Internet Word of the Day Archive

March 01, 2013

Australia

Part of the Web development process, it refers to the coding of Web sites and Web applications, and the configuration of Web servers.

An online activity in which you can turn your trash into someone else's treasure or vice versa via the Internet. Certain Web sites offer the ability for people to give (and get) stuff for free, the only rule is that no money can change hands. It works like this: Donors list items they have available giving their e-mail address. Visitors browsing the site then contact a donor via email and the two interested parties make private arrangements for the exchange. A win-win for all! It grew from a conservation-minded outreach intended to relieve pressure on landfills and protect the environment by encouraging people to recycle.

Damage Per Second

March 02, 2013

If You Say So

The fictitious place in cyberspace where missing documents or files are said to end up. If someone says you were sent an e-mail message and you find that you never got it-and no error message was generated-it's safe to say that the message must have gone to the bit bucket, never to be found again.

An organized collection of information, characterized by the use of data fields, it provides a foundation for procedures such as retrieving information, drawing conclusions, and making decisions. In other words, it is an electronic filing system. A database does not have to be digital; a collection of recipes written on index cards and stored in a filing box also counts as a database. Traditional, computerized databases are organized by fields, records, and files. A field is a single piece of information; a record is a complete set of fields; and a file is a collection of records.

Hypertext is a modern concept in database design, where any object, whether it is a piece of text, an image, or some kind of sound clip, can be linked to any other object. Hypertext databases are helpful for organizing large amounts of disparate information, such as the content in large portals. To access information from a database, you need a database management system (DBMS), which is a collection of programs that enable you to enter, organize, and select data in a database.

have a good one

March 03, 2013

Only 216 colors in the common 256 color display palette appear exactly the same on both Mac and PC systems. These browser-safe colors should be used for Web graphics and colorful elements to look consistent on both platforms. For a sampling of browser-safe colors, check out the "Color Swatch Reference Guide" or the "Web Design Coloring Book" on NetLingo.com.

A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed

Slang for a new generation of cybercops who want to remove pornographic images (often posted in JPEG format) from the Internet.

Quote Of The Day

March 04, 2013

The practice of keeping your list of e-mail names and addresses "clean" so that the names are deliverable.

A Japanese business expression that describes the principle of interlocking operating relationships between companies. It is a practice used by some VC firms in Silicon Valley to bring companies and entrepreneurs together (presumably to make more money).

Off The Floor -or- On The phone (Fone)

Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

March 05, 2013

A helpful program that generally is used to make something else. You'll usually hear it mentioned in the plural form, as in, "Here is a set of development tools" or "When are you going to build me those tools?" A tool can be any of the following (or in some cases, more than one): a small, text-based application; an HTML-editing application; a huge graphics program; a custom-built application that helps a Webmaster or sysadmin maintain his or her content; and/or a little mini-action or function performed within a larger application (for example, "cut-and-paste" or "launch application").

A business's turf on the Internet. In the early years of the Web (circa 1995), businesses that got online, established a Web site, and built an online community were said to be "staking out real estate" in cyberspace, in hopes of gaining first-mover advantage. Real estate also refers to the available space on a Web page for online ads.

For example, "They're not sure if they want to host buttons as well as ad banners. They're afraid that would mean sacrificing too much real estate on their homepage."

In Search Of

I Don't Know

March 06, 2013

An electronic publication, it's similar to an e-zine but is typically found in academic circles. It is regularly published electronically, either solely or in addition to a printed version.

An online business measurement that takes the average content refresh rate (how many times your Web site is updated) and divides it by the average visit frequency rate (how often people come to your site). A freshness factor of less than 1 means that users are seeing stale content, since they visit more often than you change your content. A freshness factor greater than 1.5 means your content changes more often than users come to see it, and that equals wasted resources.

Problem In Chair, Not In Computer

Don't Even Go There

March 07, 2013

An authentication and authorization scheme developed by InterNIC to help protect domain name records, contact records, and host records from unauthorized updates. Guardian is available free of charge and helps support secure registration transactions in an automated environment. It also provides flexible security mechanisms that can accommodate changes in organizations, personnel, and security needs.

A technology that was initially developed to track cattle, it is now the cutting edge in merchandise, parcel, and baggage tracking. Unlike clunky sensomatic clips that set off alarms in department stores, RFID comes in the form of a small label that serves as a portable database, picking up stored information sent by radio waves. This technology is slated to allow customers to walk out of a library or department store without stopping to check-out a book or pay for a product, because the processing will be handled behind-the-screens. When discount store giant Wal-Mart announced in 2005 that to reduce out-of-stock products by providing visibility into the location of goods with RFID tags, RFID officially entered the mainstream.

Technically speaking, RFID is a technology that incorporates the use of electromagnetic or electrostatic coupling in the radio frequency portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to identify an object (or animal or person). Also known as dedicated short range communication (DSRC), RFID is seen as an alternative to the bar code. The main advantage of RFID is that it does not require direct contact or "line-of-sight" scanning. An RFID system consists of three components: an antenna and transceiver (usually combined into one reader) and a transponder (the tag). The antenna uses radio frequency waves to transmit a signal that activates the transponder. When activated, the tag transmits data back to the antenna. The data is used to notify a logic controller that an action should occur. The action could be as simple as raising an access gate or as complicated as interfacing with a database to carry out a monetary transaction. Low-frequency RFID systems (30 KHz to 500 KHz) have short transmission ranges (generally less than six feet). High-frequency RFID systems (850 MHz to 950 MHz and 2.4 GHz to 2.5 GHz) offer longer transmission ranges (more than 90 feet). In general, the higher the frequency, the more expensive the system.

Also referred to as "high-tech tagging" here are a few examples of RFID in use.

In Japan, RFID has made the jump from grocery store to schoolyard. Every time a fourth grader passes through the Elementary School's front gate, a small plastic tag tucked inside his or her backpack beams a message to a computer in the office to log every time a student enters or leaves. Moments later their parents receive confirmation by e-mail.

In the U.S., motorists with prepaid RFID cards zip through traffic toll gates without stopping and airlines plan to adopt an RFID baggage-handling system at every US airport.

Coming to a golf pro shop near you, a new form of advertising is taking place via RFID tags. If you see a high-definition TV with snippets of original content playing (such as tips from PGA pros and club news) then you may notice that once you pick up a piece of gear for a closer look, the television will start playing an ad for that particular item. This is because the RFID tag cues the TV to play the ad.

RFID technology continues to get personal; the state of Virgina is looking at the idea of embedding RFID chips in driver's licenses.

In Mexico, the attorney general said he and his staff were getting microchip implants for access to secure areas of their offices. Oh, my! The same is true for employees featured in the "Big Brother" documentary.

View the CNBC documentary by clicking on the link below!

Write Back Soon

Very Important Member

March 08, 2013

The aesthetic and navigational architect of a Web site, the designer is the person responsible for how the site looks and feels. He or she is the one who takes the heat if the graphics are fuzzy, the links are too light, or something is hard to find on a Web page. Usually this person is trained in the creative side of image development; however, an extensive knowledge of Web-based programming and information architecture is considered fundamental to being a successful Web designer. (That and good client-relationship skills are a must.)

A hardcore CGI-script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Sorry

What You Doing?

March 09, 2013

An Internet account that is set up so your local computer can connect to the Internet as a terminal on a multi-user Unix system (rather than as a computer with a direct Internet connection). This allows you to use normal Unix commands and to store and process information on the host computer.

No longer just referring to college campuses, "campus" is now used by many large corporations to make their facilities sound less like workplaces and more like places where you can live.

Work In Process

Like Leno on Meth

March 10, 2013

A virtual shopping mall where you can browse and buy products and services online.

A security layer that resides between the application and the transport layers, the most common forms are SSL and HTTPS.

Talk To You Later

From Your Lips To Gods Ears

March 11, 2013

An inane, witty, or profound comment that can be found around the net. When you come across a unique piece of insight, you can say, "What a fortune cookie."

What Newsweek writer Jonathan Alter calls the recent historical period, where celebrity murder trials, royal car wrecks, and the president's DNA have distracted the world's attention from serious problems such as growing poverty and post-Cold War instability.

Please Don't Shout

I'm Just Saying...

March 12, 2013

To be accurate this term is written as "PageRank" because it is trademarked by Google; however, it is commonly seen and written as "page rank." It is Google's ranking software that calculates how relevant a Web page is to the keywords a user enters when doing an online search on Google.com. This software (which operates behind the scenes) analyzes both the number of incoming links and the quality of the referring Web page. It then produces a relative measure between 0 (low) and 10 (high) which is seen as a green bar next to the search result on Google.com (above), or seen as a number in the Google Toolbar on your browser.

Page rank has become a very hot topic amongst online marketers, SEO consultants, and Webmasters because of the popularity of Google. If your site has a high page rank (for example 7-10), your site will appear higher in the organic search results on Google, and therefore be more valuable to online advertisers.

As Google explains: "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the Web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value." Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Enormous amounts of information is available online for those of you trying to figure out how to best take advantage of the page rank algorithm (but unfortunately it is often quite unreliable). Suffice to say that if a Web site with a PR = 0 links to your site, this will NOT negatively afflict your page rank; however, if YOU link to a PR = 0 Web site, you will be penalized (sad but true). For more discussion, check out the links below!

Webmasters: Be sure to click on "more info" below for an excellent article on "How to Understand Page Rank vs. Link Popularity and Linking Tips for Blogs!"

Pretty Hot And Tempting

Your (or my) two cents worth, also seen as m.02

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.

March 13, 2013

What Did You Say?

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!

A superuseful, link-heavy Web site that's been put together by someone passionate about a particular topic.

What do You Mean?

March 15, 2013

The advanced features on a computer system or software program, as in, "Buy this model or get this version. It's got all the bells-and-whistles."

Used in public key encryption systems (such as Pretty Good Privacy or PGP), it is a pair of keys that consists of both a public key and its corresponding private key. Data encrypted with someone's public key can only be decrypted with the corresponding private key, and vice versa.

Just For Fun

Fear Of Missing Out

March 16, 2013

In business-speak, it means having enough customers or market share to be profitable. The phrase comes from nuclear physics, where it is the amount of fissionable material it takes to sustain a chain reaction.

A measure of bandwidth (the total information flow over a given time) on a telecommunications medium. Bandwidth is also measured in the Kbps range (kilobits or thousands of bits per second) or the Mbps range (megabits or millions of bits per second), depending on the medium and transmission method.

That's For Darn Sure

porn

March 17, 2013

An accolade bestowed upon those in the industry who actually "get it" in terms of knowing how to combine Internet technology with Web design, it is also a name given to the person who handles all of the Web/Internet needs of an organization or company. The term "Web guru" appeared circa 1995 to describe a "Web grrl" or "programmer dude" who inherently understood how to combine computers and the Internet and the Web for useful applications and interesting multimedia design. As the term implies, a guru is also concerned with developing sites that have a purpose. They are passionate about what they do. The norm in Silicon Valley is that this person works until late at night, sleeps all day, goes to Craig's List parties, and drinks lots of mochas. Can also be a Webmaster, but not all Webmasters are gurus.

Goodbye (in Italian)

A blog that focuses on news events and items that cover a particular neighborhood in great detail -- and in particular, places that might be too physically small or sparsely populated to attract much traditional media coverage. Because of this, many people have associated "placeblogs" with the term "citizen journalism," which refers to news gathering and reporting done by non-journalists.

Don't Be Dumb

March 18, 2013

The number of TCP/IP packets traversing a network.

To send nasty or insulting messages via e-mail or to post them on a newsgroup or a blog. This is usually done in response to someone having broken the rules of netiquette. A "flamer" is someone who sends these message, sometimes resulting in a flame war.

Read the New York Times article below "Flame First, Think Later: New Clues to E-Mail Misbehavior"

Need I Say More

Yes, I Will Go Private

March 19, 2013

The rate at which data is transferred. This word comes from the industrial age, when factories measured the amount of widgets developed on the assembly line over a period of time (which equaled their throughput). It is said to actually refer to the effective speed of something as opposed to the actual speed.

it means murder/ homicide

March 20, 2013

The immediate and unexpected free-fall of a much-hyped IPO.

Well Done

March 21, 2013

The standardized query language used for requesting information from a database. The original version (called SEQUEL, for Structured English Query Language) was designed at an IBM research center in 1974 and 1975. SQL was introduced as a commercial database system by Oracle in 1979, and it refers to either of two database management software products from Sybase and Microsoft.

Read Your Friendly Manual

March 22, 2013

Recorded or synthesized words that have been spliced together to create an answer or directive as part of an interactive dialogue between a computer and a person. For example, concatenated speech will direct you through the voice mail when you call certain corporations or government agencies.

Very Evil Grin

March 23, 2013

The set of layers through which all data passes at both ends of a client/server data exchange. TCP/IP is frequently referred to as a stack, along with the utilities that support the TCP/IP layers. In programming, a stack is a data area (or buffer) used for storing requests that need to be handled.

Because

March 24, 2013

The name for a traditional business (usually retail) with actual buildings, manufacturing plants, customer service centers, or distribution facilities. (This is in contrast to dot-coms, which exist in cyberspace and make use of other people's facilities.)

Advised

March 25, 2013

A "visit" is the session of activity for one user on a Web site during a fixed time-frame (including all hits). A unique user is determined by a unique IP address or cookie. By default, a user session is usually terminated when a user is inactive for more than 30 minutes (although this duration can be changed).

A "new visit" is defined as a first visit made by our chosen individual (or IP address or cookie). A common misconception in Web analytics is that the sum of the new visitors and the repeat visitors ought to be the total number of visitors. Here is the culprit: There is really no such thing as a new visitor when you are considering a website from an ongoing perspective. If a visitor makes their first visit on a given day and then returns to the website on the same day, they are both a new visitor and a repeat visitor for that day. So if we look at them as an individual which are they? The answer is both, so the definition of the metric is at fault (something the online advertising research industry needs to address).

Nobody expects the number of first visits to add to the number of repeat visitors to give the total number of visitors. The metric will have the same number as the new visitors, but it is clear that it will not add in this fashion. If on the day in question, there was a first visit made by our chosen individual, and there was also a repeat visit made by the same individual, then the number of first visits and the number of repeat visits will add up to the total number of visits for that day.

Crack A Smile

March 26, 2013

A movement consisting of individuals and community-based groups who are promoting the installation of wireless networks in their neighborhoods. Here's what is happening: People are installing private Wi-Fi access points in their homes and offices, knowing full well that anybody nearby can piggyback onto their connection. Some users see this as creating a public good, while others are tremendously concerned about the security ramifications.

Are You There?

March 27, 2013

Thanks

The process of selecting targeted keywords that reflect the content of a Web site, placing them within the meta tag, creating a doorway page for each search engine, and testing the search engine results to make sure the site is well placed based on the keywords you selected. It is an art and a science which, because of the technology, is constantly evolving. Companies and consultants provide this kind of specialized service.

March 28, 2013

A string of letters or numbers that dynamically appears on some Web pages, ransom notes require that you type this sequence of characters exactly as they appear into a form field below the image in order to gain access to another Web page. The reason ransom notes exist is because some search engines and Web sites have become abused by bots and automated services, so they employ ransom notes to ensure that an actual human is accessing or requesting this information. Often seen on link submission pages, this type of submission process has been designed to prevent people from being able to make automated submissions. Ransom notes generally resemble the image as seen here, and are accompanied by an instruction such as "Enter the Following Code to View More Results" at which point you must enter the code in order to advance to subsequent pages.

The term CAPTCHA (for Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart) was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas Hopper and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon University.

not much, you?

March 29, 2013

Slang for Web sites that try to use female-focused content to drive e-commerce sales.

Love Of My Life

March 30, 2013

A short statement at the end of an e-mail message. It identifies the sender and provides additional information, such as an address and phone number. When you create a sig file, it gets automatically appended to every newsgroup posting or e-mail letter you write. Besides contact info, many sig files also include ASCII art or a sig quote.

Anyone

March 31, 2013

A product anomaly. Examples include such things as omissions and imperfections found during early life-cycle phases and symptoms of faults contained in software that's sufficiently mature for testing or operation. A defect also refers to any kind of issue you want tracked and resolved.

Pardon The Pun