Internet Word of the Day Archive

April 01, 2011

Slang for a person who only goes online on the weekends or holidays, with all the other cybertourists, clogging the Internet by their sheer numbers.

A technology that enables a user to interact with a computer by directly touching the screen, as opposed to using a mouse, keyboard, or stylus. This is made possible through a touch-sensitive membrane over the computer screen.

No Text Back Needed

April 02, 2011

Want To Buy

A small, usually invisible graphic used in an HTML document to create a page format. "I had to use a pixel shim to get the type to space correctly."

In general, the fourth dimension is the dimension we live in, containing the dimensions length, height, width and time. This dimension is rarely spoken of, because most people don't know time is dimension as well.

In mathematics the fourth dimension, or a four-dimensional ("4-D") space, is an abstract concept derived by generalizing the rules of three-dimensional (3-D) space. It has been studied by mathematicians and philosophers for almost two hundred years, both for its own interest and for the insights it offered into mathematics and related fields.

April 03, 2011

The set of directional tools presented on a Web site, or the hyperlinked options that when clicked on take you to other sections of the site. The names on a nav bar are usually determined by the titles of the sections within a Web site.

Almost all Web pages are linked in numerous places to numerous other pages, per the nature of the Web itself, and nav bars are supposed to guide users through what could seem like a tangled mess.

Actually it is "-age" which is a suffix used in slang to exaggerate a word and give it much larger meaning. For example, "Where's the foodage?" means "I'm really hungry." Similarly, "major lossage" indicates a big failure.

I Owe You

April 04, 2011

A software program for reading and posting articles to newsgroups. Most Web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer) have the functionality built-in so that all you need to do is configure your computer to read and post news articles (the newsgroup messages). A newsreader is also contained within e-mail programs (such as Outlook Express) and there are a number of highly featured stand-alone programs available.

Slang in Japanese for generation-e people who are avid collectors. For example, manga otaku collect and trade comics and pop ido otaku collect and trade cards about their favorite celebrities.

Frequently Asked Questions List

April 05, 2011

This Won't Hurt A Bit

The name given to the always-on, high-speed, broadband, ubiquitous, multiformat Web, coined by author Thomas Friedman.

Industry expert and venture capitalist John Doerr believes that six Webs will emerge to make up the evernet (of which only one is deployed now, the PC Web). Here they are:

PC Web - see: World Wide Web

Voice Web - see: voice recognition, IVR

Hand Web - see: handheld, handy

Broadband Web - see: smart home

Video Web - making use of video servers

e-Web - machine-to-machine communication.

The name for when a phone call goes directly to voice mail without the recipient's phone ever ringing. 

April 06, 2011

A method for converting binary information into ASCII, it can be used for posting to Usenet and/or e-mailing with non-MIME compliant mail readers.

Software that never makes it off the drawing board, or that's been hyped up for months but isn't available anywhere.

To Be Continued

April 07, 2011

Basis In Fact -or- Before I Forget

The process of matching domain names with their Internet Protocol numbers (IP numbers). A combination of computers and software (referred to as "name servers") use the data in the Domain Name System (DNS) to determine which IP numbers correspond to a particular domain name. Once the domain name is resolved, a Web site will "come up" when you type in a URL.

You've been "gatored" when you're visiting one website and find yourself being hijacked and whisked to a competitor's site. Named for a plug-in from Gator.com that does the dirty work, it's also known as hijackware.

April 08, 2011

See You -or- Cracking Up

When a Web server (or Web site) is unable to handle the number of requests it is recieving and it goes down (generally due to the server crashing), it is said to be "slashdotted." This expression originated from slashdot.org, a technology news and information site which became so popular that when it mentioned another Web site, that site would become virtually unreachable because too many people were trying to access it.

Now the expression extends to anytime a Web site experiences a surge in user traffic to the point of a grinding halt because it is mentioned on any other Web site. This often results in Webmasters having to pay huge bills if they pay by bandwidth. You may hear it like this, "I can't load the page, the site must be slashdotted."

Slashdot is so popular that traffic from its links can cripple small Web sites, sometimes for days. So a couple of fans have set up a site called Mirrordot to alleviate the problem by hosting copies of sites mentioned on Slashdot.

In search engine technology, crawling refers to finding new online resources, such as new Web pages. Crawlers find these resources in a number of ways including collection frequency, which refers to the number of documents a term appears in compared to total number of documents; and term frequency, which is the number of occurrences of the search term in a document. 

April 09, 2011

A Web-based utility used to look up names in a remote database, it was initially used as an aid for finding the e-mail addresses of people in large institutions or companies. Now it is primarily used to look up domain name ownership information on InterNIC, the organization that maintains it. As such, it is a searchable database that contains information about networks, networking organizations, domain names, and the contacts associated with each, for the .com, .org, .net, .edu, .mil, and "ISO 3166" country code top-level domains. Whois also refers to the protocol, or set of rules, that describes the application used to access the database. Other organizations have implemented the whois protocol and maintain separate and distinct whois databases for their respective domains.

Having to wait "on hold" on the telephone for a very long time. When you call a company's tech support line, navigate through its VM system, but end up waiting and waiting for a real person, you are said to be on "eternal hold."

On The Phone

April 10, 2011

A nickname for the World Wide Web.

In a general sense, it is the portion of a program that interacts between a user and an application, meaning it is what you see on the computer screen. It usually refers to "user interface," which consists of the set of operating system commands, graphical display formats, and other features designed for use on a computer or a program.

A "graphical user interface" (GUI pronounced: goo-ey) provides users with a picture-oriented user-friendly way to see what is on a computer system. A "programming interface" consists of the set of statements, functions, options, and other ways of expressing program instructions and data. In this way, an interface is also thought of as a special point of entry into the software or operating system, where programmers can work on the actual code underlying everything.

Another definition of interface is the actual connection between two applications or two hardware devices, that facilitates the exchange of data. "To interface" is to make an appropriate physical connection between two pieces of hardware so that the equipment can communicate or work together effectively. The word has permeated into mainstream culture; as a verb "to interface" means to communicate with another person or object, as in "Did you see those two interface with each other?"

The Sooner, The Better

April 11, 2011

The merging of the camcorder and the home computer, made possible by advances in home computing power and affordability. DTV opens new possibilities for both the videomaker and the PC enthusiast and is considered to be at the forefront of video technology.

What Did You Say?

Web sites, mostly porn, that capitalize on URL misspellings (oracl.com, altavitsa.com, motorrola.com, et cetera) to attract visitors and advertisers or to spoof the original site.

April 12, 2011

Someone with a less-than-glamorous, entry-level computer graphics job. A "paintmonkey" may spend months on a nanosecond of digitized film footage, painting mattes, or doing monotonous touch-ups.

Sit On It And Rotate

Computers haven't been around all that long, but they've already left a legacy - and for most companies it's a nightmare. As companies move to more modern and sophisticated computer systems, they have to find a way to integrate their old or "legacy" systems into the new system. That's not always easy. The old systems often were written specifically for the functions they performed. Data can't always be transferred. In some cases, the old systems have to be kept running and the new systems are rigged to pull data from the older system as necessary.

April 13, 2011

Not That It Matters Much

Slang for online jargon used by bloggers.

April 14, 2011

A supplementary program that enables a Web browser to handle multimedia files, especially those containing animation, audio, and video. Most helper apps are freeware or shareware but do not come with Web browsers, so users must hunt down the ones they want and go through the tedious task of installing them and configuring them so the browser will launch the particular helper app when it encounters a multimedia file. An example of a helper app is RealPlayer.

Sh** Happens

Slang for those of us who pay for unstable, not-ready-for-prime-time software marketed by (greedy) computer companies.

April 15, 2011

A geek who prefers using the command line instead of a mouse.

One of several top-level domains assigned to URLs owned by the U.S. federal government (for example, www.whitehouse.gov is the URL for the White House).

Other domains include .com, .edu, .net, .mil, .org, and a long list of country codes. For a list of new suffixes, read the domain name definition.

This Oughta Be Good

April 16, 2011

A gruesome job of editing a writer's work by a hurried editor. The frankenedited piece is usually returned with a note asking the writer to suture it back together and to breath life back into it (by the next morning).

Your Loving Wife

April 17, 2011

A free, automated tool that checks your POP mail server for new mail, downloads the waiting e-mail, sets your system clock, and executes timed Telnet sessions.

A somewhat bland name for the creative contribution of the writers, artists, animators, and musicians whose work makes up the text, artwork, animation, and music on the Net. Usually thought of as simply the textual and graphical information contained in a Web site, content also refers to the structure and design in which the information is presented.

Content is one of the three big C's (content, commerce, and community), and Web sites often get judged and rated on the quality, quantity, and navigational flow of this information. A favorite quote in the industry is "Content is king" because without the content, there would be nothing to read or view on the Internet.

I Want Sex Now

April 18, 2011

Message Of The Day

A word for the interactive features of the Internet, implying activity, consistent change, or motion.

It also refers to the content of a Web site.

For example, Web enthusiasts get turned off when they visit a site that hasn't changed since the last time they were there. Since the Internet is a "dynamic environment" and technology makes it easy to continuously change text or images, Web developers strive for fresh, updated, dynamic Web sites.

Slang for when a graphical display (LED panel, bit-mapped text and graphics) starts to display garbage, as in "The thing just went Cyrillic on me."

April 19, 2011

An Internet technology found on some Web sites that literally broadcasts information, for example radio programming. Unlike typical surfing (which relies on a pull method of transferring Web pages), webcasting uses push technology.

Beer In, Beer Out

Term used in the online porn industry for viewers of adult content. "Jane's Guide is the X consumer's best friend."

April 20, 2011

In HTML, anchors mark the start and end of hypertext links. For example, consider this HTML code: <netlingo.com>. The first tag, <>, marks the start of the anchor, while the last tag, <>, marks the close of the anchor. The text in the middle, netlingo.com, is what shows as an underlined link when viewed by a Web browser.

Refers to bug-free code.

Now I've Got You, You Son Of a B*tch

April 21, 2011

The distribution of energy arranged in order of wavelengths, it is a primary concern of next-generation wireless technology. For example, the NTIA released a report discussing the potential for 3G wireless technology to share the 1.7 GHz frequency band with existing users (which include the U.S. Department of Defense). By consensus, the NTIA concluded that frequency-sharing along this spectrum was not feasible since that particular band is used for classified command communications and contol of military satellites.

For Some Reason

Checkout-counter displays that entice you to buy, buy, buy while you wait.

April 22, 2011

All My Love

A Web newbie. Someone who's so Web illiterate that they click on the bullets in lists thinking that they're clickable buttons.

In computing, a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) consists of a string of characters used to identify or name a resource on the Internet. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network (typically the World Wide Web) using specific protocols. Schemes specifying a specific syntax and associated protocols define each URI. Computer scientists may classify a URI as a locator (URL), or a name (URN), or both.

April 23, 2011

Slang for programming at a very fast pace.

Til Our Paths Cross Again

The semantic Web is considered an extension of the World Wide Web to the degree that computers interpret data and transmit that data in a way that is very perceptive to a user. In other words, the semantics of information and services on the Web is defined, making it possible for the Web to understand and satisfy the requests of people who use the content.

Semantics refers to the meaning of words. The semantic Web derives from W3C director Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange. This information exchange takes documents with computer-comprehensible meaning (semantics) and puts them on the Web. Tim Berners-Lee has said "People keep asking what Web 3.0 is. I think maybe when you've got an overlay of scalable vector graphics - everything rippling and folding and looking misty - on Web 2.0 and access to a semantic Web integrated across a huge space of data, you'll have access to an unbelievable data resource."

April 24, 2011

Often used in a derogatory manner to describe a netizen who is a newbie.

I Am Not A Lawyer

According to Intel CTO, Justin Rattner, who won the best-paper prize in the Symposium on Operating System Principles with their collaborators at Carnegie Mellon, it's the idea that is they could build tomorrow's processors out of [[array|arrays}} of relatively simple cores, they could deliver data-center-class [[solution|solutions}}. It would be data centers on chips and then arrays of those chips. As seen in Information Week

April 25, 2011

A tool for transferring files through e-mail.

Smart Little Rich Kid

A nickname for good e-mail, not spam.

April 26, 2011

A data storage medium that is widely used to . . . store data :-) It is a magnetically coated, flexible disk of Mylar, enclosed in a plastic envelope or case. At one time, floppies were the only medium of data storage for PCs, but the need to store larger amounts of data led to the development of cheap hard disks, CD-ROMs, and Zip Disks, which have become more popular than the little, old floppy.

A term coined by French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine to describe the US as "predominant in all categories". US strength extending beyond military might lead to a "domination of attitudes, concepts, language, and modes of life".

Lots Of Voluntary Effort

April 27, 2011

The process of shutting down a computer and then restarting it.

Damn Girl You're Fine

Used primarily within the context of social media, "listening" is the study of naturally occurring conversations, behaviors, and signals that may or may not be guided, which brings the voice of people's lives into the brand.

This means that when a business "listens" they are studying people's authentic, unfiltered thoughts, feelings and emotions that take place through interactions with brands or companies in an open, noncoercive manner (as opposed to market research).

In other words, it is observing what people do, such as online shopping or using brands as directed by other people, in ways that focus naturally occurring conversations on agreed-upon topics that take their own direction.

Listening solutions fit into five groups: search, media monitoring, text analytics, private communities, and full-service listening platform vendors.

To create, or to include. For example, "A growing number of brands are trying to figure out how to 'bake' listening into their business process."

April 28, 2011

Another term for software, it is basically a list of instructions (written in a programming language) that tells a computer how to execute certain functions and perform tasks in a specific way.

There are many kinds of programs, including:

* antivirus, which detect and remove computer viruses

* application, which are tools that perform specific kinds of tasks (such as word processing)

* authoring, to help create Web sites

* calendar, which contain a calendar or appointment book

* child, which are actually subprograms loaded into memory and used by the main program

* computer program components (CPC), which are routines or modules within a larger program

* conversion, which change a file from one format to another

* demo, which exhibit a sample of a program for free or for a low price

* drawing, used for drawing, illustrating, and editing graphics

* event-driven, which wait for events to occur and then respond to them

* file recovery, which restore files that have been damaged or unintentionally deleted,

* file transfer programs (FTP), which enable a user to copy a file from one computer to another

* formatingt, which erase a disk and prepare it for use

* system, such as the operating system

* utility, which maintain the computer system

Repondez S'il Vous Plait

When used as a verb in a general sense, "map" means to plan, delineate, or arrange in detail, for example "map one's future."  In a technical sense, map is a mathematical relation such that each element of a given set (the domain of the function) is associated with an element of another set (the range of the function).

A concept in online advertising, specifically brand advertising, that refers to an increase in awareness, attitudes, favorability, intent, and preference. It is measured by studying a group of people exposed to the online brand and a group not exposed to it. The hypothesis is that those who saw the brand, increases its lift. Researchers then try to identify what is driving that "brand lift."

April 29, 2011

As Far As I'm Concerned

Another name for a cell phone in Europe and parts of Asia, but this cell phone is also a PDA with a wireless connection. A handy is capable of many things including browsing the Web, and sending and receiving short messages (SMS), text messages, and e-mail.

For the largest list of Internet acronyms and text message jargon, click on "more info" below!

This phrase comes from the 1978 cult mass-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, leader of the group, ordered his followers to drink Kool-Aid laced with potassium cyanide. The phrase "don't drink the Kool-Aid" has come to mean, "Don't trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side" or, "Whatever they tell you, don't believe it too strongly".

In the dot-com world it refers to how many dot-coms require 14-hour workdays, not to mention unpaid on-call weekend duty, resulting in a "drink the Kool-Aid" environment.

It refers to the public side of your brand as discussed by consumers. Sources include publicly available online blogs, forums, ratings and review sites, Twitter and status update features, social networks like Facebook, or media-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr, and offline word of mouth.

April 30, 2011

Slang for anything that has little or no substance. For example, "That joint press release by those two companies was pure barneyware. It said nothing new; they just did it to generate media attention."

Oh I See, You Ate One Too

It refers to the "backyard" of your own brand. Sources include company blogs, customer and private communities, discussion groups, forums, email, customer service logs, corporate Twitter accounts, and official presences on social networking sites like Facebook.