It’s a great thing we made it to 2015, As you strive to make sense of the Internet and the World Wide Web, these 20 internet terms are bound to be very helpful.
1. Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

Cloud computing is a fancy internet terms to describe that your software is online and ‘borrowed’, instead of purchased and actually installed on your computer. Web-based email is the most prevalent example of cloud computing: the users’ email is all stored and accessed ‘in the cloud’ of the Internet, and not actually on their own computers. This is the modern version of the 1970’s mainframe computing model. As part of the cloud computing model, ‘Software as a Service’ is the business model that claims people would rather rent software than actually own it. With their web browsers, users access the cloud of the Internet, and log into their online rented copies of their SaaS software.

Internet Terms

2. The Web vs. the Internet

As you well known, the Internet is a big ‘interconnection of computer networks’. It is comprised of millions of computing devices that trade volumes of information. Desktop computers, mainframes, GPS units, cell phones, car alarms, video game consoles are connected to the Net.
The Internet houses many layers of information, with each layer dedicated to a different kind of documentation. These different layers are called ‘protocols’. The most popular protocols are the World Wide Web (www), Telnet, FTP, Gopherspace, E-mail and instant messaging.

3. Ports and Port Forwarding

‘Network ports’ are thousands of tiny electronic ‘lanes’ that comprise your network connection. Don’t forget that every computer has 65,536 tiny ports, through which Internetworking data travels in and out. By using port management tools like a hardware router, users can easily control port access to better safeguard themselves.
‘Port forwarding’ is the semi-complex technique of opening specific network ports. You would port-forward to speed up your downloading and speed up your online connections for teleconferencing and of course, gaming.

4. http and https

http means ‘hypertext transfer protocol’, the language of web pages. When a web page has this prefix, then your links, text, and pictures should work in your web browser.
On the other hand, https is ‘hypertext transfer protocol SECURED’. This means that the web page has a special layer of encryption added to hide your personal information and passwords. Whenever you log into your online bank or your web email account, you should see https at the front of the page address.
:// is the strange expression for ‘this is a computer protocol’. We add these 3 characters in a Web address to denote which set of computer lanaguage rules affect the document you are viewing.

5. Archives and Archiving

A computer ‘archive’ is one of two things: a compressed container of multiple smaller data files, or a purposeful long-term storage of files that are not going to be used often. Though in some cases, an archive can mean both.
The act of ‘archiving’ is one of two things: to combine and squeeze multiple files into a larger single file; or, archiving is when you will retire data and documents to be put into long-term storage.

6. Browser

A browser is a free software package that lets you view web pages, graphics, and most online content. Browser software is specifically designed to convert HTML and XML into readable documents.
The most popular web browsers in 2014 are: Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and the Internet Explorer.

7. Social Media and Social Bookmarking

Social media is the broad term for any online tool that enables users to interact with thousands of other users. Instant messaging and chatting are common forms of social media, as are blogs with comments, discussion forums, video-sharing and photo-sharing websites. Facebook.com, Twitter.com and MySpace.com are very large social media sites.
Social bookmarking is the specific form of social media. Social bookmarking is where users interact by recommending websites to each other.

8. E-commerce

E-commerce is ‘electronic commerce': the transacting of business selling and buying online. Billions of dollars exchange hands through the Internet and World Wide Web every day. Sometimes, the e-commerce is your company buying office products from another company.
E-commerce works because reasonable privacy can be assured through technical means (e.g. https secure web pages), and because modern business values the Internet as a transaction medium.

9. Social Engineering

Social engineering is the conman art of talking directly to people to trick them into divulging passwords and their private information. All social engineering attacks are some form of a masquerade attack, designed to convince you that the attacker is trustworthy as a legitimate authority figure or as a friend. The attacker might use an email, phone call, or even face-time interview to convince you. Common social engineering attacks include greeting cards, bogus lottery winnings, stock investment scams, credit card companies pretending to protect you, warnings from an alleged banker that you’ve been hacked.

10. Blogs and Blogging

A blog is a modern online writer’s column. Amateur and professional writers publish their blogs on most every kind of topic: their opinions on health care, their commentaries on celebrity gossip, tech tips, photo blogs of favorite pictures using Microsoft Office. Anyone can start a blog, and some people actually make huge incomes by selling advertising on their blog pages.

11. HTML and XML

Hypertext Markup Language is the programmatic language that web pages are based on. HTML commands your web browser to display text and graphics in orderly fashion. HTML uses commands called ‘HTML tags’ that look like the following:
• <body></body>
• <a href=”www.trendymediablog.com”></a>
• <title></title>
XML is eXtensible Markup Language, a cousin to HTML. XML focuses on cataloging and databasing the text content of a web page. XML commands look like the following:
• <entry>
• <address>
• <city>
XHTML is a combination of HTML and XML.

12. IP Address

Your computer’s IP address is a four-part or eight-part electronic serial number. An IP address can look something like ‘202.2.104.55’ or like ’21DA:D3:0:2F1B:2BB:FF:FE28:9C6A’, complete with dot or colon separators. Every computer, cell phone, and device that accesses the Internet is assigned at least one IP address for tracking purposes. Wherever you browse, whenever you send an email or instant message, and whenever you download a file, your IP address acts like a type of automobile licence plate to enforce accountability and traceability.

13. URL

URL’s (uniform resource locators), are the web browser addresses of internet pages and files. A URL works together with IP addresses to help us name, locate, and bookmark specific pages and files for our web browsers.
URL’s commonly use three parts to address a page or file: the protocol (which is the portion ending in ‘//:’); the host computer (which sometimes ends in .com, .net etc); and the filename/pagename itself. For example:
• https://personal.seo.com/login/password.htm
• http://forums.mygurgler.com/ab-dating/?msg61989.1
• ftp://files.microsoft.com/public/eBookreader.msi
• telnet://niaraland.edmonton.ca/main

14. Download

Downloading is a broad term that describes when you make a personal copy of something you find on the Internet or World Wide Web. Commonly, downloading is associated with songs, music, and software files. The larger the file you are copying, the longer the download will take to transfer to your computer. Some downloads will take 12 to 15 hours, depending on your Internet speed.

15. Email

It is the sending and receiving of typewritten messages from one screen to another. Email is usually handled by a webmail service (e.g. Gmail or Yahoomail), or an installed software package (e.g. Microsoft Outlook).
Email has many cousins: text messaging, instant messaging, live chat, Google Waving.

16. Firewall

Firewall is a generic term to describe ‘a barrier against destruction’. Firewall means to have software and/or hardware protecting you from hackers and viruses.
Computing firewalls range from small antivirus software packages, to very complex and expensive software + hardware solutions. All the many kinds of computer firewalls offer some kind of safeguard against hackers vandalizing your computer system.

17. Spamming and Filtering

The word Spam can mean ‘the rapid reptition of a keyboard command‘. But more commonly, spam is the jargon name of ‘unwanted/unsolicited email’. Spam email is usually comprised of two sub-categories: high-volume advertising, and hackers attempting to lure you into divulging your passwords.
Filtering is the popular-but-imperfect defense against spam. Filtering uses software that reads your incoming email for keyword combinations, andthen either deletes or quarantines messages that appear to be spam. Look for a ‘spam’ or ‘junk’ folder in your mailbox to see your quarantine of filtered email.

18. ISP

ISP is Internet Service Provider. That is the private company or government organization that plugs you into the vast Internet around the world. Your ISP will offer varying services for varying prices: web page access, email, hosting your own web page, hosting your own blog, and so on. ISP’s will also offer various Internet connection speeds for a monthly fee.

19. Phishing and Whaling

‘Phishing’ is what modern-day con men do to defraud you of your personal accounts. Phishing is the use of convincing-looking emails and web pages to lure you into typing your account numbers and passwords/PINs. Often in the form of fake eBay web pages, fake PayPal warning messages, and fake bank login screens, phishing attacks can be very convincing to anyone who is not trained to watch for the subtle clues. As a rule, smart users distrust any email link that says “you should login and confirm this”.

20. Malware

Malware is the broad internet terms to describe any malicious software designed by hackers. Malware includes: viruses, trojans, ratware, keyloggers, zombie programs, and any other software that seeks to do one of four things:
1. vandalize your computer in some way
2. steal your private information
3. take remote control of your computer
4. manipulate you into purchasing something
Malware programs are the time bombs and wicked minions of dishonest programmers.

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