T-1

A leased line connection capable of carrying data at 1,544,000 bits-per-second. At maximum theoretical capacity, a T-1 line could move a megabyte in less than 10 seconds. That is still not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video, for which you need at least 10,000,000 bits-per-second. T-1 is the fastest speed commonly used to connect networks to the Internet.

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T-3

A leased line connection capable of carrying data at 44,736,000 bits-per-second. This is more than enough to do full-screen, full-motion video.

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tag

A tag is used to describe a type of command or instruction usually in regards to HTML or Web page code. HTML tags look like this:
<br> , <font size=1>, <body> or <html>, always with a pair of brackets (<>) surrounding the specific instruction.

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TANSTAAFL

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch - A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum.

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TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol - This set of protocols makes TELNET, FTP, e-mail, and other services possible among computers that don't belong to the same network.

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technophile

An ardent supporter of technology, who first emerged during the Computer Revolution of the '70s.

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Telnet

One of the TCP/IP applications, it lets you log in to computers around the world that are connected to the Internet, and to use them as if they were your own.

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terminal

A device that allows you to send commands to a computer somewhere else. At a minimum, this usually means a keyboard and a display screen and some simple circuitry. Usually you will use terminal software in a personal computer - the software pretends to be ("emulates") a physical terminal and allows you to type commands to a computer somewhere else.

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terminal emulation

There are several methods for determining how your keystrokes and screen interact with a public-access site's operating system. Most communications programs offer a choice of "emulations" that let you mimic the keyboard that would normally be attached directly to the host-system computer.

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terminal server

A special purpose computer that has places to plug in many modems on one side, and a connection to a LAN or host machine on the other side. Thus the terminal server does the work of answering the calls and passes the connections on to the appropriate node. Most terminal servers can provide PPP or SLIP services if connected to the Internet.

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thread

In a USENET newsgroup, a chain of postings on a single subject. Most newsreaders include a command that let you follow the thread, that is, jump to the next message on the topic rather than display each message in sequence. Popular newsreaders, such as NewsXpress and WINVN, have a thread selector that allow you to sort articles by threads. Indentation is often used to indicate a response to an article positioned above it.

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thumbnail

Describes the size of an image you frequently find on Web pages. Usually photo or picture archives will present a thumbnail version of it's contents (makes the page load quicker) and when a user clicks on the small image a larger version will appear. Sometimes these links will be to a new page containing the larger graphic and other times right to the image directly, as is the case in the examples below.

a sample of a thumbnail imagea sample of a thumbnail image

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TIFF

Tagged Image File Format - a graphic file format developed by Aldus and Microsoft. Mosaic supports the viewing of TIFF images.

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~ or tilde

Prounounced "tilda," this scribbly horizontal line has come to signify an individual user's web site when housed on the server of an ISP. In real terms the tilde stands for a path which leads to that person's Web site on the server it is being kept. For example, http://www.best.com/~erinj - says that erinj is a best.com user and that her homepage is on best.com's server. When you look at the server you will notice that erinj's web site is really located on the path: www.best.com/www/users/erinj , therefore the tilde is used to bypass the /www/users directories to make the URL or "web address" a little shorter and easier to remember. The tilde character is on the top line of your keyboard to the far left.

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TLA

Three Letter Acronym.

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TrueSpeech

A Netscape Navigator plugin which allows real time audio over the Internet.

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Trumpet Winsock

A popular Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 TCP/IP stack that provides a standard networking layer for many networking applications to use.

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TTFN

Ta Ta For Now - A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum.

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