Internet Terms Glossary

Glossary Of Commonly Used Internet/World Wide Web Terms

For a comprehensive online dictionary of computer and Internet technology see Webopedia.

Browser

Browsers are software programs that enable you to view World Wide Web (WWW) documents. They "translate" HTML-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer are the most commonly used browsers that let you see text and images and many other WWW features.

Cache

A cache temporarily stores Web pages you have visited in your computer. A copy of documents you retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, Netscape first checks to see if it is in cache and will retrieve it from there because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server. If memory allocated to cache in your computer becomes full, Netscape discards older documents.

Case Sensitive

Capital letters (upper case) retrieve only upper case. Most other search tools are not case sensitive or only respond to initial capitals, as in proper names. It is always safe to key all lower case (no capitals), because lower case will always retrieve upper case.

Cookie

A message from a web server computer, sent to and stored by the web browser on your computer. When your computer consults the originating server computer, the cookie is sent back to the server, allowing it to respond to you according to the cookie's contents. The main use for cookies is to provide customized Web pages according to a profile of your interests. When you log onto a "customize" type of invitation on a Web page and fill in your name and other information, this may result in a cookie on your computer which that Web page will access to appear to "know" you and provide what you want. If you fill out these forms, you may also receive email and other solicitation independent of cookies.

Domain

Hierarchical scheme for indicating logical and sometimes geographical venue of a Web page from the network. In the U.S., common domains are edu (education), gov (government agency), net (network related), com (commercial), org (non-profit and research organizations). Outside the U.S., domains indicate country: ca (Canada), uk (United Kingdom), au (Australia), jp (Japan), fr (France), etc. (for a technical explanation see "All About Domain Names").

Field Searching

Ability to limit a search by requiring word or phrase to appear in a specific field of documents (e.g. title, author, publication date, etc).

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. Ability to transfer rapidly entire files from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes.

Host

Computer that provides web-documents to clients or users.

Icon

A small picture that represents an object or program. Icons are very useful in applications that use windows, because with the click of a mouse button you can shrink an entire window into a small icon. (This is sometimes called minimizing). To redisplay the window, you merely move the pointer to the icon and click (or double click) a mouse button. (This is sometimes called restoring or maximizing). Icons are a principle feature of graphical user interfaces.

Internet (Upper case I)

The vast collection of inter-connected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's. An "internet" (lower case i) is any computer connected to each other (a network), and are not part of the Internet unless they use TCP/IP protocols. An "intranet" is 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. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network.

IP Address or IP Number (Internet Protocol number or address)

A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2. Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP address. If a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember.

Link

The URL imbedded in a document or page. When this highlighted text is clicked, a document or page outside the current page is retrieved.

Proxy Server

A server that sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server.

Scroll (Down, Up, Left, Right)

Moving up or down within a document in your screen. Use scroll bar at right. Click on arrow down or arrow up. Drag the scroll button down or up. Or click on the page up or page down icons at the bottom of the bar. If you need to scroll left or right, use the scroll bar at the bottom.

Server, Web Server

A computer running that software, assigned an IP address, and connected to the Internet so that it can provide documents via the World Wide Web. Also called HOST computer.

Stop Words

In database searching, "stop words" are small and frequently occurring words like and, or, in, of that are often ignored when keyed as search terms. Usually if they are placed in quotes " " this will allow these words to be included in the search. Also, if a + sign is placed immediately before these words they will be searchable.

Subject Directory

An approach to Web documents by a lexicon of subject terms hierarchically grouped. May be browsed or searched by keywords. Subject directories are smaller than other searchable databases, because of the human involvement required to classify documents by subject.

TCP/IP

(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software.

Telnet

Internet service allowing one computer to log onto another, connecting as if not remote.

URL

The Uniform Resource Locator is the unique address of any Web document. May be keyed in IE's ADDRESS or Netscape's LOCATION / GO TO box to retrieve a document. There is a logic the layout of a URL:

Anatomy of a URL
Type of file (could say ftp:// or telnet://)	Domain name (computer file is on and its location on the Internet)	Path or directory on the computer to this file	Name of file, usually ending in .html or .htm
http://	www.lib.berkeley.edu/	TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/	FindInfo.html

World Wide Web

A system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. The documents are formatted in a language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that supports links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files. This means you can jump from one document to another simply by clicking on hot spots.