This glossary is far from a comprehensive lexicon of Web jargon. However, I’ve included buzzwords folks use a lot but don’t always bother to define.

If you don’t find the term you’re looking for here, check out these other glossaries.

Bandwidth - A term used to describe how much stuff you can send through a connection. Usually measured in bits-per-second. A full page of English ASCII text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits across an Internet connection in one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression. The available bandwidth varies according to the type of transmission line you use (T1, ISDN, coax, plain old analog.) Speed of delivery will be governed by your modem’s speed, your ISP’s modem’s speed, the amount of traffic on the Internet, and many other factors.

Browser - A computer program that interprets HTML and presents the final Web Page. Used to "Surf the World Wide Web (WWW)." The two most popular browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape, which are called multimedia browsers because they permit presentation on a personal computer of text, graphics, animation, and sound. Before the advent of such browsers, the Internet was a text-only medium.

See also: Client, WWW

Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) - Extensions to standard HTML that allow designers to control multiple web page styles from a single file and to change the appearance of a Web page by applying a different stylesheet. CSS works the same as desktop publishing stylesheets to predefine page elements such as font size, color, and style; image placement; and background images. CAUTION: Currently, only the latest versions of the two leading browsers support CSS and sometimes interpret stylesheet codes differently.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) - CGI is a language that allows two-way communication between the Web browser you use to view a Web page and the Web server hosting that page. Usually a CGI program is a small script that takes information a user enters in a form on a Web page and does something with it. Examples: a) Allowing a Web surfer to access information in a database that resides on a server; b) processing an order or request for information.

Client Software - A software program that is used to contact and obtain data from a Server software program on another computer, often across a great distance. Each Client   program is designed to work with one or more specific kinds of Server  programs, and each Server  requires a specific kind of Client.  A Web Browser  is a specific kind of Client.

See also: Client, Client-Server Architecture, Browser ,Server

Client - The user of a network service; also used to describe a computer that relies upon another for some or all of its resources. In Internet parlance, your computer is the client; the computer that hosts the page you are viewing at any particular moment is the server.

See also: Client-Server Architecture, Browser , Server

Client-Server Architecture - An information-passing scheme that works as follows: a client program, such as Netscape, sends a request to a server. The server takes the request, disconnects from the client and processes the request. When the request is processed, the server reconnects to the client program and the information is transferred to the client. This architecture differs from traditional Internet databases where the client connects to the server and runs the program from the remote site. Note: in an X-11 environment, the meanings of client and server are reversed.

See also: Client, Browser , Server

extranet - a long distance network connecting users in different towns directly to an infranet/intranet.

See also: extranet, infranet, Internet, intranet.

FTP - (File Transfer Protocol) A set of standards that allows the transfer of files from one computer to another. FTP is also the verb used to describe the act of transferring files from one computer to another. When you download a file from a Web page (that is, from the server that hosts that page) and save it to your computer, you are FTPing that file.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) - The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML is a subset of SGML and looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear. Additionally, in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or a word, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are viewed using a World Wide Web client program, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.

infranet - network set up in one building servicing departments in that building).

See also: extranet, infranet, Internet, intranet.

internet (lower case I) - Any time you connect two or more networks together, you have an internet.

See also: extranet, infranet, Internet, intranet.

Internet (upper case I) - The "information superhighway" that is made possible by standard transmission control protocols/Internet protocols (TCP/IP). Originally developed for the U.S. military in 1969, it grew to include educational and research institutions. With the advent of Netscape Navigator, the arcane commands formerly used to access the Internet became unnecessary. The Internet includes the World Wide Web, Usenet user groups, and newsgroups. The Internet connects hundreds of thousands of independent networks into a vast global internet.

See also: extranet, infranet, Internet, intranet.

Intranet - A private network inside a company or organization or connecting dedicated local buildings in close proximity, such as a campus. Intranets use the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet. Note that an intranet may not actually be an internet--it may simply be a network.

See also: extranet, infranet, Internet, intranet.

Java - A computer language developed by Sun Microsystems whose claim to fame is that it can be read by many different computer platforms so that programmers do not need to laboriously recode the program for each platform. Java programs are automatically downloaded and executed on the client side by the web browser. IF the browser is Java-compliant (older browsers are not). You should not confuse Java with Javascript. Java is a full-blown programming language similar to C++ and is used for the same programming purposes. For instance, the new Corel suite is entirely coded in Java. When used on the Web, the Java code resides on the server, whereas Javascript code resides on the Web page itself and is embedded in the HTML code. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks Java applications on the Web (applets) are often used for CGI scripts and to create Java animations. CAUTION: Java applets are not recognized by all browsers and can crash your system.

JavaScript - A computer language developed by Netscape that is a subset of the Java programming language but is easier for nonprogrammers to write. Unlike Java, JavaScript programs are used ONLY on Web pages and are embedded in the HTML code so that they are run in the Web browser on the client side rather than on the server. JavaScript can be used to provide interactivity, dynamically alter objects displayed on a Web page, and act very much as a CGI script. Perhaps the most popular use of JavaScript today is to create "rollover" effects, swapping one graphic for another as you pass your mouse over it.

See also Java.

Plug-ins - Small applications that add new functionality, multimedia, or audio-video capability to a Web browser. For example, an audio plug-in lets users listen to audio files on a Web page or in an e-mail message. The plug-in application programming interface (API) allows third parties to extend a browser's capabilities with native support for new data types and additional features. The idea behind plug-ins is 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. Of course you know that programs like Photoshop use plug-ins, but we're talking about Web browser plug-ins here.

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, A single server machine could have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network.

World Wide Web (WWW or W3) - Also known as "the Web." A portion of the Internet that has a graphical user interface composed of web servers that provide access to Web sites and Web documents. Please note that while the World Wide Web is accessed through the Internet, the two terms are not synonymous.

See also: Browser , FTP , HTML.