Download Computer Terms

COOKIE
A cookie is a small amount of data generated by a website and saved by your web
browser. Its purpose is to remember information about you, similar to a preference file
created by a software application.
404 ERROR
A 404 error is a common website error message that indicates a webpage cannot be
found. It may be produced when a user clicks an outdated (or "broken") link or when a
URL is typed incorrectly in a Web browser's address field. Some websites display
custom 404 error pages, which may look similar to other pages on the site. Other
websites simply display the Web server's default error message text, which typically
begins with "Not Found." Regardless of the appearance, a 404 error means the server
is up and running, but the webpage or path to the webpage is not valid.
ACTIVE X
ActiveX is a technology that includes a collection of prewritten software components
that developers can implement within an application or webpage. This provides a
simple way for programmers to add extra functionality to their software or website
without needing to write code from scratch.
JavaScript is a programming language commonly used in web development. It was
originally developed by Netscape as a means to add dynamic and interactive elements
to websites.
JavaScript is a client-side scripting language, which means the source code is
processed by the client's web browser rather than on the web server. This means
JavaScript functions can run after a webpage has loaded without communicating with
the server.
APPLET
An applet is a small application designed to run within another application. While the
term "applet" is sometimes used to describe small programs included with a
computer's operating system, it usually refers to Java applets, or small applications
written in the Java programming language.
ISP
Stands for "Internet Service Provider." In order to connect to the Internet, you need an
ISP. It is the company that you (or your parents) pay a monthly fee to in order to use
the Internet. If you use a dial-up modem to connect to your ISP, a point-to-point
protocol (PPP) connection is established with another modem on the ISP's end.
BITTORRENT
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol designed to reduce the
bandwidth required to transfer files. It does this by distributing file transfers across
multiple systems, thereby lessening the average bandwidth used by each computer.
For example, if a user begins downloading a movie file, the BitTorrent system will
locate multiple computers with the same file and begin downloading the file from
several computers at once. Since most ISPs offer much faster download speeds than
upload speeds, downloading from multiple computers can significantly increase the file
transfer rate.
TORRENT
A torrent is a file sent via the BitTorrent protocol. It can be just about any type of file,
such as a movie, song, game, or application. During the transmission, the file is
incomplete and therefore is referred to as a torrent.
BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth describes the maximum data transfer rate of a network or Internet
connection. It measures how much data can be sent over a specific connection in a
given amount of time. For example, a gigabit Ethernet connection has a bandwidth of
1,000 Mbps, (125 megabytes per second). An Internet connection via cable modem
may provide 25 Mbps of bandwidth.
HTML
Stands for "Hyper-Text Markup Language." This is the language that Web pages are
written in. Also known as hypertext documents, Web pages must conform to the rules
of HTML in order to be displayed correctly in a Web browser.
FLASH
Adobe Flash is a multimedia technology. Flash allows Web developers to incorporate
animations and interactive content into their websites. Flash was originally released by
Macromedia in 1996. It began as a basic animation tool and an optional plug-in for
Web browsers. Over the next decade, Flash gained many new features and became a
standard plugin included with nearly all Web browsers.
URL
Stands for "Uniform Resource Locator." A URL is the address of a specific Web site or
file on the Internet. It cannot have spaces or certain other characters and uses forward
slashes to denote different directories.
Some examples of URLs are http://www.cnet.com/, http://web.mit.edu/, and
ftp://info.apple.com/. As you can see, not all URLs begin with "http".
The first part of a URL indicates what kind of resource it is addressing.
PROXY
SERVER
Most large businesses, organizations, and universities these days use a proxy server.
This is a server that all computers on the local network have to go through before
accessing information on the Internet. By using a proxy server, an organization can
improve the network performance and filter what users connected to the network can
access.
WWW
Stands for "World Wide Web." It is important to know that this is not a synonym for the
Internet. The World Wide Web, or just "the Web," as ordinary people call it, is a subset
of the Internet. The Web consists of pages that can be accessed using a Web browser.
The Internet is the actual network of networks where all the information resides.