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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Packet
Data chunk sent across a network.

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Packet Switching
Method to send data across a network. Data is broken up into packets (chunks). Each packet has the address of the sender and the address of the destination. This way, packets from many different sources can be sent on the same line at the same time.

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Page - Web page
One single document on the Web.

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Parse
To break up a text into useful chunks (used in programming languages). For example: parsing the date variable in order to get the day of the week.

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Password
Secret code that you must enter after your user ID (login name) in order to log on to a computer.

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PDF - Portable Document Format
Platform independent file format (with the extension ".pdf") created by Adobe (see Acrobat Reader). Created for offline reading of brochures, reports and other documents with complex graphic design. When you download a .pdf file, you get the entire document in a single file.

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Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language
Perl is a powerful computer language, especially used for writing CGI scripts which handle input/output actions on Web pages.

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PGP - Pretty Good Privacy
Program, developed by Phil Zimmerman, that protects files from being read by others. You can also use PGP to attach a digital signature to a file to proof that you are the sender.

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Ping - Packet InterNet Groper
Program that tests a network connection. Ping sends data packets to a network connection to measure the response time (or to check whether the packets were arrived).

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Plug-in
Small piece of software, usually from a third party developer, that adds new features to another (larger) software application.

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PoP - Point of Presence
Local phone service area where your ISP provides dial up access to the Internet.

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POP - Post Office Protocol
Internet protocol used by your ISP to handle email for its subscribers. POP is a service provider's location for connecting to users. Generally, POPs refer to the location where people can dial into the provider's host computer. Most providers have several POPs to allow low-cost access via telephone lines. A POP account is just a synonym for an email account.

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Port
Related to the Internet, a port is a part of a Web server that handles requests for particular services (FTP, TELNET, WWW). Each of those services has its own port number, where it "listens" for requests. For example, WWW servers normally listen on port 80. When you use a non-standard port number, it must be specified in the URL after a colon (:) (eg http://www.domain.com:8000)

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Portal
A Web site that attracts visitors by offering free information, or free services on a daily basis. When you are on a portal site, you can use this site as a basis to explore the Web. The most famous portals are these major search engines: AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Lycos, InfoSeek and Yahoo.

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Posting
A single message posted to a newsgroup, bulletin board or mailing list.

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PPP - Point to Point Protocol
Protocol that handles the sending of data packets over dial-up and leased-line connections to your ISP. PPP gets you online.

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Protocol
A set of standards that define how traffic and communications are handled by a computer or network routers. The rules and conventions describe the behaviour that computers must follow in order to understand each other.

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Proxy
Form of security on the Internet. When you use a proxy or proxy server, you send a request to a server on the Internet via this proxy. For the server on the Internet it looks like the request is coming from the proxy, not from your machine.

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Push media
New method to collect information on the Internet. You can subscribe to some push agency to deliver you all the information you need about a particular subject, so you won't have to scour the news by yourself.

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