Glossary of Terms

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NOTE: This glossary was compiled with the assistance of The Windows Internet Tour Guide by Michael Fraase (Ventana Press, 1994); Mosaic Quick Tour for Windows by Gareth Branwyn (Ventana Press, 1994) and Cybermarketing by Len Keeler (Amacom Books, to be released 1995). Minor additions and corrections were made by Eric Meyer. Further corrections were submitted by Tom Vassos of IBM. Tabor Griffin Communications has released all copyright restrictions for this item. Please feel free to distribute this article to your friends and colleagues.

A

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.

Anchor Colour
You guessed it--the colour on screen that represents the anchors. The reason so many are blue is that is often the default colour. This colour can be changed to any combination of red, green and blue.

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.

Annotations
Personal notes you can attach to the documents you have saved in your web-browser. The notes are available to you whenever the document is viewed.

Archie
Derived from the word archive, Archie is a Net-based service that allows you to locate files that can be downloaded via FTP.

ASCII
(pronounced "Ask-ee") An acronym for American Standard Code for Information Exchange, ASCII is an international standard in which numbers, letters, punctuation marks, symbols and control codes are assigned numbers from 0 to 127. Easily transferred over networks, ASCII is a plain, unadorned text without style or font specifications.

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

AU sounds
This is an audio format developed for Sun workstations and often used to distribute sound clips across the Web.

Authoring software
This term refers to software that enables the creation of multimedia or hypertext documents and presentations.

Avatar
This term refers to an interactive representation of a human in a virtual reality environment; term was popularised by Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash."

B

Bandwidth
The range of transmission frequencies a network can use. The greater the bandwidth the more information that can be transferred over that network at one time. The term bandwidth also broadly includes throughput, meaning the amount of data sent.

Baseband
A transmission method in which a network uses its entire transmission range to send a single signal.

Baud
A unit of speed in data transmission, or the maximum speed at which data can be sent down a channel. Baud is often equivalent to bits per second. Named after J. M. E. Baudot (died 1903).

BBS
This is an acronym for Bulletin Board System, a computer equipped with software and telecommunications links that allow it to act as an information host for remote computer systems.

BinHex
A file conversion format that converts binary files to ASCII text files.

Bit
A contraction of binary digit, a bit is the smallest unit of information that a computer can hold. Eight bits is equivalent to a byte. The speed at which bits are transmitted or bit rate is usually expressed as bits per second or bps.

Broadband
A transmission method in which the networks range of transmission frequencies is divided into separate channels and each channel is used to send a different signal. Broadband is often used to send different types of signals simultaneously.

Browser
A type of software that allows you to navigate information databases; examples are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator and Mosaic.

Byte
The number of bits used to represent a character.