the Net its unique flavor. Right.

NETSCAPE

A popular Web browser; you give your browser the Web server and file you want to retrieve (like www.yahoo.com/ferrets.html), and Netscape displays the file... if it's there and you're authorized to see it.
Netscape also can read from and post articles in Usenet newsgroups; and it can send and receive e-mail. Today (2001), Netscape is owned by America online and is second in popularity to IE (Internet Explorer), used by AOL. (No, don't ask.)

NETIQUETTE

Netiquette is using the Internet in a polite manner. The Net is very free, so it's important not to abuse it in ways that limit the enjoyment of others. "Don't send unsolicited junk mail to lots of Netizens" is an example of netiquette. We've tried to list most of the major newbie "no-no's" of netiquette throughout this encyclopedia.
Now be cool and behave.

NEWBIE

A newbie is a person who is new to the Net (usually inexperienced). The opposite of a newbie is a "regular."

NEWSGROUP

Usenet is divided into thousands "message boards" called newsgroups. sci.math is a newsgroup that would normally contain articles about math, (except when successfully targeted by "The McGatney Bomb"... no, no relation.) And articles are grouped into threads. If you start a new topic in a newsgroup, like "Math Sucks," that starts a new thread.
Folks who post replies to your new thread will extend the thread. Controversial threads often can generate hundreds of posts. There are presently (2002) over 30,000 newsgroups, covering every conceivable (and many inconceivable) topics. Some groups get one new article posted weekly; others receive hundreds of posts daily. (Quantity is not always quality, however.)

NETWORK

Two or more computers connected together in such a way that they they can exchange data... Instant Messages, pictures, e-mail, whatever... are a computer network. The computers may be connected to each other by twisted copper wires, coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable, a satellite link, radio waves, cell phones, etc. A LAN (Local Area Network) is a small computer network (a few hundred PCs at most), usually in an office.

NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

A network is a bunch of computers that can exchange data directly. The parts of the network that you can touch (the computers, cases, racks, cabling, modems, dishes, wires, etc) comprise the network infrastructure.
But the network protocols, billing algorithms, security policies, electrical signals, radio waves, networking solutions, learning the Internet. etc, are examples of the parts of the network that folks can't touch (at least MOST folks cannot)... and so these items are not included in the network infrastructure.
For those familiar with "OSI" (No... DAwn is an AUSSIE), you'll see that Network Infrastructure refers to the "physical layer" (and not to folks from Down Under). Well, you asked.

NEWSREADER

The client program that you need to run on your PC to read Usenet articles from a news server "out there" on the Net and to post your articles and replies to Usenet is called a "newsreader."

OWNER NAME

If a host name is www.earthlink.com, then earthlink is the "owner name". If a host name is medical.school.computer.jhu.edu, then jhu is the owner name. The owner name is the label in a host name second from the right.

PACKET

Take some data (a string of characters, some bytes of a program, whatever)... add a few extra characters called a "checksum" so that the guy who receives the data knows it's 100% error free... then add the address where you want the block of data to go, along with the address where it's coming from (your address), and VOILA... that block of data is a PACKET (a small package).
IMPRESS YOUR DATE--> Sometimes packets are sent over paths where both ends stay connected; but sometimes, they are sent just like postal letters, bouncing about from town to town, just like balls in a pinball machine... the packets contain all the addresses they need to get them where they're going.
IMPRESS YOUR PSYCHOLOGIST--> Packets in such a "connection-less" environment are called "datagrams.") FTP packets are sent over a connection with both ends solidly connected; Web packets are sent connectionless. Thus FTP downloads faster than the Web, but it hogs a lot of resources the whole time it is in use.

PAP

"Password Authentication Protocol". PAP is an easy (and fast) way for your PC to prove its identity to your ISP's modem pool when you're logging on... without your having to provide a long, complicated script. PAP makes it simpler for your PC to establish a PPP connection with your ISP; and most PPP software packages available today (including Windows Dial-Up Networking) support PAP. BUT... not all ISP's support PAP at all their POPs. (IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS--> Tell them your POP supports PAP.)

PEERING

The New Jersey Turnpike has a peering agreement with I-95... traffic can move freely from one to the other... they connect in lots of places.
ISPs and networks have similar agreements. Thus, E-mail sent from ISP-A can reach ISP-B if the two have a peering agreement, and traffic from one can flow into the other. If there were NO peering agreements, traffic from ISP-A could only reach other subscribers at ISP-A, making E-mail and Web browsing rather dull.

PINE

PINE is an e-mail program that you often get along with shell ISP accounts... which you rarely get in 2002. PINE runs AT your ISP on a computer running under the UNIX operating system. PINE isn't fancy, and you enter one line at a time. But if you ever need to delete a huge quantity of unsolicited e-mail FAST (see "mail-bomb"), PINE can do it. PINE can delete thousands of huge e-mail letters in just a few minutes, without even having to download the E-mail from your ISP. (Trust us, we've been there.)
PINE stands for "PINE Is Not Elm" (Elm is another UNIX E-mail program). Yes, this definition is self-referential and recursive... but so are many of the gurus at MIT and other places where stuff like PINE originates; this is humor best appreciated by such folks.

POP

Just to confuse you, POP has TWO totally unrelated meanings in Internet-speak.
MEANING # 1 = Point Of Presence... a city that has a local telephone number that you can dial up with your modem to connect to an ISP. If ISP Aardvark.Net has a local number that your modem can call in Podunk, and another in Whazoo, we'd say that Aardvark.Net has "two POPs." Thus if I live in Nowhere, MT, I might call my ISP and ask if they have a POP in Nowhere.
MEANING # 2 = Post Office Protocol. One of the kinds of servers that can store your E-mail out there on the Net in your mail box and download it to your PC's hard drive when you want to look at it is called a POP server (or POP3 server). POP servers are the most popular E-mail-to-you servers at today's (2002) ISPs.
IMPRESS YOUR FERRET--> SMTP servers are usually used by ISPs when you want to SEND some e-mail, POP servers when you want to download some E-mail.

PORT NUMBER

On the Internet, "port" refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name.

gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:70/ ... here 70 is the port number.
Every server program on an Internet computer "listens" on a unique port number. Most services have standard port numbers; e.g., Web servers normally listen on port 80.
Servers can also listen on "non-standard" ports, in which case the port number must be specified in the URL when accessing the server, so you might see a URL of the form:
gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/
which shows a gopher server running on a non-standard port 7000 (the standard gopher port is 70).
A PORT CAN ALSO MEAN... the place where stuff goes into or out of your PC; like, it's a cool idea to connect your modem to your PC's "serial port" (unless it's a cable modem, in which case it's cool to connect it to your PC's Ethernet port or network port or USB).

PORTAL

A Portal in the real world is a doorway or entrance that is large or imposing. In cyberspace, a portal is a Web site like Yahoo, or an online service like AOL, from which you can get almost everything you need on the Net (or at least the owners of the site/ service would like you to believe that you can). In other words, a Portal in cybersapce attempts to be your doorway to the Net.
Portals now provide ISP services, E-mail services, search services, personalized news, stock quotes, classifieds for the lovelorn, downloads of shareware, your personal organizer, etc, etc, etc... and as many adverts as advertisers are willing to spring for.
(By 2000, there were far too many wannabe portal Web sites, and the word was FAR too widely used... especially by financial types, as in "Killer Portal App IPO." Yeech. As we predicted, there was a portal shakeout in 2000-2001... many portals are gone, others have merged or been absorbed; e.g., Snap.Com.)

PPP

PPP is a kind of ISP account, the kind of ISP account that you should get if you're using a telephone line to dial up the ISP. PPP can make it seem as if your PC is a host on the Internet, even though you dial into your ISP on a regular phone line.
With PPP, you can do more than one thing on the Net at a time... like download files using FTP while sending E-mail (called "multi-tasking"). And with PPP, you can run Net programs (clients) on your PC that are graphical and clickable (called "GUI" programs... just like most Windows and Mac programs).
(IMPRESS YOUR CONGRESSMAN--> WHY? Because with PPP, your PC can make a TCP/IP connection to the Net, and it can thus really be ON the Internet; it can even be a host. (PPP = Point-to-point Protocol.))
An important point about PPP (as opposed to SLIP) is that PPP can support multiple "protocols" at the same time... so that over a single connection, you can be connected to, say, the Internet using TCP/IP and to your Novell LAN server, both at the same time. SLIP gives you TCP/IP only.

PROTOCOL

A protocol is an agreed upon way of doing things. Red light means stop, police car with radar means slow... these are all protocols. The Net is nothing if not rich in protocols.
It's because of protocols... agreements in advance... that everyone on the Net does things in the same way; and thus the Net works. TCP/IP is the basic bag of protocols on the Net. But there are many others on top of TCP/IP... like FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

PROXY SERVER

Your ISP uses a proxy server to store pages retrieved from Web servers. This speeds up Web access. When your browser asks for some page from out on the Web, the faster proxy server tries to find that page in its cache, and only if the page isn't found will your request be passed along to the remote Web server "out there," where the page lives permanently.
Because the proxy server resides at your ISP, which is much closer to you, it speeds up Web access. But it can also give you a stale page (a page that's been updated out on the Web server but not yet updated on the proxy server)... and this is not cool if the page that you requested is a stock quote or the news headlines.

QUBIT

You may never have even heard the term "QUBIT," but it is by far the most important concept in the future of computing. (Yep.) So read this very carefully; it's not complicated, it's just new, a very new and exciting concept. To understand a QUBIT, we first will examine a cat. (I know, not my favorite pet either.) Anyway, this cat belonged to Erwin Shroedinger, a physicist. Shroedinger's cat "lived" more than fifty years ago, and he was truly a very special cat... not only was he totally imaginary, but he was both alive and dead at the same time... simultaneously.
You see, Shroedinger put his imaginary cat in a box, along with an electron; and the electron could be in either of two states, 0 or 1. If the electron was in state 0, all was well. But there also was a detector in the box, along with the cat and the electron. And if the detector detected that the electron was in STATE 1... well, then it was all over for the cat... a hammer would be triggered to break a vial of poison, quickly ending all nine lives of Shroedinger's cat.
Now... according to the laws of quantum physics... the basis for transistors, and thus for today's PCs... if we don't disturb the electron in the box, it will SIMULTANEOUSLY exist in BOTH states 0 and 1... the electron will simultaneously be OFF and ON. That is exactly like the Giant SuperMart being open and closed simultaneously. So, um, HUH? (Hey, just because we can't conceive of these notions doesn't mean that they cannot be correct; it's also hard to conceive of Einstein's conjecture that matter and energy are just two states of the same "something," but nuclear devices are based on this conjecture, and they work all too well.)
And thus by extension, because we have our detector in the box, if our electron is in state 0 and in state 1 at the same time, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time. (Whew.)
Now, in our PCs, we are used to zillions of very, very tiny transistor switches... each being off (0) or on (1) at any given time... this is how present day computers work... they work in digital binary. (Like the Giant SuperMart is either open (1) or closed (0) ).
BUT... if we make our PC's switches SMALL enough and COLD enough, at some point we notice that a few of the switches in our PC are both OFF and ON at the SAME time... just like the electron in Schroedinger's cat box. IN FACT... (take a deep breath here)... if we don't look at them (yeah, it matters), QUBITS can be every possible number between 0 and 1 (inclusive) AT THE VERY SAME TIME.
Again, we call such a quantum switch (or "bit") that can be a 0 and a 1 and every possible number in between simultaneously a QUBIT. Cool. So what?
Well, here's what; there is one other FUN FACT from quantum mechanics that we should look at... we can LINK QUBITS TOGETHER. This just means that anything that affects one QUBIT can be made to also affect all the other QUBITS that are linked to it. Again, so what?
In a QUBIT computer, you line up your QUBITS, set them off, and allow the probabilities (the number value of that QUBIT between 0 and 1) to interact with the probabilities of all the other linked QUBITS. We have, in effect, created a "QUBIT program;" the probabilities of the QUBITS will keep interacting with each other until the program is finished and the problem is solved.
Researchers have already shown that a computer using QUBITS could decrypt in A FEW SECONDS a code that our conventional computers today would take BILLIONS OF CENTURIES to decode... problems that would today require billions and billions of years to solve.
Let's take an ordinary PC; if we have 5 "bits" (each bit is a 0 or a 1), we can represent ANY integer from 0 to 31... like 01100 would be a 12. BUT... if we have 5 QUBITS, then we can represent ALL the numbers from 0 to 31 at the SAME time. And with just 15 QUBITS, we can exceed the computing power of any existing super-computer today... we can compute the fifth-root of every number from 1 to 32,768 SIMULTANEOUSLY.
The rub is that the QUBIT computer doing our decoding in just a few seconds would require thousands of linked QUBITS, and reserachers have up to now (2006) only been able to build quantum PCs with a handful of QUBITS... and linking them together is still a problem; and so is input and output.
It's now 2006, and we work with bits that are 0 or 1. But in 15 or 20 years, we may well be working with computers comprised of QUBITS... computers of astronomical power beyond anything we can even dream of today. QUBITS... store that word away for a few years... it's a word our grand-children will surely know.
No way? What if you had told a computer designer in 1955 that transistors would replace vacuum tubes in computers?
Transistors? No way.

RADIUS SERVER

RADIUS stands for "Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service." Internet Service Providers use RADIUS to verify your user-id and password when you log on.
If the ID and password that you enter at logon match the entries in the RADIUS database, then the server returns all kinds of good stuff... like how long you are allowed to remain idle without timing out, and your static IP address (if you have one). Well, you asked.

RANGE EXTENDER

Let's approach the range extender with an "imagine."
Imagine that you connect your wireless router to some high speed Internet modem, expecting everyone in your very large house to be able to access the Net at high speed on their laptops.
Instead, you find that your wireless router has a mind-boggling range of exactly 14 feet. (That is, a laptop can receive and send to the Internet only when it is within 14 feet of your wireless router.)
So you call Precise Networking Solutions. The engineer who comes out to fix your problem may possibly add a hardware gismo called a range extender to your network. Sounds simple, ay? But ever hear the saying, "We are trained professionals, don't try this at home"? Why? What's the problem?
In a nutshell, a range extender is an "access point" (a data transmitter) that can transmit (or re-transmit) data typically at up to 22 million bits per second. In the "wireless repeating mode," it can extend the range of your wireless network. (Wireless repeating mode means that your range extender is not wired to anything other than your wall socket).
Its antenna receives the weak transmission from your wireless router, and it re-broadcasts it con mucho gusto (louder). So where's the beef, huh?
One problem is that if you use your range extender in wireless repeating mode, your laptop may now be receiving radio waves from 1.) your original wireless router, and 2.) your range extender. And while this may sound very cool (double your pleasure, double your fun), it works about as well as Dawn blowing her horn at the cop in front of her so she can can pass him. You cannot have laptops getting radio waves from the original wireless router and the range extender at the same time... for a lot of technical reasons, like phase distortion.
Fortunately, there are ways to assure that your wireless network using a range extender works properly. (In this actual case, the reception went from 14 feet to 100% data rate thoughout the entire huge house using 1.) a range extender, and 2.) a lot of knowledge based on past experience.)

ROFL

ROFL is a shorthand used on the Net to mean "Rolling On The Floor Laughing. It means that you made a funny, or it means that you said something absurd and untrue.
ROFL is a little stronger than LOL (Laughing Out Loud.), but not as strong as RO(T)FLMAO (Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Arse Off). And then we have <g> or <G> or :) ... all meaning that the prior text was not intended to have a negative connotation, and the writer really likes you.
This stuff is often needed on the Net because we are lacking the personal cues that are present even in a telephone conversation. However, many folks today sprinkle these shorthands and emoticons far too liberally, often ending every sentence with a :) or a LOL. Yeech.

ROOMS ON AOL

A "room" is a place on AOL where up to 36 AOL members can all "chat" with one another at once by typing on their keyboards and reading their monitors.
AOL has three kinds of chat rooms- 1.) AOL Created, 2.) Member Created, and 3.) Private. An AOL Created Room is always there, no one has to create it; and it stays there even if no one is in it. "Delaware" is an AOL created room, where people with an interest in Delaware (or whatever) can chat with one another.
On the other hand, Member Created Rooms are created by some AOL member; and if no one is in the room, Member Created Rooms disappear. While Member Created Rooms exist, they are listed in a directory that anyone on AOL may peruse.
The person who creates the room is called the "room owner;" the room owner has strange and mystical powers... she can make the room disappear, throwing out everyone who is in the room; or she can kick out individual folks whom she feels are being disruptive... and once you're kicked out, your screen name is automatically banned from the room, unless and until the room owner lets you back in.
Private Rooms are very similar to Member Created Rooms, but they are a secret. Unlike Member Created Rooms, which are listed in a directory that any AOL member may browse, private rooms are not listed. If I create a Private Room called "Cardiologists Only," a member must know and type the exact room name to get into this Private Room. A Private Room also has a room owner... the person who created the Private Room... and it works exactly like the room owner of a Member Created Room.

ROUTER

Routers connect networks, and they filter and isolate traffic. There are big expensive routers out there on the Net, directing traffic. And there are small inexpensive routers in homes and offices providing hacker protection and letting folks share printers, hard drive data, and broadband connections.
Big routers are intelligent, programmable hardware devices. They are the friendly traffic cops about the Net who read each packet's destination and forward each packet along the best route available at that moment.
Big routers stand along the Beltways of the Net (called NAPs) and direct packets onto the correct Interstate (called National Backbones) to reach their destination addresses.
ALSO... ISPs must control intrusion into their private little networks... and into each and every server on their own private little networks. The router, with its ability to filter data packets, is an ISP's first line of defense against outside mischief.
A router can direct packets (or block them) based on their source IP address (where they came from) and their destination IP address (where they want to end up). It also controls packets based on their port address... a number signifying what service a packet expects.
Thus, by checking for a port address of "80", an ISP can make sure that only HTTP requests reach the ISP's Web server. ISPs set up routers to block all inappropriate requests of any server. The router will simply drop any packets that are suspect. This will immediately block 99% of hacker intrustions.
Some packets belong just to the ISP, to its tiny local network... maybe DAwn sends dog Wolf a message on the ISP's Ethernet, "Lunch time, let's send out for some extra hot and spicy Szechuan." Do DAwn and dog Wolf really want packets like these leaking out onto the Net? Yet... the ISP where they work may well use the same local Ethernet to carry their messages AND genuine Net packets.
Thus, an ISP needs a router for every digital leased line connected to the Net (or connected to some bigger ISP). These routers keep the ISP's internal "Szechuan packets" from leaking out onto the Net, while still letting the ISP's customers' e-mail packets (and whatever) moving freely out onto their T-1s to the Net.
Routers actually read the destination addresses on Net packets, and they don't allow packets with bad addresses to get out onto (or to come in from) the Net to an ISP.
Routers surely are smart... Routers were invented by some very smart folks. (Precise Networking Solutions says that you can tell that everytime that you go to program a router.) And because routers can connect different "little networks" together, routers, along with TCP/IP, make the Net possible. I will say that again, because 1.) it is SO important to the Net and to networking, and 2.) it makes great cocktail chat. THE INTERNET IS ONLY POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF A BOX OF STANDARDS (PROTOCOLS) CALLED TCP/IP AND A HARDWARE DEVICE CALLED A ROUTER.
As home and office broadband become increasingly popular (2006), folks are adding routers at their homes and offices to protect their privacy; an inexpensive D-Link router will split a cable modem's packets across several home PCs while protecting the PCs from outside intrusion.
If you do have a cable modem, and if you do buy a D-Link, a Linksys, a Netgear, an SMC, or some other router (money well-spent) to protect your PC(s) from hackers, make sure that all of your local "IP addresses" begin with 10, like 10.87.3.253, because outside routers cannot route an IP address that begins with 10, which is an extra bit of hacker-proofing for you.
Home routers can also be wireless, allowing you to access the Net all about your home from your laptop PCs. If you get a wireless router for your laptops, be sure that it follows the 802.11b ("WiFi") wireless standard; or the newer, much faster, less interference-prone, more expensive 802.11a and 802.11g. The "b" transmits at about 11 Mbps (Million bits/second); but the "g" protocol will run at up to 54 Mbps. Wireless routers are also cool when you don't want to run wires through your walls. See WIRELESS NETWORKING on this page.
PCs running Windows can share printers, hard drive files, scanners, and broadband connections to the Net (like cable modems) using routers. Normally, folks create one folder on each of their PCs for stuff that they want to share.
How do routers work? Here a broadband cable goes into a cable modem, the cable modem connects to a Linksys Router, and four PCs connect to the router through Ethernet cards. Notice that the router has its own IP address so that we may access it for configuration.
PC1 (162.168.0.101)---| | PC2 (162.168.0.102)---| |-----R O U T E R-------CABLE------CABLE FROM- PC3 (162.168.0.103)---| (162.168.0.100) MODEM COMCAST | (68.1.1.30) (68.1.1.30) PC4 (162.168.0.104)---|

The router performs two services for us. It connects four PCs together into a LAN; thus we can share our broadband cable modem with all four PCs. In addition, the router acts like a computer with a firewall built in. What we do on our PCs is virtually invisible on the exterior side of the cable modem; in effect, the router blocks almost all ports on our PCs, discouraging spying and mischief. It is very doubtful that anyone beyond the cable modem will be able to determine what it is we're doing in our little LAN.
As we said, routers are devices for connecting two networks together. In this case, was are connecting our computer network, our baby LAN and our four PCs, to the Internet network. Our router prevents traffic from spilling over inadvertantly from either of these networks into the other; it works as a firewall, isolating our PCs from the Internet. A router fiters packets coming through our Internet connection (in this case, Comcast cable) into our private network or computer system (LAN). Our router prevents 99.99% of what we're doing on our PCs from being observable on the Net. If you're using cable for broadband, it's mandatory that you install a router between your cable modem and your PCs for privacy sake. A firewall protects your home network from offensive Web sites, wanna-be hackers, spies, etc.
IMPRESS YOUR INLAWS--> Say what about 802 what? Back in the late 1970s when local computer networks (LANs (Local Area Networks)... two or more computers in a small area connected together so they can exchange data, like in one office building) began to proliferate, it became obvious that there should be some LAN standards... like when all the train tracks in the US are the same size, then any train can go anywhere. A group of electrical engineers (the IEEE... The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc.) launched a project to come up with standards for LANs.
The project was launched in February of 1980; and so the project became known as 802. The standards adopted by the IEEE fell into 12 categories... and guess what CATEGORY 11 was? Telepathic Area Network (TAN)? Nah. Category 11 was WIRELESS NETWORKS. Hence, your wireless network, if it follows standards, should adhere to... 802.11b, which transmits at about 11 Mbps (11 Million bits per second). Subtype "b" uses the 2.4 GHz radio frequency spectrum, a crowded area; the newer 802.11a standard is faster and uses the 5 GHz spectrum (less interference). And then we have the wondrous 802.11g that can transmit at up to 54 Mbps. (Yeah, WOW .)
Final comment... if you want to build a wireless network as of today (December 2003), use neither "a" nor "b" but 802.11g; I asked Precise Networking Solutions to connect wireless networks in a wide variety of environments, and "g" won EVERY time. (Basically, "g" combines the best features of "a" and "b".) You may want to pass this information along to the kid selling routers at Best Buy or wherever. Again... the best wireless network today is the one built using the 802.11g protocol. And "g" is backward compatible to "b".
"g" enables streaming media, video downloads; and best of all, a greater concentration of users without interference.

RTFM

RTFM is a shorthand used on the Net. It means "Read The Fluquing Manual"... as in, "You want to know what? How do you turn on your PC? RTFM, you idiot."

SEARCH ENGINE

A search engine is a Web site that helps you to find things on the Web. You type in some keywords, and the search engine presents links to sites that contain your the keywords. Google and Alta Vista are two popular search engines.

SERVER

A program running out there on the Net that performs some service is called a server. Folks running client programs on their PCs connect across the Net to a server program. (Actually, just to confuse things here, your PC can run a server program for other folks to connect to, if you have the right kind of connection to your ISP, and if you know what you're doing.)
Most servers on the Net are endlessly running programs on computers running the UNIX operating system; these endlessly running programs are called daemons. Servers can send E-mail, play chess, handle FTP downloads, let you read and post articles to newsgroups, return Web pages to your browser, and so on.

SHAREWARE

Shareware is software that can be retrieved from the Net and tried for a fixed period of time. If you like it and intend to keep using it, you send the author(s) a small fee, which usually entitles you to free future updates and technical support for the program. Often some functionality is lacking until you pay the shareware fee.

SHELL ACCOUNT

A shell account is a kind of account that some ISPs offer. You dial in with your modem, and you're connected to a computer that's running UNIX and that's connected out to the Internet.
A shell account can be powerful (for those who know UNIX and know what UNIX can do on the Net). With a shell account, you run on the remote UNIX computer, while with a SLIP or PPP account, the Net software runs on YOUR PC. Shell accounts are often cheaper than SLIP/PPP accounts; today (2002) shell accounts are becoming rare... very rare.

SHORTHAND

Cool, experienced Netizens always use lots of shorthands in their posts, in email, when chatting on IRC or on AOL, whatever... many of which look like RTFGRZDSSQ and are totally incomprehensible.
Some shorthands that you'll see frequently are...
AFK (Away From Keyboard)
ASL (What is your Age? Sex? Location?)
BBL (Be Back Later)
BRB (Be Right Back)
BTW (By The Way)
FWIW (For What It's Worth)
HTH (Hope That Helps/ Helped)
IM(NS)HO (In My (Not So) Humble Opinion)
IOW (In Other Words)
j/k (Joking; Just Kidding)
L8R (Later)
LMAO (Laughing My Arse Off)
LTNS (Long Time No See)
LOL (Laughing Out Loud)
NFW (No Fluquing Way)
OTOH (On The Other Hand)
ROTF (Rolling On The Floor)
RTFM (Read The Fluquing Manual)
SUP (What's Up?)
TIA (Thanks In Advance)
TY/YW (Thank you/You're welcome)
WTF (What The Fluque)
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
WB (Welcome Back)
YMMV (Your Milage May Vary).

SHOUTING

IF YOU TYPE LIKE THIS WHEN YOU SEND AN E-MAIL OR POST TO USENET OR CHAT ON IRC OR AOL, FOLKS WILL TELL YOU THAT YOU'RE SHOUTING.
Be sure that you have a good reason to shout, or folks will call you an "idiot." And even some newbies who know nothing on earth about the Net (because they haven't visited this Web site yet) will jump on the wagon and call you a "lamer." DO YOU REALLY WANT *THAT*?

SMTP

E-mail is transferred over the Net according to a set of rules (a "protocol") called SMTP (the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). SMTP has been used to transmit mail around since the Net's earliest days... since circa 1982... but it still gets the job done.
Why use a "simple" protocol to send E-mail? Because there's far too much E-mailing going on to make this protocol complex. When the Orioles play baseball downtown, you charge $3 for a ticket, not $2.79... lots of folks buying tickets... you want to keep things simple, sell tickets fast, move the crowd right along. (Yes, it's been a while since your dog Wolf has purchased a baseball ticket.)
So... you write a letter for me on your E-mail client (Eudora, Outlook, Netscape, whatever), you address it to dogwolf@precisenetworking.com, and you press SEND. Old faithful friend TCP/IP moves your letter from your PC to the mail server at your ISP. Here, it's placed in a queue, often called a spool.
Then usually within seconds, SMTP reads the header on your E-mail and moves it across the Net to the SMTP server at precisenetworking.com, my ISP, and the destination for your E-mail letter to me.

SOCKET

A host computer on the Net might be willing to do several cool things... play chess, return Web pages, store our daemons, whatever. So we need some way to tell a host which of his many services we'd like.
On the Net, we do this with something called a port number, an integer from 0 to 32,768 that specifies precisely which service on a host we're interested in. Usually, for example, Web server programs "listen" at port 80 for requests... if I want to get back a Web page, I want to access port 80 on the remote host.
Now... host computers have names like www.dogwolf.com. We have to convert this name to an IP address before sending it out onto the Net, so that TCP/IP can use it. If we have an IP address of, say, 207.23.201.53, then TCP/IP adds an "80" at the end (the Port Number) if we want to access the Web.
The IP address plus the Port Number looks something like 207.23.201.53,80, and the IP address + the port number is called the socket number. Tada.
(IMPRESS YOUR COMPUTER SCIENCE PROFESSOR--> Routers cannot route IP addresses that start with 10. This is a great thing to remember when configuring your router at home... extra security for you.)

SPAM

Noun- Junk E-mail, especially unsolicited commercial junk and/or porno adverts.
Verb- To send junk E-mail to people.
Usenet- When you post an article to Usenet, most newsreader programs will let you post to many newsgroups at once. If you post stuff to MANY MANY newsgroups, and/or if the stuff is not applicable to these newsgroups, that's also called "spamming."
Example- If you post a 333 line UUencoded binary picture of a cat (Yeeks) to newsgroups alt.aol-sucks and to rec.pets.dogs and to alt.christnet and to sci.math and to rec.scouting, then you've "spammed" all of these newsgroups, and you've enrolled yourself in the "Me = Net Idiots Club."
(USENET TIP--> If someone spams, and you reply to his post WITHOUT "trimming" the newsgroup list, then you too will spam. MORAL--> always check the list of newsgroups to which you're posting when you reply to a Usenet article.)

STUFFIT

Stuffit expander is a program that's available free (freeware), and which will expand and decode files that Stuffit has compressed. Just like ZIP on PCs, Stuffit is a popular compression format for the Mac. Well... you asked.

SURFING

Vague ephemeral term usually seen primarily on TV and in movies. Surfing is often used to mean sight-seeing on the Net... browsing the Web when you don't much care what you find (or don't find).
Surfing is a term usually used by newbies or by those who have no major clue as to what the Net is. Avoid using it on the Net (along with "Information Superhighway"... unless you're a dedicated GoreFan).

TCP/IP

Without TCP/IP (and routers), there would be no Internet.
TCP/IP is The language of the Net. If your computer can speak it, then you can play. Every computer on the Net, client or server, speaks TCP/IP when speaking to another computer across the Net.
PCs running Windows use a built-in program (since Windows 95) called a winsock to translate Windows-speak into TCP/IP (and TCP/IP back into Windows-speak.) Before Windows 95, you had to install your own winsock; Trumpet Winsock was a popular choice.
(IMPRESS YOUR POSSUM--> TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol.)

TELNET

Telnet is yet another service provided by certain servers out there on the Net. Using telnet, you can log onto a remote computer that is running the UNIX operating system. What then? Whatever the remote computer will allow. (Perhaps it will play a game of chess with you.)
In order to do telnet, you need to be running a telnet client program on your PC; and the remote computer that you want to log onto needs to be running a telnet server program.

TRACEROUTE

The Internet is a large and complex collection of hardware (mainly high-speed cables and routers) that's connected together by "gateways." Traceroute (or "tracert") is a program (included with Windows since Windows 95) that traces the route that three 38-byte "packet" probes follow in traveling from your ISP to some other point out there on the Net... kind of like sending a dove out from the Ark.
Traceroute lists each "routing point" (a special computer called a "router") between your ISP and some other location. If things get slow, or you can't reach some server (like yahoo.com), tracert is a cool way to see where the problem lies.
In Windows, open a DOS window and type tracert precisenetworking.com (or whatever... the location name can be a host name or an IP address with numbers separated by periods). Tracert is also useful in measuring how quickly other ISPs are functioning... that is, as a test of how well-connected an ISP is to the rest of the Net.
(IMPRESS YOUR INTENSELY SIGNIFICANT OTHER--> If you're going to use tracert to rate ISPs, it's nice to have some idea of what you're looking at on your monitor. So here's how it works... To track the route of a packet, tracert launches probe packets with a small "time to live" (ttl) and then listens for a "time exceeded" reply from a gateway.
Probes begin with a ttl of one and increase by one until a "port unreachable" message is returned (indicating that the packet reached the host). At each ttl setting, three probes are launched, and traceroute displays a line showing the ttl, the address of the gateway, and the round trip time of each probe. (If there is no response within a 3 second timeout interval, an asterisk is printed for that probe.) )

TROLL

Yet another ephemeral, fuzzy thing if there ever was one, but let's give it a try... Troll is a name you call people on the Net that you dislike... or who are actually "trolls"
If someone posts on Usenet or types in an AOL chat room solely to get an emotional reaction, rather than to state their true opinions or give information or ask a question or motivate others to take an action, then they're a troll; and they're trolling.
Trolls often use false identities when posting or chatting. Thus, mengele@third.reich.net posting to newsgroup soc.culture.jewish to the effect that The Jews are responsible for global terrorism is (hopefully) simply a troll (and is surely an "idiot.")
(NETIQUETTE--> See the E-mail address (mengele@ ... )? With most newsreaders (client programs on your PC that let you post to Usenet), you can insert ANY E-mail address that you like in the from slot.
Most folks on the Net feel that if you post, you should have the gonads to post with your real E-mail address; if nothing else, your posts will get more respect, all other things being equal. We agree, but your dog Wolf also appreciates that there are circumstances where folks (especially lady-folks who may live alone way out in the sticks) may want to post while protecting their IDs. Whatever)

UNIX

UNIX is a "master program" or operating system like Windows that other programs can run under. If your PC is a house UNIX (or Windows) takes up the basement, and each application program runs in a room upstairs. Most Internet server programs out there are running under UNIX.
In fact, a lot of the Net was designed to conform to UNIX, and a lot of UNIX was designed to facilitate Net stuff. Just like Windows, UNIX also has TCP/IP built right in, so that it can interface with the Net.
You don't need to know a thing about UNIX to do all the standard Net stuff (E-mail, Web, Usenet, IRC, etc). But the advanced stuff and the Net "hacking" (in the sense of advanced Net programming, of course) is a lot easier when done on some computer that's running UNIX. (Orginally, a "hack" was simply some clever little program written by a guru.)
If you can get a shell account from your ISP, when you log in you'll connect to a computer out there on the Net running UNIX; and you'll see a UNIX prompt.
(IMPRESS YOUR HOT CISCO ROUTER--> Folks who anonymously FTP daemons (that spoof pings) onto zombie servers are usually highly annoying and highly UNIX literate. (And yeah, that is how hackers did/do service disruption.))

UPLOAD

If you copy a file from your PC "out there" to the Net, you've uploaded it. You can use the client program WS_FTP to upload Web pages from your PC to your ISP's Web server out there on the Net if you have your own Web site.

URL

A URL is the unique address of a Web page on the Net.
A URL tells your Web browser which host computer running a Web server out there on the Net you want to visit and which file that's on the disk drive of the computer running the server to bring back. (A server is a program that runs on some computer out there on the Net somewhere.)
If you want this Web page, you need to give your Web browser this URL... http://www.precisenetworking.com/~mcgatney/gloss.html. Your browser will then go to Web server www.precisenetworking.com and bring back file gloss.html from directory (folder) ~mcgatney.
(NET SECRET--> Most browsers are pretty clever... if you just give your browser yahoo or CNN, it'll fill in all the rest and go to... http://www.yahoo.com or http://www.cnn.com.)

USENET

Usenet is the 30,000+ message boards readable (and writable) by anyone that's out there on the Net. You can post new messages, or you can respond to existing messages. Or you can reply to previous replies. The messages are called articles or posts.
(DEEP NET SECRET--> Usenet is the world's greatest source of information, bar none... it is far better than a Web search for getting answers to specific questions. There are people who read newsgroups every day that know everything known to man and are willing to share it.
Folks who know everything that is known read Usenet and post to it. If you want to get rid of the ants on your driveway, want to live on a Kibbutz in Israel, are having problems getting IBM's WLM (Workload Manager) to work, want find out which National Parks in the West or cities in Florida or restaurants in Hunt Valley to visit, want find a driver for your Colorado Tape Backup, want to find the best value in a London Hotel, whatever... just post your question to the right newsgroup(s)... you'll almost ALWAYS get many answers, and most will be accurate and non-commercial.
Note that you can post your article with your question or questions to more than one newsgroup (if it applies to more than one).
Usenet is also a great place to complain about mistreatment by some merchant or corporation, especially if it's a regional or national enterprise. Like, perhaps, AOL or Sears.)

UU-ENCODE

Some parts of the Net were designed to handle only 7-bit ASCII text... Usenet and E-mail for example. They were not expected to handle programs or pictures or sound files or anything requiring 8-bit bytes of data.
Thus, to represent pictures or programs on Usenet or in E-mail, you need to convert the binary files with these8-bit bytes into 7-bit ASCII text code. Doing this conversion is called UUencoding.
Converting the 7-bit text code back to the 8-bit binary picture or program bytes is called UUdecoding. Many newsreaders (like Agent) will perform these conversions for you automatically, with just a few mouse clicks.
Thanks to UUencoding, folks can send pictures and programs (and, yes, even viruses) along with their text e-mails.

VIRTUAL DOMAIN

Assume that you sell aardvarks. Assume further that you want to start a Web site that advertises your comapany. With a Web hosting service or ISP, your Web address (URL) would normally look like http://www.whatanisp.net/~aardvarks.
But... you can alternatively buy a "Virtual Domain" so that your Web address becomes... http://www.aardvarks.com (or http://aardvarks.com). Thus, you get a nice, short Web address that advertises your aardvark company.
AND... with a virtual domain, it looks to folks like you have your own Web server (you really don't... hence the "virtual" part of virtual domain... you're really being hosted by whatanisp.com. And with a name like http://www.aardvarks.com, it's easier for folks to remember your URL, and it fits neatly on your business card.
Your virtual domain name, the "aardvarks" part of the Web address, is registered. (You pay a small fee periodically to rent this name.) So if you move to a different Web hosting service or to a different ISP, you can still keep the same Web address (the same URL)... and no one will even know you have moved... the URL remains the same. Cool.
And finally, with a virtual domain, your E-mail address becomes anything@aardvarks.com, where anything is literally anything you like.
(Your virtual Web site may have a unique IP address... OR, it may share its IP address with a few other Web sites.)

WAV

A wav is a file in a format that's used by Windows for storing sounds. All of the information necessary to play back voice or music or moans or whatever is stored in the file ending with .wav.

WEB-BASED E-MAIL

First, an introduction...
All of your incoming E-mail is initially sent between computers out there on the Net; these computers are running programs called mail servers (sometimes called SMTP servers, because these E-mail programs talk to one another using the SMTP language (or protocol) ). Note what we have just said... servers are programs running on host computers out there somewhere on the Net.
After bouncing about a bit, your incoming E-mail is stored in your mailbox by one of these SMTP server (which is cool, because if a server didn't collect your incoming E-mail and store it for you, you'd need to leave your computer on 24 hours a day to avoid missing a letter... it's the same as having voicemail on your phone... you don't have to sit by your phone all day waiting for calls).
Ok, so your E-mail has now been stored out there on the Net in some mail server. There are four ways that you can access your E-mail stored in your mailbox on this mail server...
First, if the computer holding your mail is running the UNIX operating system, you may be able to log onto that computer directly. For example, students will often telnet from their homes to the UNIX machine that's storing their e-mail at the university, and they'll read their mail using some UNIX program that lives on the remote UNIX machine that's holding their mail... like a UNIX program like PINE, for example.)
Second, if you have a client program on your PC like Outlook or Eudora, and if the server collecting your mail is a POP3 server, then you can download your mail directly to your PC. ("Download" means to make a copy on your PC's disk drive of something out there on the Net, residing on some server.)
Third is IMAP4. IMAP4 servers are similar to POP3 servers, but they're newer. IMAP4 allows you to browse your mail from your PC while it's still on the remote mail server, without ever having to download it "officially."
(A WORD TO THE WISE--> Don't confuse SMTP with POP3 or IMAP4. SMTP is a set of rules (a protocol) for sending E-mail across and around the Net between mail servers. POP3 and IMAP4 are protocols for retrieving your E-mail from a mail server to your PC. The Net has LOTS of protocols.)
Fourth, there is web-based E-mail. Here, using any PC located anywhere that has 1.) a Web browser, and 2.) access to the Web, you can read the mail that folks have sent to you... which is great if you're away from your PC. Hotmail is an example of a Web-based E-mail service. You simply go to the proper www.whatever.com URL address, enter your name and your password, and a clickable listing of your E-mail sender names and subjects appears.

WEB HOSTING

If don't want the technical bother (and expense) of actually putting your Web pages onto the Net yourself, a hosting service can help.
A Web hosting service will provide you with a Web server (which you will share with other customers), some disk space for your pages, a connection to the Net, etc. All that you have to do is transfer your pages from your PC's disk to the Web hosting service (usually via FTP).
Many ISPs offer Web hosting services. And there are also Web hosting services that are not affiliated with ISPs. In effect, these services lease you space on the Web. And if you pay extra for a virtual domain name, you can even have a URL like www.yourname.com at a Web hosting service, where yourname is your name.

WEB SERVER

A Web server is a program running on a host computer "out there" on the Net. The same computer, on its disk drive, also holds Web pages. When you enter a URL address into your browser client (like Netscape or IE), that URL specifies both the actual physical computer that the server program is running on (like www.precisenetworking.com) and the page that you want to retrieve (like ~mcgatney/gloss.html).
When you press enter (or GO-GET-IT), your browser sends your request out onto the Net to the Web server that you've specified. Your request always contains YOUR Internet address also. The Web server program then retrieves from its hard drive the page that you want (if it exists and if you're authorized to view it), and it sends it back across the Net to your PC, where your browser displays the page. Apache is a popular Web server program which runs on computers "out there" on the Net that are running the UNIX operating system.

WEB SITE

A Web Site is a collection of pages that all start with the same URL address (for example, the collection of all pages that begin with www.precisenetworking.com).
Thus, http://www.precisenetworking.com/~mcgatney/gloss.html and http://www.precisenetworking.com/~mcgatney/ispwork2.html are two of the pages that comprise Web site www.precisenetworking.com.

WEB SPACE

Most ISPs who make you pay money each month will give you some disk space on their Web server, often 5-25 Meg. This disk space on their Web server is called "Web space."
Then, using FTP, you can upload your own Web pages from your PC to this Web space. And then, folks all about the world can download your pages from this Web space to their browsers; and they can admire your words and pictures and good-looks and creativity. Or your recipe for brisket.

WIFI

Here in "WiFi" ("Wireless Fidelity") we'll tie together several interesting concepts relating to wireless Internet access. Our first concept... as we enter 2006... WiFi is HOT... everybody, it seems, wants to get their PCs connected by WiFi... they want to be able to carry their laptops to every part of their home and lawn and still access the Net.
WiFi accounts for an ever-increasing share of the networks that Precise Networking Solutions develops and installs.
WiFi is a topology for a network. If we connect two or more computers by wires (like "coax") or by radio waves (like the wireless phones in our home)... connect them so that they can exchange data... voila, we have created a newtwork. Tada.
And just what is a topology? A topology is the shape of a network. For example, if we connect computer A to computer B; and we connect B to C; and we connect C to A... we have created a network with a circular or "ring" topology.
WiFi is a "wireless topology." WiFi uses radio waves to connect two or more computers so that they may exchange data with each other. Another name for WiFi is 802.11; and another name for 802.11 is WiFi... they are synonymous. Three popular types of WiFi are 802.11b, 802.11a, and 802.11g... and all of these 802.11's are wireless; different flavors of WiFi allow carrying data at different speeds and interference levels (and prices).
WiFi is to the Internet what today's wireless phones in your home are to the telephone network, with just a pinch of cell phone technology thrown in (if it's done properly).
WiFi permits accessing the Internet with a PC, usually a laptop, up to about 300 feet from a "Network Access Point" (a data transmitter) without using wires. (There are tricks that can greatly extend this range beyond 300 feet.) And the area around this network access point, where you can access the Internet on your laptop (or desktop), is called a "Hot Spot" (as are some of the clubs Dawn has been known to frequent).
Now... in order to access the Internet WiFi style, your roving (or distant) PCs need a hardware device called a "Network Adapter;" and they need certain additional software; some laptops come already equipped for 802.11 (like the Dell laptops with the Centrino chip).
Other PCs require YOU to install the Network Adapter card (costing about $50 for 802.11b), along with the additional software that's required. And again... there are three major WiFi (802.11) protocols... 802.11b (the cheapest), 802.11a, and 802.11g (the fastest with the least interference).
There are sites on the Web that list your local public Hot Spots. (A Google search will reveal these Web sites.) Some Hot Spots are free, others in places like Starbucks (coffee) and Borders (books) will charge you for use. (Prediction--> As Hot Spots become more and more popular, they'll all be free.)
You can do "The WiFi" in your home by purchasing your own "Network Access Point" (the data transmitter) for about $120. When your laptop is set up (properly) for WiFi, it will automatically detect when it is in a hot spot, just as your cell phone detects when it is in a cell. (If your laptop is not set up properly, you will encounter strange and exotic problems, like phase distortion.)
And yes... in reponse to a question that you (plural) have e-mailed to us many times... yes, you can, if you know what you're doing, connect your laptop to your cell phone and access the Net that way.
However, while this is kind of similar to dial-up access, it is *NOT* WiFi, and it is not broadband (fast). (It is actually identical to using a 56k dial-up on a wired phone, but without the wires.) But it works (we did it, finally); especially if you have unlimited cell phone minutes and are out on the beach (and there's no Hot Spot nearby.) But, as I learned in O.C., MD, last June... better to leave the laptop in your condo and concentrate on your tan.
But had the beach been in a free Hot Spot area with a strong "signal" from a nearby network access point, things would have run MUCH faster (and much cheaper).
IMPRESS YOUR FERRET--> In general, the stronger the radio signal from the Network Access Point (or Points... there can be many, to create a BIG hot spot), the faster you will be able to access the Net. And as many Precise Networking Solutions customers discovered before calling us... you cannot service an unlimited number of laptops from one network access point. Maybe 32, maybe 64... the exact number is left as an exercise for the student... but if I'm the (n+1)th customer in your establishment, and you can only service n customers... BZZZT.

WINSOCK

Your Winsock is your connection to the Internet. Your interface. Your link. Your Star Gate. Your wormhole.
A winsock is a program that you need to have running on your PC so that Windows can talk to the Net, and so that the Net can talk to Windows. A Winsock runs under Windows, just like Excel or Word.
A winsock interfaces your Windows-speaking PC with the Net's language of TCP/IP. Windows (95, 98, NT, 2000, and XP) comes with a built-in Winsock (you just have to "activate" it). And if you're still running the old 16-bit Windows 3.1 for some reason, Trumpet Winsock is a once-popular program that you can use to interface Windows to the Net.
You start up your Winsock program whenever you want to connect to the Internet, whenever you want to browse with Netscape or send e-mail with Eudora, etc.
A Winsock program contains a very cool file named winsock.dll. Winsock.dll runs on your PC (in the background... you're not even aware of it) whenever you're running any Internet "client," like Eudora e-mail, mIRC chat, Agent newsreader... whatever.
Your Winsock is like some translator at the UN... because the Internet speaks the TCP/IP language. And Windows speaks the Windows language. Someone better translate. Enter the Winsock.
Your Winsock program translates what your other Windows programs, like Netscape, are saying. It translates "Windows-speak" into TCP/IP. So now, you can run a Windows program like Netscape, and it can talk to the Internet just fine, even though it doesn't speak TCP/IP, the lingua franca of the Net.
That Winsock... he connects the programs on your PC to the TCP/IP of the Net. And then, when the Internet talks back to you (like to send you a page from some Web site), your Winsock converts TCP/IP back into something your Windows programs can understand and display on your monitor.
Let me say it another way... Your Winsock lets you run your Internet programs, like Eudora or Agent, while at the same time letting you enjoy all the convenience of Windows. So with a Winsock, your Internet applications can look just like all your other Windows programs...with icons and pictures and sounds and menus and lots clickable things.
It All Works Just Like This...

[Netscape (or some other program)] | [winsock.dll] | [TCP/IP] | [Your Modem] | [Your ISP] | [THE NET]

WIRELESS NETWORKING

First, what is a computer network? A COMPUTER NETWORK is two or more computers that are able to exchange data with each other, either because they're connected by wires, or by radio waves. And the TOPOLOGY of a computer network is its shape, and its arrangement.
Thus, if all the computers are connected together in a ring shape (e.g., A is connected to B, B is connected to C, C is connected to A), we say that the computer network has a "ring topology." (And the word "topology" also has a nice ring to it too. (Sorry.) )
A computer networking topology that has come into WIDE use recently is WIRELESS. IMPRESS YOUR GOLDFISH--> Wireless topology is also called an 802.11b (or 802.11a or 802.11g) topology... or simply "WiFi." This topology connects computers together without wires, instead using radio waves. (SEE my definition of "Routers" above for an explanation of what that "802.11" is all about... much ado about not alot.) As of December 2003, 802.11g is by far the best, while 802.11b is the cheapest.
Wireless networking often can seem very confusing (and complex configurations ARE complex); but the basics are really very simple. Let's take an example... You have just subscribed to a cable Internet service. Your cable line that comes into your house is divided (split) between your TVs and a cable modem. Ok...
Is the first thing we want to do to run the wire from your cable modem into your PC? Yes? NO. (I know, it's tempting, and it works.) But read my frontal lobes... you ALWAYS want to connect your cable modem first into a ROUTER; then the output of the router will connect to your PC. Even if you have only one PC, the router provides you with MANDATORY security.
If you have more than one PC, the router still provides the same security... AND it lets all of your PCs share your one cable modem. ALSO, if you have more than one PC, connecting them together through a router (a box about the same size as the cable modem) allows you to create a LOCAL AREA NETWORK (an Ethernet network, a "LAN") in your home or office.
And if you're running Windows on your PC(s), you now can share just one printer among all your PCs. (And, like the cable modem, a router also has blinking lights on the front... a cable modem with a router sitting next to it on top of your PC in a dimly lit room at night may really impress your friends when you're doing a 1 Gig download.)
With a router-based Ethernet network, you also can share a scanner; and you can share data on your various hard drives. (Folks usually set up one shared folder on each PC.) And you also can share a dial-up modem among your PCs if you want a backup in case your cable service goes down. (To use a dial-up modem, you will also need to subscribe to an ISP like ATT.)
NOW... what if you have two PCs in the house, a desktop right next to the cable modem AND a laptop. How can you wire both of them to your router? The desktop part is easy, you just need a short wire and a small Ethernet adapter card in your PC, and Voila, you're connected.
But the laptop... do we really want to be dragging around a 100 foot cable? (Folks used to drag telephones with ridiculously long wires about the house until... until... wireless phones became available... hmmm...)
Answer... you add to our router (internally) a separate thing called a NETWORK ACCESS POINT, and you slip into your laptop a slim card called a NETWORK ADAPTER. Now your router and your laptop can communicate by radio waves, just as your portable wireless phones do. A router that contains a network access point is usually called a WIRELESS ROUTER, though it can handle both wireless data and wired data.
You can, of course, move the network access point out of the router. If you know that you're frequently going to be using your laptop from the lounge chair out on the back lawn, you can connect your cable modem to an ordinary router sitting next to it and run a wire from the router to the wall closest to the back lawn and connect the wire here to a network access point (a data transceiver). Then we slip a network adapter card into our laptop, and Voila... we're in business.
(In business... unless a neighbor is using the same channel, or our portable telephone is interfering, or you don't mind your neighbors and passing cars and parked cars exploring all of your most personal computer data, or... In practice, it takes a bit of experience to do "WiFi" right... if interference or snooping is a problem, and speed is a consideration, you'll want to go with 802.11a... a little more pricey than 802.11b, but definitely faster, with less interference and less potential for spying... (The WEAKER the signal that your your laptop is receiving from the network access point, the SLOWER will be the data transfer rate.) And if you want the best (up to 54 Mbps) always go with "g"... 802.11g.)
Obviously, there are many, many ways to interconnect routers and network access points. Precise Networking Solutions tells us that some of their business customers want them to install a network access point every fifty feet throughout the entire office area, so that folks can wander about with their laptops. (HUH? This works? Yes... the network adapters in laptops work exactly like your cell phone... they will communicate with the strongest network access point (cell) at that location.)
Wireless networks are currently (2003) the fastest growing type of computer network topology in the U.S., because they can be set up without running cables between computers, without drilling holes in your walls, etc. Many public areas are being wired so that you can access the Internet from your laptop while sipping coffee at Starbucks or whatever. "WiFi" is to PCs exactly what wireless portable phones are to phones. (When properly installed, you can surf the Web from way out on your patio using your laptop, and you can print selected pages to your printer which is connected to some other PC deep inside your home. When wireless routing is configured properly, it can be VERY cool.)
To the "theoreticians" like your dog Wolf here, a wireless networking topology is more "elegant" than wired Ethernet when the computers on the network are far apart from one another, or far from your Internet connection; e.g., far from your cable modem. And we have never been one to ignore elegance. (Just be sure it's done RIGHT; "WiFi" can be deceptively simple until your neighbor shows you a copy of your TurboTax tax return. "WiFi" is NOT as simple and straight forward as it seems on the surface; and it's definitely not as simple as installing a wireless telephone.)
(Precise Networking Solutions tells us that they install a significant number of wireless routers in homes today, simply because the cable company did not run the cable into the room(s) where the PC(s) ended up living... way, way back when folks just wanted cable for cable TV shows and movies.)
Final comment... if you want a wireless network as of today (December 2003), use neither "a" nor "b" but 802.11g; I asked Precise Networking Solutions to connect wireless networks in a wide variety of environments, and "g" won EVERY time in my book. (Basically, "g" combines the best features of "a" and "b".) 802.11g is not the cheapest, but it's definitely the best performing protocol today.

WIRELESS NETWORK ARCHITECTURE

Wireless Network Architecture is a type of broadband ISP (Internet Service Provider), along with Satellite, Cable, and DSL. Wireless ISPs are popular in mountainous and sparsely populated areas.
In order to provide broadband Internet services, a data network is created that operates over very high radio frequencies. The Net is connected to a central radio antenna (often high in the mountains) that broadcasts data from the Net directly to homes and businesses. This main antenna also transmits to smaller antennas called "cell sites," which in turn can reach remote pockets of businesses or residences.
Data is sent back upstream to the Net from customers either by radio transmissions at the customer's site, or occasionally, through traditional dial-up telephone modem connections.

WORLD WIDE WEB

(Also known as WWW or simply "The Web.") Ok... the Web has text, formatted documents, pictures, chat, multiplayer games, movies, programs for downloading, music, voice, animation, scrolling... you tell me. In other words, the WEB is the MULTIMEDIA part of the Net. Very highly multimedia.
And The Web also has links... You may start with one document (that is, a file or a page), click on a link, and jump to another Web server 12,000 miles away from the first... and on and on we go... some folks start at a page, click on a link, click on another link... and they're still at it five hours later after they've covered 27 topics and downloaded 123 programs and 57 pictures of Lassie... just by following their personal interests.
SO... the Web is that part of the Net that has 1.) multimedia, and 2.) links.
Together with E-mail, the Web has been responsible for the explosive growth of the Net among the masses during the last few years.

WS_FTP

WS_FTP is a popular FTP client program for downloading (and uploading) programs from (to) FTP servers out there on the Net. (And it also serves as a quick and convenient tool for renaming, deleting, and viewing programs out there on the Net or on your PC.)
IMPRESS YOUR FERRET---> FTP, because it maintains TWO connections between your PC and the FTP server out there on the Net during the entire download (yes, a bandwidth hog it surely is), tends to be faster than the Web for downloads.

WTF

A shorthand used by Net folks to mean "What The Fluque?" As in... "I have an unlimited ISP account at Aardvark.Net, but they cancelled me because I was online for 500 hours last month? WTF IS GOING ON HERE?"

ZIP

Big files are often compressed to allow downloading them faster. A popular utility for compressing (and decompressing) files is "PKZIP"... a DOS-based program using impossible-to-remember parameters. (Today (2002), WinZip is a better choice.)
One or more files are compressed together into a single file that ends with .ZIP, and such a compressed file is said to be "zipped." Folks who distribute software often use ZIP to squash many files together into one big zipped file.
And... if you want to put a file onto diskettes (often called "stiffies" in Australia), but the file is bigger than a single diskette, zipping the file will allow you to use several diskettes to hold a single zipped file.
Some zipped files end with .exe and are self-extracting; you just double click on them with your mouse, and they explode into many uncompressed files. (Be sure you know where the .exe file came from... this is also a great way to spread viruses.)

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