Technobabble Translated
Innovative Users Group; April 24-27, 1999

Internet Terms

The Basics

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Questions and answers that are commonly asked on a mailing list or newsgroup. It is put together to eliminate the common questions in a forum and to provide a starting place for new readers.
Firewall
Hardware and/or software at the entrance to a network that controls what kind of traffic can be shared between hosts inside the network and the Internet.
LAN: Local Area Network
Geographically small collection of machines connected by a network. Another common definition says that a LAN is a network of machines separated by other portions of the network by a router.
Protocol
Formal specification of the rules of a network service or communication method

Infrastructure Terms

Provide the foundation that everything else is build upon
TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
The most popular set of rules by which machines communicate across a network
DNS: Domain Name Service
Translates human-friendly domain names (e.g., "www.iii.com") to IP addresses (e.g., "205.227.88.232").
PPP: Point-to-Point Protocol
A method of connecting a computer to a network over a modem line.
Replaces "Serial Line Internet Protocol" (SLIP)
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network
An enhanced type of telephone service where telephone conversations and data communications travel digitally between the subscriber and the phone company.
POP: Point of Presence
For an Internet Service Provider (ISP), a city or other location where a connection can be made to the network.

Application Protocols

Actually get some work done
FTP: File Transfer Protocol
Used to transfer files between two machines.
HTTP: Hyper Text Transport Protocol
Specification for how web browsers communicate with web servers.
NNTP: Network News Transport Protocol
Protocol specifying how USENET news postings are replicated across the network and how a news client can retrieve and post messages.
POP: Post Office Protocol
Protocol specifying how an e-mail client, such as Eudora or Outlook Express, would retrieve messages from a mail server.
SMTP: Simple Mail Transport Protocol
Protocol for sending electronic mail messages from one mail system to another.

Web Terms

The Basics

This web thing will never catch on...
HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language
The page description language used to construct web pages.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator
The "address" of a resource on the net. Consists of three parts: the "protocol", the "hostname", and the machine- or protocol-specific information.
Cookie
A bit of information that a web server requests a web browser to store and echo back to the server for subsequent transations.
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format
One graphics format popularized by CompuServer which uses "lossless" compression, but limits the color depth
JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group
One graphics format which uses "lossy" compression, but has a much higher color depth

More techie...

CGI: Common Gateway Interface
Specification for a web server to communicate with a program running on the web server.
Java
Network-oriented, machine-independent programming language designed by Sun Microsystems
JavaScript
Simple scripting language used to control web browser functions. Not related to Java.
Java Applet vs. Java Application
A "Java Applet" requires a web browser to provide a "framework" for the program. A "Java Application" stands alone (does not run inside a browser window).
Proxy
A network service with intercepts requests between a client and a server.

Networking Terms

4-layer model

Process Layer
  • To aid in the understanding and in the evolution of networks, network specialists and software developers have defined a four-layer model to describe the network.
  • Each layer is built on the foundation of the layer below.

Transport Layer

Network Layer

Data Link Layer

Data Link Layer

Process
  • Physical connectivity between machines
    • This is the layer where the "wire" is.
  • "Ethernet", "FDDI", "ATM", etc.
  • Addressing: "Ethernet Address", etc.
  • Equipment: Repeaters, Bridges, Switches

Transport

Network

Data Link

Network Layer

Process
  • Inter-machine Communication
  • The "IP" of "TCP/IP" (Internet Protocol)
  • Addressing: "IP Address"
  • Equipment: Routers, Gateways

Transport

Network

Data Link

Transport Layer

Process
  • End-to-End Communication
    • Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
    • User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
  • Addressing: "Port"
  • Equipment: Firewalls, Proxies

Transport

Network

Data Link

Process Layer

Process
  • User Programs
  • Telnet, WWW, FTP, etc.

Transport

Network

Data Link

"Low" Speeds

Modems
ITU V.34 (spring 1995) 28.8Kbps 1
ITU V.34 (fall 1996) 33.6Kbps 1.5
ITU V.90 56Kbps 2
Enhanced Telephony
ISDN
 56.6Kbps, 128Kbps 2 to 4
xDSL 1Mbps to 5Mbps 35 to 173

 

"High" Speeds

"T" series/"E" series
T1 1.54Mbps 54
E1 2.048Mbps 73
T3 45.5Mbps 1,580
"OC" series
OC-3 155Mbps
 5,382
OC-12 622Mbps 21,597
OC-48 2.488Gbps 86,388

 

Computer Hardware terms

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

MHz: (Mega Hertz)
Number of instruction cycles per second
MIPS, SPECS
Relative measures of CPU processing capacity
CISC: Complex Instruction Set Chip
One instruction to the CPU does many things
RISC: Reduced Instruction Set Chip
To do one thing may require several CPU cycles
Cache
Typically, a place to store data on a faster medium to improve performance

Memory

I'm thinking about this now (While there's power)
Buffer Cache
Disk information stored in RAM
Segmentation
Separation of one program from another
Virtual
Increase the amount of RAM by turning disk space into memory storage
Paging/Swapping
Moving blocks of virtual RAM to and from the disk

Disk terms

Too big to think about all at once. (Who needs power)
Seek time
The amount of time to locate a particular piece of data
Rotational delay
The amount of time it takes for the disk to spin to a particular point
Slice or Partition
A manageable unit of disk space
RAID: Redundant array of inexpensive disks
Improve performance and reliability by storing more than one copy of the data
Striping
Breaking a file of data across several disks to improve access time
Mirroring
Duplicate writes to more than one disk
Hot swappable
The ability to change a component while the system is still running

Software Terms

Operating System (OS) terms

I'm in charge
Kernel
Absolute core functions of the operating system
Panic, crash
When the absolute core functions cannot continue
crash dump
Describe the panic in excruciating detail

UNIX terms

Winner: best overall terminology
regular expression
%s/\([^\.!]*\)\([\.!] \)\([^\.!]*\)/\1\2 In my opinion, \3/g
vi (vee-eye)
Common full-screen editor found on UNIX systems
sh,csh (The Shell)
User interface into the UNIX operating system
perl
General-purpose programming language (also popular as a CGI programming language)
fsck (File System Check)
Program to report and fix problems with disk partitions
uerf, vmstat, iostat
System report and performance utilities
process
One instance of a program running on the system
runaways, zombies, orphans and parents
Types of processes: the dysfunctional UNIX family

File terms

Everything is a file
Filesystem
The "format" of the slice or partition.
I-nodes
Directory entries for files, directories, devices, and other special things

Programming

Everything is a computer
C, MFC/C++, Java
Programming languages
Compile
The process of translating human-readable instructions into machine instructions
Source
Human-readable instructions; input to the compiler
Code
Machine instructions; produced by the compiler
Libraries
Shared code

INNOPAC terms

File terms

Files specific to the INNOPAC software
IIIDB
The root level filesystem for the INNOPAC system
HM7
INNOPAC programs live here
DFILES, IFILES, KFILES
The library database files: Data files, Index files, and Keyword files
DATA
Configuration information and log files for the INNOPAC programs
INDEX INDEX
Keeps track of the real data in the DFILES, IFILES, and KFILES
BIBTEMP
Changes to INNOPAC records go here

Programs terms

INNOPAC program names
Control, background processor
Reads changes out of the BIBTEMP file and performs them on the database files
autoindex
Builds the indexes
indexcheck
Checks and fixes indexes
iiiinit
The "launch pad" for INNOPAC programs
bldsys (Build Sys)
III's program to build the INNOPAC code
verdb (Ver-D-B)
Checks the integrity of the database files
cook ("Check Out Okay?")
The state of circ

Trouble call terms

When things go bad
record in use by the system
A program has stopped unexpectedly and left the record locked
syserr
A data file where programs report on their bad behavior (only seen by III staff)
corrupted
Something is wrong

Java Terms

We'll see if we can detect a theme here.
JDK
Java Development Kit, What the programmers use
Plugin
Like Acrobat, a way of extending a browsers Java to the latest available from SUN
Virtual Machine
Built from many individual virtual items. A idealized Java computer where Java programs run.
Beans
A collection of Java components
Jars
Where you keep your beans
Swing
Origin obscure. A toolkit full of cool GUI things
Pane, Panel, Frame, View
All the same, an independent rectangle on the screen with stuff in it

Closing Thoughts

Good resources

PC Webopaedia
http://www.pcwebopedia.com/
Click & Learn course
http://www.mkdata.dk/click/
ILC Glossary of Internet Terms
http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html

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