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A small dictionary of commonly used and easy to understand terms

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Alias
A name that is substituted for a more complicated name. For example, a simple alias may be used instead of a more complicated mailing address or for a mailing list.

Analog
Describes any information that has been translated into a corresponding physical change, such as electric current - any information may be converted to analog. Technologically inferior to digital because of signal degradation (the signal or data strength is weaker at a distance with analog data).

ANSI
An acronym for American National Standards Institute. The American body responsible for setting telecommunications standards in the US. Unfortunately these often differ from those set by the ISO, the world standards authority.

Applet
A computer program written in Java for transfer over the web.

Archie
A search utility used on the Internet to locate files in FTP sites, these files are generally public domain files that anyone can download.

ARPA
An acronym for Advanced Research Projects Agency.

ARPAnet
Where the Internet began; the Advanced Research Projects Agency (of the U.S. Department of Defense) computer network that was the forerunner of the Internet. Has been replaced by NFSNet.

ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a standard way for computers to use bits and bytes to represent characters. An ASCII file contains simple text without any special formatting codes.

ATM
An acronym for Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A method of transmitting bytes across communications links.

AUP
An acronym for Acceptable Use Policy of the NSF which prevents the use of the NSFnet backbone for purely commercial use.

Avatar
A graphical representation of a person in a chat room. The word comes from Hindu mythology in which spirits come down and inhabit bodies.