Acronyms

Email your favorite acronym to inform@xtronics.com

ASCII - American Standard Coded Information Interchange - this is what most of your RS232 serial data is coded in. it uses 7 bit words that each encode a single character of text.

ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop DSL where the incoming and out going data speeds are different What everyone wants

ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode A transfer mode in which data is transmitted in the form of 53 byte units called cells. Each cell consists of a 5 byte header and a 48 byte payload. The term "asynchronous" in this context refers to the fact that cells from any one particular source need not be periodically spaced within the overall cell stream. In other words, users are not assigned a set position in a recurring frame as is common in circuit switching where voice circuits requires a streaming quality. This allows better use of telephone equipment bandwidth for data purposes.

BGP - Border Gateway Protocol

BIND - Berkeley Internet Name Domain 

DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Used to automatically configure network settings

DNS - Domain Name Server
the DNS function changes the Domain name joeswebsite.com into an IP address such as 209.34.1.23 When you click on a link, your browser goes to your ISP's  DNS, which 'looks up' the domain name and returns the IP address number. (Your browser then asks your ISP's GBR (Gateway Border Router) to route the request packet to the server you are trying to look at - but that is a bit off topic.)

This is a round-trip communication transaction to get the IP address introduces the latency delays of what ever interfaces are between you and the server (often more - as the DNS server will ask other servers for the number if it isn't in its current table and your ISP's DNS can also be quite busy which will also add even more to the delay.). If you run a LRP image from http://lrp.steinkuehler.net/ you have your very own DNS! This can speed up browsing considerably.

DOS - Disk Operating System

DoS - Denial of Service

DSL - Digital Subscriber Loop

ECP - Enhanced Capability Port See IEEE 1284 for full details

ECT - Electro Convulsive Therapy

EOF - End Of File

EPP - Enhanced Parallel Port

ESD - Electro Static Discharge The discharging of electro static fields usually resulting in a small spark.

ETX - End Of Text  ASCII control character $03

FQDN – Fully Qualified Domain name i.e. secure1.grapevine.net. (note: the last period is the root domain and is actually required!)

FUD Fear Uncertaintcy and doubt A marketing technique apparently developed by M$(Microsoft) to destroy competitors by fiddling with interface standards and the like to create FUD in the eyes of customers considering using non M$ software. See Halloween papers http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.php

GMT - Greenwich Mean Time

IDSL - ISDN DSL or better said DSL over ISDN

IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Clearing house for many standards

IEEE 1284 The standard for the parallel printer port of the common PC

IMAP Internet Message Access Protocol A more advanced method of remotely accessing your mail that works better than pop if you work from more than one computer.

IP - Internet protocol

ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network (or as I affectionately call it: It Still Does Nothing).
ISDN was supposed to be a way to share digital and voice over the same line. It has always been too expensive and didn't anticipate broadband data rates. It is two 64Kbit channels that can pass 128K bits of data. Not much compared to DSL, but the data rates are symmetric and ISDN is available in some areas where you just can't get DSL.

ISP - Internet Service Provider

LAN - Local Area Network

LF - Line Feed ASCII control character $0A Frequently referred to as 'newline' in the unixworld

LF - Low frequency

LRP - LINUX Router Project a very small version of Linux that does big things. LRP is a stripped down LINUX that works as a Firewall/ Router/ DNS server. LRP offers Security, connection sharing AND speed; what more can you ask for totally free software?

MAC - Media Access Control IEEE specifications for the lower half of the data link layer (layer 2) that defines topology dependent access control protocols for IEEE LAN specifications. This is usually used as in "MAC address" of a network card a ___ byte number that uniquely defines a Ethernet cards address

MMU - Memory Management Unit a hardware structure in the processor that keeps track of what task has accesses to what memory.  Unix, windows NT, and 2000 use the MMU it but Windows 95, 98,98SE and ME don't. I my experience the only program kicking up errors is M$ office!! Now you know why it crashes so often!@#$%

NAP - Network Access Point

NIC - Network Interface Card
Most often your Ethernet or LAN card that your computer uses to connect you to 10/100-base-T. A NIC could also be a token ring adapter or some other dinosaur.

NNTP - Network News Transport Protocol Often know as Usenet - new groups that replace list servers. RFC 977 provides all the gory details. 

POP - Post Office Protocol AS in POP3 he most popular POP protocol. The most common method of remotely retrieving your mail from your mail server

RR - Resource Record the record in a DNS server that links a domain name with an IP address

SSRI - Selective Seritonin Reuptake Inhibitor

SSL - Secure Socket Layer  The protocol you use when you get a lock icon on your browser when accessing HTTPS:// sites for secure transactions.

SDSL - Symmetric DSL
DSL where the incoming and out going data speeds are the same

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol This is the standard used to send mail across the internet

SNMP - Simple Network Management Protocol
Used to remotely monitor/configure network hardware, typically switches, routers and the like, but this protocol can be used to monitor full blown workstations and servers as well.

SPP - Standard Parallel Port
a setting that disables EPP and ECP settings See IEEE 1284 for full details M$ has called this the Scalable Printer Port ???

TLA - Three Letter Acronym

TLD - Top Level Domains Actually it is kind on a misnomer;  a . all by itself is the very top of the domain tree - and there is only one top - but all the domains under . such as .com. and .net. are referred to as TLDs. 

TTL- Transistor to Transistor Logic

TTL - Time To Live - the length a time a RR is valid in a DNS cache

UPS - United Parcel Service The folks with the brown trucks

UPS - Uninterruptible Power supply Powers your computer in case of a power outage - the VA specification is maximum power output while the Watt rating is the battery capacity. There are switched systems that transfer he load to the UPS on power fail while on line systems Always generate AC. Computers really don't need on line systems. 

URL - Uniform Resource Locater That http://   thingy in the address spot of your browser. The URL for this page is http://xtronics.com/acronyms.htm

UTC - Coordinated Universal Time Same as Zulu or GMT . 

VNC - Virtual Network Computing A remote display system which allows you to view a computing 'desktop' environment not only on the machine where it is running, but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine architectures. 

YAECL - Yet Another Esoteric Computer Language

WWW
HTTP
HTML
FTP
DNS

If you found this information useful - all I ask is to look at our home page and see if we have any products that might be of use to you or a colleague. Link to us if you can.

3209 W.9th street Lawrence, KS 66049 USA

Ph FAX Email WEB

(785) 841 3089 (785) 841 0434 inform@xtronics.com http://xtronics.com

Bookmark this page

Corporate information and privacy statement
(C) Copyright 1994-2006, Transtronics, Inc. All rights reserved
Transtronics® is a registered trademark of Transtronics, Inc.