applet: A diminutive of 'application' or 'app'. An applet is a small, single-function program, often used on the Internet.

bandwidth: The amount of data that can be transmitted over a network connection at any one time.

BBS Bulletin Board System: An electronic message centre. You can dial into a BBS, view messages left by others and leave your own messages and replies.

bps: Bits per second, the standard measure of data transmission speeds.

browser: Short for Web browser, a software application used to locate and display Web pages.

cable modem: A modem which operates over cable TV lines, providing high transmission rates.

cookie: A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file called cookie.txt. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and to prepare customised Web pages for them.

cyberspace: The non-physical world created within computer systems. When you're connected to the Internet, for example, you are 'in cyberspace'.

Dial-up connection: A widely-used method of connecting to the Internet. A dial-up connection uses regular phone lines to connect one computer to another via modem.

DNS: Domain Name System, an Internet service which converts domain names into IP addresses. Humans use domain names on the Internet (such as www.microsoft.com) because they're easy to remember; but the actual computer addresses for computer systems on the Internet consists of strings of numbers, called IP addresses. The DNS converts the address you type into an IP address.

domain name: A name that identifies an IP address, such as www.rivernetwork.org or www.pcuser.com.au. Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top-level domain it belongs to. Top-level domains include com, org, edu, net, gov, mil and the various country domains (such as au for Australian sites).

download: To copy information from a remote computer to your computer. When you connect to the Web, you're constantly downloading Web pages and files to your computer system.

e-mail: Electronic mail. Messages exchanged between users on a network.

e-mail address: A unique name that identifies an e-mail recipient. E-mail addresses take the form username^AT^hostname. An example is pcuser^AT^acp.com.au, which is pronounced pcuser at acp dot com dot a-u. Note that e-mail addresses, unlike URLs (Internet addresses), are not case sensitive.

emoticon: Emotion icon (also known as a smiley), used in e-mail and online conversations to convey tone and mood along with the words. Emoticons consist of a series of punctuation characters that depict an emotion, usually evident when you tilt your head to the left to look at the emoticon. The most famous emoticon is the smiley:
:-)
which indicates the writer is happy or their tone is jocular.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (pronounced fak). Documents which give the answers to commonly asked questions about a particular topic. When investigating a new area of the Internet, it always pays to first check any relevant FAQs before asking questions.

firewall: A system designed to prevent unauthorised access to or from a private network.

flame: A vicious e-mail message or newsgroup posting which the author attacks another online participant for some real or imagined transgression.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol. A method for transmitting files across the Internet. Often called Anonymous FTP, because users are given restricted access to other computers without being required to identify themselves before downloading files.

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format. A graphics file format used extensively on the Internet because it uses compression to minimise the size, and hence the download time, of the images.

home page: The main page of a Web site.

host: A computer attached directly to the Internet. Users on client machines can connect to hosts to transfer information.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, the authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide Web.

HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol, the underlying method used to format and transmit information on the World Wide Web.

hyperlink: An element (piece of text, graphic image) in a document that links to another place in the same document or to an entirely different document. When you click on a hyperlink, the link's destination is displayed.

hypertext: Text that allows embedded links to other documents. Clicking on a hypertext link displays the destination text or document. The World Wide Web is made up of hypertext documents.

Internet: A global network of computer networks, allowing communication and information exchange.

Internet address: See URL.

intranet: A Web site or group of Web sites belonging to an organisation and accessible only to the organisation's employees or those authorised.

IRC: Internet Relay Chat. A system for online conversations.

ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network. A technology which transmits voice, video and data over digital telephone lines. Most ISDN lines provide two lines at once, called B channels, each offering transmission rates of 64Kbps. You can use one line for voice and the other for data, or use both lines for data to boost your data transmission to 128 Kbps.

ISP: Internet service provider. ISPs maintain a dedicated communication line to the Internet; users dial in to the ISP, which then connects them to the Internet via a (hopefully) high-speed dedicated communications line.

Java: A general purpose programming language designed for compactness and simplicity, making it well suited for use on the World Wide Web. Small Java applications, called applets, can be downloaded from a Web server and run on your computer by a Java-compatible Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

JPG: A graphics file format which can compress graphics to a fraction of their size. JPG uses 'lossy compression', which means that the higher the degree of compression, the more detail is lost from the image. JPG images are frequently used on Web pages because their small size reduces download time.

Kbps: Kilobits per second -- thousands of bits per second. A measure of data transfer speed.

link: A dynamic reference to another document (or another part of the current document). Clicking a link will connect you to the destination document.

mailing list: A list of e-mail addresses grouped together under a single name. Any e-mail sent to the mailing list address is automatically forwarded to all the addresses (the subscribers) on the list. Mailing lists are used to share information between people with common interests.

mirror site: A site which contains an exact replica of the contents of another site. Due to the popularity of some sites, mirrors are created to reduce congestion when many people try to access them at the same time.

modem: Modulator-demodulator. A modem is used to transmit digital data (from your computer) across analogue phone lines. When you send information from your computer, the modem at your end converts the digital data to analogue form. At the receiving end, another modem reconverts the data into digital form and passes it to the remote computer.

netiquette: Etiquette guidelines for behaviour on the Internet, in particular with regard to posting messages to newsgroups and e-mail.

network: Two or more computer systems linked together.

newbie: A new user on the Internet or an online service. Often used derogatorily.

newsgroup: An online discussion group on a particular topic.

offline: Disconnected from a computer communications system.

online: Connected to a computer communications system.

POP: Post Office Protocol. A <I>protocol<I> used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. There are three versions: POP, POP2 and the most recent, POP3.

post: To place a message on a newsgroup or BBS.

PPP: Point-to-Point Protocol. One of the most popular methods for dial-up connections to the Internet.

protocol: A set of rules which allows different parts of a computer network to 'talk' to one another. Because the Internet consists of an incredibly varied collection of hardware, it uses a whole series of protocols which enable the diverse parts to talk to one another. In technical terms, a protocol contains a formal description of the message formats and rules two computers must adopt in order to exchange information.

public-domain software: Any program that is not copyrighted, and is thus available for free use by anyone. (Note that 'freeware' is copyrighted software that is free.)

push: Information which is sent without being requested. Generally on the Web, information is 'pulled'; that is, it is requested from a Web server by the user's browser. Push information is sent directly to a user's screen without the need for a specific request. Once you subscribe to a push service, customised information will be downloaded to your computer automatically.

remote access: The ability to log onto a network from a distant location.

search engine: A program that searches pages on the Internet for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents containing the keywords.

shareware: Software which you can try out without payment. If you continue to use the software, you are honour-bound to pay the author the requested fee.

SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol, a method for dial-up connection to the Internet. SLIP is older and simpler than PPP. Unlike PPP, SLIP can't work on a local area network.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a <I>protocol<I> for sending e-mail messages between servers. SMTP transfers mail from server to server; users then use POP to transfer their messages from the server to their own ('client') computer.

snail mail: Normal postal mail. So called because of its general sloth in comparison to e-mail, which is often delivered within seconds.

spam: Electronic junk mail.

surf: To move from place to place on the Internet, usually using a Web browser.

sysop: System Operator. Someone who manages a BBS or online service.

TCP/IP: Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the collection of communications protocols used to connect hosts on the Internet. TCP/IP uses several protocols, the two main ones being TCP and IP.

thread: A message and all its replies in an online discussion.

traffic: The amount of information being handled by a communications system. During times of heavy traffic on the Internet, you'll notice your connections slow.

Unix: A popular multi-user, multitasking operating system developed at Bell Labs in the early 1970s, on which much of the Internet was built.

upload: To send information from your computer to a remote computer.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator, the address used to identify documents and other resources on the Internet. URLs consist of two parts. The first denotes which protocol to use to transfer the document and the second specifies the IP address or domain name of the resource's location. For example, addresses beginning with http:// use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol for transmission -- the default protocol for the World Wide Web, Addresses beginning with ftp:// use the File Transfer Protocol for transmission. For instance:

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/iesetup.exe

is the address of an executable file (iesetup.exe) at Microsoft's domain, which is downloadable using FTP.

Here's another:

http://www.pcuser.com.au

This is the address of the home page at Australian PC User's World Wide Web site which is downloadable using the HTTP protocol.

Web page: A document on the World Wide Web.

Web server: A computer that stores Web pages and delivers them to Web browsers on request.

Web site: A location on the World Wide Web, consisting of at least one page (the home page) and possibly many pages.