Vocabulary

Week 1

1. HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the language of Web communication. HTTP is the way in which World Wide Web pages are transferred over the Internet. URLs for Web pages start with http://, although you almost never have to type it in now.

2. HTTPS: A variant of HTTP that encrypts messages for security.

3. URL: Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are a standardized way of naming network resources, used for linking pages on the WWW.

4. BITNET: Because It's Time Network. BITNET is a wide-area network linking university computer centers all over the world. Originated in the early 1980s and has now been combined with the Internet. Its most common use was to transmit electronic mail among scholars who are working together.

5. ARPANET: A computer network originally developed for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, now known as DARPA) to link research institutions. ARPANET introduced the TCP/IP protocols and eventually developed into the Internet.

6. Internet: A cooperative message-forwarding system linking computer networks all over the world. Users of the Internet can exchange electronic mail, participate in electronic discussion forums (newsgroups), send files from any computer to any other via FTP, retrieve information via Gopher or HTTP, and even use each other's computers directly via Telnet. In 1989 the WWW, an Internet-based system of interlinked pages of information was born. In the early 1990s, e-mail on the Web and on-line chat became internationally prominent.

7. TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is a standard format for transmitting data in packets from one computer to another. It is used on the Internet. TCP deals with construction of data packets, and IP routes packets from machine to machine.

8. Domain address: An Internet address in conveniently readable form, such as jones.com as opposed to the IP ADDRESS, which consists of numbers. The last part of the domain is called TLD or zone, and is two or three letters long. Three-letter zones are mostly US, and indicate the type of organization. DNS or Domain Name System routes your Web page request to the Web server wherever it is.

a. com Commercial organizations as well as individuals. (ibm.com)
b. net Internet service providers and other network-related companies (att.net)
c. org Noncommercial, often non-profit organizations (npr.org)
d. gov US government agencies (senate.gov)
e. mil US military (army.mil)
f. edu Educational domains (uwsp.edu)

9. ISP: Internet Service Provider. ISPs are companies that provides accounts allowing customers to access the Internet, typically through Dial-Up Networking. Major service providers in the United States include Microsoft, Netcom, Earthlink, America Online, CompuService, Prodigy, and Delphi. Typically, the customer pays a monthly fee, and the ISP supplies software that enables the customer to connect to the Internet by modem. Some ISPs also provide file space for pages on the WWW and FTP file storage.

10. Server: A computer that provides services to another computer (called the client). On multitasking machines, a process that provides services to another process is sometimes called a server. The server stores, retrieves, and distributes files on the Web.

11. Client: Programs that ask servers for services. An e-mail program is called an e-mail client.

a. A computer that receives services from another computer. For example, when you browse the WWW, your computer is a client of the computer that hosts the Web page.
b. An operating system component that enables a computer to access a particular kind of service. For example, computers that use Netware networks must have a Netware-compatible client installed.

Portal: A Web site designed for people to visit when they are looking for links to other sites. Examples include www.lycos.com and www.yahoo.com as well as the home pages of various Internet service providers. A portal is a start page, the page the browser displays first. You see it every time you turn on your Web browser. It provides free services such as Web guides, search engines, chat rooms, e-mail accounts, news services, etc. Portals collect and sell people's attention.
Search engine: A computer program that searches through large amounts of text or other data. For example, a search engine for the WWW can be accessed at http://www.yahoo.com or at altavista.com For searching Usenet newsgroups, use the search engine at http://www.deja.com Depending on the search engine, there are generally several ways to search. If you type a phrase such as golden isles, the search engine will normally search for all documents that contain golden and/or isles, giving highest priority to those that contain both words. Alternatively, you can specify that you want only the documents that contain the whole phrase, and you can specify Boolean (“and” and “or”) relationships between words you are searching for (e.g., “Visa OR MasterCard”). There is generally a Help button that explains how to perform various kinds of searches. Search engines are a bottom-up approach to finding your way around the Web. They use a list of keywords or phrases called a query, and returns a list of Web pages. Some engines search on titles of Web pages, and some search every word.

IP address: IP or Internet Protocol. Each host computer on the Internet has a unique number in format of xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx., where each xxx is a number from 0 to 255. IP addresses identify the host computers, so packets of information reach the correct computer. When you connect to the Internet by dial-up account, your ISP or Internet Service Provider assigns your computer an IP address each time you connect. Thus your ISP can have fewer IP addresses, because it needs only enough IP addresses for the number of users connected simultaneously.

Mail servers: Mail servers handle incoming and outgoing e-mail.

POP or Post Office Protocol servers store incoming mail
SMTP or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol servers relay outgoing mail
Mail clients: Mail clients get incoming messages from, and send outgoing messages to a mail server, and lets you read, write, save, and print messages.

Web servers: Web servers store Web pages and transmit them in response to requests from Web clients, usually called browsers .

FTP: File Transfer Protocol is a standard way of transferring files from one computer to another on the Internet and on other TCP/IP networks. FTP is also the name of any of various computer programs that implement the file transfer protocol. You can also retrieve files by FTP using a Web browser.

FTP servers: FTP servers store files that you can transfer to or from your computer if you have an FTP Client

Newsgroup: A public forum or discussion area on a computer network. All users of the network can post messages, and every user can read all the messages that have been posted. The most famous newsgroups are those distributed worldwide by the Usenet system, covering thousands of topics. Newservers store Usenet newsgroup articles that you can read and send if you have a news client or newsreader.

IRC servers: Internet Relay Chat is a multi-user conversation conducted over the Internet in real time.

Scanners: A device that enables a computer to read a printed or handwritten page. The simplest scanners give the contents of the page to the computer as a graphic image – a handy way of putting pictures into the computer. There are four main types of scanners: hand-held scanners, page scanners, flatbed scanners, and drum scanners.
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format is a file format developed by CompuServe for storing bitmap images on disk. GIF images can have up to 65,536x65,536 pixels and 256 colors. GIF is a common format for images on the WWW. GIFs are drawings and artwork created on a computer including clip art, icons, screen captures, and text. When an image has uniformly colored pieces, colored lines and shapes, GIFs are the best format for smaller, faster-downloading files, without losing image quality. GIFs give the best quality for scanned-in photos and artwork, although the files of photos may be huge. JPEG may distort certain parts or qualities of the image in the process of making the file smaller. GIFs are the choice for special effects such as animations and images with transparent areas.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group is a file format for storing bitmap images, including lossy compression (that is, a file can be compressed to a very small size if some blurring of detail is tolerable). JPEG file format is often used for high-quality photographic images. For color photos, JPEG files are much smaller than GIF files. For black and white, JPEG offers no advantage over GIF. When you can see an image made up of dots of many colors under magnification, use JPEG. Dithering or a process of simulating a color by mixing dots of other colors is stored best in JPEG. JPEGs are not best for all photos. It has a lossy format, discarding some data to create a small file. All JPEG images lose some image quality, or have small distortions, especially around sharp edges.

Vocabulary

Week 3

1. Port number: An identifying number assigned to each program that is chatting on the Net. You hardly ever have to know these numbers--the Internet programs work do the work for you.

a. Port 21: FTP or file transfer

b. Port 23: Telnet or remote login

c. Port 25: SMTP or mail relaying

d. Port 80: WWW

e. Port 110: POP or storage of incoming mail

f. Port 194: IRC or on-line chat

g. Port 532: Usenet newsgroups or discussion groups

2. Types of accounts:

a. Internet PPP: Point to Point Protocol is a communications protocol often used in Dial-Up Networking.

b. SLIP: Serial Line Internet. These are the most popular accounts, because the most popular software, IE, Netscape Navigator, Eudora, and other programs, are designed to work with PPP and SLIP accounts. PPP is more modern, and you may also see CSLIP or Compressed SLIP accounts.

3. Telephone, Cable, and Satellite Connections: Dial-Up Internet Accounts connect to the Internet by modem and phone lines to dial into a PPP account on Internet provider's computer. ISPs support modems at 14.4Kbps, 28.8, and 56. You connect only when you want to use Internet services, and disconnect or hang up when you are done.

a. ISND: Integrated Services Digital Network

b. ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Both are high-speed types of phone lines for faster connection to Internet. Phone companies sell ISDN or ADSL, and receive hardware that connects the computer to the special phone line. Leased lines can be connected to the Internet all the time. Some TV cable companies offer Internet access over TV cable. You need a cable connection box and an account with a local cable company.

c. DSS: Digital Satellite is direct broadcast satellite. DDS receives data from Internet at high speed, but you need a dial-up connection and ISP to send data to Internet.

d. Web TV: You can access the Internet by using TV such as WebTV. You use the TV screen as a monitor and your remote control to browse Web.

4. Java: Java is a programming language developed at Sun Microsystems in the mid-1990s to enable networked computers to transmit computations to each other, not just data. For example, an Internet user can connect to a Java Applet (program) on the World Wide Web, download it, and run it, all at the click of a mouse, using a Java-compatible Web browser. Applets can include features such as animation. Java is designed for object-oriented programming.

5. JavaScript: JavaScript is a language that allows a Web page to include commands to be executed by the Web browser. JavaScript commands are interpreted by the Web browser, rather than being compiled into bytecode as Java programs are. JavaScript is easier to learn than Java, but, unlike Java, it does not have the features of a complete programming language. JavaScript embeds small programs called scripts in Web pages. Applets and scripts speed up interactivity of Web pages, interact with them instead of with a distant Web server.

6. Web: The Web is a collection of millions of files stored on computers called Web servers, and contains text documents, pictures, video, sounds, programs, and interactive environments. It is the largest and most diverse collection of information ever. The HTML language allows a file to contain links to other related files. The link/hyperlink contains the information to locate the related file on the Internet.

7. XML: XML or Extensible Markup Language my replace HTML as the language of the Web. It is used for writing languages, and gives increased capability to attach explanatory tags to data.

8. Style Sheets: Style sheets make a distinction between information and the way it is presented. Style sheets describe how the information is presented not what the information is. An audio style sheet may describe voice and accent, and would be associated with a text document. Changing the style sheet would change how the text is read, not the text itself.

9. DHTML: DHTML or Dynamic HTML is an extension of HTML. IT combines HTML, JavaScript, and cascading style sheets or CSS.

10. VRML: VRML or Virtual Reality Modeling Language is a way of describing 3-D scenes and objects for graphical display. With a VRML programs describes a "world" of virtual objects that a person can walk or fly through. The computer draws the objects as they are seen from a specified position, which can be constantly changing. Objects can respond to mouse clicks. Like Java, VRML moves some of the computational burden from the network to the computer. Computing a view on a computer is much faster than downloading from a Web server.

11. Copyright: (The right to copy) A legal restriction on the copying of books, magazines, recordings, computer programs, and other materials, in order to protect the original author's right to ownership of , and compensations for reproduction of , an original work. Most computer programs are protected not only by copyright but also by a software license. In the U.S., a program is protected by copyright if it contains a noticed of the form

Copyright 1996 John Doe

in one or more prominent places. Unlike books and magazines, computer programs need not be registered with the Copyright Office or deposited in the Library of Congress.

U.S. copyright law allows limited copying of books and magazines for private study or classroom use. However, this does not apply to computer programs, which can only be copied with the permission of the copyright owner, or in order to make backup copies that will not be used as long as the original copy is intact.

Do not reproduce copyrighted material on the Internet or in Web pages without the owner's permission. Placing something in a Web page constitutes republication just as if you were making printed copies. Remember that copyrights apply to sounds and pictures as well as texts. Distributing a sound bite from a movie or a picture of a cartoon character can be a copyright violation.

Copyright protects expressions of ideas, not the ideas themselves. Copyrights do not cover algorithms, mathematical methods, techniques, or the design of machines (which, however, can be patented).

It is not entirely clear to what extent copyrights protect the "look and feel: of a program, i.e., its overall visual appearance and USER INTERFACE. Fortunately, this is becoming a moot point, as most software now derives its visual appearance and user interface from the operating system (Windows 95, Windows 98, OS/2, Macintosh, etc.) more than from the programmer's independent creativity.

Vocabulary

Week 4

1. Web guides: Web guides are a top-down approach to finding your way around the Web. It is a system of categories and subcategories that organizes links to Web pages.

2. Home Page: Home Page is the front door of a Web site. It introduces the rest of the Web site, and provides links that lead to other pages on site. A personal Home page is the front door of a Web site that a person puts on the Web to introduce themselves. A business Home page is the front door to a business' Web site. They should be attractive, easy to find, and provide enough information to get people quickly to where they want to be.

3. GUIs: Graphical User Interfaces are like Windows, MacOS, UNIX desktop applications that let you open a file by clicking or double-clicking an icon that represents a file.

4. Plug-Ins: Plug-Ins are programs that are independent of your Web browser, but it is a "plug in" in a seamless way. RealAudio for receiving streaming audio, or QuickTime for downloading video are standard accessories for IE or Navigator. To install plug-ins, you download them from the Internet and follow the directions.

5. Cookie: A cookie is information stored on a user's computer by a Web browser at the request of software at a Web site. Web sites use cookies to recognize users who have previously visited them. The next time the user accesses that site, the information in the cookie is sent back to the site so the information displayed can vary depending on the user's preferences. The term cookie comes from a 1980s prank computer program called Cookie Monster that would interrupt users and demand that they type the word "cookie" before continuing. A cookie is a small text file stored on your computer by a Web site you have visited, used to remind that site about you the next time you visit it.

6. Firewall: A firewall is a link in a network that relays only data packets clearly intended and authorized to reach the other side. Firewalls are helpful in keeping computers safe from intentional hacker attacks and from hardware failures occurring elsewhere.

7. Intranet: An intranet is the opposite of Internet; a network confined to a single organization (but not necessarily a single site). Intranets are often set up as Web pages, so a Web browser can be used to view the content. This makes the intranet appear just the same as part of the World Wide Web; the only difference is that it is not accessible to those outside the organization. Keeping it separate from the outside world is essential if it carries confidential data, such as internal business records. A firewall is placed between this intranet and the Internet to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to all the resources of the intranet. To communicate with Internet through firewall, you must configure the Web browser to request Web pages from the firewall's proxy server, the program that filters packets of information between intranet and the Internet.

8. SSL or Secure Sockets Layer: A Web-based technology that lets one computer verify another's identity and allow secure connections, used by secure Web servers. SSL depends on public key cryptography to establish proofs of identity, called digital certificates. SSL protocol is a method for secure communications and transactions to take place over the Internet. The computer uses digital certificates to verify that the server is what it claims to be. The server and your browser then send encrypted messages back and forth until the transaction is complete.

9. Digital certificates: Digital certificates or certificate or a digital ID is a file that identifies person or organization. The organization sends a certificate file, your browser checks that the certifying authority is on the list that the browser manufacturer programmed into it. You can add certifying authorities to the list through Tools/Internet options/Content as well as Tools/Internet options/Security/Custom level.

10. ActiveX: ActiveX is a Microsoft system for component software for Windows that is an updated version of OLE (Object, Linking, and Embedding). ActiveX allows executable code to be included in a document such as a word processing document or a Web page. An ActiveX control can be written in a programming language such as C++ or Visual Basic. An advantage of ActiveX is the ability to re-use software components. Mocrosoft' Authenticode system goes through a process similar to SSL to be sure that an ActiveX control was written by the organization that claims to have written it, and it has not been tampered with. Then you can decide to trust the author or not to trust. You can find them at Tools/Internet options/Security/Custom level.

Vocabulary

Week 5

1. Viruses: A virus is a computer program that automatically copies itself, thereby "infecting" other disks or programs without the user knowing it, and then plays some kind of trick or disrupts the operation of the computer. Viruses have existed as academic pranks since the 1960s, but 1987 saw the first malicious viruses, apparently the work of disgruntled programmers trying to sabotage their competition. The best protection against viruses is to obtain all your software from reliable sources, make regular backup copies of your work, write-protect disks that you boot from and other disks that do not need to be written on, and run virus-detecting software periodically. Knowingly spreading a computer virus is a crime under common law and under specific laws in various states.

2. Virus protection software: This software is a computer program that offers protection from viruses by making additional checks of the integrity of the operating system. No vaccine can offer complete protection against all viruses. Do not download an executable file from anyone you do not know, and then run it on your computer. Check regularly for patches, warnings, and new versions at the Web site of your Web browser company, as well as having a virus-checking program.

3. Cache: As you browser the Web, your browser may store in a cache or temporary storage area the Web pages you visit, and may make a list of the Web sites. Most Web browsers keep copies of all the Web pages that you view, up to a certain limit, so that the same pages can be redisplayed quickly when you go back to them. If a Web page has been changed recently, you may have to RELOAD it to see its current contents. Cached Web pages can be reloaded quickly on the Back button, and the History files let you easily find a Web site. To cover your tracks, you need to exit the browser after you clear the History, and when it restarts, the Back menu is empty as well. Also, you should delete the Temp files, as well as the cookies.

4. HTML: HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is the language used to write pages for the WWW. This language lets the text include codes that define fonts, layout, embedded graphics, and hypertext links. Web pages are stored in files that usually have the extension .htm or .html.

5. Firewall: A firewall is a piece of hard or software that sits between two networks for security purposes. An intranet is an organization that has its own computers linked in an Internet-like network. A firewall is placed between this intranet and the Internet to prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to all the resources of the intranet. To communicate with the Internet through a firewall, you must configure the Web browsers to request Web pages from the firewall's proxy server, the program that filters packets of information between intranet and Internet.

6. Proxy: Proxy is Web browsing anonymously. When you use a proxy, you send your Web page requests to the proxy, and it makes the request in its own name. To the server whose pages you are requesting, they get your proxy's IP address, not yours.

7. PICS: PICS are Site-Blocking Systems. The W3C or the folks who maintain the HTML standards created a system called PICS or Platform for Internet Content Selection, an Internet protocol that enables ratings to be transferred and understood across the Internet. A technique for associating an HTML document with a label containing information about its content. The Web browser reads the label first, compares it to the criteria set by the user, and decides whether to display the page. PICS is not a ratings system, and embodies no standards for Internet content. Ratings systems based on PICS are called PICS-compliant. Ratings organizations such as RSAC and SafeSurf have ratings systems based on questionnaires. Web site owners fill out questionnaires, then ratings organizations issue ratings labels for their Web sites. The site owners display these labels on their Web sites. IE contain software that reads these labels and compares them to your acceptable standards. If questionable, you must give a password.

PICS enables rating labels to be attached to a Web page:

1. Labels can be embedded in the page itself. Web site owners must cooperate, and this is the way it is done today.
2. Labels can be attached by a label-server. This requires that a ratings service maintain a database of URLS and their ratings, requires a small army of people to create and maintain the database.

8. RSACi: Recreational Software Advisory Council for the Internet, and MS uses only this one. It has four categories: language, nudity, sex, and violence, and five levels for each category. To locate go to Tools/Internet options/Content/Enable

9. SafeSurf: SafeSurf Rating Standard has nine categories, and nine levels for each category. Web site owners rate their sites voluntarily by going to the rating organization’s Web site and filling out a form. Once a site is rated, the rating organization e-mails the Web site owner a piece of HTML code to attach to the rated Web pages.

Other ratings services can be added to NewWatch or Content Advisor by downloading a RAT (PICS rating) file from the service’s Web page.

10. Purchasing On-line with Wallet Programs: Web sites are open all night, and you can move from store to store in seconds. It is easy to find reliable product information and there are no salespeople. You must type in correctly your credit card numbers, billing addresses, and shipping addresses or they won’t work. In a wallet program you type in your credit card and address information into your computer once, and the wallet program stores it on your computer in an encrypted, password-protected form. Then you pay the On-line merchant with the chosen credit card information in the wallet program. You then give the wallet program that card’s password. You select a shipping address from your list. The wallet program then establishes a secure connection with the merchant’s server and relay information. A few merchants accept them right now. Other choices include the CyberCash wallet.

Security issues: to safeguard wallet program,

1. Wallet programs communicate with Web sites by using SSL protocol, and it is then unlikely that some third party can overhear your credit card numbers being transmitted.
2. The programs use digital signatures to ensure that they know who they are sending information to.
3. They store your information in an encrypted, password-protected format, so it is not sitting in a file on your machine, ready for any passerby to open.

Microsoft Wallet wants to eventually interact with electronic cash systems, Internet bank accounts, and other payment schemes. It can now handle major credit cards like American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa. To find wallet: Start/Settings/Control Panel/ Add/Remove programs/Setup tab.

IV. Vocabulary week 6

1. On-line chatting and conferencing concepts: The Internet enables a group of people to communicate together: anywhere in the world. Communication can be by text on the screen, by voice, or by video, and messages and responses can be exchanged “live,” or they may be read and responded to later. All of these types of on-line communication are called on-line chat or on-line conferencing.

2. Forms of chat and conferencing:

a. Chat can be real-time communication. Messages are sent immediately after they are complete, as soon as you press ENTER. This allows dialog to happen quickly, and each participant sees each message within seconds of when it is sent.

b. Asynchronous chat: Participants do not all read and respond to messages at the same time or synchronously. This allows participants to consider their responses, gather information, and formulate a response carefully. It allows people from different time zones or different schedules to participate.

3. E-mail Mailing Lists: These lists can be asynchronous, can have text with attached files, e-mail programs such as Eudora, Outlook Express, or Netscape Messenger. An e-mail mailing list allows messages to be distributed to a large list of people for messages, distribute newsletters, press releases, or to allow large group discussions.

4. Usenet newsgroups: These groups are asynchronous, can have text with attached files, newsreader such as Free Agent, Outlook Express, or Netscape Collabra. Messages are distributed throughout the Internet. Because of the volume of messages, they are divided into newsgroups, or topics. You use a newsreader program to subscribe to a newsgroup, read the messages posted to that newsgroup, and post your own messages. Over 20,000 different newsgroups exist, covering every conceivable topic.

5. Internet Relay Chat or IRC: IRC occurs in real time, can have text with file transfers, chat programs such as IRC or Ircle. These allow thousands of Internet users to participate in real-time text-based chat. When you use an IRC program to connect to a central IRC server and join a conversation called a channel, you see all the messages that are typed in that channel within seconds of posting. The IRC program lets you type and send your own messages.

6. Web-based chat: Web-based chat exists in real time, contains text, and uses Web browsers such as Netscape or IE. Many Web sites now provide a Web-based way to send and receive IRC messages.

AOL chat rooms: AOL uses real time, with text AOL access program. AOL subscribers spend most of their on-line hours in chat rooms. You must use AOL software to connect to your account. CompuServe, a business-oriented on-line service now owned by AOL, has forums and conferences on many different topics. For CompuServ you need a CompuServe account and software.

Direct chat programs use real time and contain text such as ICQ, AOL, Instant Messenger, etc. ICQ means “I seek you.” You can send messages to other people when both you and they are connected to the Internet. You create a list of the people who you want to chat with, and when one of them connects to the Internet, the direct chat program informs you that your friend is online.

On-line conferencing is in real time, with text, voice, and video, depending on the software. Conferencing program such as CU-SeeMe, Netscape Conference, or Microsoft NetMeeting confer via text, voice, and video with one person or more. Your computer needs a microphone, speakers, and video camera. Some programs allow all to see or edit a document on their screens and to see or write on a digital whiteboard (a shared paint program that all can draw on).

Identifying yourself: In mailing lists and newsgroups, you are identified by name and e-mail address called nickname, handle, or on AOL screen name.

7. MUDs (Multiuser dimensions) and MOOs (MUDs object oriented) (Internet-based multiuser games and worlds) use real time, with text, a Telnet program or MUD client program. They provide unstructured chats and discussions, at any time in which participants play a game by following a set of rules enforced by central server computer. This is usually a fantasy game.

8. Thread: A thread is a message on a particular topic, along with all the responses to that message, etc. Re: is short for in re, which is Latin for “on the subject of.”

9. Chat etiquette or netiquette:

Remember that you are talking to real people, not computers. Treat others kindly.

Lurk or listen without talking first, and wait until you have something interesting to say.

Don’t shout: tying in ALL CAPITALS is shouting. Only small letters is odd, but not offensive.

Check your spelling and proofread your text.

Learn the rules.

Precede your remark with the name or nickname, etc., to whom your remark is directed if several conversations going on.

In mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups, quote the relevant parts of the message to which you are responding. Delete all but the relevant parts of the quoted message. Your message should be longer than the quoted material in your message.

Consider whether you really need to post a message to the entire list or newsgroup in which you are in.

Don’t try to manage the conversation unless you are the mailing manager, channel operator, or other person in charge.

Beware/aware of trolls, messages that are intended to provoke a storm of responses.

Don’t post the same message to multiple lists or newsgroups.

Don’t send copyrighted material to mailing lists or newsgroups.

Abbreviations may be used, emoticons or diagrams of faces that are created by using punctuation.

10. Safely while chatting:

Remember that what you say is not private.

Be aware that your messages are not anonymous.

Don’t believe everything you read.

Don’t reveal more about yourself than you would want everyone in the universe to know: phone number, address, company, school, real name, etc.

Never type your password in a chat or conference. Requests for your password are always bogus.

Don’t hang around in sexually oriented channels or chat rooms if you are not interested in sex.

Don’t allow your children to use chat or conferencing systems without supervision.

Take advantage of AOL’s guidelines, if you use AOL.

Be sure to report inappropriate, abusive, or scary behavior when possible. AOL, go to the TOS keyword (Terms of Service) to report problems. On IRC, ask channel operator in charge of channel that you want the person banned from the system. On mailing lists, write the list manager.

Ways to chat effectively:

For an informal discussion at a specific place and time with immediate responses, consider an IRC or AOL (if all participants are on AOL) or Web-based chat.

Your Web pages link to a metafile, a small text file that contains the name and location of the actual audio file. You first link to the tiny metafile, the browser hands the metafile over to the player, which then streams the actual sound file.
Long programs are practical: even three hours worth. Allows live feeds, Web site creates the audio stream and serves the audio just a few seconds after it happens.

Vocabulary week 12

1. Sound card: A sound card or sound board is a circuit board that can be added to a computer to enable it to record and reproduce sound. Sound cards often include other features such as a MIDI musical instrument interface, a controller for a CD-ROM drive, and an audio amplifier that can drive speakers.

2. MIDI: A midi or Musical Instrument Digital Interface is a standard way for communication information about music between different electronic devices, such as computers and sound synthesizers. MIDI comprises two things: an electrical connection between musical instruments and computers, and a file format for representing musical sounds. MIDI files are more like musical scores than digitized audio; they represent notes and instrumentation, not sound waves, and the computer must "play" them like a musician. Thus, MIDI files are much more compact than WAVE files.

3. Wave file: A file containing a digital representation of sound waves.

4. WAV: The file containing a digital representation of sound waves.

5. MP3: A file compression format for music that allows users to download music over the Web. MP3 is short for MPEG, layer 3 (layer 1 and layer 2 refer to previous, less-advanced compression formats) and is promoted by the Motion Picture Experts Group. Sound waves can be represented as numbers indicating the amplitude of the wave at each moment in time. High-fidelity sound requires storing a 16-bit number 44,100 times per second (a sampling rate of 44.1 kilohertz). This means that one minute of stereo music requires over 10 megabytes of disk space. This is generally too large to be practical, but MP3 compression reduces the file size to about 1 megabyte per minute. The compression method was developed after carefully studying human auditory perception and then designing the compression algorithm so that the information lost is imperceptible.

6. MPEG: MPEG or Motion Picture Experts Group is an ISO working group that sets standards for digital sound and video and the associated data compression requirements. The Web address is http://www.mpeg.org.

7. Metafile: A metafile is a file format that provides a common ground between two or more proprietary formats, and thus a translation path from one piece of software to another. For example, a Windows Metafile (.wmf) is a vector-based drawing format that is recognized by most drawing, page-layout, and word-processing programs.

8. RealAudio: RealAudio is a communication protocol developed by Real Networks, http://www.realaudio.com, that allows audio signals to be broadcast over the Internet. The user hears the signal in real time, rather than waiting for an audio file to be downloaded and then played. RealAudio is sometimes used to distribute special-interest radio broadcasts and the like.

9. WWW Consortium: A group of member organizations founded in 1994 that works to develop standards and otherwise enhance the WWW, http://www.w3.org.

10. AF: Audio frequency that is a frequency within the range of human hearing, 20 to 20,000 hertz.

11. Data compression: This is the storage of data in a way that makes it occupy less space than if it were stored in its original form. For example, long sequences of repeated characters can be replaced with short codes that mean "The following character is repeated 35 times," or the like. A more thorough form of data compression involves using codes of different lengths for different character sequences so that the most common sequences take up less space. Most text files can be compressed to about half their normal size. Digitized images can often be compressed to 10 percent of their original size (or even more if some loss of fine detail can be tolerated), but machine-language programs sometimes cannot be compressed at all because they contain no recurrent patterns.

Vocabulary week 13

1. Web Page elements: Web page files are text files, including the text on the page and the text commands to format the page, show links, and display pictures. Web page formatting commands are called HTML tags, the commands that are included in the formatting language that Web browsers understand. Web page files have filename extension .htm or .html. Each Web page is stored in a separate HTML file. Main or home page may be named index.html, because this is the default filename that Web browsers look for. Each picture or graphic file is stored in a separate file, with .GIF extension, or .JPG or .JPEG. An HTML tag controls where each picture appears on your Web pages. Keep your graphics small and easy to load, and don’t use too many.

2. Steps to Create a Web site:

a. Plan structure of site, and info on home page and other key pages. Think of target audience, main purpose, and how often to update
b. Use text editor or Web page editor, create pages, and save as HTML files. Use graphics editor to create or view graphics for pages
c. Using browser, view HTML files (in Word document, File/Web Page Preview). Check spelling, graphics look good, and links work.
d. Publish site by putting all HTML files and graphic files on Web server
e. Use browser to view Web pages: use Netscape Navigator and IE.
f. Publicize your site

3. Publishing your Site:

a. Maintaining your own server. If you want your own server it is expensive, and you need a computer capable of handling Web traffic, 24 hours a day, Web server software, a dedicated, high-speed phone line such as ISDN or T1 line, and ISP that will set you up with a dedicated connection to Internet.
b. Using your ISP’s Server. Most ISP’s include a few megabytes of storage space free with a dial-up account, and most offer additional space for a few dollars/month. File transfer is different for each ISP.
c. Using a Web hosting service. Rents space on their Web servers for $10-50/month. They offer multiple Web servers with one always running, a fast connection to the Internet, domain hosting (so you can use your domain name for your Web pages), frequent backups, unlimited access by the Webmaster to update pages, use of standard CGI scripts (counters).
d. Publicizing your site. Register with some search engines. Print URL on business cards, stationery, and yellow pages ad. Add URL to signature block in e-mail and newsgroup messages. Include URL in return address with cards, etc. Bumper stickers. Print URL in church bulletin and school bulletin boards

4. Things to think about:

a. Text size
b. Colors
c. Write for international audience
d. Required elements: include revised date and e-mail address
e. Privacy
f. Maintenance: if you include upcoming events, then keep the site up-to-date
g. Accessibility: Make site usable for vision-impaired people as well as people with all types of software and hardware

5. Purpose of Web site: Web pages can show your hobby, a contact page for friends and relatives, a page for an organization/community groups, pr publicize a small business.

6. Structuring Web site: The structure dictates how your Web pages relate to each other, and how others locate information at your site. Divide information into headings and subheadings to organize the material. Each topic can be on a separate Web page, and then your provide a list of links, similar to table of contents, or you can do a less-structured approach. All pages should be easy to read and navigate.

7. Tips: Write short paragraphs, break up text with bulleted lists or pictures, and keep graphics small and fast.

8. Tips to make site easy to navigate: Be flexible. General information can be on the Home page with links to more specific pages. Limit the number of jumps a reader has to make to find the information. Use Next link to direct readers to pages in sequence. A link back to your home page is useful. Include navigation links on buttons or icons, although text is usually better. Consider frames. Pages with frames have a table of contents in a frame on the left side. The table of contents remains on each page.

9. Starting a Web Page: Open a text editor. To view your Web page in a browser save the file (File/Save), in your browser choose File/Open Page, then choose name of the file that contains your Web page. Also, you can type file://pathname/filename in the Location or URL box, replacing pathname and filename with the exact location and filename of your Web page, press Enter.

10. HTML tags: codes that add formatting, pictures, and links to Web pages. Some appear by themselves, others have a beginning and ending tag. Tags are enclosed by < and >. HTML is not case sensitive. To add hidden comments or notes to yourself, or names of people who worked on page, or other information, precede the comment text with <!—and follow it with ->.

Vocabulary week 14

1. Fiber optics: The technology of transmitting information through thin, flexible, glass or plastic tubes (optical fibers) using modulated light waves.

2. Microchip: A tiny complex of electronic components and their connections that is contained in or on a small, flat piece of material (usually silicon).

3. Microprocessor: The central processing unit, consisting of an integrated circuit and a single chip, that performs the basic operations in a microcomputer.

4. Router: A computer-switching program that transfers incoming messages to out-going pathways via the most efficient route possible.

5. Binary language: Computers may perform incredible computations at mind-boggling speeds, but they do so using the simple mechanism of the binary system. In the binary system, numbers are not represented with the familiar digits 0 through 9. Instead, they are expressed exclusively through sequences of 0 and 1, digits that are understood by computers to mean “Off” and “On,” respectively.

6. Input interface: Allows users to input data and issue commands with a keyboard, television camera, and phone mouthpiece.

7. Data translator: Converts data from audio, video, or other formats to a digital or analog format for transmission via the distribution infrastructure. A typical family car may have 20 embedded chips, controlling things such as the fuel in the engine, air bags, remote keyless entry, radio, CD changer, and dashboard displays.

8. Data interpreter: Converts data from digital or analog formats into audio, video, or other comprehensible media. The average middle-class American household has about 40 microprocessors in it.

9. User interface: Conveys data to user as audio, video, or other comprehensible media. Computer monitor, television screen, telephone earpiece. Many user interfaces also allow the user to input data and issue commands, thus functioning as input interfaces.

10. CPS: Abbreviation for calculations per second.

11. ENIAC: Abbreviation for Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer.

12. MB: Abbreviation for megabyte. “Megabyte” is a unit of computer memory or disk storage space.

13. RAM: Abbreviation for Random Access Memory. Random Access Memory is the primary working memory in a computer, used for the temporary storage of programs and data, in which data can be accessed directly and modified.

Vocabulary week 15

1. CGI or Common Gateway Interface: A standard interface between web server software and other programs running on the same machine.

2. CGI Program: Strictly, any program which handles its input and output data according to the CGI standard. In practice, CGI programs are used to handle forms and database queries on web pages, and to produce non-static web page content.

3. Frames: An HTML technique for combining two or more separate HTML documents within a single web browser screen. Compound interacting documents can be created to make a more effective web page presented in multiple windows or sub-windows. A framed web site often causes great problems for search engines, and may not be indexed correctly. Search engines will often index only the part of a framed site within the <NOFRAMES> section, so make sure that the <NOFRAMES> section includes relevant text which can be indexed by the spiders. If your site uses frames, consider providing a gateway page or adding navigational links within the framed pages. Submit the main page - the one containing the <FRAMESET> tag to the search engines. If you use a gateway page, submit this separately.

4. Gateway Page: A web page submitted to a search engine (spyder) to give the relevance-algorithm of that particular spyder the data it needs, in the format that it needs it, in order to place a site at the proper level of relevance for the topic(s) in question. (This determination of topical relevance is called "placement".) A gateway page may present information to the spyder, but obscure it from a casual human viewer. The gateway page exists so as to allow a web-site to present one face to the spyder, and another to human viewers. There are several reasons why one might want to do this. One, is that the author may not want to publicly disclose placement tactics. Another is that the format that may be easiest for a given spyder to understand, may not be the format that the author wishes to present to his viewers for aesthetics. Still another may be that the format that is best for one spyder may differ from that which is best for another. By using gateway pages, you can present your site to each spyder in the way which is known or thought to be best for that particular spyder. Also known as bridge pages, doorway page, entry pages, portals or portal pages. An example gateway page: http://www.isquare.com/gateway.htm

5. Hit: In the context of visitors to web pages, a hit (or site hit) is a single access request made to the server for either a text file or a graphic. If, for example, a web page contains ten buttons constructed from separate images, a single visit from someone using a web browser with graphics switched on (a "page view") will involve eleven hits on the server. (Often the accesses will not get as far as your server because the page will have been cached by a local internet service provider). In the context of a search engine query, a hit is a measure of the number of web pages matching a query returned by a search engine or directory.

6. Image Map: A set of hyperlinks attached to areas of an image. This may be defined within a web page, or as an external file. If the image map is defined as an external file, search engines may have problems indexing your other pages, unless you duplicate the links as conventional text hyperlinks. If the image map is included within the web page, the search engines should have no problem following the links, although it's good practice to provide text links too, to aid the visually impaired and those accessing the web with graphics switched off or using text only browsers.

7. Open Directory Project: A directory project run by thousands of volunteer editors. In principal, this is a very exciting and powerful way to organize the web. In practice, there have been some problems with the behavior of some of the editors, which has caused some initial difficulty for the organizers. Initially known as NewHoo, the project is now part of Netscape (and therefore of AOL). See http://directory.mozilla.org.

8. Query: A word, a phrase or a group of words, possibly combined with other syntax used to pass instructions to a search engine or a directory in order to locate web pages. For details of which queries are being used, visit the GoTo.com Search Inventory page. To "spy" on queries as they're entered, look at the Metaspy page. A summary of what people actually search for can be found at http://www.synergy-marketing.com/search.html. A free program called Word Market will collect search terms from the search engines, and is available at http://www.softwaresolutions.net/free.htm. The Canadian Email Business Network provides a Meta Tags/Keywords Search Engine at http://www.cebn.com/metatags.htm which allows searches through thousands of recent search engine queries.

9. Robot: Any browser program which follows hypertext links and accesses web pages but is not directly under human control. Examples are the search engine spiders, the "harvesting" programs which extract e-mail addresses and other data from web pages and various intelligent web searching programs. A database of web robots is maintained by Webcrawler.

10. robots.txt: A text file stored in the top level directory of a web site to deny access by robots to certain pages or sub-directories of the site. Only robots which comply with the Robots Exclusion Standard will read and obey the commands in this file. Robots will read this file on each visit, so that pages or areas of sites can be made public or private at any time by changing the content of robots.txt before re-submitting to the search engines. The simple example below attempts to prevent all robots from visiting the /secret directory:

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IV. Vocabulary week 6

IV. Vocabulary week 7

IV. Vocabulary Week 8

Vocabulary week 9

Vocabulary week 10

Vocabulary week 11

Vocabulary week 12

Vocabulary week 13

Vocabulary week 14

Vocabulary week 15