browser: |
software used to view urls (web pages) |
| byte: |
eight binary bits that represent a character or number in digital computers |
| domain: |
a group of computers and devices on a network that are administered as a unit with common rules and procedures; the Domain Name Server (DNS) relates host names to IP addresses; all devices sharing a common part of the IP address are said to be in the same domain |
| Ethernet: |
a digital communication standard for wiring |
| Ethernet Slots: |
Most desktop Windows PCs have ISA or PCI slots or some combination of these. ISA stands for Industry Standard Architecture; PCI stands for Peripheral Component Interconnect. PCI cards have two significant advantages over ISA cards. Most PCI cards are designed to be "Plug and Play" (Windows 95/98 will automatically configure it for you) and are significantly faster than ISA cards. For most computers, an ISA card will do just fine. Most laptops built in the past few years have a PCMCIA (or PC Card) slot. PCMCIA stands for Personal Computer Memory Computer Industry Association; a large number of PCMCIA cards are RAM or data storage cards. There are also PCMCIA Ethernet cards.
The network in the residence halls has a usual top speed of 10 megabytes per second (10 Mbps). It is uncommon for a computer to be able to fully utilize a network of this speed. Thus, many of the "speed gains" that you get when buying a PCI card won't actually make your network connection work any faster. We suggest, if you are planning on purchasing a PCI Ethernet card for your computer and will keep that computer for a few years, you may want to buy a card capable of both 10 and 100 megabytes per second. In many cases, the cost of a PCI card that will run at both speeds is only slightly higher than the cost of a 10 Mbps-only card and will increase the useful lifetime of the Ethernet card. |
| IP Address: |
a unique number assigned to a computer on a TCP/IP network; for a computer to be on the Internet, it must have an assigned IP address; there are always four numeric values in an IP address, separated by periods.
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| ISP: |
Internet Service Provider |
| RAM: |
random access memory; computer memory used by the processor to load and run programs |
| TCP/IP: |
Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol; TCP and IP are separate protocols which together allow computers on the Internet to communicate by providing a reliable way for bytes to be delivered over a network connection |
| URL: |
Uniform Resource Locator; a name that uniquely identifies a document or service on the Internet; URLs are most commonly associated with web addresses, although they can be used to refer to any Internet source. |
WWW:
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World Wide Web |
