Glossary of Internet Service Related Terms

Fantastico

A program used to alter the look and feel of common web hosting management software, cPanel.

FAQ

An acronym for Frequently Asked Questions, FAQs are online documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject. There are hundreds of FAQs on the Internet on subjects as diverse as gardening and virtual reality. A wonderful tradition on the Internet, the FAQ was developed by people who got tired of answering the same questions over and over again. FAQs are made available to newcomers who are urged to read them before asking redundant questions in a Usenet newsgroup , on a BBS, or on a mailing list. As a tool to help you get up to speed before joining a conversation, FAQs provide you with a wealth of information about a particular subject. Though FAQs are most commonly found on Usenet newsgroups, they exist all over the Internet and frequently can be found at websites, too. FAQs often begin with an extensive index at the top, so you have to scroll down a bit to get to the heart of the information.

FAT

File Allocation Table. The part of a computer's disk system that decides how and where disk storage space is allocated.

File Compression

File compression is a way of reducing the size of one or more files, so that they don't take up a lot of space on a server or hard drive and can travel faster over a network. File compression is accomplished with software that uses mathematical equations (algorithms) to condense repeated data into smaller codes. You need another separate software program to decompress (expand) the data, and restore it to its original form

File Permissions

When you place files on a UNIX system, you can assign the files various levels of permission, specifying who can access them, and what type of access they can have. The permission levels regarding who can access files are: owner (the person who created the files), group (such as a group of individuals specifically identified, or global (anyone). The type of access can be set to permit the users to read (look at the contents and copy it), write (edit or change the contents, rename and/or move the files), or execute (run a file as a UNIX program).

Filter

Hardware or software designed to restrict access to certain areas on the Internet.

Finger

A finger is a program that displays information about someone on the Internet. When you are logged in, type finger followed by the e-mail address of the person you want to know more about and you will learn whether or not a person is logged on, what their actual name is, and when they last logged on. Not all Internet service providers support this feature. Even for the ones that do, the user has to give file permission to allow people from other hosts to see this information.

Firewall

A firewall is a combination hardware and software buffer that many companies or organizations have in place between their internal networks and the Internet. A firewall allows only specific kinds of messages from the Internet to flow in and out of the internal network. This protects the internal network from intruders or hackers who might try to use the Internet to break into those systems

Flame

To send a harsh, critical email message to another user, usually someone who has violated the rules of netiquette. May be used as a verb or a noun.

Flaming/Flame War

Flaming is reacting to someone's newsgroup posting or e-mail in a hostile manner by publicly chastising the person or bombarding the person with nasty e-mail. Flaming may occur to users who ask stupid questions or who engage in behavior that violates what is considered proper online netiquette. A flame war occurs when two or more users flame each other in an escalating manner that threatens to continue unabated

Flash

Flash is an application published by the Macromedia company. Think of Flash as a 'window' that is displayed within the HTML environment. You have complete control of the window. You can display animations. You can make the animations clickable. You can make text move and change. Flash is very fast because it draws graphics on the fly, rather than storing text or graphics as complete images. (Although Flash can also display photographic images and illustrations). Flash gives you much more creative room than HTML, but it requires a 'plug-in', a piece of code on your computer that runs Flash. The newer browsers automatically come with Flash.

Floppy Disk

Also called a diskette, a floppy disk is the magnetic storage medium used to store and transfer data, usually between personal computers that are not networked

Folder/Directory

Two words for the same thing - a space on your hard disk to store related files or documents.

Forms

Forms are web pages comprised of text and "fields" for a user to fill in with information. They are an excellent way of collecting and processing information from people visiting a website, as well as allowing them to interact with web pages. Forms are written in HTML and processed by CGI programs. The output can be sent as an e-mail form, stored online, printed, and/or returned to the user as an HTML page. When you enter a keyword in the search field of an Internet directory, you are filling in a form. It is then processed by a CGI program, returning a list of possible matches with your keyword. Forms are also used for online catalogs, surveys, requests for information, and conferencing.

Frames

A device in HTML which allows multiple windows to be viewed simultaneously in one browser screen. Often used by Web designers to assist navigation.

Free Host

Free hosts are web hosting providers who do not charge a monthly fee for web hosting services. They allow users to share space on their servers at no charge, usually in exchange for a text link or ad banner on their web site.

Free Web Hosting

A web hosting service allows you to "rent" or "borrow" space on very fast hard drives called servers. Free web hosts allow you to store your files on the servers for no monthly fee. In exchange you may purchase a domain from the host, display a banner on your site, or be expected to submit to an active forum to offset the costs of your 'free' hosting.

Free-Net

Any one of more than two dozen freely accessible Internet sites, primarily offering community and educational information.

Freeware

Software programs that are free to use, but the author retains control of the original code.

Front Page (Microsoft)

Front Page is an HTML editor made by Microsoft and is a popular method of building web sites without knowing HTML code.

Froogle

Google's shopping search tool. Google claims it is the most comprehensive product search engine available on the web.

FTP

This is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol -- a very common method of transferring one or more files from one computer to another. FTP is a specific way to connect to another Internet site to retrieve and send files. FTP was developed in the early days of the Internet to copy files from computer to computer. With the advent of the World Wide Web, and web browser software, you no longer need to know arcane FTP commands to copy to and from other computers. In your browser, you can use FTP by typing the URL into the location box at the top of your screen. For example, typing ftp://name.of.site/directory/filename.zip transfers the file filename.zip to your computer's hard disk. Typing ftp://name.of.site/directory/ gives you a listing of all the files available in that directory. If your web browser doesn't have built-in FTP capability, or if you want to upload files to a remote computer, you will need to use an FTP client program to transfer files. To use FTP, you need to know the name of the file, the computer where it resides, and the directory it's in. Most files are available via "anonymous FTP," which means you can log into the machine with the user name "anonymous" and use your e-mail address as your password.