PawPrint.net Glossary of Terms

A protocol developed to enable the transfer of files across a network. It provides a reletively insecure username and password  security but has been more recently enhanced to allow for SSL encryption to provide a secure password exchange.

To some extent the use of FTP has been superceeded by SFTP (a component of SSH) or the secure file transfer protocol.

The Set of rules to provide system management tools to monitor activity and create messages/alerts as required. Network devices that employ SNMP are frequently referred to as "Managed" devices.

A compressed graphics format specifically designed for photographs. It´s name an acronym that stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It works by changing the images data from colours to frequencies (that represent detail) using a FFT and then discarding some of the high detail data - the resulting image is slightly blurry but this is barely noticable by the human eye and represents a significant saving of space.

An address referring to a document on the Internet. This can be used to reference a web page via HTTP or a file to be accessed via FTP, for example. The reason for a URL (rather then just the address) is to define completely what a computer must do, and where it must go, to access a document (sometimes even on it´s local hard drive in the case of ´file:´)

The syntax of a URL consists of four elements:

Protocol://address/path/document - here are a few examples:

http://www.pawprint.net/in...

RAM is a type of computer storage whose contents can be accessed in any order. This is in contrast to sequential memory devices such as magnetic tapes, discs and drums, in which the mechanical movement of the storage medium forces the computer to access data in a fixed order. It is usually implied that RAM can be both written to and read from, in contrast to read-only memory or ROM.

Computers use RAM to hold the program code and data during execution. In the first electronic computers, RAM wa...

A simple, very flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere.