Web Glossary

Click on any letter below to search for a word starting with that letter in our Web Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0-9

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Acrobat Reader
Standalone program or Web browser plug-in from Adobe that lets you view a PDF file in its original format and appearance. The Acrobat Reader is free and can be downloaded from Adobe.

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Access provider
Organization that arranges for you to have access to the Internet through a dial-up account. The charge is usually depending on the amount of usage you contract for.

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Active Server Pages (ASP)
Microsoft technology created to allow easy combination of HTML, JavaScript and ActiveX.

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ActiveX
Microsoft technology created to enable easier multimedia on the WWW. ActiveX controls can be used to create multimedia effects. On ActiveX Web sites, buttons can light up and sound effects can play when you click or move the pointer over things (see also Java, JavaScript). To see it, your browser must support ActiveX.

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Address
The unique identifier you need to either access a Web site: http://www.touchstone.com (see URL) or 208.28.202.95 (see IP address) or to send email: info@touchstone-it.com (see email address).

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ADSL - Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line
The phone company's answer to cable modems and in the future even an alternative to ISDN. An ADSL circuit connects two specific locations (similar to a leased line) but it is much faster than a regular phone connection. In theory ADSL allows download speeds of up to 9 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 640 Kbps.

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Agent
Agents are search tools that automatically seek out relevant online information based on your specifications. Agents are also called intelligent agents, personal agents, knowbots or droids.

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Aggregator
Device (computer) that serves many other devices. For example, a computer that not only handles dial-up modem calls for an ISP, but also supports ISDN connections, leased-lines, while it is also a router, well, that is a typical aggregator.

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AltaVista
Search engine at http://altavista.digital.com

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Anchor
Synonymous with hyperlinks, anchor refers to non-linear links among documents. Or more simply put, it's the word or phrase that can be selected to connect to another page or resource.

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Anchor Color
the color on screen that represents the anchors. The reason so many are blue is that is often the default color. This color can be changed to any combination of red, green and blue.

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Anonymous FTP
Anonymous FTP uses the FTP protocol to allow users access to files (for downloading). You don't need to have a user ID or a password. With regular FTP, you must enter a user ID and a password to access the site (see FTP).

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Applet
Small (Java)program embedded in an HTML page. When you access that Web page, the browser downloads the applet and runs it on your computer. For security reasons applets cannot read or write data onto your computer. The applet can only be executed if your browser supports Java.

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Archie
Derived from the word archive, Archie is a (no longer used) Net-based service that allows you to locate files for downloading from anonymous FTP sites.

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ARPANET - Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
Developed by the US Department of Defense during the cold war. ARPANET was designed to survive nuclear attacks: the authority was distributed over a large number of geographically dispersed computers, so that - even if most servers were destroyed - the remaining servers would be able to continue on. This computer network concept was the basis of the Internet.

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ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
World-wide standard for the code numbers assigned to each key on the keyboard. Numbers, letters, punctuation marks, symbols and control codes are assigned numbers from 0 to 127. Easily transferred over networks, ASCII is plain text without style or font specifications.

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ASP - Active Server Page
A type of content viewed over the World Wide Web that is more of a dynamic program than a static web page. The host computer serves pages dynamically for each visitor to the site, and can offer custom information specifically tailored to each user.

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Asychronous Connection
The type of connection a modem makes over a phone line, this connection is not synchronized by a mutual timing signal or clock.

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AVI - Audio Video Interleave
(Digital) video file format created by Microsoft (Video for Windows). An .avi file contains picture and sound elements stored in alternate (interleaved) chunks.

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