Here's a glossary of common terms to help you communicate with the Internet natives.

AIFF - a digital audio format popular on the MacIntosh platform

Animated GIF - several frames of a picture that plays back in order

AU - a digital audio format, originated in UNIX

Browser - software that provides a display of the information available on the WWW

Cable Modem - a type of modem which uses TV cable channels

C / C++ - General purpose computer programming languages

CGI - Common Gateway Interface, a programming interface that allows a program to run on the "host" computer

Domain name - a unique name for a location on the Internet

Download - transfer something from a remote computer to your local computer

Email - Electronic mail, the capability to send written messages to someone using a computer connected to a computer network. Excellent communication medium for delivering information and keeping in contact with associates and clients. Email can be delivered to a FAX machine. It is possible to have "attachments" to email such as files or documents.

Ethernet - a network interface and standard

FTP - File Transfer Protocol, a protocol that defines how files are copied from one computer to another.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format, a graphics format originally developed by UNISYS and made common by CompuServe

GIF 87a - the original GIF format

GIF 89a - a newer GIF format which includes animation and transparency

Gopher/WAIS - A menu-based, text-oriented system for exploring the Internet, allowing one to peruse databases that reside on the Internet. Our government has many gopher servers. WAIS (Wide Area Information Search) is another catalog of information which can be searched, both in abstract and full-text versions.

Host / Remote Computer - A computer, usually a large expensive computer, that is located at a remote facility

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language, the coding system used for documents on the World Wide Web

HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, the metho Protocol, the method of transferring data over the WWW

Interlaced - a method of storing or portraying a picture in which adjacent lines are not displayed or stored sequentially

InterNIC - the organization that oversees the distribution of domain names

IP Number - an address on the Internet

ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network. A connection through the telephone network where typically there are two 64K "B" channels and one "D" channel. The "B" channels can be combined for a throughput of 128Kbps

IRC - Internet Relay Chat, a service permitting large numbers of users to communicate in writing via the Internet in real time.

JAVA - A general purpose computer programming language developed by Sun Micro Systems

JAVASCRIPT - A browser scripting language developed by Netscape

JPEG - Joint Photography Experts Group, another common graphics format on the Internet Microsoft extensions - extensions developed to extend the capabilities of HTML as displayed in their browser products

Mailing Lists / Listserv - An electronic discussion on a given topic. A mechanism to send a large number of people the same document while only "posting" it once. People subscribe to a Listserv and mailing lists. Most lists are unmoderated, meaning you will receive everything that is sent to that list. Moderated lists are lderated lists are lists that are checked for content and only what is appropriate is forwarded.

MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface, refers to mumusic which is recorded as a series of events and is played back by use of a MIDI instrument

MODEM - A device that interfaces between a computer and analog phone line. comes from MOdulate / DEModulate.

MPEG - Motion Picture Experts Group, a widely accepted format for compressed video Netscape extensions - extensions developed to extend the capabilities of HTML as displayed in their browser products

Newsgroups - the place where you can ask questions of experts and get answers and correspond with other people interested in a topic. Anyone can create a newsgroup. Currently there are about 18,000 newsgroups.

OC3 - Optical Carrier 3 - 155.52M bps

OC12 - Optical Carrier 12 - 540M bps

PERL - Practical Extraction and Report Language, a computer language commonly used for programming

PPP - Point to Point Protocol

QuickTime - a widely accepted audio / video format

QuickTime VR - a widely accepted video format which allows the user to control their point of view within a panoramic environment

RealAudio - a streaming audio format developed by Progressive Networks and widely accepted on the WWW

RealMedia - a streaming multimedia format

SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language, the predecessor or HTML

ShockWave - a m> ShockWave - a multimedia playback method from MacroMedia

SLIP - Serial Line Interface Protocol

Streaming - a technique whereby data is played out before the entire file has all been received

T1 - 1.544M bps, also known as DS1 (Data Service level 1)

T3 - 44.736Mbps, also known as DS3 (Data Service level 3)

TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol

TrueSpeech - a streaming audio format

UNIX - Computer operating system

Upload - transfer something from your local computer to a remote computer

Video for Windows - a audio / video format developed by Microsoft

VRML - Virtual Reality Modeling Language, a coding system used for documents that contain 3D graphic elements

WAV - a digital audio format popular on the Windows platform

World Wide Web (WWW) - A hypertext-based system to find, display and access Internet resources. Today's WWW allows for interactivity, sound, MIDI, animation, 3D graphics, 3D worlds, and video. Also, today many databases are becoming available through WWW interface. Search engines like Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, give access to a wide base of information. WWW incorporate private or public chat capabilities.