The Internet's high speed data highways that serve as major access points to which other networks connect.
The range of frequencies a transmission line or channel can carry: the higher the frequency the higher the bandwidth and the greater the information carrying capacity of a channel. For a digital channel this is defined in bits per second or BPS. For an analog channel it is dependent on the type and method of modulation used to encode the data. ALSO: expressed in cycles per second (hertz), the amount of information that can flow through a channel.
On the less technical side bandwidth is used to measure the amount of time it takes for a Web page to fully load. Internet users occasionally refer to larger graphics on Web pages as "bandwidth hogs" -- the use of the term bandwidth in this case isn't quite accurate but what it means is that the graphic is loading slow due to it's large file size. If your interested in witnessing what a slow graphic download is like, click here.
! - An exclamation point used to signify surprise in an online forum.
A transmission method in which a network uses its entire transmission range to send a single signal.
A method of organizing several files into a single group for transmitting or printing which serves to increase the efficiency of the data transmission.
In common usage the "baud rate" of a modem is how many bits it can send or receive per second. Technically, "baud" is the number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value - so a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per second). It is no longer fashionable, however, having been replaced by the more direct "bits per second" or BPS.
Bearer Channel - This wire used in
Be Back Later - A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum. To see more e-mail shorthand click here.
Bulletin Board System - A dial-up computerized meeting and announcement system for carrying on discussions, uploading and downloading files, and generally obtaining on-line information and services - Or - a congregation gathered electronically via a modem that allows the users to post messages. They began as informal communities but now include political, commercial, adult, etc., categories.
There are many thousands of BBS's around the world, most are very small, running on a single IBM PC or Mac clone with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn.
In the preliminary or testing stage, as in "they're still in the beta mode with that software." Software developers encourage users to report bugs while beta testing their program.
Big F---ing Deal - an acronym used in e-mail shorthand or IRC to say "big deal" with obvious emphasis. To see more e-mail shorthand click here
binary file transfer - A method of transferring files using fax modems (as an extension to the fax protocol).
BINary HEXadecimal - A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because Internet e-mail can only handle ASCII.
A numbering system with a base (radix) of 2, unlike the number system most of us use, which have bases of 10 (decimal numbers), 12 (measurement in feet and inches), and 60 (time). Binary numbers are preferred for computers for precision and economy. Building an electronic circuit that can detect the difference between two states (high current and low current, or 0 and 1) is easier and less expensive than building circuits that detect the difference among 10 states (0 through 9). The word bit dervives from the phrase BInary digiT.
Basic Input/Output System - The bios is what's coded into a PC's ROM to provide the basic instructions for controlling system hardware. The operating system and application programs both directly access BIOS routines to provide better compatibility for such functions as screen display. Some makers of add-in boards such as graphics accelerator cards provide their own bios modules that work in conjunction with (or replace) the bios on the system's motherboard.
The basic unit of information in a binary numbering system. The electronic circuitry in computers detect the difference between two states (high currnet and low current) and represents these two states as one of two numbers 1 or 0. These basic high/low, either/or, yes/no units of information are called bits. eight bits comprise what is called an octet, sometimes referred to as a byte.
Any picture you see on a Web page is a bitmap. Bitmaps come in many file formats such as GIF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PICT, PCX, and DIB (device independent bitmap, which allows the image to be. They can be read and edited by paint programs and image editors such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. As its name suggests, a bitmap is a map of dots or "pixels". If you zoom in on or try to scale up a bitmap, it will look blocky.
Network created by Ira Fuchs in 1981 to connect IBM computer centers around the world.
A user who takes three screens to say something where three words suffice.
A Microsoft Windows bitmap format. The images you see when Windows starts up and closes, and the wallpaper that adorns your desktop, are all in BMP format.
Can either be the part of an e-mail message you are sending which contains just the message itself without all the header and server information, or it is refferred to in HTML as the section of a Web page which contains all the text and graphics you see in a browser window. In HTML this section is designated by the use of a <body> tag.
A bookmark is considered by some to be the best thing about surfing the Web. By "bookmarking" a Web site while you visit it, you can easily return to it at a later time with a simple mouse selection rather than remembering or typing in very long and sometimes cryptic URLs. The World Wide Web can be seen as a HUGE library of information. Finding your way around can be confusing at first. Bookmarks are just one way of personalizing the Web experience, by enabling you to quickly return to areas of the Web which interest you. Customarily Web sites have a "links" section which are really just a collection of bookmarks and are sometimes called hot lists.
or "boolean logic" is a system for searching and retreiving information from computers by using and combining terms such as AND, OR, and NOT to sort data.
To start a computer; more frequently used as re-boot. When you shut down a system then restart, you are re-booting. It tends to clear out bugs that are hampering smooth computing.
Robot - A bot is a program that runs on a computer [usually] 24 hours a day 7 days a week that automates mundane tasks for the owner, even if the owner is not logged in. Bots are used on the Internet in a variety of ways, most popular is its use in IRC and Web search engines.
IRC bots are programs that connect to an IRC network and interacts with IRC in very much the same way a normal users does (in fact, IRC servers treat bots as regular users). Most IRC bots are used for channel control. Bots have also been called automatons but that term isn't used as much as it was in the past. Many long time users & IRC ops have a strong dislike for bots. Because of the system resources they use, very few bots are used for much more than vanity channel control, and many bots have been used for annoying or trouble making purposes. While it's true bots have not lived up to their full potential, new bot coders should try to think of ways their creation can add value and service to IRC and not just be a system drag.
In the world of Web searching, bots are also called spiders and crawlers. They explore the World Wide Web by retrieving a document and following all the hyperlinks in it; then they generate catalogs that can be accessed by search engines. Popular search sites like Alta Vista, Excite, and Lycos use this method.
When e-mail cannot get to its recipient, it bounces back to the original sender unless it goes off into the ether, never to be found again.
A program that filters e-mail from or posting by individuals who are on your b-list (bozo list).
bits per second - The amount of data that can be transmitted over a communications medium; not to be confused with baud.
Be Right Back - A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum or e-mail. To see more e-mail shorthand click here
A transmission method in which the networks range of transmission frequencies is divided into separate channels and each channel is used to send a different signal. Broadband is often used to send different types of signals simultaneously.
A link or hyperlink which no longer works when "clicked on" or does not take the user to the destination it was supposed to. This can occur for several reasons, among them being that the server hosting the Web site has shut down temporarily, or the Web site has moved to an entirely new server. Broken links also occur if the HTML code for the hyperlink is incorrect.
This term is usually seen in an error message by programs such as Netscape Navigator to let the user know that the stream of information which was downloading at the time has been forcibly cut. This can occur for many reasons, most commonly because you are on a very crowded network or your access provider is experiencing heavy traffic.
A program that allows users to access documents on the World Wide Web (WWW). Browsers can be either text or graphic. They read HTML coded pages that reside on a server and interpret the coding into what we see as Web pages. Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples of Web browsers. SEE ALSO: browser compatibility and browser support.
Berkeley System Distribution - A family of UNIX versions for the DEC VAX and PDP-11 developed by Bill Joy and others at Berzerkeley starting around 1980, incorporating paged virtual memory, TCP/IP networking enhancements, and many other features. The BSD versions (4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and the commercial versions derived from them (SunOS, ULTRIX, and Mt. Xinu) held the technical lead in the UNIX world until AT&T's successful standardization efforts after about 1986, and are still widely popular.
By The Way - A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum or e-mail. To see more e-mail shorthand click here.
A programming error that causes a program or computer system to perform erratically, produce incorrect results, or crash. The term bug was coined when a real insect was discovered to have fouled up one of the circuits of the first electronic digital computer, the ENIAC. To report any Net LingoTM bugs, click here. Not to be confused with a glitch, which refers to a hardware problem.
In HTML, a bullet is a large dot used to separate listed items on a Web page. For example: