Internet Glossary of Terms

BACK/FORWARD

Buttons in the browser toolbar. BACK returns you to the document previously viewed. FORWARD goes to the next document, after you go BACK.

BOOLEAN LOGIC

Way to combine terms using "AND," "OR," "AND NOT" and sometimes "NEAR." AND requires all terms appear in a record. OR retrieves records with either term. AND NOT excludes terms. Parentheses may be used to sequence operations and group words. See Require/Reject term and Fuzzy and.

BOOKMARK

Way to store in your computer sites you wish to return to. Click on BOOKMARKS in Netscape Menu Bar at top. Then ADD BOOKMARK. To visit a bookmark, click on BOOKMARKS and select the site from the list.  You can download a bookmark file to diskette and install it on another computer. Select VIEW BOOKMARKS, then FILE, then SAVE AS. Follow procedures to name file and select diskette under Save To.   You can carry your bookmarks on a diskette and "import" them on another PC. Select VIEW BOOKMARKS, then FILE, then IMPORT (specify file on your diskette). Also see Favorites for Internet Explorer.

BROWSERS

Browsers are software programs that enable you to view WWW documents. They "translate" HTML-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mosaic, Macweb, and Netcruiser are examples of browsers that enable you to view text and images and many other WWW features. They are software that must be installed on your computer.  See also LYNX, a browser often used from slow modems because it does not display images, colors, or sound, but lets you perform most basic WWW functions and see the content.

CACHE

A cache temporarily stores web pages you have visited in your computer. A copy of documents you retrieve is stored in cache. When you use GO, BACK, or any other means to revisit a document, browsers first check to see if it is in cache and will retrieve it from there because it is much faster than retrieving it from the server. If memory allocated to cache in your computer becomes full, browsers will either stall or discard older documents.

CASE SENSITIVE

Capital letters (upper case) retrieve only upper case. Most other search tools are not case sensitive or only respond to initial capitals, as in proper names. It is always safe to key all lower case (no capitals), because lower case will always retrieve upper case.

DNS ENTRY

"Domain Name Server entry" frequently appears a browser error message. It refers to the initial part of a URL, down to the first /, where the domain, server, and name of the host are listed (most often in reversed order, name first, then server, then domain).

DOMAIN

Hierarchical scheme for indicating logical and sometimes geographical venue of a web-page from the network. In the US, common domains are edu (education), gov (government agency), net (network related), com (commercial), org (nonprofit and research organizations). Outside the US, domains indicate country: ca (Canada), uk (United Kingdom), au (Australia), jp (Japan), fr (France), etc. Neither of these lists is exhaustive.

DOWNLOAD

This is the procedure for downloading or saving a file from the Internet to your local drive(s).  A majority of sites include cursory instructions for downloading files from their servers.

FAVORITES

The Internet Explorer version of bookmarks.  This is a way to save site addresses for return visits.  To save a site, go to the site and then Click on the favorites toolbar and select Add to favorites.  You can then customize where to save it and also auto-updates.

FIELD SEARCHING

Ability to limit a search by requiring word or phrase to appear in a specific field of documents (e.g., title, url, link). See LIMITING TO FIELD.

FIND

Button in Netscape Tool Button Bar at top. Searches for word(s) keyed in document in screen only. Useful to locate a term in a long document. In Internet Explorer, this is under Edit | Find.

FRAMES

A format for web documents that divides the screen into segments, each with a scroll bar as if it were as "window" within the window. Usually, selecting a category of documents in one frame shows the contents of the category in another frame. To go BACK in a frame, position the cursor in the frame an press the right mouse button, and select "Back in frame" (or Forward). You can adjust frame dimensions by positioning the cursor over the border between frames and dragging the border up/down or right/left holding the mouse button down over the border.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. Ability to transfer rapidly entire files from one computer to another, intact for viewing or other purposes.

FUZZY AND

In ranking of results, documents with any terms (Boolean OR) are retrieved, but those with all terms (Boolean AND) are ranked first.

GO

Button in Netscape Menu Bar at top. Provides list of recent sites you visited, retained for the current session only. Click on any site in the list to return to the site. For a more permanent marker, make a BOOKMARK.

HOST

Computer that provides web-documents to clients or users.

HTML

Hypertext Markup Language. A standardized language of computer code, imbedded in "source" documents behind all Web documents, containing the textual content, images, links to other documents (and possibly other applications such as sound or motion), and formatting instructions for display on the screen. When you view a Web page, you are looking at the product of this code working behind the scenes in conjunction with your browser. Browsers are programmed to interpret HTML for display. You can see HTML in Netscape by selecting the View pop-down menu tab, then "Document Source." If you download a document as "Source," the file will contain HTML markup codes and can be viewed in Netscape and other browsers. In Internet Explorer you can go under View | Source or right-click directly on the page and choose View Source.

INTERNET (Upper case I)

The vast collection of interconnected networks that all use the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60Øs and early 70Øs. An "Internet" (lower case i) is any computers connected to each other (a network), and are not part of the Internet unless the use TCP/IP protocols. An "intranet" is a private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. An intranet may be on the Internet or may simply be a network.

IP Address or IP Number

(Internet Protocol number or address). A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2 Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP address. If a machine does not have an IP number, it is not really on the Internet. Most machines also have one or more Domain Names that are easier for people to remember. A true Internet domain is also "kapnkreations.com" which is also represented as a set of numbers.

JAVA

A network-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to our computer or files. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations, calculators, and other fancy tricks. We can expect to see a huge variety of features added to the Web using Java, since you can write a Java program to do almost anything a regular computer program can do, and then include that Java program in a Web page. For more information search any of these jargon terms in the PC Webopedia.

KEYWORD(S)

A word searched for in a search command. Keywords are searched in any order. Use spaces to separate keywords in simple keyword searching. To search keywords exactly as keyed (in the same order), see PHRASE.

LIMITING TO A FIELD

Requiring that a keyword or phrase appear in a specific field of documents retrieved. Most often used to limit to the "Title" field in order to find documents primarily about one or more keywords.

LINK

The URL imbedded in another document, so that if you click on the highlighted text or button referring to the link, you retrieve the outside URL. If you search the field "link:", you retrieve on text in these imbedded URL's which you do not see in the documents.

LINK "ROT"

Term used to describe the frustrating and frequent problem caused by the constant changing in URLs. A Web page or search tool offers a link and when you click on it, you get an error message (e.g., "not available") or a page saying the site has moved to a new URL. URLs change frequently because the documents are moved to new computers, the file structure on the computer is reorganized, or sites are discontinued. If there is no referring link to the new URL, there is little you can do but try to search for the same or an equivalent site from scratch.

LISTSERVERS

A discussion group mechanism that permits you to subscribe and receive and participate in discussions via e-mail.

LYNX browser

Lynx is a "browser" program like Netscape or Internet Explorer that can access information on World Wide Web, but without access to images, film, or sound. It is used often from slow modems to eliminate the need to wait to download images and other features. Lynx allows you to read the text of any WWW document, and to select hypertext links in these documents. You can use Lynx to go to any WWW document, to fill out forms available on WWW, to print and save files and perform many other tasks.

META-SEARCH ENGINE

Search engines that automatically submit your keyword search to several other search tools, and retrieve results from all their databases. Convenient time-savers for relatively simple keyword searches (one or two keywords or phrases in " "). See META-SEARCH ENGINES page for complete descriptions and examples.

NEWSGROUPS

A discussion group operated through the Internet. Not to be confused with LISTSERVERS which operate through e-mail. Check out www.dejanews.com.

PHRASE

More than one KEYWORD, searched exactly as keyed (all terms required to be in documents, in the order keyed). Enclosing keywords in quotations " " forms a phrase in AltaVista, Infoseek, and some other search tools. Some times a phrase is called a "character string."

+REQUIRE or

-REJECT A TERM OR PHRASE

Insert + immediately before a term (no space) to limit search to documents containing a term. Insert - immediately before a term (no space) to exclude documents containing a term. Can be used immediately (no space) before the " " delimiting a phrase.

Functions partially like basic BOOLEAN LOGIC. If + precedes more than one term, they are required as with Boolean AND. If - is used, terms are excluded as with Boolean AND NOT. If neither + no - is used, the default if Boolean OR. However, full Boolean logic allows parentheses to group and sequence logical operations, and +/- do not.

RESULTS RANKING

The order in which search results appear. Each search tool uses its own unique algorithm. Most use "fuzzy and" combined with factors such as how often your terms occur in documents and whether in title or how near the top of the text. Ranking is automatic in almost all systems. Alta Vista Advanced Search and Disinformation permit you specify terms for documents to rank first. Infoseek allows you to SUB-SEARCH with the same powerful effect as Results Ranking.

SCROLL (DOWN, UP, LEFT, RIGHT)

Moving up or down within a document in your screen. Use scroll bar at right. Click on arrow down or arrow up. Drag the scroll button down or up. Or click on the page up or page down icons at the bottom of the bar. If you need to scroll left or right, use the scroll bar at the bottom.

STEMMING

In keyword searching, word endings are automatically removed (lines becomes line); searches are performed on the stem + common endings (line or lines retrieves line, lines, line's, lines', lining, lined). Not very common as a practice, and not always disclosed. Can usually be avoided by placing a term in " ".

STOP

Button at end of Netscape's Tool Button Bar. Use to stop downloading of a document.

SUBJECT DIRECTORY

An approach to Web documents by a lexicon of subject terms hierarchically grouped. May be browsed or searched by keywords. Subject directories are smaller than other searchable databases, because of the human involvement required to classify documents by subject.

SUB-SEARCHING

Ability to search only within the results of a previous search. Enables you to refine search results, in effect making the computer "read" the search results for you selecting documents with terms you sub-search on. Can function much like RESULTS RANKING.

TCP/IP

(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) -- This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software. See also IP Address.

TELNET

Internet service allowing one computer to log onto another, connecting as if not remote.

THESAURUS

In some search tools, the terms you choose to search on can lead you to other terms you may not have thought of. Different search tools have different ways of presenting this information, sometimes with suggested words you may choose among and sometimes automatically. The terms are based on the terms in the results of your search, not on some dictionary-like thesaurus.

TITLE (of a document)

Normally the highlighted header or title, usually underlined in search tools. The title displayed in search engines is generally from the "meta" field called title, which is not mandatory in HTML coding. Sometimes you retrieve a document with "No Title" as its supposed title; this is caused when the meta-title field is left blank.

In Alta Vista and some other search tools, title: search also matches on the "meta" field, which contains document descriptors not displayed on the Web. See also LIMITING TO A FIELD.

TRUNCATION

In a search, the ability to enter the first part of a keyword, insert a symbol (usually *), and accept any variant spellings or word endings, from the occurrence of the symbol forward. (E.g., femini* retrieves feminine, feminism, feminism, etc.)

URL

Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of any Web document. This is entered in to the Address or Location field of a browser.

USENET

Bulletin board-like network featuring thousands of "newsgroups."