Precision Tecknology wants you to understand more about the web and how it works. So we present a glossary of words that you may have wondered what they are:
How much stuff you can send thru a connection, usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of English Text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem (56k modem over a dial-up connection) can move about 40,000 bits in one second, depending on the quality of the connection.
A single digit number in base-2. Also known as a 1 or a Zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second.
A set of bits that represent a single character. 8 bits are in 1 byte.
The unique name that identifies an Internet Site. Domain names
always have 2 or more parts, separate by dots. The part on the left
is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general,
also known as the top level domain. The Domain Name points to only
one computer, however that computer can have many domain names
pointing to it. An example of a domain name is: 'pteck.com'. The
left part points to a machine running 'pteck' and the right part
states it is a .com, a top level domain.
Top Level Domains (TLD) come in a variety of names:
Electronic Mail, or e-mail is messages sent from one person to another person via computer. E-mail can be sent to several people at once thru a mailing list, or even to many people by the use of a list server.
A GIF (Graphics Interchange File) file is a common file format for image files. One of many formats available for image files.
1024 Megabytes
As used in reference to the World Wide Web (WWW), "hit" means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server, thus in order for a web browser to display 3 graphics, 4 "hits" would occur at the server. 1 for the web page and 3 for each of the 3 images.
The main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages.
Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common for one machine to host several services such as WWW and Usenet.
The act of providing host services for web pages.
The coding language used to create hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web (WWW). HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a World Wide Web Client Program, such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The protocol for moving hyertext files across the Internet. HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the most important protocol on the World Wide Web.
JPEG is the most commonly mentioned as a format for image files. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG format is preferred to the GIF format for photographic images on the Internet.
Typically a thousand bytes, however it is actually 1024 (or 2^10) bytes.
Typically a million bytes, however it is actually 1024 kilobytes.
A device that you connect to your computer and to a phone line, that allows the computer to talk to other computers through the telephone system.
The name for discussion groups on the Usenet.
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet. These protocols enable computers to talk to each other and share information regardless of the operating system.
1000 Gigabytes
The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW).
A world-wide system of discussion groups, with comments passed among hundreds of machines. Not all usenet machines are on the Internet, maybe half. Usenet is completely decentralized with over 50,000 discussion areas, called newsgroups.
Frequently used (incorrectly) when referring to the Internet. WWW is just a portion of the Internet.