Abbreviations: In e-mail and news messages various abbreviations
and signs are commonly used
AFAIK - As Far As I Know
BTW - By The Way
FYI - For Your Information
IMHO - In My Honest Opinion
OTOH - On The Other Hand
RTFM - Read The F* Manual (or Read The Friendly Manual)
TIA - Thanks In Advance
:-) - Happy (turn your head to one side to see why)
:-( - Sad
:-| - Yawn - these last 3 are examples of emoticons.
account: One of several terms referring both to the right to access a particular machine (e.g. to have an account on club), and to the user name that you have to give when you do so.
agent: A program, probably running on your machine, that
asks for files or information from a remote server.
anonymous FTP site: a server which allows people to log on and
download files without having an account or a user ID on that server.
attachment: a file that's attached to the main mail message
bookmarks: (also known as 'favorities') shortcuts to WWW pages
that you've visited before. Use the 'bookmarks' menu to add pages to the list.
browser: A program that lets you browse through WWW documents.
client: A program, probably running on your machine, that
asks for files or information from a remote server.
cookie: a little file stored on your computer by a web site so
that next time you visit the site it'll already know something about you.
CUDN: Cambridge University Data Network.
cus: The short name for the University Computing Service's Central UNIX Service, cus.cam.ac.uk
domain: A collection of machines controlled by an organisation,
or a site to which email can be addressed.
download: to copy a file, e-mail message, or other information from a
larger computer to your PC. See also upload.
e-mail address: A combination of username and site name which
allows e-mail to be delivered uniquely to a particular person from anywhere
on the Internet or connected networks. Internet e-mail addresses are of the
form user@site. Site names tend to be composed of several elements,
running from most to least specific.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions - a file of questions and answers.
Many newsgroups and some sites have them.
favorities: (also known as 'bookmarks') shortcuts to WWW pages
that you've visited before. Use the 'bookmarks' menu to add pages to the list.
ftp (File Transfer Protocol): A standard for transferring files
between one computer and another on the Internet. One computer acts as the
server, and the other as the client. Also used as a verb, as in to ftp
a file.
GIF: Graphic Interchange Format - a format for graphics files.
hermes: The short name for the University Computing Service's dedicated e-mail system, hermes.cam.ac.uk.
Home Page: the document that a person or organisation uses as
their "front door" to visitors.
host: a computer that users of other computers can connect to and use.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language; the format used for documents
on the WWW.
hypertext: a system for linking documents and parts of documents in a
non-linear fashion. Words in the displayed document may be linked to
other documents, or other text in the same document. The reader can
follow these links through the text, rather than reading serially.
Intranet: a mini-internet for use within an organisation.
Internet address: a numerical identifier for a node on the
Internet. It consists of four numbers separated by periods, for
example 35.8.220.4.
Internet, the: the network of networks. It grew from ARPANet,
the US Defense
Department's computer network started in the mid-1960's.
JPEG, JPG: Joint Photographics Experts Group - a format for graphics files.
MP3: a format for audio files.
MUA: Mail User Agent, a program used to read and send email, e.g. Eudora, pine.
Netiquette: Internet etiquette. See our Netiquette page.
network: two or more computers of any kind, connected by a
communications link.
news, newsgroups: online bulletin boards. Some are local, others
international (see the Usenet entry)
OLRs: Off-line mail/news readers - these let you
read mail and compose replies offline, saving on phone bills. eudora
is one such.
Plug-in: an add-on for a browser.
PoP: Point of Presence - an entry point (phone number) onto
the internet.
Protocol: a set of rules that communicating computers follow.
Shareware: Programs that are freely available, but need to be
paid for if used beyond a trial period.
SLIP, PPP: Implementations of Internet networking protocols
over serial lines such as a phone line. This
lets you run real network applications like WinWeb
and eudora on your machine at home rather than
just using it as a dumb terminal.
search engine: a database of WWW pages.
server: a host that stores information and/or programs, and
makes them available to users of other computers. Only by adding your
files to a gopher server or WWW server can your files
become available to others using those facilities.
spam: bulk junk e-mail
telnet: a protocol that lets you login to a remote machine.
upload: to copy a file, e-mail message, or other information from your
PC to a larger computer on the network.
URL: Uniform Resource Location - the location of a page on
the World Wide Web. In general, the URL includes information on the type of file/service, the machine it's on, and where on that machine it is. An example is http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/tpl/network/remote_access.html
Usenet: The collective name for all the news discussion groups.
Usenet is read all over the world, on the Internet and on other networks.
Articles written and posted say, here in Cambridge, are propagated from
server to server until the article is available everywhere that the
newsgroup is read.
Virus: a little program designed to cause trouble. It may be
sent to you as an attachment.
XML: Extensible Markup Language (like a more general sort of HTML)
XSL: XML Stylesheet Language
WWW: World Wide Web - all the files that Internet Explorer,
Netscape etc can get to.
