Internet glossary

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Packet - A packet is a self-contained bundle of data sent over a packet switching network. Packets are typically less than 1500 bytes in size. Longer files are broken into multiple packets for transmission and reassembled at the other end. A packet includes a header with to and from addresses, relation to other packets (sequencing), and error checking information. On the Internet, datagram is a synonym for packet.

Packet Switching - The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet switching, all the data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed along different routes by special machines along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time. You might think of several caravans of trucks all using the same road system to carry materials. Internet glossary.

Page - 1. To call somebody electronically. With telephone service, when you page someone, that person's pager activates and sounds an alarm. With the Internet, a page is usually a call to chat, and will pop up a window on the recipient's desktop. 2. A document displayed on the web. A page may consist of a single screen or multiple screens reached by scrolling down or to the right.

Palette - The set of colors used in a picture or on a computer screen. Older computers typically used only 16 colors. Modern ones use at least 256 colors, which can be coded by 8 bits of information. With advanced color cards and monitors 65.5 thousand colors (16-bit) or 16 million colors (24-bit) are used. Different web browsers and computer platforms do not necessarily use identical palettes. There is a set of 216 colors that are considered browser and platform safe, which web page designers should use, if they want screens to look essentially the same on each computer that views them. Internet glossary.

Password - A code used to gain access (login) to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as "2 home". A good password might be: A7os(%)T (don't use this one!).

PDF (Portable Document Format) - A file format designed to enable printing and viewing of documents with all their formatting (typefaces, images, layout, etc.) appearing the same regardless of what operating system is used, so a PDF document should look the same on Windows, Macintosh, linux, OS/2, etc. The PDF format is based on the widely used Postcript document-description language. Both PDF and Postscript were developed by the Adobe Corporation. Internet glossary.

Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) - Perl is a programming language that is widely used for both very simple, small tasks and for very large complex applications. During the 1990s it became the de-facto standard for creating CGI programs. Perl is known for providing many ways to accomplish the same task, with "there's more than one way to do it" being something of a motto in the Perl community. Because it is so easy to perform simple tasks in Perl it is often used by people with little or no formal programming training, and because Perl provides many sophisticated features it is often used by professionals for creating complex data-processing software, including the "server-side" of large web sites. Perl does not provide significant support for creating programs with a graphical user interface. Internet glossary.

Permalink - A "permanent link" to a particular posting in a blog. A permalink is a URI that points to a specific blog posting, rather than to the page in which the posting original occured (which may no longer contain the posting.)

PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) - PHP is a programming language used almost exclusively for creating software that is part of a web site. The PHP language is designed to be intermingled with the HTML that is used to create web pages. Unlike HTML, the PHP code is read and processed by the web server software (HTML is read and processed by the web browser software.)

Ping - To check if a server is running. From the sound that a sonar systems makes in movies, you know, when they are searching for a submarine.

Pixel - One dot on a computer screen. Todays least expensive monitors typically are 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high. Larger and more expensive monitors range up to 1600 x 1200 pixels and special purpose monitors may go much higher than that. Internet glossary.

Plug-in - A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape® browser and web server. Adobe Photoshop® also uses plug-ins.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) - PNG is a graphics format specifically designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG enable compression of images without any loss of quality, including high-resolution images. Another important feature of PNG is that anyone may create software that works with PNG images without paying any fees - the PNG standard is free of any licensing costs. Internet glossary.

Podcasting or pod-casting - A form of audio broadcasting using the Internet, podcasting takes its name from a combination of "iPod" and broadcasting. iPod is the immensely popular digital audio player made by Apple computer, but podcasting does not actually require the use of an iPod. Podcasting involves making one or more audio files available as "enclosures" in an RSS feed. A pod-caster creates a list of music, and/or other sound files (such as recorded poetry, or "talk radio" material) and makes that list available in the RSS 2.0 format. The list can then be obtained by other people using various podcast "retriever" software which read the feed and makes the audio files available to digital audio devices (including, but not limited to iPods) where users may then listen to them at their convenience. Internet glossary.

Ponzi scheme - A money-making pyramid scheme where investors at the top of a list of names make money by recruiting more investors into the scheme. Those at the top are paid by the fees gathered from recruits up to 5 or 6 levels down. Ultimately, those at the bottom lose their money when they run out of new recruits. It has many variations and is illegal in most countries.

POP (Point of Presence) - A Point of Presence usually means a city or location where a network can be connected to, often with dial up phone lines. So if an Internet company says they will soon have a POP in Sofia, it means that they will soon have a local phone number in Sofia and/or a place where leased lines can connect to their network.

POP (Post Office Protocol) - A way that e-mail client software such as Eudora gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail. Another protocol called IMAP is replacing POP for email. Internet glossary.

Port - 1. A connection to a computer to enable other devices, such as printers, modems, monitors, keyboards, mice, etc. to interface with the computer. 2. A logical connection to a network. Different port numbers are used for different purposes, for example, HTTP usually uses port 80.

Portal - Usually used as a marketing term to described a Web site that is or is intended to be the first place people see when using the Web. Typically a "Portal site" has a catalog of web sites, a search engine, or both. A Portal site may also offer email and other service to entice people to use that site as their main "point of entry" (hence "portal") to the Web.

Posting - A single message entered into a network communications system. Internet glossary.

PPP (Point to Point Protocol) - The most common protocol used to connect home computers to the Internet over regular phone lines. Most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IPconnections and thus be really and truly on the Internet.

Protocol - On the Internet "protocol" usually refers to a set of rules that define an exact format for communication between systems. For example the HTTP protocol defines the format for communication between web browsers and web servers, the IMAP protocol defines the format for communication between IMAP email servers and clients, and the SSL protocol defines a format for encrypted communications over the Internet. Virtually all Internet protocls are defined in RFC documents. Internet glossary.

Proxy Server - A Proxy Server sits in between a Client and the "real" Server that a Client is trying to use. Client's are sometimes configured to use a Proxy Server, usually an HTTP server. The clients makes all of it's requests from the Proxy Server, which then makes requests from the "real" server and passes the result back to the Client. Sometimes the Proxy server will store the results and give a stored result instead of making a new one (to reduce use of a Network). Proxy servers are commonly established on Local Area Networks.