Glossary of Common Internet Terms
| Anchor |
a synonym for hyperlink
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| .aiff |
a sound file format
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| Archie |
a method of searching for files on anonymous FTP servers
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| .au |
a sound file format
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| Browser |
a World Wide Web client. An information retrieval tool.
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| CERN |
The European Laboratory for Particle Physics. The originators of
the HTTP and HTML concepts
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| Client |
The software that allows users the ability to retrieve information
from the Internet and World Wide Web. Mosaic and Netscape Navigator are
examples of client software.
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| External Viewer |
a program used by
Mosaic when
Mosaic cannot handle a particular file type internally. For example,
.ps or postscript files. When Mosaic retrieves a .ps file it will pass
the file to a postscript viewer and the viewer will display the file to
the user.
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| FAQ |
A file that contains Frequently Asked Questions and answers
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| FTP |
File Transfer Protocol, a method of transferring files to and from
remote computers
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| GIF |
Graphics Interchange Format, an image file format
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| Gopher |
A text based distributed information system developed at the
University of Minnesota
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| History List |
A list of Document Titles and URLs Mosaic keeps in memory that
represents the visited URLs during a given Mosaic session
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| Home Page |
A top level document of a organization or a document that a user
frequently visits. By default Mosaic points to the Mosaic home page,
however, you can define anyone's home page as your home page. This
document is usually displayed when you start a Mosaic session.
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| Hotlist |
a user defined list of preferred URLs to a given World Wide Web document
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| HTML |
HyperText Markup Language. The rules that govern the way we create
documents so that can be read by a WWW Browser. Most documents that are
displayed by Mosaic are HTML documents. These documents are characterized
by the .html or .htm file extension. For example: homepage.html or
homepage.htm.
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| HTTP |
HyperText Transport Protocol, the protocol used by the WWW servers
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| Hyperlink |
A link in a given document to information within another document.
These links are usually represented by highlighted words or images. The
user also has the option to underline these hyperlinks.
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| Hypermedia |
richly formatted documents containing a variety of information types,
such as textual, image, movie, and audio. These information types are
easily found through hyperlinks.
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| In-line image |
a graphic image that is displayed with an html document.
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| Internet |
an international computer network of networks that connect government,
academic and business institutions.
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| JPEG |
Joint Photographic Expert Group, a method of storing an image in
digital format
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| MacTCP |
The necessary network software from Apple Computer that allows
Macintoshes to interact with the other computers via TCP/IP
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| MIME |
Multiple Internet Mail Extensions, a method of identifying files such
that the first packet of information received by a client contains
information about the type of file the server has sent. For example, text,
audio, movie, postscript, word document, etc....
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| MPEG |
Moving Pictures Experts Group, a method of storing movie files in
digital format
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| NCSA |
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications. NCSA is located
at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois
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| PostScript |
A page description language developed by Adobe Systems
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| Protocol |
A planned method of exchanging data over the Internet
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| QuickTime |
a method of storing movie and audio files in a digital format.
Developed by Apple Computer
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| RFC |
Request for Comments, these are the agreed upon standards with which
all methods of communicating over the Internet are defined.
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| Server |
a computer that serves information and software to the Internet community
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| SGML |
Standard Generalized Markup Language is an International standard,
an encoding scheme for creating textual information. HTML is a subset
of SGML.
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| TCP/IP |
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, a set of rules that
establish the method with which data is transmitted over the Internet
between two computers.
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| TIFF |
Tag Image File Format, a file format used for storing image files
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| URL |
Uniform Resource Locator, the address to a source of information. The
URL contains four distinct parts, the protocol type, the machine name, the
directory path and the file name. For example:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/NCSAMosaicHome.html
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| U of I |
The University of Illinois, an excellent University dedicated education,
research and development. Home to NCSA and Mosaic.
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| Veronica |
Software that searches for filenames on Gopher servers
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| WAIS |
Wide Area Information Server, a database |
| World Wide Web = WWW = W3 = The Web |
a distributed HyperText-based information system conceived at CERN
to provide its user community an easy way to access global information.
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| XBM |
X bit map, a simple image format. XBMs only appear in black and white
and you will find them in-line in HTML documents.
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