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server
service
provider
shareware
shocked
SLIP
SMTP
source
spam
spider
sysop |
server
A server is a computer that's hooked up to a
network (such as your office LAN, or the Internet)
or a piece of software that helps that computer
do its job. Servers send files across the network
where your computer (the "client")
receives and interprets them. Servers on the Internet
are generally hooked up 24 hours a day, ready to
serve your needs. Top
service
provider
If you're reading this, you likely already
know of the Internet service provider, or ISP.
It's the company that provides the gateway between
you and the Internet. Online services such as
America Online and CompuServe are also touting
their ability to provide Internet access. When
you use AOL as a launching pad, that service is
acting as your ISP.
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shareware
If the shareware concept were applied to the
rest of the consumer world, it would make all
of our lives easier. Imagine, for instance, taking
home a computer or printer, a stereo system, or
a car, trying it out for a month, then deciding
whether to pay for it or just toss it out. Though
it may sound too good to be true, this is the
idea behind shareware software. You download it
for free (paying only, if anything, shipping costs
or the download time), install and use it for
a pre-agreed time period. Once the time is up,
if you like it, you pay a registration fee (usually
between $5 and $20), if not, you delete it.
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shocked
More and more frequently you'll see Web sites
that tell you they're "shocked." No,
you haven't offended the Web somehow; you've happened
across a site that uses Shockwave, a nifty tool
from a company called Macromedia. Shockwave lets
web creators show a variety of rock-em sock-em
graphics online, such as animations . If you have
the right plug-in
you can see the sights too. (Pick that nifty plug-in
up at the Macromedia
web site.)
Top
SLIP
see PPP
Top
SMTP
Using POP -- the Post Office Protocol (see
POP) -- your e-mail program running on your PC
talks to any servers that store mail addressed
to you. But when one server storing mail needs
to talks to another -- to send, receive, or forward
mail between servers -- they don't use POP but
its server-to-server equivalent, Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol (or SMTP). Imagine it as the private
lingo that one USPS mail carrier might use to
warn another of, say, the house with the snarling
dog.
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source
Ever run across a cleverly designed Web page
and say to yourself, "How did they do that?"
Well, wonder no more. The source of the document
is the HTML code that makes it look the way it
looks. To see the source of the page you're on,
go to the "View" menu on your browser
and select "Document Source" (if you're
using Netscape) or "Source" (if you're
using Explorer). HTML programmers in particular
find this command handy as the chance to see the
work, good and bad, of others.
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spam
The Internet is a wonderful way of communicating,
just as postal mail ("snail mail") has
been in the past. Unfortunately, the newsgroups
and e-mail boxes of the world have already developed
their equivalent to junk mail. It's called "spam,"
and it's not good Internet manners. When you see
the same make-money-fast message in all the newsgroups
and in your mailbox, the Net has been spammed.
Since most of these mass-mailing (or mass-posting)
messages are irrelevant to the groups and recipients
who get them, spam is considered a serious breach
of Net etiquette.
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spider
There are several varieties of those wonderful
Web search sites. Some, such as our friends at
Yahoo, get
their lists from actual people who send in information
on the sites they've created. Others, such as
Alta
Vista and WebCrawler,
automate the process of getting site listings
by sending out spiders to find sites for them.
A spider is a small piece of software that crawls
around the Web picking up URLs and information
about the pages they represent.
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sysadmin/sysop
All those wonderful Internet resources out
there couldn't exist without the efforts of the
countless folk with the thankless job of backing
up and maintaining the servers. Chief among them
are the sysadmin (system administrator) and the
sysop (system operator); the latter typically
does most of the grunt work. In some networks
such as online services, the sysop is instead
the referee -- some might say babysitter -- who
steps in when, say, someone has cross-posted a
message inappropriately. The sysop moves the message
to its proper place and/or notifies the offender.
They also jump in when flame wars loom, and help
out with technical questions or questions relating
to the message board's conventions, written and
unwritten.
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