In the context of the World Wide Web, a (gateway) script is a program that runs on a server and processes requests based on input from the browser.
A program which acts like a library card catalog for the Internet. Search engines attempt to help a user isolate desired information or resources by searching for keywords that the user specifies. The method for finding this information is usually done by maintaining an index of Web resources that can be queried for the keywords or concepts entered by the user. The index can be built from specific resource lists or created by web wanderers, robots, spiders, crawlers, and worms.
From the Net surfer point of view search engines can be quite tiresome and not very fruitful if you don't know how to use them correctly. Different engines are good for different kinds of searches. It's a good idea before using a search engine to read the help section of the engine's Web site to see what the best way is to optimize your results.
A technology that provides privacy, integrity, and authentication in point-to-point communications such as a connection on the Internet between a Web browser and a Web server. SEE ALSO Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and Internet Security.
A host computer on a network that answers requests for information from it. The term server is also used to refer to the software that makes the process of serving information possible.
Standard Generalized Markup Language - SGML is an international standard for the publication and delivery of electronic information.
Software available for downloading on the Internet that you can try before you buy. Users who want to continue to use the program are expected to pay a registration fee (rarely more than U.S. $100). In return they get documentation, technical support, and any updated versions.
A UNIX-based account that allows an indirect, command-line connection to the Internet.
A Web browser plugin which provides for Macromedia Director movies to be viewed on World Wide Web pages. Shockwave is a key component of Macromedia's solution for interactive professionals who develop digital media for the World Wide Web. If you have created an interactive movie using Macromedia Director, you will need to compress the movie through a program called "Afterburner" before you can use it as Shockwave on a Web site.
A file automatically attached to outgoing e-mail messages and postings to newsgroups.
.signature file - A file that, when placed in your home directory on your public-access site, will automatically be appended to every Usenet posting you write.
A profound/witty/quizzical/whatever quote that you include in your `.sig' file.
The amount of useful information to be found in a given Usenet newsgroup. Often used derogatorily, for example: "the signal-to-noise ratio in this newsgroup is pretty low."
Serial Line Internet Protocol -- Communication protocol used over serial lines to support Internet connectivity.
To connect to the Internet via Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) or Point to Point Protocol (PPP), you need to have TCP/IP software on your computer. When connected by SLIP/PPP, your computer actually becomes another node on the Internet. You can then run popular client software directly. This has an advantage over a shell account where you will have to double download in order to transfer a file by FTP because the data first goes to network and then to a local machine.
Switched Multimegabit Data Service - A new standard for very high-speed data transfer.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol - The standard Internet protocol for transferring electronic mail messages.
Regular mail as in "through rain, snow, sleet, or hail ..."
To arrange a collection of items into a specific order. The items could be records or files, directories, data structures etc. To impose an order such as ascending or descending, numerical, alphabetical, and date.
An optional computer circuit card for IBM PC's. It provides high-quality stereo sound output under program control. A "multimedia" PC usually includes a sound card. One of the best known is the SoundBlaster. SEE ALSO: duplex
A browser helper application for playing sound files.
The form in which a computer program is written. On the Internet among others the source code for a Web page could contain any of the following languages: HTML, Javascript, Java, and SGML. These codes in turn may call upon other scripts or documents which are written in the same code or pehaps an entirely different code such as Perl, C++ (CGI), or Lingo (Shockwave). SEE ALSO: document source.
To send identical and irrelevent postings to many different newsgroups or mailing lists. Usually this posting is something that has nothing to do with the particular topic of a newsgroup or of no real interest to the person on the mailing list. The name comes from a Monty Python song and is considered to be a serious violation of netiquette. SEE ALSO: spew.
While spam refers to the mass sending of an e-mail or newsgroup posting to a large number of people who would otherwise not be interested in seeing the letter or post, spew is when you're on a newgroup or in a chat room and one of the participants goes on and on about something and/or types the same thing repeatedly.
A program that prowls the Internet, attempting to locate new, publically accessible resources such as WWW documents, files available in public FTP archives, and Gopher documents. Also called wanderers or robots (bots), spiders contribute their discoveries to a database, which Internet users can search by using an Internet-accessible search engine such as Lycos or WebCrawler. Spiders are necessary because the rate at which people are creating new Internet documents greatly exceeds manual indexing capacity.
secured sockets layer A protocol that delivers server authentication, data encryption, and message integrity. SSL is layered beneath application protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, Telnet, FTP, Gopher, and NNTP, and layered above the connection protocol TCP/IP. This strategy allows SSL to operate independently of the Internet application protocols. With SSL implemented on both the client and server, your Internet communications are transmitted in encrypted form. Information you send can be trusted to arrive privately and unaltered to the server you specify (and no other).
The StreamWorks Player brings the power of networked audio and video to the desktop. You can play "live" and "on-demand" audio and video from StreamWorks Servers across the globe.
The StreamWorks Transmitter allows for LIVE network encoding of digital audio and video over today's networks. Taking inputs from analog audio and video connections, like the ones on the back of a VCR, StreamWorks Transmitter is capable of enabling live, real-time MPEG audio and video over industry standard TCP/IP networks.
A shareware program that decompresses virtually any compressed file you will encounter on the Internet. It is available for Macintosh and Windows.
MACINTOSH - Installer for StuffIt Expander 4.0.1, Use it, as is, to expand StuffIt, Compact Pro, BinHex & MacBinary files. Add the Expander Enhancer from "DropStuff with Expander Enhancer" and StuffIt Expander is PowerPC accelerated, expands more formats (including .tar!), and joins StuffIt segments. Expander now handles segmented and multipart encoded files (ie: BinHex and UUencoded files).
WINDOWS - StuffIt Expander for Windows expands files from the most popular archiving and compression formats found online, including StuffIt¬ (.sit) and ZIP (.zip). StuffIt Expander will also expand files in uuencoded (.uue), BinHex (.hqx), and MacBinary (.bin) formats, such as those commonly found on the Internet. Other archive formats supported include ARC (.arc), Arj (.arj), and gzip (.gz). StuffIt Expander will also expand self-extracting archives created by StuffIt, ZIP, and Arj.
A number used to identify a subnetwork so that an IP address can be shared on a LAN (Local Area Network).
To search for information in cyberspace or the World Wide Web by navigating in a nonlinear way.
Systems Operator - The person who does day-to-day maintenance of a BBS.