ActiveX is Microsoft's reworking of its old "OLE" technologies to bring it up to date. It can grant Web browsers true computing power and, vice versa, it can give your normal applications Internet awareness through what are known as "ActiveX Controls". These are small components that are downloaded and installed on-the fly when required. Once installed they never need to be downloaded again. The behavior and interaction between the controls is provided by ActiveX "scripts" - VBScript and JavaScript. These small pieces of programming code are hidden within an actual Web page and act as the "glue" between controls.Backbone (Internet)
The Internet's high speed data highways that serve as major access points to which other networks connect.
Bandwidth
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.
BBS (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.
Baud
In common usage the "baud rate" of a modem is how many bits it can send or receive per second. The higher the baud rate, the faster the download of web page.
Bookmark
A bookmark is considered by some to be the best thing about surfing the Web. By "bookmarking" a web site that you are visiting, you can then easily return to it at a later time, with a simple mouse selection rather than remembering or typing in a very long and sometimes cryptic URL. The World Wide Web can be seen as a massive and dynamic storehouse of information. Finding your way around can seem daunting 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.
CGI Common Gateway Interface
The standard for running programs on a server from a Web page. Gateway programs, or scripts, are executable programs which can be run by themselves. They have been made external programs in order to allow them to run under various (possibly very different) information servers interchangeably. Some of the most common CGI scripts found on the Web are programs which process the information a user might enter on a form or whenever an
and a credit card.Client/Server
A remote computer connected to a host or server computer. Also refers to the software that makes this connection possible. A Server is a computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running. A single server machine could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network. Each Client program is designed to work with one or more specific kinds of Server programs, and each Server requires a specific kind of Client. A Web Browser is a specific kind of Client, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer being the most widely known.
Cookie
When you need to pass some snippet of information to another system to make it do something, how do you do it? If you're on the Web or some other network, you use a cookie . The cookie is a text file saved in your browser's directory or folder and stored in RAM while your browser is running. Most of the information in a cookie is pretty mundane stuff, but some Web sites use cookies to store personal preferences.
DNS - Domain Name System
A database system that translates an IP address into a domain name. For example, a numeric IP address like 198.69.223.34 is converted into www.metrowebgroup.com The DNS is a static, hierarchical name service and it uses TCP/IP hosts, and is housed on a number of servers on the Internet. Basically, it maintains this database for figuring out and finding (or resolving) host names and IP addresses. This allows users to specify remote computers by host names rather than numerical IP addresses.
Electronic Commerce
Electronic commerce is the conducting of secure business communication and transactions over the Internet and other networks. As most restrictively defined, on-line commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital
communications.
Firewall
A device that protects a private network from the public part. A computer set up to monitor traffic between an Internet site and the Internet. It's designed to keep unauthorized outsiders from tampering with a computer system therefore increasing a servers security.
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
The common procedure or protocol used for downloading and uploading files via the Internet. With FTP you can login to another Internet site and transfer files. Some sites have public file archives that you can access by using FTP with the account name "anonymous" and your e-mail address as password. This type of access is called anonymous ftp.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
The coding method used to format documents for the World Wide Web. Web pages are able to be viewed, in part, due to HTML codes or tags as they are more commonly known, these tags are then interpreted by a Web browser which renders your Web page.
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The protocol that tells the server what to send to the client, so the client can view Web pages, FTP sites, or other areas of the net.
Image Map
A graphic in which certain "hot spots" are linked to internal or external web site locations. These "hot spots" are activated on mouse roll-over or click through.
Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. As the Internet has become more popular many of the tools used on the Internet are being used in private networks, for example, many companies have web servers that are available only to employees. Note that an "Intranet" may not actually be an Internet, it may simply be a network.
Internet or "the Net"
The Internet, was first known as the ARPAnet. A system of linked computer networks, international in scope, that facilitates data communication services such as remote login, file transfer, electronic mail, and newsgroups. The Internet is a way of connecting existing computer networks that greatly extends the reach of each participating system.
Java
Developed by Sun Microsystems, Java is a programming language that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations, calculators, and other complex attributes.
JavaScript
A cross platform scripting language for Web pages. Scripts written with JavaScript can be embedded into HTML documents. With JavaScript you have many possibilities for enhancing your Web page with interesting elements. It makes it easy to respond to user initiated events (such as form input).
