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Acronyms & Terms

New users and developers of the Internet will encounter numerous terms and acronyms describing various components and aspects.

For those not familiar to using acronyms bare in mind they are typically industry specific. Often acronyms used in one industry sector specific and very different meaning in another sector of the same industry. An example is CGI. CGI is used referred within two different sectors with the IT (Information Technology) industry. In the "network" sector it refers to "Common Gateway Interface", while in the computer graphic sector it refers to "Computer Generated Imaging". There are many other examples of this, so use caution and avoid confusion when using acronyms.

Here are some of the more commonly used terms and acronyms:

Alphanumeric: Originating from IBM this term describes a valid subset of characters that includes any alphabetic or numeric character and excludes all other special characters. The subset does not include punctuation characters.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface as the term applies to the Internet (not to be confused with Computer Generated Images as it applies to the entertainment industry). CGI is a technical standard describing interface requirements of computer programs that run on a web server (server-side) allowing a website to send and receive information to and from a web page displayed on a web browser (client-side). A CGI program is capable of reading, processing and writing data at a website, plus sending data to a web browser.
Client-Server: Describes the networked relationship of two or more computers where one of the computers provides resources at the request of another computer; hence, the term "server." The client is the computer that requests of the resource. A client machine may also function as a server.
DNS: Domain Name Service
E-mail: Electronic Mail - originally referred to as electronic messages; Lotus Corporation sued in an attempt to gain copyright and trademark ownership with the introduction of a product by that name. The case was settled determining that the term "E-mail" was part of the public domain, functionally describing technology that was already established in the market place. And, one of the primary functional uses of the Internet.
Extranet: A combination of Internet and Intranet configurations with controlled user access providing internalized users to access resources remotely through Internet technologies and protocols.
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions - You'll see this often and it is generally pronounced as "facts."
FTP: File Transfer Protocol - the standard for file upload/download transmission. Upload is when you transfer a file to a remote computer. Download is when you transfer a file from a remote computer. There are two modes of FTP transmission; binary mode and text mode. These modes provide for different handling of text files typically providing platform specific conversion of the file format from the sending and receiving computers. This allows different computer operating systems that represent data internally using different standards to share information (files)
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language - a standard definition of what is essentially a computer programming language used to format the display of information for display by a browser program.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol - the standard for transmission of files containing the primary language of the WWW, HTML. This standard also supports transmission and display of most of the other web components comprising a web page including those supported by reference in the HTML standard.
Internet: The online network of now millions of computers interconnected via telecommunication technologies controlled through a series of devices following protocols providing a client-server environment. The WWW is only one of many protocols that operate on the Internet.
Intranet: An internalized (non-remote) client-server network utilizing Internet type protocols to connect two or more computers.
IRC: Internet Relay Chat - a system providing real time interactive immediate (as opposed to delayed; such as e-mail) terminal communication (as opposed to file communication; such as e-mail) between users.
ISO: International Standards Organization. Specific to the IT industry is the 9000 series of standards. Many companies, organizations and government agencies require adherence and compliance to particular standards developed and maintained by ISO for a variety of industries and industry sectors.
IT: Information Technology - Typically referring to the IT industry.
LDAP: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions describes a standardized internal format used in construction and interpretation of e-mail documents transceived (transmitted and received) on the Internet. With the advent of the WWW this protocol is also used to identify web page components as their particular type and the MIME specification tell a web browser, or client application including "Helper Applications", how to process the component after it has been successfully received (referred to as post-processing).
NBP: Name Binding Protocol
NSL: Network Services Location
PERL: Practical Extraction and Report Language. Originally developed as a streamlined rapid development scripting language for use on UNIX specific platforms, PERL has become the language of choice for Internet back-end application system support as a result of its open-source, platform independence and ease-of-maintenance. PERL is available as a freely distributed subsystem components for all major computer platforms in use as web servers.
PPP: Point to Point Protocol - supports TCP/IP over asynchronous serial lines (telephone lines).
Protocol: Internet Glue that binds everything together. Define rules that allow computer components to interact.
SGML: Standard Generalized Markup Language - standard for defining markup languages.
SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol - a self described nonstandard supports TCP/IP data packet transmission over asynchronous serial lines; supporting an 8-bit clean connect, requiring specific modem configuration (8-bit, no parity, no flow control). This term is no longer frequently encountered on the Internet, but if you do, now you know what it represents.
SLP: Service Location Protocol
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol - communications and control standard establishing the "Internet". This is also a commonly used "protocol" for any type of network connection between two or more computers.
WAIS: Wide Area Information Service - consisting of many file servers on the Internet containing store of information; produced by a joint venture of Apple Computer, Thinking Machines, Peat-Marcik and Dow Jones.
WWW: World Wide Web - descriptive name for the Internet implementation of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP; see below).