Cyberspace conversations are on the rise. Even Happy Hour chit chat lends itself to Net Surfing. Minority Career News has defined a few terms and phrases that will guide you through the latest language barriers.
· Bulletin Board System (BBS). A computer service similar to an on-line service, usually smaller (and cheaper) with fewer users, fewer features and a narrow focus. A bulletin board is also any on-line or Internet area for posting messages.
· Bits Per Second (bps). How fast modems send and receive data. A 14.4 modem moves 14,400 bits per second; a 28.8 modem , also known as a V.34 (say it V-dot-three-four) is twice as fast. An earlier term, baud, is considered archaic.
· Browser. Software to view the graphical "pages" on the Word Wide Web.
· Chat Rooms. Areas on an on-line service, BBS or the Internet that allow real-time, typed-in communication with other people.
· Cyberspace. The metaphoric space where electronic communication takes place. Everything in cyberspace is "virtual" - not physically real.
· E-mail. Electronic mail messages from one user to another.
· Emoticons. Little punctuation faces to add body language to cybercommunication. A smiley looks like this :) or, with a nose, like this :-) and a winky is this ;).
· Flame. A nasty on-line message or personal attack, often sent in response to a posting the flamer disagrees with.
· Forum. An on-line area on a particular topic.
· FTP. File transfer protocol. A way to download remote files over the Internet.
· GIF. (pronounced jif). A format for transmitting photos.
· Gopher. A way to search for information on the Internet with a program that lets you burrow into a remote computer's files through on-screen menus.
· Home Page. A main page on the Web. Companies and organizations have home pages that serve as virtual brochures, individuals' home pages often share personal information.
· Hypertext. Hidden codes that let users click on a highlighted word or phrase to automatically access a related site. Hypertext markup language (HTML) is the language in which Web pages are written and linked; hypertext transfer protocol (http) is how information is sent over the Web.
· IMHO. In my humble opinion. Often appended to opinionated posted views.
· Surfing the 'Net. Navigating the Internet, usually random Web browsing.
· Sysop. The system operator of a BBS. (pronounced SIS-op).
· Upload. To send a copy of a file from your computer to another computer.
· Usernet Newsgroups. More than 15,000 Internet bulletin boards on a huge variety of topics. Each line of discussion is called a thread.
· URL. Uniform Resource Locator (pronounced you-are-el) is the address of an Internet site; all Web URL's start with http://.
· World Wide Web. The fastest-growing part of the 'Net. It is set up for viewing colorful magazine style " pages" containing text, photos and sound.
MCN Staff