Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet by Electronic Frontier Foundation (early reader chapter books .txt) ๐
When you tell your communications software to capture a screen, it opens a file in your computer (usually in the same directory or folder used by the software) and "dumps" an image of whatever happens to be on your screen at the time.
Logging works a bit differently. When you issue a logging command, you tell the software to open a file (again, usually in the same directory or folder as used by the software) and then give it a name. Then, until you turn off the logging command, everything that scrolls on your screen is copied into that file, sort of like recording on videotape. This is useful for capturing long documents that scroll for several pages -- using screen capture, you would have to repeat the same command for each new screen.
Terminal emulation is a way for your computer to mimic, or emulate, the way other computers put information on the screen and accept commands from a keyboard. In general, most systems on the Net
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funds from the Defense Departmentโs Advanced Projects
Research Agency.
backbone A high-speed network that connects several powerful
computers. In the U.S., the backbone of the Internet is
often considered the NSFNet, a government funded link
between a handful of supercomputer sites across the
country.
Baud The speed at which modems transfer data. One baud is
roughly equal to one bit per second. It takes eight
bits to make up one letter or character. Modems rarely
transfer data at exactly the same speed as their listed
baud rate because of static or computer problems. More
expensive modems use systems, such as Microcom Network
Protocol (MNP), which can correct for these errors or
which โcompressโ data to speed up transmission.
BITNet Another, academically oriented, international computer
network, which uses a different set of computer
instructions to move data. It is easily accessible to
Internet users through e-mail, and provides a large
number of conferences and databases. Its name comes from
โBecause Itโs Time.โ โ
Bounce What your e-mail does when it cannot get to its
recipient โ it bounces back to you โ unless it goes
off into the ether, never to be found again.
Command line On Unix host systems, this is where you tell the
machine what you want it to do, by entering commands.
Communications A program that tells a modem how to work.
software
Daemon An otherwise harmless Unix program that normally works
out of sight of the user. On the Internet, youโll most
likely encounter it only when your e-mail is not
delivered to your recipient โ youโll get back your
original message plus an ugly message from a โmailer
daemon.
Distribution A way to limit where your Usenet postings go. Handy for
such things as โfor saleโ messages or discussions of
regional politics.
Domain The last part of an Internet address, such as โnews.com.โ
Dot When you want to impress the net veterans you meet at
parties, say โdotโ instead of โperiod,โ for example: โMy
address is john at site dot domain dot com.โ
Dot file A file on a Unix public-access system
that alters the way you or your messages interact with
that system. For example, your .login file contains
various parameters for such things as the text editor you
get when you send a message. When you do an ls command,
these files do not appear in the directory listing; do ls
-a to list them.
Down When a public-access site runs into technical trouble,
and you can no longer gain access to it, itโs down.
Download Copy a file from a host system to your computer. There
are several different methods, or protocols, for
downloading files, most of which periodically check the
file as it is being copied to ensure no information is
inadvertently destroyed or damaged during the process.
Some, such as XMODEM, only let you download one file at
a time. Others, such as batch-YMODEM and ZMODEM, let
you type in the names of several files at once, which
are then automatically downloaded.
EMACS A standard Unix text editor preferred by Unix types
that beginners tend to hate.
E-mail Electronic mail โ a way to send a private message to
somebody else on the Net. Used as both noun and verb.
Emoticon See smiley.
F2F Face to Face. When you actually meet those people you
been corresponding with/flaming.
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions. A compilation of answers to
these. Many Usenet newsgroups have these files, which
are posted once a month or so for beginners.
Film at 11 One reaction to an overwrought argument: โImminent death
of the Net predicted. Film at 11.โ
Finger An Internet program that lets you get some bit of
information about another user, provided they have first
created a .plan file.
Flame Online yelling and/or ranting directed at somebody else.
Often results in flame wars, which occasionally turn into
holy wars (see).
Followup A Usenet posting that is a response to an earlier
message.
Foo/foobar A sort of online algebraic place holder, for example: โIf
you want to know when another site is run by a for-
profit company, look for an address in the form of
Fortune cookie An inane/witty/profund comment that can be found around
the net.
Freeware Software that doesnโt cost anything.
FTP File-transfer Protocol. A system for transferring files
across the Net.
Get a life What to say to somebody who has, perhaps, been spending a
wee bit too much time in front of a computer.
GIF Graphic Interchange Format. A format developed in the
mid-1980s by CompuServe for use in photo-quality graphics
images. Now commonly used everywhere online.
GNU Gnuโs Not Unix. A project of the Free Software
Foundation to write a free version of the Unix operating
system.
Hacker On the Net, unlike among the general public, this is not
a bad person; it is simply somebody who enjoys stretching
hardware and software to their limits, seeing just what
they can get their computers to do. What many people
call hackers, net.denizens refer to as crackers.
Handshake Two modems trying to connect first do this to agree on
how to transfer data.
Hang When a modem fails to hang up.
Holy war Arguments that involve certain basic tenets of faith,
about which one cannot disagree without setting one of
these off. For example: IBM PCs are inherently superior to
Macintoshes.
Host system A public-access site; provides Net access to people
outside the research and government community.
IMHO In My Humble Opinion.
Internet A worldwide system for linking smaller computer
networks together. Networks connected through the
Internet use a particular set of communications
standards to communicate, known as TCP/IP.
Killfile A file that lets you filter Usenet postings to some
extent, by excluding messages on certain topics or from
certain people.
Log on/log in Connect to a host system or public-access site.
Log off Disconnect from a host system.
Lurk Read messages in a Usenet newsgroup without ever saying
anything.
Mailing list Essentially a conference in which messages are delivered
right to your mailbox, instead of to a Usenet newsgroup.
You get on these by sending a message to a specific e-
mail address, which is often that of a computer that
automates the process.
MOTSS Members of the Same Sex. Gays and Lesbians online.
Originally an acronym used in the 1980 federal census.
Net.god One who has been online since the beginning, who knows
all and who has done it all.
Net.personality Somebody sufficiently opinionated/flaky/with plenty of
time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of
different Usenet newsgroups, whose presence is known to
thousands of people.
Net.police Derogatory term for those who would impose their
standards on other users of the Net. Often used in
vigorous flame wars (in which it occasionally mutates to
net.nazis).
Netiquette A set of common-sense guidelines for not annoying others.
Network A communications system that links two or more
computers. It can be as simple as a cable strung
between two computers a few feet apart or as complex
as hundreds of thousands of computers around the world
linked through fiber optic cables, phone lines and
satellites.
Newbie Somebody new to the Net. Sometimes used derogatorily by
net.veterans who have forgotten that, they, too, were
once newbies who did not innately know the answer to
everything. โClueless newbieโ is always derogatory.
Newsgroup A Usenet conference.
NIC Network Information Center. As close as an Internet-
style network gets to a hub; itโs usually where youโll
find information about that particular network.
NSA line eater The more aware/paranoid Net users believe that the
National Security Agency has a super-powerful computer
assigned to reading everything posted on the Net. They
will jokingly (?) refer to this line eater in their
postings. Goes back to the early days of the Net when
the bottom lines of messages would sometimes disappear
for no apparent reason.
NSF National Science Foundation. Funds the NSFNet, a
high-speed network that once formed the backbone of the
Internet in the U.S.
Offline When your computer is not connected to a host system
or the Net, you are offline.
Online When your computer is connected to an online service,
bulletin-board system or public-access site.
Ping A program that can trace the route a message takes from
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