Internet Word of the Day Archive

December 01, 2012

All My Best Wishes

A nickname for open source geeks who use Linux. It refers to the Linux mascot, a penguin.

December 02, 2012

Considered to be the online equivalent of "road rage," this is when disgruntled employees, for example, vent their anger by breaking into their employer's computer systems with the intent of spreading viruses.

Consumer Packaged Goods

December 03, 2012

A method of organizing several files into a single group for transmitting or printing. This serves to increase the efficiency of the data transmission.

Sound Effects -or- Stage Effects

December 04, 2012

Business-speak for examining an issue from side to side, as opposed to top to bottom.

Hit The Nail On The Head

December 05, 2012

An assertion by George Gilder, visionary author of Telecosm, which states that "bandwidth grows at least three times faster than computer power." This means that if computer power doubles every eighteen months (per Moore's Law), then communications power doubles every six months.

For example, backbone bandwidth on a single cable is now a thousand times greater than the average monthly traffic exchanged across the entire global communications infrastructure five years ago. In other words, today, more information can be sent over a single cable in one second than a month's worth of information sent over the entire Internet in 1997. Analysts look to this when anticipating the successful convergence of broadband and digital entertainment.

Stay In Touch

December 06, 2012

A feature of IE (4.0) that allows users to store dynamic HTML (DHTML) elements as separate files. Scriptlets enable an HTML fragment or a script fragment to be downloaded once, maintained in a cache, and used over and over again by different HTML pages and scripts.

Got A Second?

December 07, 2012

Slang for a human being.

Disenhanced Four-Letter Acronym (that is, a TLA)

December 08, 2012

The practice of creating content for the express purpose of attracting links to increase one's search rankings. This practice is commonly used in an attempt to get on the homepage of Digg or Delicious or StumbleUpon. 

Great Ideas for Starting Things

December 09, 2012

Too Good To Be True

The opposite of "absenteeism," it is when employees are so worried about and/or devoted to their jobs that they won't leave or take time off -- even when it is in their best interest.

December 10, 2012

The fundamental material used in making computer chips, it is a semiconductor, meaning it has electrical conductivity. Silicon is a chemical element: it is the most common metalloid, it is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon, it is the eighth most common element in the universe by mass, and it is the second most abundant element (after oxygen) in the Earth's crust. Silicon is the principal component of most semiconductor devices, most importantly integrated circuits or microchips. For an in-depth discussion as why it is widely used in semiconductors, visit the search link below!

Because silicon is an important element in semiconductors and high-tech devices, the high-tech region of Silicon Valley, California is named after this element, along with many other geographic locations with connections to the industry who also classify themselves as Siliconia.

Weather

December 11, 2012

A service provided by a netcentric company to electronically "sweep" the Net for nasty online rumors about a company. This 24/7 service will monitor the Web, interactive message boards, and newsgroups to ferret out rogue Web sites, bogus rumors, stock manipulations, and other threats to a business's sales, share price, or reputation.

Soon To Be Ex

December 12, 2012

Modern business slang for the division within a corporation where ideas are distilled and turned into working models. For example, "Ford's moonshine shop works outside of the company's traditional channels, to develop cheaper, faster ways to build cars."

City

December 13, 2012

The alpha geek responsible for an office's Local Area Network.

Sit and Sweat

December 14, 2012

A computer that functions as the beginning and end point of data transfers. It is most commonly thought of as the place where your Web site resides. An Internet host has a unique Internet address (IP address) and a unique domain name or host name. A host can also refer to a Web hosting company.

Out of, over, to get rid of, or kicked out

December 15, 2012

I Didn't Say That

A person who insists on printing out everything available onscreen. "Keith is such a gutenberg. He printed out a 150-page manual just to read a few sections of it."

December 16, 2012

A graphical representation of a specific item (or situation). The small images located on your desktop or Web browser, which you click on to activate a program or a link, are icons. For example, "Put the Netscape icon directly on your desktop so in the future all you have to do is point-and-click to access the Web."

As Far As I Understand It

December 17, 2012

This refers to an independent contractor or to a person or company that produces something without the help of an established corporation. For example, since an indie recording label isn't owned by a larger corporation, it does not have to adhere to the industry norms of a big record label. Indies take a grassroots approach. There are many kinds of indie, including indie computer companies

Frequently Asked Questions List

December 18, 2012

A theory set forth by retail anthropologist Paco Underhill that women shoppers are far less likely to make a purchase if they are "brushed" from behind --by a person, a display table, or a piece of merchandise-- while examining retail goods. Underhill's finding, backed up by extensive video research, carries a corollary: Retailers should avoid jamming narrow aisles full of merchandise.

Thanks For The Thought

December 19, 2012

A program that continually runs on an Internet server, automatically looking for and deleting any Usenet postings from certain people or on subjects the system administrator deems inappropriate. Cancelbots are primarily used on news servers to filter out incoming spam from notorious e-mail addresses.

As It Happens

December 20, 2012

If You Know What I Mean

Traditionally this term referred to an Internet connection, such as a satellite connection or DSL, that can "always" provide immediate and continuous access to the Net. It has since morphed to also refer to people, as in, "the always-on generation." Read the blog post below about "The Always, Always, Always-On Generation!" Stunning.

December 21, 2012

A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted

An online marketing term that refers to customers who cost more to serve than they return in value. For example, a customer shopping for a car wastes the time of a sales representative by test driving the car, working numbers with the sales manager, only to leave the dealership in the car they came in.

December 22, 2012

When an e-mail message cannot get to its recipient for some reason, it is returned or bounced to the sender, with an error message informing the user that it was not sent. This is also known as "bouncing back." You may hear someone say, "I tried to send you an e-mail message but it got bounced back." If this happens to you, check the e-mail address and contact tech support at your ISP.

End Of Day -or- End Of Discussion

December 23, 2012

You're On Your Own

The number of required clicks it takes a user to purchase an item, divided by the number of actual clicks the user makes to reach the first purchase. By counting the actual number of clicks-to-purchase and comparing it to the minimum requirement to buy something, businesses can gain valuable information about the clarity of the content and navigation on their Web site.

December 24, 2012

A standard script for running programs on a server from a Web page. CGI programs (also called scripts) can be run independently and were designed to be external so they can run under various (possibly different) servers interchangeably. The most common CGI scripts found on the Web are programs that process the information a user enters on a form. For example, whenever you fill in information or choose from a list of radio button options on a Web page, you are most likely filling out a CGI form. Once you hit the "submit" button, the form is sent to the server. There, the form's output is handled by a CGI script, which will call on other programs as necessary (such as a database search engine or a mailer program). Gateways conforming to this specification can be written in any language that produces an executable file. Some of the more popular languages that use CGI include: C or C++, Perl, Python, TCL, shells, and many others.

Left a Message On your Answering machine

December 25, 2012

The tendency for programmers to add more and more features to a software product in an attempt to "keep up with the Joneses" (or in this case, to keep up with stiff competition from other companies). It generally produces a slow, clunky program.

This term also refers to the tendency for project requirements to take more time and money than anticipated. A similar concept is "scope creep."

also seen as: n00b -or- nub -or- no0blet

December 26, 2012

Equipment Smarter than Operator

Slang for walking around the office chatting to people while the progress bar of AfterEffects/ Premiere/ Infini-D makes its ponderous journey across the screen.

December 27, 2012

That's Life In The Big City

An umbrella term that encompasses both computer-mediated communication, the study of the style of online communication and the information it conveyed, and ICTs (information communication technologies), the machines themselves, the computers, PDAs, and mobile phones. 

For more on this topic, NetLingo highly recommends Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World by Naomi S. Baron. In Always On, Naomi Baron reveals that online and mobile technologies--including instant messaging, cell phones, multitasking, Facebook, blogs, and wikis--are profoundly influencing how we read and write, speak and listen, but not in the ways we might suppose.

December 28, 2012

Big Damn Number

Slang for an entrepreneur who is receiving assistance from an incubator.

December 29, 2012

Pretty Awesome New Stuff

Derived by combining Video and web LOG, a "vlog" is a blog that provides a video journal on a subject rather than just text entries. Basically it is blogging using video, and can best be thought of as an online video diary. "Vloggers" are video bloggers.

Also knows as "vidblogs" these streaming bits of media may be watched on the computer or downloaded to a portable device for later viewing. Like audio podcasts, vlogs may also be delivered on demand via RSS feeds.

Video blog entries may either be linked and downloaded on the viewer's machine, or, they may be embedded and watched on the viewer's Web browser. Videos are typically listed in chronological order just like a text blog. Video blogs may also be tagged ("keyworded") and archived.

Some of the more popular formats used by videobloggers include .mov (QuickTime), .wmv (Windows Media Player) and .torrent (BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer file sharing program). Other video or movie formats such as .rm (Real Media), .swf/.flv (Flash) and MPEG may also be used.

Mainstream print and broadcast media (newspapers, magazines, trade journals, radio, and TV) are rapidly losing their role as the privileged gatekeepers of news and entertainment. There is a small but growing number of vloggers (also called "voggers") who are turning the Internet into a medium in which people are communicating audiovisually with personal video posts, networking through the audiovisual, and creating programming and content not controlled by major broadcasting networks and cable outlets. One way to understand it is to view a vlog; check out the links below!

December 30, 2012

What The F***

Firefox is an open source browser organized by the folks at Mozilla that empowers users to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than other browsers.

Some of the benefits of Firefox include:

December 31, 2012

When your computer or a network suddenly stops working, it has crashed. The result is generally a frozen keyboard, a frozen mouse, or a frozen screen (meaning that nothing moves or responds to input). In most cases, you have to reboot to get the thing started again (all the while hoping you saved the latest version of your work).

Looking Forward To It