This is a glossary for the most common abbreviations used over the internet, and in the computers & technology field.

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A

ACPI (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface)
This power management specification enables the OS (operating system) to control the amount of power given to each device attached to the computer.

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port)
A new, high-speed graphics interface that based on PCI construction and designed especially for the throughput demands of 3-D graphics, AGP provides a direct channel (32-bit wide bus) between the display controller and main memory for high graphics quality and performance.

Anonymous FTP
Using the FTP function of the Internet anonymously by not logging in with an actual, secret login ID and password. Often permitted by large, host computers who are willing to share openly some of the files on their system to outside users who otherwise would not be able to log in.

Applet
A small Java program that can be embedded, or placed in, an HTML page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most other computers across a network. The current rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was sent.

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
This is the worldwide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111.  

AVI (Audio/Video Interleaved)
A common video file format (.avi). Video quality can be very good at smaller resolutions, but files tend to be rather large.

B

Backbone:
A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network. The term is relative as a backbone in a small network will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network.  

Bandwidth
The capacity of a transmission channel to carry information. It is measured in bits per second. Optical fibers have a higher bandwidth than copper cables. This is what makes them carry more information than other conventional cables.

Baud
A measure of the rate at which information can be transmitted. 

Binhex: (BINary HEXadecimal)
A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because Internet email can only handle ASCII. 

BIOS (Basic Input/Output System)
On PCs, an essential software that contains all the control code of input/output interface (such as keyboard, disk drives, etc-}. It executes hardware test on booting the system, starts the OS, and provides an interface between the OS and the components.

Bit (Binary DigIT)
A single digit number in base-2, in other words, either a 1 or a zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second. 

Bluetooth
Bluetooth refers to a worldwide standard for the wireless exchange of data between two devices. Bluetooth requires that a low-cost transceiver chip be included in each device. The transceiver transmits and receives in a previously unused frequency band of 2.45 GHz that is available globally (with some variation of bandwidth in different countries).
Connections can be point-lo-point or multipoint. The maximum range is 10 meters. Data can be exchanged at a rate of 1 megabit per second (up to 2 Mbps in the second generation of the technology).

Browser
A Client program (software) that is used to look at various kinds of Internet resources on the WWW.

Bus
A set of hardware lines within the computer system, through which the data is transferred among different components. In a PC, the term bus usually refers to a local bus that connects the internal components to the CPU and main memory. 

Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there are 8 Bits in a Byte, sometimes more, depending on how the measurement is being made.

C

Cache
A special memory subsystem that is used to speed up the data transfer. It stores the contents of frequently accessed RAM locations and the addresses where these data items are stored.

Certificate Authority
An issuer of Security Certificates used in SSL connections.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
A set of rules that describe how a Web Server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the "CGI program") talks to the web server.

Chipset
A collection of integrated chips designed to perform one or more related functions.

Client / Server
Computer technology that separates computers and their users into two categories: clients or servers. When you want information from a computer on the Internet, you are a client. The computer that delivers the information is the server. A server both stores information and makes it available to any authorized client who requests the information. 

Clock Cycle
Clock cycle (or tick) is the smallest unit of time recognized by a device. For personal computers, clock cycles generally refer to the main system clock, which runs at 66 MHz. This means that there are 66 million clock cycles per second.

Cookie
The most common meaning of "Cookie" on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browser's settings, the Browser may accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a long time.

Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online "shopping cart" information, user preferences, etc. When a Server receives a request from a Browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able to use the information stored in the Cookie.

Cookies are usually set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until the Browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to disk if their "expire time" has not been reached.

Compressed
Data files available for download from the Internet are typically compacted in order to save server space and reduce transfer times. Typical file extensions for compressed files include zip (DOS/Windows).

CMOS
Abbreviation for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. IT is a type of semiconductor used in computers, telecommunications and networking products.

D

Domain Name
The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. A Domain name is the Internet's way of translating the IP address of a particular computer into an easy to remember combination of words and numbers. A given machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine.

Download
The process of copying data file(s) from a remote computer to a local computer. When you copy a file from a computer on the Internet onto your computer, you are 'downloading' that file. The opposite action is uploading where a local file is copied to a server.  

DRAM (Dynamic RAM)
The most common type of computer memory. It usually uses one transistor and a capacitor to represent a bit. As the development of technology, the memory type and specification used in computer becomes variety, such as SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and RDRAM.

E

ECC Memory (Error Correcting Code Memory)
A type of memory that contains special circuitry for testing the accuracy of data and correcting the errors.

EEPROM
Acronym for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory. An EEPROM is a special type of PROM that can be erased by exposing it to an electrical charge. Like other types of PROM, EEPROM retains its contents even when the power is turned off. Also like other types of ROM, EEPROM is not as fast as RAM, EEPROM is similar to flash memory (sometimes called flash EEPROM), and the principal difference is that EEPROM requires data to be written or erased one byte at a time whereas flash memory allows data to be written or erased in blocks. This makes flash memory faster. 

EIDE
Short for Enhanced IDE, a newer version of the IDE mass storage device interface standard developed by Western Digital Corporation. It supports data rates of between 4 and 16.6 Mbps, about three to four times faster than the old IDE standard.  

In addition, it can support mass storage devices of up to 8.4 gigabytes, whereas the old standard was limited to 528 MB. Because of its lower cost, enhanced EIDE has replaced SCSI in many areas. There are four EIDE modes defined. The most common is Mode 4, which supports transfer rates of 16.6 Mbps. There is also a new mode, called ATA-3 or Ultra ATA, which supports transfer rates of 33 Mbps.

EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture)
EISA is a standard bus architecture that extends the ISA standard to a 32-bit interface. EISA data transfer can reach a peak of 33 megabytes per second. 

Email (Electronic Mail) Messages
Usually text, sent from one person to another through computer. Email can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses (Mailing List).

ESCD (Extended System Configuration Data)
It is a format for storing information about Plug-and-Play (PnP) devices in the BIOS.

External Cache
Short for Level 2 cache, cache memory that is external to the microprocessor. In general, L2 cache memory, also called the secondary cache, resides on a separate chip from the microprocessor chip. Although, some microprocessors include L2 caches into their architectures.

F

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
FAQs are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject.

Freeware
Software that is available for download and unlimited use without charge.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files.

G

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
A graphics file format that is commonly used on the Internet to provide graphics images in Web pages.

Gigabyte
1,000 Megabytes or 1,000 MB.

H

Helper Application
A program allowing you to view multimedia files that your web browser cannot handle internally, such as images, audio and video files. The file must be downloaded before it will be displayed / played. Plug-ins allow you to actually view the file over the Internet without downloading first.

Hit
As used in reference to the World Wide Web, "hit" means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server. 

Homepage
The web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages.

Host
Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
The basic language that is used to build hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It is used in basic, plain ASCII-text documents, but when those documents are interpreted (called rendering) by a Web browser, the document can display formatted text, color, a variety of fonts, graphic images, special effects, hypertext jumps to other Internet locations and information forms.

HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol)
The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

Hypertext
Text in a document that contains a hidden link to other text. You can click a mouse on a hypertext word and it will take you to the text designated in the link. Hypertext is used in Windows help programs and CD encyclopedias to jump to related references elsewhere within the same document.

I

IDE (Integrated Drive Electronic)
A type of disk-drive interface widely used to connect hard disks, CD-ROMs and tape drives to a PC, in which the controller electronics is integrated into the drive itself, eliminating the need for a separate adapter card. The IDE interface is known as the ATA (AT Attachment) specification.

IEEE 1394
A new, high speed external bus standard, also known as FireWire or iLink, which supports data transfer rates of up to 400 Mbps for connecting up to 63 external devices.

Internal Cache
Short for Level 1 cache, a memory cache built into the microprocessor. The L1 cache is also called the primary cache. 

Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. As the Internet has become more popular many of the tools used on the Internet are being used in private networks, for example, many companies have web servers that are available only to employees.

IP Address (Internet Protocol Number)
A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2. Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number. 

IrDA (Infrared Data Association)
A group of device vendors, including computer, and telecommunications, who have developed a standard for transmitting data via infrared light waves. This enables you to transfer data from one device to another without any cables.

IRQ (Interrupt Request Line)
IRQs are hardware lines over which devices can send interrupt signals to the microprocessor. When you add a new device to a PC, you sometimes need to set its IRQ number. This specifies which interrupt line the device may use.

ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
ISA is a standard bus architecture that is associated with the IBM AT motherboard. It allows 16 bits at a time to flow between the motherboard circuitry and an expansion slot card and its associated devices.

J

Java
Java is a network-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
The name of the committee that designed the photographic image-compression standard. JPEG is optimized for compressing full-color or gray-scale photographic-type, digital images. It doesn't work well on drawn images such as line drawings, and it does not handle black and white images or video images.

K

Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Actually 1024 bytes.

L

LAN (Local Area Network)
A computer network that covers a relatively smaller area, such as in a building or an enterprise. It is made up of servers, workstations, shared resources, a network operating system and a communications link. These individual PCs and devices on a LAN are known as "nodes", and are connected by cables to access data and devices anywhere on the LAN, so that many users can share devices and data. 

LBA (Logical Block Addressing)
Logical block addressing is a technique that allows a computer to address a hard disk larger than 528 megabytes. A logical block address is a 28-bit value that maps to a specific cylinder-head-sector address on the disk.

LED (Light Emitting Diode)
A semiconductor device that converts electrical energy into light. Since it lights up when electricity is passed through it, it is usually used for the activity lights on computer's component, such as disk drivers.

LPT (Line Printer Terminal)
Logical device name for a line printer; a name reserved by the MS-DOS for up to three parallel printer ports: LPT1, LPT2, and LPT3- It is frequently used by the OS to identify a printer.

M

Megabyte
A million bytes.

MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
A high quality audio file format.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
The standard for attaching non text files to standard Internet mail messages. Non text files include graphics, spreadsheets, formatted word documents, sound files, etc. An email program is said to be MIME Compliant if it can both send and receive files using the MIME standard.

Modem (Modulator, Demodulator)
An electronic device that lets computers communicate electronically. The name is derived from "modulator-demodulator" because of their function in processing data over analog phone lines.

MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group)
A video file format offering excellent quality in a relatively small file. Video files found on the Internet are frequently stored in the MPEG format. Full length movies are available on CD and are stored in the MPEG format.

N

Nameserver
A computer running a program that converts domain names into appropriate IP addresses and vice versa. Name Servers (also known as Domain Name Servers) are the backbone of the Internet system.

O

OC-3 & OC-12
High speed data links carrying 155 and 622 Mbps of Data respectively. OC-3's and OC-12's have replaced, or are replacing T-3's to make up the backbone of the Internet.

Overclocking
Overclocking is resetting your computer so that the microprocessor runs faster than the manufacturer-specified speed (for example, setting an Intel 166 MHz microprocessor to run at 200 MHz).

P

Packet
A chunk of data. The TCP/IP protocol breaks large data files into smaller "packets" for transmission. When the data reaches its destination, the protocol makes sure that all packets have arrived without error. Packets are used to transmit data on the Internet.  

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
A local bus standard developed by Intel that first appeared on PCs in late 1993. PCI provides "plug and play" capability and allows IRQs to be shared. The PCI controller can exchange data with the system's CPU either 32 bits or 64 bits at a time. 

Plug-in
A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software.
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.

PnP (Plug and Play)
A set of specifications that allows a PC to configure itself automatically to work with peripherals. The user can "plug" in a peripheral device and "play" it without configuring the system manually.

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.

A second meaning, Post Office Protocol refers to the way email software 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 email software to use to get your mail.

Port
First and most generally, a place where information goes in or out of a computer. e.g. serial port and parallel port on a personal computer 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.

POST (Power On Self Test)
During booting up your system, the BIOS executes a series of diagnostic tests, include checking the RAM, the keyboard, the disk drives, etc., to see if they are properly connected and operating. 

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.

Protocols
Computer rules that provide uniform specifications so that computer hardware and operating systems can communicate.  

PS/2 Port
A type of port developed by IBM for connecting a mouse or keyboard to a PC. Most modern PCs are equipped with PS/2 ports.

Q

QuickTime
A common video file format created by Apple Computer. Video files found on the Internet are often stored in the QuickTime format.

R

Router
A special-purpose computer (or software package) that handles the connection between 2 or more networks. Routers spend all their time looking at the destination addresses of the packets passing through them and deciding which route to send them on.

S

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)
Pronounced "skuzzy", SCSI is a parallel interface standard used by Apple Macintosh computers, PCs, and many UNIX systems for attaching peripheral devices to computers. SCSI interfaces provide for faster data transmission rates (up to 80 Mbps) than standard serial and parallel ports. In addition, you can attach many devices to a single SCSI port.

Server
A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running. 

Shareware
A software that is available on a free limited trial basis. Sometimes this is a fully featured product, other times it lacks some of the features of the commercial version. If you find the product useful, you are expected to register the software, for which in return you will receive the full featured commercial version.

Shell Account
A software application that lets you use someone else's Internet connection. It's not the same as having your own, direct Internet connection, but pretty close. Instead, you connect to a host computer and use the Internet through the host computer's connection.

Site
A single web page or a collection of related Web pages.

SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol)
A standard for using a regular telephone line (a serial line) and a modem to connect a computer as a real Internet site. SLIP is gradually being replaced by PPP.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
The main protocol used to send electronic mail on the Internet. SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and a program receiving mail should interact.

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
A set of standards for communication with devices connected to a TCP/IP network. A device is said to be "SNMP compatible" if it can be monitored and/or controlled using SNMP messages. SNMP messages are known as "PDU" Protocol Data Units.

SQL (Structured Query Language)
A specialized programming language for sending queries to databases. Most database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will have its own version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL capable databases support a common subset of SQL.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet. SSL used mostly (but not exclusively) in communications between web browsers and web servers. URL's that begin with "https" indicate that an SSL connection will be used.
SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication, and Message Integrity.

T

T-1
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 1,544,000 bits-per-second. At maximum theoretical capacity, a T-1 line could move a megabyte in less than 10 seconds. That is still not fast enough for full-screen, full-motion video, for which you need at least 10,000,000 bits-per-second.

T-3
A leased-line connection capable of carrying data at 44,736,000 bits-per-second. This is more than enough to do full-screen, full-motion video.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software. 

Telnet
An Internet protocol that let you connect your PC as a remote workstation to a host computer anywhere in the world and to use that computer as if you were logged on locally. You often have the ability to use all of the software and capability on the host computer, even if it's a huge mainframe.

Terabyte
1000 gigabytes or 1000 GB.

TIFF (Tag Image File Format)
A popular graphic image file format.

U

UNIX
A computer operating system. UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.

Upload
To copy a file from a local computer connected to the Internet to a remote computer.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). 

USB (Universal Serial Bus)
A hardware interface for low-speed peripherals such as the keyboard, mouse, joystick, etc, USB provides a maximum bandwidth of 12 Mbps for connecting up to 127 peripheral devices to PC. USB features hot swap capability and multiple data streams, allows external devices to be plugged in and unplugged without turning the system off.

UUENCODE:
(Unix to Unix Encoding). A method for converting files from Binary to ASCII (text) so that they can be sent across the Internet via email.

W

WAV
Waveform Audio (.wav) a common audio file format for DOS/Windows computers.

WLAN
Acronym for wireless local-area network. Also referred to as LAWN. A type of local area network that uses high-frequency radio waves rather than wires to communicate between nodes.

Windows NT
Microsoft operating system first seen in 1993. It is a true 32 Bit Operating system well suited to a network environment where users share services (printing, application programs & data). NT stands for New Technology.

Z

ZIP
A compressed file format (.zip). Many files available on the Internet are compressed or zipped in order to reduce storage space and transfer times. To uncompress the file, you need a utility like PKZip (DOS) or WinZip (Windows).