BASIC INTERNET TERMINOLOGY

Internet Terminology:
Here is a list of the terms associated with the structure and design of the Internet.

ARPANET:
The acronym stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. ARPA of the United States Department of Defence developed ARPANET, which became the world's first packet switching network. Internet is the successor of ARPANET.

AVI:
  Audio Video Interleaved. A Microsoft Corporation multimedia video format. It uses waveform audio and digital video frames (bitmaps) to compress animation.

ISP:  It is internet service provider.  A company, which provides users with an access to the Internet, is known as an Internet
service provider or Internet access provider. ISP, as it is called, offers email accounts and other services like remote storage of files for its customers. Here is information about choosing a cheap ISP.

IP Address:
It is a way of numerically identifying an entity on a computer network. The original addressing system known as IPv4, used 32 bit addresses. With the growth of the Internet, IPv6 came to be used wherein the addresses are composed of 128 bits.

WWW:
It is a collection of interlinked documents that are accessible over the Internet. It consists of millions of web pages that contain text, images, voice and videos. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist working at CERN, created the World Wide Web.

URL:
It specifies the location of a resource on the Internet. It consists of the basic address and path.

Web Page:
Web pages are resources of information. They are generally created in the HTML format and provide the web users with navigational abilities through hyperlinks to other web pages on the web.

Home Page:
The term home page is used to refer to the page that is the default page of any website. It is the main page of a complex website.

Web Server:
A web server is a computer program that accepts HTTP requests from web clients and provides them with HTTP responses.

Web Browser:
A web browser is a software application that facilitates user interaction with the text, audio, video and other information that is located on the web.

Cache:
Web browsers maintain a cache of recently visited web pages. Some of them use an external proxy web cache, which is a server program through which web requests pass. This enables the browsers to cache frequently visited pages. Even search engines make available already indexed web pages through their caches.

HTTP:
Hypertext Transfer Protocol, abbreviated as HTTP, is a communications protocol used for the transfer of information over the Internet. A client makes an HTTP request using a web browser to which an HTTP response is sent from the server.

Web Cookie:
Also known as an HTTP cookie, it is piece of text that is exchanged between the web client and the web server. It is sent by the web server to the web client and returned unchanged by the client each time it accesses the server.

Hyperlink:
A reference in a document to another section of the document or to another document is termed as a hyperlink. Hyperlinks are used to redirect the user from one section of a page content to another.

Domain Name:
A method of identifying computer addresses. Your e-mail address has a domain address. If you have an "edu" at the end of your e-mail address that means your account is affiliated with an educational institution. A "com" extension means you have a business account. A government account has a .gov suffix.

Search Engine:
Specialized software, such as AltaVista and Yahoo, that lets WWW browser users search for information on the Web by using keywords, phrases, and Boolean logic. Different search engines have different ways of categorizing and indexing information. Search engines are accessed by typing in the URL of that engine or using a browser's compilation of search engines in its Internet search function.

Shockwave:
 A three dimensional (3D) animation technology/format created by the Macromedia company. Macromedia Director produces Shockwave files, which can be viewed through a Shockwave player, a browser "plug-in" computer program or other multimedia applications that access the player. Shockwave can be used to create more sophisticated animations than the Macromedia Flash format. Shockwave uses the .dir file extension for source files and .dcr extension for Shockwave "movies."

Email Address:
It identifies the network location to which an email can be delivered. An email address is a combination of the user name of the mail user and the host name of the mailing system. It is of the form, 'username@domain-name'. An email alias is a forwarding email address. It simply forwards emails to specific email addresses.

Email:
Email is Electronic mail. It is a store-and-forward method of writing, sending and receiving written messages. It is an Internet e-mail system that uses network-based protocols to exchange messages between network subsystems.

Internet Chat:
It is a real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing that is used for group communication as well as one-to-one communication over the Internet. Jarkko Oikarinen, a Ph.D. from the University of Oulu is the developer of the first Internet chat network. He developed the client and server programs for Internet Relay Chat in August 1988

Dial-up:
It is the means to connect to the Internet using the copper phone lines and a modem. Dialup connections are capable of sending information from the client's end at very slow speeds of about 56kbps.

Modem:
It is a device that modulates analog carrier signals to encode digital information and demodulates carrier signals to decode information. A cable modem provides access to data signals sent over the cable television infrastructure. Modems are commonly used for facilitating Internet access.

Blogs:
Blogs are the expressions of the common masses about social or political issues or simply anything. Blogs can often be in the form of creative write-ups by writers in different parts of the world.

Usenet:
Usenet can be considered as a worldwide bulletin board. Usenet newsgroups serve as a repository of messages posted from users around the world.

Web Directories:
It is a directory, which links to other websites and organizes those links. They should not be mistaken as being search engines.

Internet Bookmark:
The Internet browsers of the modern times aim at enabling the users to organize the web pages they access. Links once visited can be saved in the favourites or preferences categories. Bookmarks are usually integrated into browsers. Social bookmarking is a method used by Internet users to store and manage web pages.

Wireless Networking:
It refers to computer networking that is carried out over the wireless media.

Virus :  Once the existing program is executed, the virus program is activated and can attach itself to other programs or files. Viruses can range from benign activities such as attaching a harmless message to performing malicious activities such as destroying all the data on a computer hard drive.  Viruses are commonly distributed as e-mail attachments which activate when the attachment is opened. Virus protection software, updated regularly with the latest virus definitions, can help protect computers from viruses