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In order to become a success online, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with some key Internet terms. Here are the terms you should get to know:

Authentication: the process of identifying an individual usually based on the username and password. Authentication merely ensures that the individual is who he or she claims to be, but says nothing about the access rights of the individual.

Autoresponder: software application that allows you to Respond automatically to a certain email request.

Bandwidth: the transmission capacity of a computer channel. Communications line or bus. It is expressed in cycles per second (Hertz), the bandwidth being the difference between the lowest and highest frequencies transmitted. The frequency is equal to or greater than the bits per second. Bandwidth is also often stated in bits or bytes per second.

Bit: (Binary digit). A single digit in a binary number (0 or 1). Within the computer, a bit is physically a transistor or capacitor in a memory cell, a magnetic spot on disk or tape or a high or low voltage pulsing through a circuit. A bit is like a light bulb: on or off. Groups of bits make up storage units in the computer, called characters, bytes, or words, which are manipulated as a group. 

Bps: (bits per second) The measurement of the speed of data transfer in a communications system.

Browsers: short for Web browser, a software application used to locate and display Web pages. The two most popular browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Byte: the common unit of computer storage from micro to mainframe. It is made up of eight binary digits (bits). A byte holds the equivalent of a single character, such as a letter, a dollar sign or decimal point. For numbers, a byte can hold a single decimal digit (0 to 9), two numeric digits (packed decimal) or a number form 0 to 255 (binary numbers).

CGI: (1) (Common Gateway Interface) A programming interface used to link Web pages to databases and other programs, CGI programs are small and written in Perl or some other script or high-level language. They reside on the Web server and function as the glue between the HTML pages and the databases.
(2) (Computer Graphics Interface) A device independent graphics language for display screens, printers and plotters that stemmed from GKS.

Click-through: the click rate measures the amount of times an ad is clicked versus the amount of times it’s viewed.

Domain name: the term may refer to any type of domain within the computer field, since there are several types of domains. However, today, it often refers to the address of an Internet site, such as www.adobe.com 

E-commerce: (Electronic commerce) doing business online.

Email: the transmission of memos and messages over a network. Users can send mail to a single recipient or broadcast it to multiple users. With multitasking workstations, mail can be delivered and announced while the user is working in an application. Otherwise, mail is sent to a simulated mailbox in the network server or host computer, which must be interrogated.

Ezine: (Electronic Magazine) A magazine or newsletter published online. 

Flame: slang for communicating emotionally and/or excessively via email.

FTP: (File Transfer Program & File Transfer Protocol) A set of TCP/IP commands used to log onto a network list directories and copy files. It can also translate between ASCII and EBCDIC.

Gigabyte: one billion bytes. Also Gb, Gbyte and G-byte.

Hits: the retrieval of any item, like a page or a graphic from a Web server. For example, when a visitor calls up a Web page with four graphics, that’s five hits, one for the page and four for the graphics. For this reason, hits often aren’t a good indication of Web traffic.

Home Page: the main page of a Web site. Typically, the home page serves as an index or table of contents to other documents stored at the site.

Hosting: a computer system that is accessed by a user working at a remote location. Typically, the term is used when there are two computer systems connected by modems and telephone lines or cable. The system that contains the data is called the host, while the computer at which the user sits is called the remote terminal.

HTML: (HyperText Markup Language) the document format used on the World Wide Web. Web pages are built with HTML tags, or codes, embedded in the text. HTML defines the page layout, fonts and graphic elements as well as the hypertext links to other documents on the Web. Each link contains the URL, or address, of a Web page residing on the same server or any server worldwide, hence “World Wide Web.”

HTTP: (Hypertext Transport Protocol) the communications protocol used to connect to servers on the World Wide Web. Its primary function is to establish a connection with a Web server and transmit HTML pages to the client browser. Addresses of Web sites begin with a http:// prefix; however, Web browsers typically default to the HTTP protocol. For example: typing www.w3.org is the same as typing http://www.w3.org/

Hyperlink: a predefined linkage between one object and another.

Hypertext: the process of linking related information. For example, by selecting a word in a sentence, information about that word is retrieved if it exists, or the next occurrence of the word is found. The concept was coined by Ted Nelson as a method of making the computer respond to the way humans think and require information. Hypertext is the foundation of the World Wide Web. Links embedded within Web pages are addresses to other Web pages stored locally or in a Web server anywhere in the world.

Impressions: the gross sum of all media exposures without duplication. The total number of times an ad is seen on a Web page.

Internet: a large network made up of a number of smaller networks. “The” Internet is made up of more then 100,000 interconnected networks in more than 100 countries, comprised of commercial, academic and government networks. Originally developed for the military, the Internet became widely used for academic and commercial research. Users had access to unpublished data and journals on a huge variety of subjects. Due to the World Wide Web facility on the Internet, it has become commercialized into a worldwide information highway, providing information on every subject known to man and women.

Intranet: an in house Web site that serves the employees of the enterprise. Although Intranet pages may link to the Internet, an Intranet is not a site accessed by the general public.

IP address: (Internet Protocol Address) the physical address of a computer attached to the TCP/IP network. Every client and server station must have a unique IP address. Client workstations have either a permanent address or one that is dynamically assigned for each dial-up session. IP addresses are written as four sets of numbers separated by periods; for example 192.150.14.120

ISP: (Internet Service Provider) an organization that provides Internet access. Small ISPs provide service via modem and ISDN while larger ones also offer private line hookups. Customers are generally billed a fixed rate per month, but other charges may apply. For a fee, a Web site can be hosted on the ISP’s server, allowing the smaller organization to have a presence on the Web with its own domain name.

Java: A programming language for Internet and Intranet applications from the JavaSoft division of Sun. Java was modeled after C++, and Java programs can be called form within HTML documents or launched stand alone. Java was designed to run in small amounts of memory and provides its own memory management.

JPEG: (Joint Photographic Experts Group) an ISO/ITU standard for compressing images using discrete cosine transform. It provides lousy compression (you lose sharpness from the original) and can provide ratios of 100:1 and higher. It depends entirely on the image, but ratios of 10:1 and 20:1 may provide little noticeable loss. The more the loss can be tolerated, the more the image can be compressed. Compression is achieved by dividing the picture into tiny pixel blocks, which are halved over and over until the ratio is achieved.

Kilobyte: one thousand bytes. Also KB, Kbyte and K-byte

Login: to gain access, or sign in, to a computer system. If restricted, it requires users to identify themselves by entering an ID number and/or password. Service bureaus base their charges for the time between logon and logoff. 

Megabyte: one million bytes. Also MB, Mbyte and M-byte. 

Meta Tags: a special HTML tag that provides information about a Web page. Meta tags do not affect the way a page is displayed. Instead they provide information about who created the page, how often it is updated, what the page is about, and which keywords represent the page’s content. Many search engines use this information when building their indices. 

Modem: (Modulator-Demodulator) a device that adapts a terminal or computer to a telephone line. It converts the computer’s digital pulses into audio frequencies (analog) for the telephone system and converts the frequencies back into pulses at the receiving side. The modem also dials the line, answers the call and controls transmission speed, which ranges up to 33,6000 bps and higher.

Netiquette: (network etiquette) proper manners when conferencing between two or more users on an online service or the Internet. Emily Post may not have told you to curtail your cussing via modem, but netiquette has been established to remind you that profanity is not in good form over the network. Using UPPER CASE TO MAKE A POINT all the time and interjecting emoticons throughout a message is also not good netiquette.

Newsgroup: a discussion group on the Internet. It is an on-going collection of messages about a particular subject.

Node: In communications, a network junction or connection point (terminal or computer). In database management, an item of data that can be accessed by two or more routes. In computer graphics, an end point of a graphical element.

Page view: the accessing of a Web page. Often used by sites to give advertisers a sense of traffic, a page view differs form a hit by counting only the number of times a page has been accessed.

POP (Post Office Protocol) a standard mail server commonly used on the Internet, the latest version of which is POP3. It provides a message store that holds incoming email until users log on and download it. POP is a simple system with little selectivity. All pending messages and attachments are downloaded at the same time. POP uses the SMTP messaging protocol.

Protocol: rules governing transmitting and receiving of data. 

Search engine: software that searches for data based on some criterion.

? Security certificate: a block of information, usually stored as a text file that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection.

Server: a computer in a network shared by multiple users. The term may refer to both the hardware and software or just the software that performs the service.

SET: (Secure Electronic Transaction) a standard protocol from MasterCard and Visa for securing online credit card payments via the Internet.

SMTP: (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) the standard email protocol on the Internet. It is a TCP/IP protocol that defines the message format and the message transfer agent (MTA), which stores and forwards the mail. SMTP was originally designed for only ASCII text, but MIME and other encoding methods enable program and multimedia files to be attached to email messages. SMTP servers route SMTP messages throughout the Internet to a mail server, such as POP or IMAP, which provides a message store for incoming mail.

Spam/spamming: sending copies of the same message to large numbers of newsgroups or users on the Internet. People spam the Internet to advertise products as well as to broadcast some political or social commentary. Most ISPs prohibit spamming.

Spider: a search engine that searches the Web by document title and contents, archiving the information for searching purposes.

SSL: (Secure Socket Layer) the leading security protocol on the Internet. When an SSL session is started, the browser sends its public key to the server so that the server can securely send a secret key to the browser. The browser and server exchange data via secret key encryption during that session.

T1, T2, T3: a T-1 is a 1.544 Mbps point-to-point dedicated line provided by the telephone companies. The monthly cost is typically based on distance. T1 lines are widely used for private networks and high-speed links to and from Internet service providers. A T1 line provides 24 64-Kbps voice or data channels. T2 provides 6.312 Mbps and 96 channels, and T3, 44.736 Mbps and 672 channels.

URL: (Uniform Resource Locator) the address that defines the route to a file on the Web or any other Internet facility. URLs are typed into the browser to access Web pages, and URLs are embedded within the pages themselves to provide the hypertext links to other pages. The URL contains the protocol prefix, port address, domain name, subdirectory names and file name. Port addresses are generally defaults and are rarely specified. To access a home page on a Web site, only the protocol and domain name is required. For example, http://www.Google.com retrieves the home page at the Google Web site. The http:// is the Web protocol, and the www.google.com is the domain name. If a required page is stored in a subdirectory, its name is separated by a slash. Like path names in DOS and Windows, subdirectories can be several levels deep.

Web Crawler: a search engine that searches the Web by document title and content, archiving the information for searching purposes.

Web Server: a computer that provides World Wide Web services on the Internet. The term may refer to just the software that provides this service or to the computer system and software.

Webzine: a magazine published on the World Wide Web.

Web/WWW: the largest collection of online information in the World The Web is an Internet facility that has become synonymous with the Internet. Its foundation is the HTML document, which contains links (URLs) to other documents on the same Web server or on servers anywhere in the world. The Web uses the HTTP protocol to download Web pages to a browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. Using a variety of new programming tools and architectures, such as Java, JavaScript, Jscript, VBScript, JavaBeans and ActiveX, the Web is turning into “the” worldwide information system for education, research, entertainment and commerce.