Absolute Reference. A URL of one of two forms:
Client/Server. A technology where a "client" (e.g., your desktop computer) connects over a network to a "server" (e.g., a computer with a database of information) and requests a certain piece of information to be sent back. By not being constantly logged on (as a terminal would be logged on to a host computer) a client/server system can efficiently deal with many "clients" and doesn't waste computer cycles on an idle connection.
GIF. Graphics Interchange Format for compressed images. Good for line graphics and required for inlined images.
Gopher. Distributed information system using hierarchical menus. Originated at the University of Minnesota, whose mascot is the Golden Gophers.
Home Page. The starting point or main menu of a Web site or document collection.
HTML. HyperText Markup Language. How one defines the way a page should look when viewed with a Web browser.
HTTP. HyperText Transfer Protocol. The language Web servers and browsers use to communicate with one another over the Internet.
JPEG. Joint Photography Experts' Group. Also a standard for compressed images. Good for digital photographs.
Mosaic. A popular browser for viewing HTML documents. Originally developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Other browsers include Netscape, MacWeb, WinWeb, Lynx, etc.
MPEG. Motion Picture Experts' Group. Also a standard created by this group for compressed video.
Relative Reference. URL of a form which expresses the link to a page or other data as an item existing in some other location in relation to the current document. For example, a URL of the form <a href="second.dir/myfile.html"> points to a location in the "second.dir" directory (which is in the same directory as my current page) which then points to the myfile.html page. Notice that there is no initial slash (/) before the "second.dir" directory. An Absolute Reference might look like <a href="/mydir/second.dir/myfile.html">.
SGML. Standard Generalized Markup Language. A superset of HTML.
TCP/IP. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The standard language used by computers on the Internet to communicate with one another.
URL. Uniform Resource Locator. The complete address to specify a particular document on the Web. For example, http://www.hawaii.net connects the browser to the intial page of the Hawai`i Home Page.
Web Browser. A TCP/IP client program that will decode HTML documents and bring them up on the computer. Includes graphical browsers like Mosaic and Netscape and text-only browsers like Lynx.
WWW. World Wide Web. All the HTML documents that can be reached on the Internet using HTTP.