Internet Communications

I’ll try to avoid unnecessary jargon in this course. However, some technical terms are necessary. Happily, this handy glossary should help you come to terms with the funny nouns, verbs and even people of the wired world.

This glossary is by David Gauntlett and David Silver, and is taken from Web.Studies: Rewiring media studies for the digital age.

Acrobat, Adobe
Effective but regrettable plug-in pandering to lazy people who want to put documents on the Web but can't be bothered to do it properly. Adobe Acrobat runs on different platforms (computers with divergent operating systems), and allows documents to be viewed exactly as originally intended, complete with layout and graphics. So that's a good idea. But too many flat documents which might as well be unexciting Web pages are converted into much more annoying Adobe pages by boring business idiots. The Acrobat viewer is free; Adobe makes its money by charging for the software which converts documents into Acrobat files.

ADSL
Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line, an extremely fast way of sending data down standard copper phone lines.

Andreessen, Marc (1972-)
Whilst a student at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Andressen produced, with staff member Eric Bina, the first Web browser with a graphical point-and-click interface (like Apple and Windows operating systems), called Mosaic. This popular early browser, first distributed free over the internet in February 1993, really kick-started interest in the Web. In 1994, Andreessen and Jim Clark launched Netscape Communications Corporation, and Netscape dominated the browser market for around four years, although Microsoft later succeeded in its late-starting bid to seize power in this area.

AOL
The leading commercial online service that serves as an entry point to the internet for over twenty million users. (A merger in January 2000 saw the company become AOL Time Warner). As a result of its user-friendly interface and wall-to-wall marketing, AOL attracts countless network newcomers which, in turn, attracts widespread hostility from internet old-timers towards 'AOL Newbies.'

ARPANET
An experimental computer network created by the United States military during the cold war. Established in 1969 by the Advanced Research Projects Administration (ARPA) to support military research and nuclear-attack proof communication, ARPANET stands as the original ancestor of the internet.

Attachment
A file (such as a document, spreadsheet, or graphic) sent 'attached' to an e-mail message.

Banner advert
Long, thin advert appearing on a Web page. ('Banner ads' may also refer to on-line adverts generally, regardless of their shape). Many sites make some money by selling banner advert space. Banner ads are often animated, and considered annoying by many. Some ads even include little games in a bid to get the user to click through to the advertiser's website.

BBS
Short for bulletin board system, a BBS is an open computer system which members can dial into (via a phone) in order to send email, join discussion groups, and download files. Around since the 1970s, BBSs were originally locally-based but now often provide access to a broad spectrum of internet applications, including email, telnet, and FTP.

Berners-Lee, Tim (1955-)
Invented the World Wide Web during 1990-91, whilst working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva (see Introduction). In 1994 he later established the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to oversee the Web's development and recommend universal standards. His book, Weaving the Web (1999), gives a valuable account of the development of the Web, and his original ideas and intentions for it.

Bookmark
A routine perfected by Netscape Navigator which allows Web surfers to save a URL to a site or page that he or she has already visited, and revisit the site at a later point in time. In Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, they are called 'Favorites'.

Browser
Software for viewing and travelling around the Web, such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Bug
Computerese for a software error or programming glitch which causes the computer to malfunction or crash. Bugs are always around, seldom liked, and never entirely eliminated.

Cache
A small, fast area of computer memory used to hold recently accessed data. Most often applied to Web browsers' cache, memory spaces used to hold recently visited Web sites.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
An extension to HTML which allow styles (color, font style, and font size, for example) to be specified for certain elements of a hypertext document. CSS are especially useful when preparing many, slightly different html pages.

CD-Rom
a compact disc used with a computer (as opposed to a stereo) which holds large amounts of digital information. Until recently, CD-Roms stored information which users could only access. Today, with the proper software and hardware, users can access and alter the information. Compared to the now old-fashioned looking floppy disks, the silver CD-Roms look reasonably cool.

CGI
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts are computer programs which are placed on Web servers, and allow Web pages to process data entered by the user.

Chat
A form of online communication which allows users to have conversations in real-time. When participating in a chat discussion, users' messages instantaneously appear on another user's computer monitor or, while in a chat room, on the screens of multiple users.

Compression
Files can be compressed (in various ways) so that they can be downloaded more quickly. For example, 'red dot, red dot, red dot, red dot, red dot, red dot, red dot, red dot, red dot,' is the standard long-winded way in which a computer would describe a graphic which, when displayed, looks like a red line. But it could just say '9 red dots'. That's compression.

Cookie
A bit of information, such as a reference number, saved on a Web user's hard disk drive by a website, so that the site can 'remember' information about that particular user. These cookies are saved in one cookies file, which is a simple text file which cannot, in itself, do any harm. Cookies only enable websites to recall information which the user has given to them; they do not send information like your name or e-mail address to a website of their own accord.

Cracker
A hacker who causes damage to systems, or uses stolen data for illegal means. Some hackers like this term to be used, to differentiate 'bad' hackers (crackers) from ordinary hackers, who (in this use of two terms) just enjoy trying to access supposedly secure systems, but don't do any harm.

Cybercafe
A cafe offering internet access. They range, like all cafes, from the very stylish to the very smelly. At the moment, cybercafes look like cafes with a load of computers on the tables. In the future, we are told, internet access will be offered by things like coffee cups anyway, which will save a lot of space.

Cyberpunk
A subgenre of science fiction inspired largely by William Gibson's 1982 novel Neuromancer and characterized by futuristic computer network-based societies. Recently, the term cyberpunk has been (incorrectly) co-opted to refer to any cultural phenomenon involving digital technology and tight black leather.

Cybersex
Often called 'tinysex' or 'one handed surfing,' cybersex refers to sexual activity or arousal which takes place within computer-mediated environments such as MUDs, chatrooms, and email.

Cyberspace
A more mainstream and literary term for internet, cyberspace refers to the conceptual space where computer networking hardware, network software, and users converge. The term was originally coined by William Gibson in his 1982 novel Neuromancer.

Cybersquatting
The practice of buying domain names with the intention of selling them on, subsequently, to companies that are willing to pay lots of money to have them. In the mid-1990s, enterprising people would buy up ".com" domain names which just happened to be those of well-known companies, knowing that soon the companies would be willing to spend a lot of money buying rights to their brand's domain. Others just bought names like "toothpaste.com" knowing that someone would be bound to want to pay lots of money for them soon. Some legal precedents have now made the purchase of domain names which are the same as existing well-known trademarks illegal (in some countries).

Digital
A description of data which is stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set, most commonly as binary data (zeroes and ones) represented by electronic or electromagnetic signals. The less precise form of data that preceded digital was analogue. CD-Roms are to digital as vinyl records are to analogue.

Digital camera
Digital cameras take photographs like normal cameras but save them in digital form (as JPEG or GIF files, for example), thereby allowing fast and easy transfer to the Web.

Digital versatile disc or digital video disc (DVD)
A high-density compact disc used for storing large amounts of data, especially high-resolution audio-visual material. Currently, DVDs provide over seven times the storage capacity of CD-Roms and are often used to store and trade pirated versions of films and television shows. Commercial DVD releases of movies contain a host of bonus features, such as interviews and 'making of' films, except for those designed towards the end of the week, when the makers can't be bothered.

Domain
The location of a website, ending in a suffix such as '.com' (for commercial sites), '.org' (non-profit organisations), '.edu' (education), '.gov' (government), '.net' (internet-related), or regionally-specific variants such as '.co.uk' (UK company), '.ac.uk' (UK higher education), '.gouv.fr' (French government). A domain may contain several websites at different addresses within it; it's the very broadest description of where a site resides. (Geocities.com, for example, gives a home to millions of sites). A domain name doesn't necessarily lead to a website, as they can be bought and then not used, or used only for e-mail. (See also: Cybersquatting).

Domain Name Server (DNS)
A server on the internet which matches domain names to IP addresses, telling computers where to look for requested pages or files.

Dreamweaver
Popular and effective webpage-making and website-managing software, produced by Macromedia. Takes a WYSIWYG approach (see below) but is particularly appreciated by website authors because it doesn't mess up your HTML. (Other programs are more arrogant and sometimes rewrite the code -- often in a way that the user does not appreciate).

E-mail
Messages sent via the internet from one user to another. As new internet applications come and go, E-mail remains the most simple and most cherished use of the Net.

File
A collection of information (a graphic, a software program, an email, for example) recognized and treated as a single unit by a computer.

Flame
An abusive e-mail, usually sent to someone who has made an ignorant, offensive or commercial contribution to an e-mail or newsgroup discussion.

Flash
Vector-based graphics and animation format (see 'Vector based graphics' below) developed by Macromedia, popular on the Web because it can deliver attractive websites -- with interactive graphics and sound -- with small file sizes.

Freeware
Software distributed for free, with no restrictions, over the internet (or by other means).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Common form of web page which provides answers to questions frequently sent to the website.

FTP
Short for file-transfer protocol, FTP refers to 1) a method of transferring one or more files from one computer to another on a network or phone line, and 2) an application program which moves files across the internet using the file-transfer protocol.

Gates, Bill (1955-)
Chief Executive of Microsoft from 1975 to January 2000, when he became Chairman and Chief Software Architect (Steve Ballmer is the new Chief Executive). Extremely rich, obviously. Not popular amongst internet people, who often feel that Microsoft have tried to turn the universal internet into Microsoft Internet (TM).

GIF
A graphics file common on the Web, which uses a palette with a limited number of colours to keep its file size down.

Gopher
A menu-driven program developed at the University of Minnesota which helps users explore, locate, and retrieve information on the internet. Gopher organizes all information via a series of hierarchical menus. Actually, lots and lots of menus. Happily, the World Wide Web has basically replaced it.

Hacking
Gaining access to supposedly secure computer systems without the consent of the system's owners.

Hard disk
Often referred to as a hard drive, a hard disk is a magnetic disk mounted permanently in a computer's central processing unit, or CPU. Hard disks are used to store data, primarily permanent operating applications and temporary files.

Hits
Often taken to mean the number of visitors to a webpage or site: people say 'My site received one million hits last month' and assume this means one million people visited the site. But it doesn't. The number of hits is the number of requests for files made to the web server. An average web page is made up of one HTML file and several graphics files (containing logos, pictures, buttons, bars and so on). So loading one web page might notch up ten hits, for example. And then the same visitor might look at other pages, easily generating 50 or 100 hits. So 'one million hits' would never mean one million visitors; it would more likely represent, say, 50,000 visitors, although the percentage of actual visitors (compared to number of hits) will vary from site to site. (Note: To confuse matters further, sometimes people say they had '1,000 hits' when they actually know that they had 1,000 visitors, but they think that 'hits' is a more trendy word for that, which it isn't).

HTML
Hypertext Markup Language, simple computer language which most Web pages are written in, devised by Tim Berners-Lee. An HTML Web page is basically a text document with added HTML tags; these tags, in <angular brackets>, tell the browser how to arrange and format the text, where to add graphics, where links are, and so on.

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol, devised by Tim Berners-Lee as a fast, universal protocol for passing files around the internet, particularly suited to the hypertext system on the Web.

Hyperlink
On a Web page, a hyperlink (or simply 'link') is text or a graphic which the user clicks on in order to proceed or move to a related page.

Hypertext
Text which includes links or shortcuts to other documents, allowing the reader to easily jump from one text to related texts, and consequentially from one idea to another, in a multi-linear, non-sequential manner. Originally coined by Ted Nelson in 1965, hypertext serves as the organizational foundation for the World Wide Web.

Internet
A worldwide network of networks which connects computers around the world. First incarnated as the ARPANET in 1969, the internet has transformed from an internal military network, to an academic research net, to the current communication and commercial internet of today. It supports services such as email, the World Wide Web, file transfer, and Internet Relay Chat. The internet is commonly referred to as 'the Net', 'cyberspace,' and 'the information superhighway.' It's also what all the commotion is about.

Internet Explorer
Web browser, produced by Microsoft from 1996, and given away free (and bundled or 'integrated' with Windows) in order to compete with Netscape Navigator. Despite being shunned by those opposed to Microsoft's dominance of the software market, IE had become the most-used browser by 1998.

Internet Service Provider
Company or organisation providing access to the internet. When a home internet user goes on-line, their computer phones their ISP (via a modem), which provides a gateway to the internet.

ISDN
Short for Integrated Services Digital Network, ISDN is a set of communications standards offered by telephone carriers which provides users with extremely fast internet connections. ISDN allows a single wire or optical fiber to carry voice, digital network services, and video, and is believed by many to be the network which will ultimately replace the telephone system.

Java
A programming language created by Sun Microsystems, and featured on many Web sites. As a platform independent language, Java programs can be run on any computer, either as a free-standing application or as an applet placed on a Web page. While Java has served to increase Web interactivity and expand multimedia, it is scorned by others for increasing download time and fostering a more commercially-focused World Wide Web.

JPEG
A compressed graphics file common on the Web, which can contain up to 16 million colours and so is used for 'photographic' type images.

Killer application
Software (or more broadly, an idea) which is so appealing to users that they will change their computer in order to be able to use it, or buy a new one. The World Wide Web was the 'killer app' which made the internet sufficiently desireable that people would go out of their way to get the equipment to access it.

Linux
A platform independent operating system created by Linus Torvalds and friends starting about 1990. Unlike other operating systems such as Windows 98, Linux can be downloaded and distributed for free. For that reason, many consider Linux to be the most worthy threat to Microsoft's computing hegemony. Assembled collaboratively by literally thousands of users, Linux is often referred to as the world's greatest hacker project in history.

Listservs
Often (technically incorrectly) called mailing lists, listservs refer to 1) the software which makes possible automated mailing list distribution systems and 2) the online communities which arise from such lists. Listservs can be either moderated or unmoderated and differ from mailing lists by their automated means of subscribing and unsubscribing.

Microsoft
Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Microsoft is the world's largest supplier of operating systems and other software for personal computers. Some of their software products include MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, and, most recently, Microsoft Internet Explorer. Due to their heavy-handedly aggressive marketing tactics, many Netheads actively and enthusiastically hate Microsoft.

Modem
A device which enables a computer to send and receive information over a telephone line.

MOO
A type of MUD, MOO is short for Multi-User Domain, Object-Oriented and differ from MUDs by allowing users to interact with programmable objects. In keeping with MUDs, these objects are usually dungeons, dragons, and whips.

MP3
Popular format of audio files which provide good quality digital sound but take up (relatively) few kilobytes. MP3s are therefore popular on the internet, because you can download good-quality music quite quickly.

MUD
Short for Multi-User Domain or Multi-User Dungeon, MUDs are online role-playing environments. MUDs occur in text mode -- similar to a chat room -- where players assume a spectrum of identities and explore a range of environments, often based on fantasy fiction or sexual situations.

Netscape Communicator
Suite of software including Navigator (web browser), Messenger (e-mail program), and Composer (for producing web pages), plus other features.

Netscape Navigator
Web browser, launched in 1994 by Marc Andreessen (see above), who had written the first popular browser, Mosaic.

New media
Term which embraces all of the 'new' forms of electronic media -- newer than TV and radio, that is -- such as multimedia CD-ROMs, the internet, and video games. Sometimes it is taken to mean 'the Web' although it is really a broader term.

Newbie
Someone new to the internet. Newbies are sometimes sneered at by established internet users, such as long-standing members of e-mail discussion lists (listservs) who tend to be annoyed when a 'newbie' joins and starts posting 'ignorant' questions.

Newsgroups
A public online space where messages are posted for public consumption and response. The most available distribution of newsgroups is USENET, which contains thousands of newsgroups devoted to all kinds of (diverse and perverse) topics. Often referred to as the original public sphere of cyberspace, newsgroups are currently overrun by spam.

Plug-in
An extra bit of software which has to be added to a browser before a certain type of file can be viewed. For example, Flash animations cannot be seen unless one has the Flash plug-in. Recent browsers come with a number of the most common plug-ins pre-installed.

Portal
A website which aspires to be your primary point of contact with the Web, usually offering a bundle of news, search facilities, free e-mail, chat areas, and other gimmicks. Examples include Yahoo, Netscape Netcenter, BBC, Handbag, and many more.

Program
Used as a noun to describe a series of instructions which tell a computer what to do or as a verb to describe the act of creating or revising a program.

QuickTime
Refers to both a standard and an application used by Apple computers for integrating full-motion video and digitized sound into programs and Web sites.

RealAudio
A browser plug-in used for playing real-time audio over the Web. On a standard slowish modem connection, RealAudio can sound a bit like a radio underwater.

RealVideo
A browser plug-in for playing real-time video over the Web. On a standard slowish modem connection, RealVideo can look like a jerky, blocky computer game from the land that time forgot.

Scanner
Machine which scans an image, such as a photograph or newspaper article, and turns it into a file which can be displayed and manipulated on a computer.

Search engine
Search facility based on a database of as much of the Web's content as possible, compiled by electronic 'spiders' or 'robots' which roam around the internet cataloguing content. (Therefore search engines are different to directories, such as Yahoo, which are more selective and are compiled by humans). Examples include AltaVista, Google, and Excite.

Server
A computer or set of computers that provides client stations with access to files and printers as shared resources to a computer network. The most common servers are Web servers which send out Web pages, mail servers which deliver email, list servers which administer mailing lists, and FTP servers which hold FTP sites and deliver files to users who request them.

Shareware
Software which is usually free initially, but may ask you to register the product and pay its creator after a certain trial period, or which might ask you to make a voluntary payment if you like the software and use it regularly. Shareware is often distributed over the internet.

Shockwave
A more complex, programmable variation of Flash (see above) which can be used to produce interactive games, multimedia presentations, or other applications, which run from websites. Macromedia's Director software is needed to produce Shockwave content.

Spam
Junk e-mail, sent to several people at once. Any e-mail that is not written for your personal attention can be seen as spam. E-mail advertising or promoting something is spam; chain letters and virus hoaxes are also regarded as spam by most sane people.

Style sheet
Often referred to as a template, a style sheet is a file or form which defines the layout of a document. Most commonly found in Web site production, word processing, and desktop publishing, style sheets are useful in that they give designers the ability to use the same style sheet for many documents.

Surfing
Popular term for wandering around the Web, like 'channel surfing' television, and therefore a regrettable term since it positions the web user as rather passive.

Torvalds, Linus (1970-)
Created the first version of Linux, a one-time experimental version of the UNIX operating system whilst a student at Helsinki University. A hero among Netheads and the antithesis to Bill Gates, Torvalds worked with thousands of programmers to alter, tweak, and perfect Linux and to keep it free of charge.

Unix
The operating system upon which the Internet was developed. UNIX was developed in the late 1960s/early 1970s as a joint venture between General Electric, AT&T Bell Laboratories, and M.I.T. Later, UNIX grew with support from the University of California, Berkeley and other universities. There are several free versions of UNIX, including Linux and FreeBSD. Among many, knowledge of Unix is the bar which separates technical Netheads from newbies.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator: the address beginning "http://" (see 'Hypertext Transfer Protocol' above), which can point to a file on a web server anywhere in the world. Some people call this URI, for Universal Resource Indicator (suggesting that the same address will always point to the same file in the same place), as preferred by Tim Berners-Lee, but most people ignore that.

Usenet
Originally implemented in 1979-80 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University, Usenet continues to be the largest worldwide collection of newsgroups. While not part of the Internet, Usenet can be reached through most Internet service providers and provide over ten thousand public forums on practically every topic under the sun. Really. The names of newsgroups are comprised of a string of words separated by dots, such as 'rec.sport.sumo' or 'alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die.'

Vector-based graphics
A graphics or animation system which can deliver complex or large graphics but small file sizes, by describing the shape and position of elements, rather than describing them pixel-by-pixel (as conventional graphics formats do). Vector-based graphics can be scaled up or down but always retain a smooth appearance, because instead of explaining the layout of square pixels, the format is saying, for example, 'draw a curve from the centre of the shape to the top-left corner'.

Virtual
A commonly used adjective which refers to anything remotely related the internet. Online discussions become virtual communities; online environments become virtual realities; and a dodgy email describing what one user would do to another in which way and how often becomes virtual sex.

Web
The World Wide Web. According to its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee, Web should be written with a capital 'W' when used as abbreviation of World Wide Web.

Webmaster
Grandiose (and arguably sexist) term meaning the person responsible for creating or maintaining a website.

Webpage
One page of the Web. Usually an ".htm" or ".html" file, which then may call for various graphics or multimedia files to complete its appearance on a user's screen. Normally a webpage is part of a website.

Website
A group of related web pages, produced by one person, group or organisation, which are closely interlinked. For example www.newmediastudies.com is a website containing many webpages about new media.

Webzine
Written, edited, and designed by individuals, collectives, or corporations, webzines are zines which exist on the Web. Some are electronic versions of existing print magazines, but the 'true' webzine exists solely in cyberspace. Webzines originated as online public spheres for disgruntled, sarcastic teens and were products of love, unregulated ego, and/or a serious need to get a life. Recently, however, the term webzine has also become synonymous with the online version of a traditional, corporate magazine.

WELL, the
Short for the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, the WELL is a commercial online community which was established in 1985 to serve San Francisco's Bay Area. Currently international in scope, the WELL is perhaps the most well known virtual community in the world, a result no doubt of its devoted subscribers and of Howard Rheingold's seminal work The Virtual Community.

Wired (magazine)
Originally established in 1993 by Louis Rossetto to cover impending digital culture, Wired has become a mainstream mouthpiece for the new digital economy, with an occasional libertarian nod towards the more social and political ramifications of the Information Age. Glossy, full of ads, and overflowing with self-importance, Wired represents all the unfulfilled promises of cyberspace.

World Wide Web (WWW)
A global web of interconnected pages which (ideally) can be read by any computer with a Web browser and internet connection. More technically and specifically, the WWW is the global web of interlinked files which can be located using the HTTP protocol.

WYSIWYG
An abbreviation for What You See Is What You Get, and pronounced 'wizzywig'. In Web terms, WYSIWYG programs allow website designers to design webpages on screen. The software displays what the page will actually look like when viewed in a browser -- as opposed to showing a screenful of HTML code.

Yahoo!
Popular directory of websites (www.yahoo.com), compiled by actual humans. People with websites have to fill in a submission form, on the Yahoo website, so that Yahoo's editors can consider it for inclusion. Yahoo also provides conventional search engine results if its directory can't match your request. The site has also grown to become a portal site, offering free e-mail, auctions, and by the time you read this will probably be offering singing lessons and veterinary advice.