Internet Dictionary
Click on a letter to see the relevant terms: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z

Gateway A computer that connects two networks with different protocols. For instance, on-line services like America-on-Line (AOL) and Compuserve (CIS) are not ISPs because they do not communicate with your PC using TCP/IP. But they do provide gateways to the Internet. These gateways connect AOL and CIS to the Internet.

GIF Graphics Interchange Format. Originally defined by CompuServe, GIF files are compressed image files commonly used on the Internet to display pictures on your computer screen. You can recognize a GIF file by its .gif extension. For instance, sunrise.gif would probably be a picture of the sunrise when displayed on your computer screen.

Gopher Developed at the University of Minnesota in 1991 and named after the school mascot, this is a menu-driven information retrieval system. One way to use Gopher is to telnet to a Gopher site which is connected to all accessible Gopher servers throughout the world. To retrieve information, you browse through an assortment of menus until you find what you're after. Because Gopher delivers only text, it has been eclipsed by World Wide Web which can deliver text, graphics, sound, etc.

Gopherspace One meaning is all of the programs and data stored on the accessible Gopher servers throughout the world. Gopherspace also refers to the available selections as you are browsing through Gopher menus.

Gov Domain names often end with abbreviations like com, edu, gov, mil, etc. to indicate the type of organization hosting the server. Gov is the abbreviation for a government organization.

GSP Global Service Provider. The typical ISP is a large regional network within the Internet. Often, the ISP is able to deliver your Internet messages to a destination address within its region. For other destination addresses, the ISP forwards your traffic to a global service provider who then delivers your requests to an ISP in a region elsewhere in the world.

GUI Graphical User Interface. GUI is pronounced goo-ee. The user interface refers to the way you interact with your computer. Your interaction is mainly through the computer screen. When microcomputers first appeared, the screen displayed only text. You had to work with a textual user interface because early PCs were menu-driven. The user interface engaged only your left brain. With the appearance of the Macintosh and Windows, the computer screen displayed icons and other graphical images to represent programs and data. In other words, the user interface became a graphical user interface. A GUI engages the right brain as well as the left. This results in a highly efficient whole-brain use of your computer.

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