Glossary of Internet Service Related Terms

Mailing List

A mailing list is a way of having a group discussion by electronic mail and distributing announcements to a large number of people. A mailing list is very much like a conference on a BBS, except that the conversation comes to you in your e-mail box. Each time you or any member of the list posts a reply to the conversation, it is distributed to the e-mail box of every member of the list. All of this traffic is automated and managed by programs called mailing list managers (MLMs). The two most frequently used programs are Listserv and Majordomo.

Maillist - Mail list

An automated system that allows people to send email to one address where the message is then copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist. A common maillist is Listserv

Megabyte

A measure of storage space. 1 Mb roughly translates to a million characters of text, or 180,000 words

Menu

A list of information that leads to documents or other menus.

Merchant Account

An account set up by a bank which allows a business to accept credit cards and deposits collected funds into the business checking account. Merchant providers assume a risk by allowing other businesses to accept credit cards under their name, and rely on those businesses to deliver the products or services to the customer as agreed.

Meta Tag

A meta tag is an element of HTML that often describes the contents of a Web page, and is placed near the beginning of the page's source code. Search engines use information provided in a meta tags to index pages by subject.

MetaCrawler

An example of a search engine that searches other search engines' databases. The term metacrawler is often used generically--and incorrectly--to name any search engine that operates in this manner.

Middleware

Applications and servers designed to take content from otherwise incompatible back-end data sources (often legacy - that is outdated - systems) and pass it on to Web front-ends.

MIME

MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension, a standard system for identifying the type of data contained in a file based on its extension. MIME is an Internet protocol that allows you to send binary files across the Internet as attachments to e-mail messages. These files includes graphics, photos, sound and video files, and formatted text documents. MIME negotiates many different operating systems and types of software to perform this amazing feat. Its invention has been a major step forward in the exchange of non-text information over the Internet.

Mirror

A mirror is an FTP server that provides copies of the same files as another server. A mirror site provides an alternate way to access the same files when an FTP site is so popular that the volume of users accessing it keeps others from getting through.

Miva Merchant

Commonly used merchant account software used to allow hosting clients to accept credit cards on their sites. Ecommerce hosts often come with Miva Merchant ready to go.

Modem

Short for Modulator/Demodulator, a modem is a device that allows remote computers to communicate, to transmit and receive data using telephone lines.

Modify

Modify is a function where contact information or DNS information can be updated to reflect new changes pertaining to a domain name. Administrative and Technical Contacts have the ability to modify domain name information.

Motherboard

The main printed circuit board inside a computer, containing the main processing chip, memory chips, plus all the other circuits needed to control the disk drives, the keyboard, and to communicate with plug-in extension cards.

Mouse

Not the furry little rodent, a computer mouse is a small device that fits in the palm of your hand and has a “tail” of a wire that connects the computer and moves the cursor via a rolling ball on underside. Some variations include the mouse’s rolling ball being replaced with a light sensor, track ball rolled with fingers, and touch pad which moves cursor by sliding a finger.

MOV

MOV is a file extension found on the World Wide Web that denotes a movie or video file in QuickTime format. To play the movie after you download the file, your computer must support the QuickTime format.

MP3

A popular, highly compressed file format used for music.

MPEG

MPEG (or MPG) is an acronym for Moving Pictures Experts Group, an industry committee that is developing a set of compression standards for moving images (such as film, video and animation) that can be downloaded and viewed on a computer

MSN - Microsoft Network

Microsoft Network®, An information service accessed by the general public using a computer and a modem. Like other online services, Microsoft Network offers access to news, e-mail, the Internet and a diverse range of data bases.

Multimedia

Multimedia refers to the simultaneous use of more than one type of media such as text with sound, moving or still images with music, and so on.

Museum

This TLD is available only to museums, museum organizations and individual members of the museum profession.

MySQL

An Open Source development of the SQL language for talking to databases. Most commonly used amongst small business users and run on Linux operating systems.