Internet Word of the Day Archive

August 01, 2011

A fictional being that's half machine, half human, and made of bionic flesh.

Free of Charge

Technically it is an area of memory on your computer that is reserved to temporarily store output or input data. A "buffer" will hold data that is being transferred from a high-speed device to a low-speed device until the transaction is complete. A common use of buffers is to hold the data sent to a printer as the printer accepts the information at its own pace.

Another more common use of "buffering" involves streaming video. If you've ever watched a video on the Internet, most likely you've seen the word blinking at the bottom of the postage-stamp-size screen during a download. Fortunately the potential of new streaming video services - fast, full screen and in sharp resolution - are finally a reality due to the increasing popularity of broadband Internet connections in homes.

Historical Perspective: In 2007, the DVD rental company Netflix began to take advantage of click-and-view streaming of full-length films and television episodes with a subscription service. Their "Watch Now" tab reveals more than 3,000 television episodes and movies which come up in 30 seconds or less because there's no downloading. And as of 2010, Netflix put Blockbuster out of business.

August 02, 2011

To copy a file from your local computer to a server or host system; the reverse process of download.

Don't Go Anywhere

Your Twitter followers, as in your peeps (people).

August 03, 2011

One of the cheapest and most popular ways for a home user to access the Internet, this kind of connection uses standard telephone lines (POTS) to link your desktop to the host/server.

Begging via spam.

Work In Process

August 04, 2011

What An Idiot

A broad term used to describe the practice of obtaining confidential information by tricking users into giving up sensitive information. A social engineer will frequently use the telephone or Internet as means to take advantage of people's trusting nature, rather than drawing on computer security holes to obtain the confidential data.

A telephone line which travels through a solid medium, such as metal wire or optical fibre, as opposed to a mobile cellular line, where transmission is via radio waves.

August 05, 2011

A frequently used term referring to the ability of a hardware device or software program to work with another kind of device or program. For example, a user may try to substitute one brand (or model) of a computer with another and then try to run the same software on it; to be truly compatible, a program or device must operate on a given system without any changes.

Spam For Life

Using Twitter to "heckle" a speaker. Most commonly seen at conferences or town halls when the "Twitter fountain" is on display for all to see.

August 06, 2011

To replicate DNA and create asexually an identical human from a single common ancestor. This process is the same used in animal cloning, which is said to be so easy a layperson could do it. Human cloning is included in this dictionary to distinguish it from clone and to note the emergence of Web sites that offer, for example, to bring dead children back to life. (These services argue that it's not so different from in vitro fertilization.)

As Early As Possible

The name given to the soreness in one's neck from sitting in front of a computer all day or typing on a laptop. Similar to "Blackberry thumb" and "mouse hand" there are now specialized massages to treat workplace aches and pains. High-end spas are now offering these kinds of thereapies in an effort to provide relief to e-collar workers.

August 07, 2011

The process of protecting information as it moves from one computer to another. Passing through a complex mathematical process (an encryption algorithm), the information is encoded before it is sent and decoded with a secret key when it is received. Without this key, the information is undecipherable. Computers use a binary number, usually 40- to 128-bits in length, as the key. The larger the key, the more difficult it is to break the encryption and decipher the message in transit.

In other words, encryption is a way of making data unreadable to everyone except the receiver, and it is an increasingly common way of sending credit card numbers over the Internet when conducting e-commerce transactions.

Slang for computer hardware that is so obsolete, it no longer serves any purpose.

We Own the Other Team

August 08, 2011

An artistic and sensual type of Japanese animation. On the Internet, one can find hundreds of superb anime Web sites.

A programming error that causes a software application or computer system to perform erratically, produce incorrect results, or crash altogether.

The term "bug" came from the world's first computer --the ENIAC, more specifically the Mark 1-- which was a room-size maze of electromechanical circuits built in 1944 in a lab at Harvard University. The computer developed a glitch one day, and no one was able to locate the cause. After hours of searching, a lab assistant finally spotted the problem: A moth had landed on one of the computer's circuit boards and shorted it out. From that moment on, computer glitches were referred to as bugs, even though in modern usage, "bug" refers to a software problem and "glitch" refers to a hardware problem.

Die In A Fire

August 09, 2011

The delivery of ad banners on a rotating, random basis, as opposed to the static placement of an ad on the same page all the time (which is called "hardwired"). Dynamic rotation offers the potential for each user to see a different message and for ads to be seen in more than one place on a site. A component of dynamic rotation advertising is the ability to place ads on Web pages that are relevant to what the user is doing. For example, if you do a search on Yahoo! for employment, a job-related Web site's ad banner will probably appear at the top of the page.

The post-PC polite word for a corporate shakedown, it is a slang term used to describe "political strong-arming." While a shakedown is usually driven by the need for more power and control, "jawboning" is considered more ethical because it is a modern version of "calling it like it is." 

Mom

August 10, 2011

A user who hangs out in chat rooms and chats up a storm with anyone who will respond, just to spend more time online. A chatfly is also someone who is constantly texting or IMing due to a need to be in constant contact via digital communication.

An application in which one part runs on one server and another part runs on another server.

Recommended If You Like

August 11, 2011

Online ad banners that are set in a fixed position on a page and delivered each time that page is delivered (as opposed to dynamic rotation).

You're Welcome In Advance

August 12, 2011

For Your Information

A large unit of computer data storage, equal to 260 bytes. The prefix "exa" means one billion billion, or one quintillion, which is a decimal term. Two to the sixtieth power is actually 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes in decimal, or somewhat over a quintillion (or 1018) bytes. However, it's common to say that an exabyte is approximately one quintillion bytes. In decimal terms, an exabyte is a billion gigabytes.

To consume small snippets of information in a hurry when time permits.

August 13, 2011

Short for "probably."

Evil Laugh

August 14, 2011

An e-mail message with huge binary files attached to it, sent to crash the recipient's mail server (the server that houses e-mail) or mail reader (a software program for e-mail). Mail bombing is a form of electronic harassment that is one step beyond flaming, and on many systems, it can result in the cancellation of the bomber's account.

A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because some e-mail programs, for example, can only handle ASCII.

Word Of The Day

August 15, 2011

Slang for a printed document or publication, as opposed to an electronic version.

Konqueror is an open source Web browser. For you techies, it is HTML4.0 compliat, and supports Java applets, JavaScript, CSS1 and (partially) CSS2, as well as Netscape plugins (for example, Flash or RealVideo plugins). It uses a very capable HTML rendering engine called KHTML (implemented as a KPart and as such, easily used by other KDE programs) and also used by the Apple browser Safari. It is licensed and distributed under the GNU General Public License.

Konqueror is also a file manager and file viewer designed as a core part of the K Desktop Environment. For more information, visit Konqueror's page below!

Want To Go For A Drink

August 16, 2011

The coexistence of two popular attitudes toward the Internet: either the Net changes everything or the Net changes nothing.

A system (also known as the 802.11b standard) that encrypts data as it is transmitted (there is a quiet consensus, however, that it is not actually secure).

Shut Up And Kiss Me

An expression used for prosperous, middle-aged married couples living child-focused lives in affluent suburbs. Coined in a study by Experian Hitwise of early adopters using Google+, the study shows that "Kids and Cabernet" is one of the fastest growing demographics on the network.

August 17, 2011

A techie term, it is a program that runs on Unix machines, performing a specified operation at predefined times or in response to certain events. In other words, it is a program that runs continuously in the background (behind-the-screens). The term "daemon" is from Unix, but many other operating system provide support for daemons. Technically, in terms of operating systems, a daemon is a background process, which can be defined as a single program with a single thread of control separate from the kernel.

The most common daemons likely to be encountered on the Internet are the HTTPD (HTTP daemon), also known as the Web server. Other well-known daemons are telnetd (Telnet), ftpd (FTP), popper (POP3 daemon), named (DNS daemon), and the SMTP daemon (to send e-mail). You may come across the word "daemon" when using e-mail. But don't worry, there is nothing harmful about it ;-) As we understand it, Mick Bailey, a British gentleman working on the CTSS programming staff at MIT during the early 1960's, was first to use "daemon" as a computer term. Daemons then made their way from CTSS to Multics to Unix.

Good Luck All

August 18, 2011

A user who volunteers to take on the task of screening messages submitted to a moderated mailing list, a moderated newsgroupor a forum. This is done to help discussions stay productive and within the guidelines, so that inappropriate messages do not end up where they don't belong. In other words, "it's to keep the Nazi messages out."

Derived from the terms "voice" and "phishing," vishing is the online scam of stealing personal information or money from individuals using the telephone network, specifically VoIP telephony services.

Vishing scams usually begin when the criminal configures a "war dialler" (sequentially dialled regional phone numbers) to call individuals' numbers in a given area. When the phone is answered by someone like you, an automated recording is played to alert the consumer that their credit card has suffered fraudulent activity and the consumer should call a phone number immediately. The phone number is often an 800 number with a spoofed caller ID of the financial company it is pretending to represent.

Similar to phishing scams, which are designed to steal credit card numbers or other information used in identity theft schemes from unsuspecting Web users by way of emails with corporate logos and URLs, vishing exploits the public's trust in landline telephone services, which have traditionally existed only in physical locations known to the telephone company and associated with a bill-payer.

Because VoIP services, like Skype, are low cost and make certain features widely available (including formerly difficult-to-abuse tools of caller ID spoofing, complex automated systems (IVR), and anonymity for the "visher"), the victim is often unaware they are being "vished."

It is considered a sophisticated crime because it is a new technique used by criminals to harvest details of the three-digit CVV security code, expiration date and other essential ID information on the user's credit card and account numbers. Like most other social engineering exploits, vishing relies on the hacking of a common procedure that fits within the victim's comfort zone. Specifically this methodology takes advantage of what has become a normal practice for U.S. credit card users when calling a credit card provider: Users are asked to enter the 16-digit credit card number before speaking to a representative. Consumers therefore need to be extra vigilant when giving out their information on the phone (as well as on the Web).

Vishing is very hard for legal authorities to monitor or trace. To protect themselves, consumers are advised to be highly suspicious when receiving messages directing them to call and provide credit card or bank numbers. Rather than provide any information, the consumer is advised to contact their bank or credit card company directly to verify the validity of the message.

There is technology that monitors all PSTN-based traffic and can identify vishing attempts as a result of patterns and anomalies in call activity. One example is a multiple calls from a limited set of Skype numbers to call centers.

Click on the FAQ image below to read Frequently Asked Questions about vishing!

I Might Get Caught

August 19, 2011

Cover Your Ass -or- See Ya

Slang for the name of a book, pamphlet, or seminar written by a person who did it just to get hired as a consultant in that field.

The future Internet as envisioned by the British government. Researchers will devise ways to optimize fiber optics, aiming to create a network that's one thousand times speedier than the fastest broadband.

August 20, 2011

Do You Love It?

A political unit or state where everyone has power. Heard at the Hackers 10.0 conference.

A computer program that reads human expressions. Online marketers are increasingly using ERS technology to determine what gives consumers bliss.

But how does software analyze emotion? When we smile, frown or grimace, thousands of tiny facial muscles are at work. Emotion-recognition software (ERS) creates a 3-D face map, pinpointing 12 key trigger areas like eye and mouth corners. Then a face-tracking algorithm matches the movements to six basic expression patterns, corresponding to anger, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust and happiness, or a mixture of them.

August 21, 2011

In general, distributed computing is any computing that involves multiple computers which are remote from each other, where each has a role in a computation problem or information processing.

In business enterprises, distributed computing generally means putting various steps in a business process at the most efficient place within a network of computers. In the typical transaction using the 3-tier model, "user interface processing" is done at the PC user's location, "business processing" is done in a remote computer, and "database access and processing" is done in another computer that provides centralized access for many business processes. Typically, this kind of distributed computing uses the client/server communications model.

More recently, distributed computing is also used to refer to any large collaboration in which many individual PC owners allow some of their computer's processing time to be put at the service of a larger problem. The best-known example is the SETI@home project in which individual computer owners can volunteer some of their multitasking processing cycles (while concurrently still using their computer) to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project. This computing-intensive problem uses your computer (and thousands of others) to download and search radio telescope data. One of the first uses of distributed computing was the breaking of a cryptographic code by a group that is now known as distributed.net.

Pizza

Slang for a high-bandwidth Internet connection.

August 22, 2011

The characters after the dot in a file's name are the file's extension. They determine how the file is formatted and viewed. For example, a file named "index.html" is coded in HTML and therefore must be viewed with a compatible program (such as a Web browser or HTML editor). On the Internet, you will come across many different file extensions; in order to properly view a wide variety of files, you must get the corresponding "wide variety of programs" (by downloading them off the Net, in most cases). You must then configure your computer to recognize these extensions (following each program's wizard).

The characters after the dot in a file's name are the file's extension. They determine how the file is formatted and viewed. For example, a file named "index.html" is coded in HTML and therefore must be viewed with a compatible program (such as a Web browser or HTML editor). On the Internet, you will come across many different file extensions; in order to properly view a wide variety of files, you must get the corresponding "wide variety of programs" (by downloading them off the Net, in most cases). You must then configure your computer to recognize these extensions (following each program's wizard).

For instructions on how to configure your computer to handle a wide variety of programs, click on the link below.

For a list of file extensions click here!

The digital equivalent of "loose lips sink ships," information leakage results when a programming flaw inadvertently reveals sensitive information as data passes through the Internet. Result: Someone spotting the flaw could use that info to hack the originating computer system.

Very Important Person

August 23, 2011

Member(s) Of The Same Sex

The term "in situ" is used in many different contexts but in the online world it primarily refers to a particular user action that can be performed without going to another window. For example, in designing user interfaces (GUI), if a computer displays an image and allows you to edit the image without launching a separate image editor, this is called "in situ editing." You may hear someone say "This Web element will be in situ" meaning "show it to me in the page."

In computer science, an in situ operation is one that occurs without interrupting the normal state of a system. For example, a file backup may be restored over a running system, without needing to take the system down to perform the restore.

The term is a Latin phrase which is translated literally as 'in position.'

A supercookie is a tracking cookie that is not deleted when a consumer clears cookies from a browser.

For example, in 2011 Direct Marketing News reported: “According to research from the Stanford University Security Laboratory, Microsoft Corp. ran a “supercookie” on several of its domains that was able to access a browser's history regardless of whether the browser's cookies had been cleared. The Stanford researchers found that Microsoft actually had two supercookies in place, one of which was able to respawn cleared identifier cookies. The other supercookie featured a mechanism that contained the contents of a defunct identifier cookie. A Microsoft spokesperson said via email that the company disabled the “legacy code” that enabled the cookie behavior observed by the researchers. Data collected through the supercookie was not shared outside of Microsoft, said the spokesperson.”

Shortly thereafter, PC Pro reported: "Microsoft will stop using so-called "supercookies" on its own sites. The move comes after a researcher highlighted Microsoft's use of supercookies, which are tracking systems that don't actually use cookies, but hold enough information to recreate cookies on a users' machine after they've been deleted. Microsoft suggested it wasn't aware of the use of supercookies, and promptly investigated. A Microsoft spokesperson said they determined that the cookie behavior observed was occurring under certain circumstances as a result of older code that was used only on Microsoft sites, and was already scheduled to be discontinued. Microsoft also said they have no plans to "develop or deploy" more supercookies."

Lorem Ipsum is dummy text of the printing, typesetting and Web design industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type-specimen book.

We use it because it is a long established fact that a user will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has an even distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. 

Historical perspective: Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32. The standard chunk of Lorem Ipsum used since the 1500s is reproduced below for those interested. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 from "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" by Cicero are also reproduced in their exact original form, accompanied by English versions from the 1914 translation by H. Rackham.

The standard Lorem Ipsum passage, used since the 1500s:
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."

The generated Lorem Ipsum is therefore always free from repetition, injected humour, or non-characteristic words etc. Many desktop publishing packages and Web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many Web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like), see below!

August 24, 2011

Another funny take on emoticons, "boobiecons" (like assicons) involve another body part. Known as straight-on smileys (because unlike the traditional smiley, you don't have to tilt your head to see it). Believe it or not, these icons are a form of ASCII art. Here are some examples:

.Y. flat boobies

(.Y.) curvy boobies

( . Y . ) fat boobies

( o Y o ) boobiecons

(.)(.) little boobies

(o)(o) regular boobies

( O )( O ) big boobies

( ' ) ( ' ) perky boobies

( , ) ( , ) droopy boobies

{.} {.} cold boobies

( @ ) ( @ ) hairy boobies

[ _ ] [ _ ] android boobies

( $ )( $ ) silicon boobies

There's also the assicons, they're so silly they're cute.

Rectal Cranial Inversion

A term used by online marketers to describe what used to be in your physical neighborhood is now in your pocket via location-based services on your smart phone or handheld device.

August 25, 2011

Abbreviation for megabyte.

Wouldn't It Be Nice If

An online advertising payment model which pays affiliates based on how many transactions (or orders, or purchases) a user makes. Similar to CPA, where a publisher is only paid for a certain action taken (as opposed to CPM) it is also known as CPP (Cost Per Purchase).

August 26, 2011

A telephone line that is rented for the sole purpose of connecting one computer or network to another. Also called a dedicated line, it provides a constant, 24/7 connection to the Internet.

A nickname for people who work in the industry or are employed at a dot-com.

F*** You Too

A phrase used by venture capital investors (and private equity firms) to describe a formula in which the management of a company earns a share of the company's capital by achieving results at or above pre-determined levels. It is  used to describe the payment to shareholders who sell their shares in a company, however the payment is contingent on the achievement of certain performance criteria (for example company profits) over a specified period, usually following the closing of the sale.

It is normally used when small companies in high-growth, high-tech, or service industries are sold. For example, the acquiring company pays 60-80% of the purchase price up front with the remaining 20-40% structured as an "earn out" and therefore "paid out" over time as the acquired company achieves certain levels of sales or profitability.

The purpose of an earn out is to bridge valuation gaps, so that if the seller of a business expects a higher price, the buyer can suggest an earn out (contingent on future earnings) to reduce risk while committing to a higher price. Risk is reduced because part of the purchase price is contingent upon good performance.

While it appears that the buyer is in effect paying more for the business, technically if they pay the full price, they're doing so for a company with greater earnings than at the current value. Also, the delay of the payment (sometimes as much as five years) reduces the value of the contingent payment due to the effect of time on money. Keeping this in mind, the buyer appears to be paying more for the business, but in actuality, they often end up paying much less, and so an earn out is considered more beneficial for the acquiring company than it is for the start-up.

August 27, 2011

An adjective "of or pertaining to the handing down of statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc., from generation to generation." It is one of those modern terms that combines "tradition" and "digital" to reflect the combination of word of mouth, practice, and binary code.

Hanging On Your Every Word

August 28, 2011

Sendmail is the most popular Unix-based implementation of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for transmitting e-mail.

That Stinks

August 29, 2011

To transmit a signal from a ground station to a satellite.

Slang for Windows CE. Anyone who's tried to find something on one of these lilliputian Windows desktops knows why this is funny.

Get Back To Work

August 30, 2011

What You See Is What You Get

Fuzzy logic combined with object-oriented programming. Conventional software objects have their own functional methodology incorporated within them, but it is usually based on "fixed" logic. So, although objects can be adjusted as the functionality requirements are revised, they are usually not flexible enough to accommodate a range of calculations. By incorporating fuzzy logic, "fuzzy objects" are much more flexible and can accommodate both approximations and extensions.

A corporate euphemism for laying off workers.

August 31, 2011

A device that retains its stored information after the power is turned off, such as a hard drive or PDA.

Career Suicide