Web Terms S - Z

A - F  ||   G - L   ||   M - R

S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

S

scroll bar -- The bar on the side or bottom of a window that allows the user to scroll up and down through the window's contents. Scroll bars have scroll arrows at either end and a scroll box, all of which can be used to scroll around the window. 


scrolling -- Scrolling the chat screen is when you type in a single letter or symbol in the compose area and keep hitting send. This scrolls the chat screen very quickly and disrupts the chat conversation for others. This is very bad Netiquette and against the rules established for most chat rooms. 


search engine -- A program or web site that enables users to search for keywords on web pages throughout the World Wide Web. For example, Alta Vista is a popular search engine located at http://www.altavista.digital.com 


security -- Ensuring that private information remains private in an atmosphere where all other information is free. Security also means that viruses are prevented from infecting people's systems. 


SeniorNet -- A non-profit organization for older adults interested in using computers. 


Serial Line Internet Protocol -- (abbreviation: SLIP) 
A protocol used by TCP/IP routers and PCs to send packets over dial-up and leased-line connections. SLIP has been pretty much replaced by PPP. 


server -- A computer that provides information to client machines. For example, there are web servers that send out web pages, mail servers that deliver email, list servers that administer mailing lists, FTP servers that hold FTP sites and deliver files to users who request them, and name servers that provide information about Internet host names. 


shareware -- Software that you can download from a network and "try before you buy." If you like the software and decide to use it beyond the trial period, you must register with the author and pay a registration fee. If you don't wish to register as a user, you are often required to remove the software from your computer. 


shouting -- TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING IN ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS. Avoid this unless you really mean to shout. If you really mean to shout, do it out loud: it feels much better. 


shovelware -- A CD-ROM title that contains pre-existing material, usually taken from other media, that has been shoveled in by the developers in order to fill the 600 MB of disk space. 


SIG -- Abbreviation for Special Interest Group. 


sig -- Short for signature, a group of lines attached to the end of a message that identifies the author and often includes additional information such as contact information, organizational affiliation, or a favorite quote. Sigs can also include ASCII art. Netiquette suggests limiting sigs to a maximum of four or five lines. 


Silicon Alley -- The area of Manhattan where many Internet development companies are located. 


Silicon Valley -- The geographic center of the computer industry. Includes most of Santa Clara county and part of San Mateo county in California. 


SLIP -- See Serial Line Internet Protocol. 


smiley -- See emoticon. 


SNA -- See Systems Network Architecture. 


snail mail -- Regular postal mail, as opposed to email. Pejorative when implying postal mail's slowness relative to email. 


sneakernet -- The transfer of electronic information by physically carrying disks, tape, or some other media from one machine to another. Used ironically. 


SoHo -- Acronym for Small Office, Home Office. 


spam -- To send a message (usually an advertisement) to many discussion groups (bulletin boards, mailing lists, and/or newsgroups), without regard for its topical relevance. The act of spamming was pioneered in 1994 by Canter & Siegel, the immigration lawyers who sent an advertisement for their services to every USENET newsgroup and received a whole lot of flamage in return. 


spool -- A queue of files waiting to be printed. 


sprayer -- A computer program designed to serve web pages from multiple hosts in order to optimize traffic between the hosts. 


stage directions -- Used in chats to indicate vocal inflections, facial expressions, or body language. Usually surrounded by < > , for example < grin > and < hug > . 


status bar -- A bar at the bottom of a window that is used to indicate the status of a task. For example, when you send an email message, you'll see the status bar filling with dots indicating that your message is being sent. 


subroutine -- A piece of a program that is "called" from another part of the program. Often a well-structured program will consist of a short main routine that calls many subroutines to do the work. 


subscribe -- To add one's name to a mailing list. 


surf -- See net surfing. 


surge protector -- A device, usually in the form of a multi-plug bar, that protects your computer from being damaged by power surges. 


sysadmin -- The system administrator of a UNIX machine, or someone who maintains UNIX systems. See also root. 


sysop -- A system operator, usually the administrative manager of a BBS, mailing list, or newsgroup, who manages the day-to-day administrative tasks and makes sure the technical features work. 


Systems Network Architecture -- (abbreviation: SNA) 
A proprietary networking architecture used by IBM and IBM-compatible mainframe computers. 

T

T1 -- A high speed, high bandwidth leased line connection to the Internet. T1 connections deliver information at 1.544 megabits per second. 


T3 -- A high speed, high bandwidth leased line connection to the Internet. T3 connections deliver information at 44.746 megabits per second. 


TCP/IP -- Abbreviation for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, a collection of protocols that define the basic workings of the features of the Internet. 


telecommunications -- The science of sending signals representing voice, video, or data through telephone lines. 


telecommuting -- To work at home and use a computer and modem to communicate with the office. 


teledildonics -- Sex in a computer simulated environment. While it's not yet possible, except in conversational form in chat rooms and MUDs, it remains a future possibility. 


telnet -- A protocol which allows you to sign onto a remote UNIX computer from a another computer located anywhere on the Internet. To telnet into a remote computer, you usually need to supply a user ID and password that is recognized by the remote system. 


text box -- A box into which you can type text. 


thrash -- When you run out of hardware memory, an advanced operating system will free up memory space by moving the contents of some of your memory to disk. When that information is needed again, it is read from disk back into memory. When your computer is thrashing, memory is being swapped back and forth at such a rate that your hard drive is constantly spinning and not much else is happening with your computer. 


thread -- 1. A series of postings on a particular topic. Threads can be a series of bulletin board messages (for example, when someone posts a question and others reply with answers or additional queries on the same topic). A thread can also apply to chats, where multiple conversation threads may exist simultaneously. 
2. Also refers to an independent process taking place in a multi-tasking environment. 


tile -- To automatically arrange windows in a tile-like configuration. 


title bar -- The bar at the top of a window that displays the string of information about the item, usually a file name. 


toggle -- 1. A switch that is either on or off. 
2. If it is on, to turn it off; if it is off, to turn it on. 


token ring -- A type of LAN with nodes wired into a ring. 


toolbar -- The row of buttons right below the menu that perform special functions quickly and easily. 


TOSsed out -- Ejected from the chat rooms on America Online for violating its Terms of Service (TOS) agreement. 


traffic -- The load of packets carried by a network or portion of a network. Heavy traffic slows down the response time of the individual packets. 


triple-dub -- An abbreivated way to say "WWW" when reciting a URL. 


Trojan horse -- An insidious and usually illegal computer program that masquerades as a program that is useful, fun, or otherwise desirable for users to download to their system. Once the program is downloaded, it performs a destructive act. 


tweak -- To make many minor adjustments. To fine tune. Also, a minor adjustment. 

U

Unicode -- Like ASCII, Unicode is a code which assigns a number to each key on the keyboard. Unicode is newer and includes many characters not found in ASCII such as international characters and alphabets. 


Uniform Resource Locator -- (abbreviation: URL) 
An addressing scheme used by World Wide Web browsers to locate resources on the Internet. 


UNIX -- The operating system upon which the Internet was developed. UNIX was developed in the late 1960s/early 1970s as a joint venture between General Electric, AT&T Bell Laboratories, and Massachusetts Institute for Technology. UNIX grew with support from the University of California Berkeley and other universities. Pure UNIX is based upon a command line interface. However, just as DOS has Windows to provide a GUI environment, UNIX has GUI overlays as well -- the two most notable are NextStep and X Windows. There are several free versions of UNIX; Linux and FreeBSD are examples. Also spelled "Unix". 


upload -- To send a file to a network. See also download and crossload. 


urban legend -- A story, which may at one time have been true, that has grown from constant retelling into a mythical yarn. 


URL -- See Uniform Resource Locator. 


USENET -- The most available distribution of newsgroups is USENET, which contains over ten thousand unique newsgroups covering practically every human proclivity. It is not part of the Internet, but can be reached through most Internet service providers. USENET was originally implemented in 1979-80 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University. The names of newsgroups are comprised of a string of words separated by periods, such as "rec.humor.funny" or "misc.jobs.offered". The first word (i.e.. "rec" or "misc") represents the top level category of newsgroups. The second word (in these examples "humor" and "jobs") represents a subcategory of the first level, and the third word a subcategory of the second. 


user -- A person who uses computer software or hardware as opposed to someone who develops computer software or hardware. Sometimes used in a diminutive sense as in "I can't believe how brain-dead our users are." 


user ID -- The name by which you are identified by a particular network. In order to log onto a system, you need to supply both a user ID and a password 


utility -- A small computer program that performs some very useful function. For example, utilities exist to convert files from one format to another, to compress files, to detect and eliminate viruses, and to defragment hard drives. Utilities fill the gaps in an operating system, providing useful features that were left out. As an operating system grows, it often incorporates the features that were previously delivered only by utilities. 


UUCP -- Abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. UNIX software that allows email and news messages to be exchanged on a store-and-forward basis between remote computers. Before the rise of the Internet, this was the main way that remote UNIX machines were networked. It is no longer in wide use. 


uuencode -- A process of converting a binary file to ASCII characters so that it can be easily transmitted by an ASCII-only protocol such as basic text email. Once the uuencoded file has been transferred it is uudecoded at the other end to transform it back to its original binary form. Uuencoding is not a form of cryptography or a security protocol. Anyone with a uuencoded file has the capacity to uudecode (assuming of course they have the uudecode utility program on their computer). 

V

virtual -- A commonly used adjective that means having all of the properties of x while not necessarily being x. For example, "virtual Friday" in a workplace is the last day of work before a break, that is to say it is like Friday but may or may not actually be Friday. A "virtual reality" is an artificial environment that appears to be its own reality. On a mainframe, a "virtual machine" gives the user all of the properties and "feel" of a separate personal computer. 


Virtual Reality Markup Language -- (abbreviation: VRML) 
A scripting language used to define three-dimensional "worlds". 


virus -- An insidious piece of computer code written to damage systems. Viruses can be hidden in executable program files posted online. 


VRML -- See Virtual Reality Markup Language. 

W

WAIS -- Pronounced "ways", an abbreviation for Wide Area Information Server. A system which allows you to search over 400 WAIS databases located throughout the Internet for information. 


wannabee -- A would-be hacker. 


webliography -- A listing of source World Wide Web sites. 


webmaster -- The person in charge of administrating a World Wide Web site. By convention, the webmaster of Internet domain foo.com can be reached at the email address webmaster@foo.com. 


wetware -- Hacker slang for the human central nervous system, especially the brain. Most computing systems have three essential components: software, hardware, and wetware. 


whois -- A program located at http://internic.net/cgi-bin/whois that queries the InterNIC's database of domain names. Want to put a home page up at www.insertyournamehere.com? Better check whois to make sure that the name is not taken. 


Wide Area Network -- (abbreviation: WAN) 
A private long distance network that uses leased lines to connect computers or LANs. 


window -- An old term for a framed active area displayed on a bit-mapped computer display. 


Windows -- A series of operating systems that run on top of DOS, providing a GUI environment. Microsoft Corporation claims this term as a trademark. 


Wintel -- Contraction of Windows and Intel. The hardware and software combination of an Intel CPU running Microsoft Windows. Often used with the word "platform" in opposition to the UNIX or Macintosh platforms. Sometimes used in a derogatory sense to connote the monopoly powers that Intel and Microsoft yield. 


wired -- 1. The state of being connected. 
2. Capitalized: a popular magazine that caters to the digerati. 


wizard -- 1. A software routine that allows for easy "yes or no" answers to configuration, installation, and set-up questions. 
2. Someone who is adept at making computers perform their "magic". 


wizzywig -- See WYSIWYG. 


World Wide Web -- (abbreviation: WWW) 
A distributed hypertext system invented by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXT Computer. Currently, one of the most popular services offered on the Internet. Web pages are viewed using browsing software like Netscape Navigator, Sun Microsystems Hot Java, or Microsoft Internet Explorer. See also browser, Hypertext Markup Language, net surfing, and triple-dub. 


worm -- 1. An insidious and usually illegal computer program that is designed to replicate itself over a network for the purpose of causing harm and/or destruction. While a virus is designed to invade a single computer's hard drive, a worm is designed to invade a network. The most infamous worm was created by Robert Tappan Morris in November 1988; it infiltrated over 6,000 network systems around the globe. 
2. Acronym for "Write Once Read Many". Used to describe optical disk drives that can only be written once, usually for archival purposes. 


WRT -- Abbreviation for With Respect To. 


WWW -- See World Wide Web. 


WYSIWYG -- Abbreviation for What You See Is What You Get. When a GUI displays a document on screen that is a very close representation of what you will actually get when you print it out. For example, the NextStep operating system produces screen displays and print-outs from the same Postscript code. 

Y

Yahoo -- A leading Internet search engine at http://www.yahoo.com 


YMMV -- Abbreviation of Your Mileage May Vary, taken from the standard disclaimer attached to EPA mileage ratings. This warning can be found in some UNIX freeware distributions.