|
OC 3
|
High speed fiber optics data
lines, similar to the T3 or DS3
(45Mb).
See Also:
T
3,
DS
3
|
|
OC 12
|
High speed fiber optics data
lines about ten times faster than the T3 or
OC3 (455Mb).
See Also:
OC
3,
T
3,
DS
3
|
|
Octal
|
Octal (base 8) is a numeric
representation of values of 0 through 7, which
makes 8 values. It can also be represented with 3
"bits",
000 through 111.
See Also:
Binary,
Bit
|
|
Operating
System
|
The system software needed to
make a computer usable, this is the first program
to be loaded and executed on the computer at
boot time, it allows the computer to handle
all the hardware connected to it, all drives,
keyboard, mouse, video card and any other
hardware.
If connected to a
network, the operating system also
establishes the communication with the rest of the
networked computers.
See Also:
Boot,
UNIX,
Network
Computer,
Network
|
|
Packet
Switching
|
The method used to move data
around on the Internet. In packet switching,
all the data coming out of a machine is broken up
into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it
came from and where it is going. This enables
chunks of data from many different sources to
co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and
directed to different routes by special machines
along the way. This way many people can use the
same lines at the same time.
See Also:
Internet
|
|
Password
|
A code used to gain access to
a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and
non-letters and are not simple combinations such as
virtue7. A good password might be:
Hot$1-6
or
#*8h2N@!
all that is important is that
it must not be easily guessable.
See Also:
Login
|
|
Perl
|
Perl is one of the
most popular computer programming
(scripting) language used to "program the
Web", it can be used to handle the data entered
into a form on a Web site, generate
HTML
pages "on the fly" or any other CGI
application.
See Also:
Script,
HTML,
Web
Page,
Web
Site
|
|
Personal CGI
directory
|
The personal CGI
directory feature allows you to run any CGI
script from a directory located inside your
root directory (your account), provided the
script conforms to the terms and conditions
of usage agreement. The directory must be called
cgi-bin and it is usually created for you at
the time your account is created.
These scripts are
usually written in Perl, which is the most
popular language to program "the web", these
scripts can be used for many purposes, to
generate Web Pages "on the fly" depending on
user input and the situation at the time, they also
are needed to process results from a "form"
page.
See Also:
Java,
Perl,
CGI,
Script,
Web
Page
|
|
Plug-in
|
A (usually small) piece of
software that adds features to a larger piece of
software. Common examples are plug-ins for the
Netscape® browser and web
server. Adobe Photoshop® also
uses plug-ins.
The idea behind
plug-in’s is that a small piece of software is
loaded into memory by the larger program, adding a
new feature, and that users need only install the
few plug-ins that they need, out of a much larger
pool of possibilities. Plug-ins are usually created
by people other than the publishers of the software
the plug-in works with.
See Also:
Browser,
Netscape,
Web,
Server
|
|
POP
|
Point of Presence, also Post
Office Protocol -- Two commonly used meanings:
Point of Presence and Post Office Protocol. A Point
of Presence usually means a city or location where
a network can be connected to, often with dial up
phone lines. So if an Internet company says
they will soon have a POP in Belgrade, it means
that they will soon have a local phone number in
Belgrade and/or a place where leased lines
can connect to their network. A second
meaning, Post Office Protocol refers to the way
e-mail software such as Eudora gets mail
from a mail server. When you obtain a
SLIP, PPP, or shell account you
almost always get a POP account with it, and it is
this POP account that you tell your e-mail
software to use to get your mail.
See Also:
SLIP,
PPP,
E-mail,
Internet,
Network
|
|
POP mailbox
|
The POP mailbox
feature is a means to store e-mail messages
so that can be retrieved by the owner from anywhere
on the internet using the POP3
protocol, which is the most widely used, when
getting your mail from the Net, you are
actually using POP3, so an account on the
server allows to grab the mail waiting in
the POP mailbox and read it from wherever
you access the Net.
See Also:
E-mail,
Server,
Internet
|
|
Port
|
3 meanings. First and most
generally, a place where information goes into or
out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on
a personal computer is where a modem would
be connected.
On the Internet port
often refers to a number that is part of a
URL, appearing after a colon (:)
right after the domain name. Every service
on an Internet server listens on a
particular port number on that server. Most
services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web
servers normally listen on port 80. Services
can also listen on non-standard ports, in which
case the port number must be specified in a URL
when accessing the server, so you might see a
URL of the form:
gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/
shows a gopher server
running on a non-standard port (the standard
gopher port is 70).
Finally, port also refers to
translating a piece of software to bring it from
one type of computer system to another, e.g. to
translate a Windows program so that is will run on
a Macintosh or a UNIX machine.
See Also:
Domain
Name,
Server,
URL,
UNIX,
Gopher,
Internet,
Modem
|
|
Posting
|
A single message entered into
a network communications system.
E.g. A single message posted
to a newsgroup or message board.
See Also:
Newsgroup,
E-mail
|
|
PPP
|
Point to Point Protocol --
Most well known as a protocol that allows a
computer to use a regular telephone line and a
modem to make TCP/IP connections and
thus be really and truly on the
Internet.
See Also:
IP
Number,
Internet,
SLIP,
TCP/IP,
Modem
|
|
PSTN
|
Public Switched Telephone
Network -- The regular old-fashioned telephone
system (using copper).
|
|
