GLOSSARY

what the heck does it mean, anyway... ? we know... sometimes you run across a word that everyone thinks you should know, just because you're online... and you don't... here's help!

ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - one of the many ways to connect to the internet - it happens to be very fast.

ATTACHMENT - same as what you'd put in an envelope, except that it's electronically "clipped" to your email.

CGI - Custom Gateway Interface - the way information is passed between a server and a webpage

COOKIE - a little piece of info stored on your computer by a website that you've been to before. it 'reminds' the website about you so that - if programmed to do so - it can update the information that you see.

DHTML - Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language - a language that webpages are created in, so that things can move and change according to certain sets of rules the designer makes up.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol - a way to transfer files over the internet (can be much faster & easier than emailing them)

GUI - Graphical User Interface - the greatest invention since chocolate syrup - it's what allows us laymen to use computers without knowing how they actually work! It's what you see when you use virtually any Windows or Mac software. The buttons, and windows, and all that... those are all parts of a GUI (gooey)

HITS - this explanation came from the good folks at Webalizer: What is the difference between 'HITS' and 'FILES'? Basically, HITS is the total number of HTTP requests that the server received during the reporting period. Any request made to the server is considered a hit. FILES is the number of hits that actually resulted in something being sent back to the user, such as an HTML page or image. If you use Webalizer to analyze your site stats, you may want to read this page: http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/faq.html

IPO - Initial Public Offering / Initial Purchase Option, depends who you talk to - that's what a company getting ready to sell public shares on the stock market is called... you know... the ones that you read about in the paper where the 15 year olds are making millions of dollars overnight...

JAVASCRIPT - a nifty little code inside a webpage that makes things happen... there are zillions of these and they do all sorts of things, from popping up the current date to playing games. (NOTE: THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM JAVA)

MIME - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - this is what allows us to send pictures, documents and other files through email.

PDF - Portable Document Format - a GREAT tool invented by Adobe Systems that allows documents to be viewed (and look identical) on different computer platforms (PC, Mac, Linux). You need Adobe Acrobat Viewer to look at and print them but that part is free!

URL - Uniform Resource Locator - aka Web Address (see huh?)