Particular Internet Vocabulary
Internet Literacy - Part 2
Forward: In this part of the series, I give you the meaning of particular Internet Vocabulary.
By: Chrysanthus Date Published: 31 Aug 2012
Introduction
Page Views
The number of times a web page is visited by one or more website visitors is the number of page views. The website owner is more interested in the page views of the pages of his site than you. He needs to know the page view for each page in order to know whether he is doing good business.
With the advances in technology, today, it is possible for you to know the page views for a particular page of a site. This is however, on condition that the site owner programs his pages to that effect.
Hit
Hit, is a word that people easily confuse with page views. A web page displayed in a browser on your computer screen deals with a number of resources. The complete text on the web page is one resource. Any image in the web page is another resource. Any video (clip) showing in the web page is also a resource.
A hit, is the number of resources, displayed in a web page. This is usually not of interest to the ordinary Internet user, but it is good to know the meaning in order not to be confused with Page Views (when you come across its use).
Download
The site owner may allow you to copy a file from the server to the hard disk of your client computer. The process is called downloading. On a web page, he would give you simple to follow instructions, to achieve this.
Upload
Upload is the opposite of download. In this case, you copy a file from your local client computer to the hard disk of a server in the Internet. The site owner normally gives you easy to follow instructions on the web page, in order to achieve this.
A zip file is a compressed file or set of files or a directory. The compressed result is one file. This file usually occupies far less space in the hard disk than the ordinary individual file or ordinary set of files or ordinary directory, whichever was compressed to give the zip file.
Captcha
It is possible for you (or some else) to use your user name and password and send data to a site, not manually, but using a program. Site owners do not like these.
So, in order for a site owner to make sure that it is you, a human, who wants to retrieve or send information to a site, after typing the user name and password in the login form, you are also asked to type in a word or two called a Captcha, in a separate field of the form. The captcha is normally generated from the site at the time you want to login. In this way, the site owner is reasonable sure that it is you, a human who is logging in and no trick is being played.
Hosting
After designing a website, the website (web pages) has to be kept in a server. There are companies you contact for this. The company keeps your website in an Internet server for you. That is called hosting. You pay the company money, monthly or yearly. The company who owns the server may be different from the company who hosts the website. In some cases the two companies are the same.
Program
A program is any electronic file that can solve a problem, such as adding and multiplying 2 numbers together. Well, a practical program can do more than that.
Application
An application is a combination of programs that can solve more related tasks. The combination is one unit with one name. An example of an application is Microsoft Word (a word processor).
Package
A package is a group of related applications. An example of a package is Microsoft Office.
Software
Software is the general name for program, application, package, electronic document, etc.
Smartphone
You should already know what is called a cell phone. A cell phone is a wireless telephone. It is small. You can put it in your pocket, briefcase, or handbag and go about with it. A smartphone is a bigger cell phone with computer features. It has a larger screen compared to the cell phone. In can display a greater amount of text with graphics (pictures). Some can even play videos, though not conveniently. Many smartphones today, can display websites, but such websites are special websites design for smartphones. You can still put a smartphone in your pocket, briefcase or handbag and go about with it conveniently.
A tablet is like a bigger smartphone and at the same time a smaller laptop computer. One surface of the tablet is mostly made of the screen. You do not open and close it as you do for a laptop. With the newest tablets, you do not really need a laptop, unless you are interested in a larger screen, and attached devices like the CD player and DIV, which can not really be attached to the tablet. However, the tablet has a large memory, with technology similar to that of a flash disk. You can still save films in your tablet. You can also draw on the tablet screen using a pen-like tool.
The keyboard of the tablet appears as an image on the screen of the tablet. In my opinion, the tablet is more delicate to handle than the laptop computer, because it does not flap to close like the laptop; and so always exposing the screen.
Spam
Spamming is the situation where someone tricks an Internet user so that the Internet user should see or read information that he was not expecting to read or did not intend to have. A lot of spamming information is advertisement. Such information is called a spam.
Scam
It is easy to confuse between spamming and scamming. Scamming is the situation where someone tricks an Internet user, by telling the user a story or fake business plan, or play some other trick and get money from the user. The money, if got, is unfair and never refunded. The person who plays the trick or tell a lie is called a scammer. The incident is scam.
Wild West
This is a metaphor. Overall, there is very little accountability in the Internet today. It is still difficult to arrest people because of a crime (scam) they have committed using the Internet. So, some people compare the Internet to the Wild West. If you have seen a typical cowboy film, then the life depicted in the film is what they mean. So they refer to the Internet as the wild west.
Well, above, is what I had installed for you, for this article.
Yes, an adult in the society today, has to know how to drive a car, be computer literate, and be Internet literate. We take a break here and continue in the next part of the series.
Chrys