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

WAN Wide Area Network. A network that is spread out over a large geographic area. Unlike a LAN that is connected only with high-speed cables, the WAN has to use phone lines to link between smaller networks that are part of it.

Web At a minimum, a web has at least one page called the home page. More often, it has a home page with links to other pages in the same web. Because this web has its pages stored in a root directory, it's called a root web. When a root web gets too large, the designer usually puts some of the pages into subdirectories or child webs. The root web and the child webs make up the entire web site. Typically, the home page contains a description of the web site with links to other pages, either in the root web or in child webs. An analogy may help to clarify. Visualize a web site as a book. The root web is the front of the book (title, table of contents, preface, glossary) and the child webs are the chapters. For instance, this web site has a root web with a home page, a glossary page, a tutorials page, and home pages for the child webs. The child webs are the support webs for Electronic Principles, Theory of Dc Circuits, Quik-lab for Ac Circuits, etc.

Web page The basic unit of information for the World Wide Web. Each web page is written in a language called HTML and has a unique URL address. For example, all of this glossary is on one web page with a URL of http://www.malvino.com/glossary.htm. Each web page is stored as a separate file on a server. For instance, this glossary page is stored under the file name of glossary.htm. You downloaded this web page into your computer's memory when you clicked on the glossary link of the home page.

Web site This refers to all of the web pages stored at an IP address. For instance, all of the web pages stored at malvino.com are collectively known as the web site for Malvino Inc. Alternatively, you can think of the web site as the server with the domain name of malvino.com. In other words, you can think of a web site either as hardware (the server) or data (the web pages stored in the server).

Webcrawler A search engine used by America On Line.

White pages Internet databases containing user information such as name, phone number, and e-mail address.

Whois A database maintained by the Internet registry. You can access it to get the name, address, phone number, and other information associated with a domain name.

Winsock Short for Windows Socket. This is a program that controls the link between Microsoft Windows and a TCP/IP program.

Workstation It may refer to a well-equipped computer whose computer power and memory is substantially greater than a typical PC. But it is also used to refer to a client computer, one that accesses a network but does not share its own resources with the network.

World Wide Web Also called the Web (first letter capitalized) for short, this is a whole-brain interface (text, graphics, sound, animation, and video) based on HTTP protocol and HTML pages. The hypermedia links on the HTML pages allow you to retrieve data from servers anywhere on the planet. The Web accounts for the explosive growth of the Internet after 1991. Before this time, the Internet delivered only pages of text to your computer screen. When the CERN High-energy Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland introduced HTTP and HTML, the Web was born.

Worm A virus designed to propagate through a network until it's widespread before it causes damage. In November 1988, an Internet worm managed to infect over 6000 systems.

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