If you call your Internet service provider (ISP) to complain that you can't ever seem to connect at your modem's maximum speed, the person at the other end of the line will probably blame the slower-than-expected connection on "noise"--additional electrical energy on the phone line that slows down your data. Noise can come from so many sources--nearby electrical appliances, transformers, thunderstorms, even solar phenomena--that you're always bound to have some.

A LAN is a local area network, a network that's contained within a building or office floor. A WAN is a wide area network, a network made up of LANs in different buildings, cities, or even countries. If you're reading this, you've used the world's largest WAN: The Internet. If you worked for a large, multinational corporation approximately 15 years ago and sent e-mail to a coworker outside of your office, you probably used one of the first WANs.

Public domain software is software that's not protected by copyright--not because of some oversight but because the program's creator wants you to feel free to use the software anyway you like. If you're a bread-and-butter user, this means you can use the software for free and give away copies of it to all your friends; if you're a programmer, this means you can actually include the program--or portions of its code--in programs of your own. Obviously, the creators of public domain software are in it for love, not money. Kind of heartwarming, isn't it?

Yes, it's two for the price of one here at NerdWorldNJ today--pretty good, considering these tips are FREE. IT (say the letters, not the word) stands for information technology; IS (again, the letters, please) stands for information services. Essentially, these are two new names your MIS (management information services) department started calling itself once it correctly perceived that the term MIS caused nontechies to quake with fear and/or loathing--or maybe because information management and services aren't just for management anymore.

Y2K is geek shorthand for "Year 2000"--which is ironic because if it weren't for geek shorthand, there might not be a Year 2000 problem in the first place. Perhaps believing that the world would end in a fiery atomic cloud before the year 2000, programmers have been using two-digit numbers, such as 98, to stand for four-digit years, such as 1998. Then, a few years ago, some genius figured out that if these programs decide to refer to the year 2000 as 00, important calculations--such as, say, the price of every stock traded on Wall Street or the entire government payroll--might get rolled back to the year 1900, with predictably disastrous results. Luckily, many companies have addressed, or are in the process of addressing, the Y2K problem. If yours hasn't, polish up your resume.

ROI is not a technical term, but it's well ensconced in the vocabulary of the uber-nerd. ROI stands for "return on investment," and it's the bottom-line number CEOs want from MIS managers before they agree to install the latest and greatest hardware or software. Vendors of hardware and software systems caught wind of this fact long ago, which is why their ads include numerous references to "maximizing ROI." In the meantime, Louis XIV does delicate somersaults in his grave.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks OR Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks--it all depends on whether you're more concerned with personal freedom or money. Seriously, though, a RAID is a machine containing several hard drives, each of which can "take over" for any of the others in the event of a failure. A RAID enables a server to continue working, usually without interruption, even if one or more of the server's disks crashes.

You visit a Web page that you really like. You phone a friend in, say, another state to tell him about it. He surfs to the page and, what's this? He sees something different! What's going on? Chances are the page features dynamic HTML: Web page content that changes depending on such factors as the surfer's location, the time of day, or--in some cases--a profile of the surfer that's been created based on information from registration forms, questionnaires, or past Web site viewing habits (often collected using cookies).

Dynamic HTML is a brand-spanking-new set of HTML extensions on the verge of being standardized that Web page developers will be able to use to create content that responds to information typed in by the user--without having to first send that information back to the Web server for processing. You know how you type things into Web forms, then click Submit, and then wait to see the result? In many cases, Dynamic HTML could make the Submit button and the wait things of the past.

IEEE (pronounced by geeks everywhere as "eye-triple-ee") stands for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an august body of scientists formed, believe it or not, in 1884--that is, well before the average Joe or Joanna had access to electricity. The public never heard much about this little club until the onset of personal computing and networking. In these industries, IEEE standards are followed religiously, resulting in hoards of technocrats running around and worrying aloud about "IEEE numerics"--and giving us here at NerdworldNJ something about which to write.

ERP (say the letters, don't pronounce it) stands for enterprise resource planning, a type of companywide software system that's very, very popular these days. ERP is a set of applications that automate finances, human resource functions, production planning, order processing, and more in such a way that one area knows everything it needs to know about the other area. Leading vendors of ERP software include SAP and PeopleSoft. But while companies are rushing to install ERP systems, the jury's still out on whether they're worth the cost.

If you bought a modem in the past year or two, it's probably an x2 modem--a modem featuring technology developed by a company called U.S. Robotics that lets you RECEIVE data over a phone line at speeds as fast as 56 kbps (56 kilobits per second). Three things to remember about x2:

- It doesn't SEND data that fast; you can only send data at a maximum of 33.6 kbps. - 56 kbps is an absolute maximum--the fastest speeds reported are actually about 53 kbps. - You get speeds higher than 33.6 kbps ONLY if your Internet service provider (ISP) supports x2--and many don't.

If your ISP offers a 56 kbps connection, it does so using either x2 technology, above, or K56flex technology. Developed by the Rockwell Corporation, K56flex is similar to x2 in that it speeds incoming data only, tends to max out at 53 kbps, and works only if your ISP supports K56flex. The moral of the story: Before you purchase a modem, find out which technology--x2 or K56flex--your ISP supports. (Note that most PCs today come equipped with x2 modems as standard equipment; you have to request K56flex as a special option.)

Thin client can mean two things. On the one hand, it can mean a small software application, designed to run on a networked desktop, that contains little more than a user interface; the user enters data and sees results on the desktop computer, but all the actual processing gets done on the network server. On the other hand, the term can refer to a client computer (a network computer, NetPC) that doesn't have a hard drive--coincidentally, the perfect kind of computer for running thin client software.

You know it as the meaningless acronym that begins every Web address; the geek world knows it as Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Thanks to this Protocol, the Web server you connect to knows what to send you whenever you click a link, and you see the appropriate Web page in your browser. As fundamental as this protocol might seem, most Web browsers (version 3.0 and later) don't even require you to type "http" anymore--you can just start with the old "www."

Unless you've spent the last 20 years living in a shack, you know what remote control is. But did you know you can use one PC to run another PC by remote control? Remote control software lets you dial into another computer from yours, see that computer on your screen, and actually run it--start programs, open files, whatever--as if you were sitting right in front of it. For this to work, both computers must have modems, be attached to phone lines, and be running the remote control software. Usually, folks like to require a password or some other security clearance before their computer can be run by remote control.

We'd like to pose this question to the ladies in our audience: Have you ever been in a bar and had a guy come up to you and say, "Hey, babe, how'd you like to meet the guy that invented the World Wide Web?" Next time it happens, ask to see the man's driver's license, and if his name isn't Tim Berners-Lee, throw your drink in his face. Because Mr. Berners-Lee, an Oxford University graduate, did in fact INVENT THE WORLD WIDE WEB. Amazing to think that one guy could invent such a thing, but he did. Guys: Sorry if we took away one of your best pickup lines.

Ah, who can forget those carefree childhood hours spent playing Monopoly--and the hours before the game spent fighting over the tokens? Leave it to the digerati to commandeer this memory of our youth. In geek-speak, a "token" is part of a network security scheme in which a small electronic card--the token--must be slipped into a slot added to a computer before that computer can access the network. Some tokens contain static password and access information; others generate a new password every time they're inserted in the computer. None, alas, are shaped like neat little race cars.

The current frontrunner among "geeks can be cute, too" computer terms, JavaBean refers to ready-made, reusable chunks of Java programming code; uber-geeks (who don't care much for the whole clever coffee-related naming scheme) might refer to the JavaBean by its more technical name, "Java component." A JavaBean can be as simple as a spinning Web button or as complex as an entire minispreadsheet. Java programmers can simply drag and drop "beans" into their programs--or into Web applications--to add functionality without having to write the code themselves.

Once upon a time, Internet e-mail could only transmit ASCII text, and all you received in your e-mail box were bland text messages. But then, maybe a few years ago, you started noticing more interesting stuff in your in-box: file attachments from other programs, pictures, audio and video clips (usually tasteless), and more. And we can thank the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions protocol for the change. MIME lets Internet servers recognize and handle all this new stuff so that we can send and receive it over the Internet (just as we had been sending and receiving it over our in-house e-mail systems for years). Of course, your e-mail program must support MIME for all this magic to work. There's always a catch.

No, OLE is not the cheer you hear over and over again at the bullfighting arena. OLE stands for object linking and embedding--and, while bullfighting may be exciting, OLE is probably more valuable to you in the long run. Thanks to OLE, you can insert a fully functional (or almost fully functional) piece of one program, called an object, into a document created with another program. For example, you can insert a spreadsheet object into your word processing document and then, by double-clicking the object, use all the features and commands of your spreadsheet from within your word processing program! Now there's something to cheer about.

Last time, we talked about extensions--those three characters tacked onto the end of every file name. Today, we talk about one of those extensions: DLL, which stands for Dynamic Link Library. Files with the DLL extension contain functions or data used by your Windows programs while they run. Why is knowing this term important? Because like .exe files (which we defined for you in an even earlier tip), DLL files are files you should NOT delete. Or, put another way, "Don't blow the DLL." Sorry.

On the Web, you're most likely to see the term "Java applet," but applets have been around since before the Java programming language came to prominence. Essentially, an applet is a little application program that is built into or added to a larger application program.

An applet is designed to be executed from within another application and cannot be executed directly from the operating system. A well-designed applet can be invoked from within different applications.

With Java--which is a programming language designed for creating small, easily distributed program objects--an applet can be downloaded from a Web page. The user can then click an associated image or button and trigger the applet. Java applets are commonly used to create animation, work with database material, and calculate equations.

These days, data isn't bound by programs: If you have some data in your spreadsheet that you want to put in your word processing document, you can just drag it from the spreadsheet and drop it in the document. Even better, when you change the data in the spreadsheet--presto!--it changes in the document, too. How does this magic happen? Through the good graces of DDE, or Dynamic Data Exchange. If you're using a recent version of any Windows or OS/2 program, chances are good that the program supports DDE; check the program's Help to be sure.

Warning: Because DDE often uses lots of memory, files with lots of DDE links can slow down your computer. Use DDE carefully, according to the amount of memory you have.

A servlet is simply an applet that runs on a server. If you recall yesterday's Nerd Word, you know that an applet is a little application program that runs from within a larger application program. A servlet is usually a subclass of Java applet that runs on a Web server. One typical use of servlets is to automatically redirect users to a Web site that has moved.

You're probably familiar with the most popular definition of the term "macro": a sequence of keystrokes or commands that you can trigger by pressing a single keystroke (usually called a "keyboard shortcut").

But if you can use a macro with one LITTLE keystroke, why do they call it a macro, which means BIG? Because long before the rest of us even knew of the term, programmers used "macro" to refer to a small program that, when executed, expands into a larger program. And if you think about it, that's what happens with your macros: You press one key, and that little action expands into a whole mess of actions. So it makes sense, in a geeky kind of way.

You've probably heard the term PIM often, but you still may not know what it means. Even though it's been around for almost 15 years, the concept never really caught on with the general public.

A PIM is a personal information manager--one of those programs, such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Organizer (or, a long time ago, Borland's Sidekick), designed to help you manage your schedule, to store addresses and phone numbers, and to perform many of the same functions as your Day-Timer-style schedule book. In other words, it's really useful software with a really corny acronym. Maybe you can come up with something catchier.

- vCard, without an article (for those of you who didn't pay attention in English class, articles are words like "the," "a," and "an"), refers to a data-exchange format for transferring business-card-type information from one program, such as your Web browser or e-mail, to another program, such as--you guessed it--your PIM.

- A vCard, with an article, refers to a unit of vCard information--as in, "I'll send you a vCard." Many of the latest e-mail programs let you attach vCards to your messages; many of the latest PIMs let you drag vCards from e-mail messages directly into your address book.

vCard's sidekick, vCalendar, a similar data exchange format for dated information. You can attach vCalendar information--such as a scheduled event, a record of time spent on a project, or any other dated or timed event--to an e-mail message. The message's recipient can drag it and drop it into the calendar, to-do, or project management area of their PIM (provided the PIM supports vCalendar information). Now if only they could invent vMoney ...

When your power goes out, it's just a tough fact of life that any unsaved data goes out with it, right? Not necessarily. If you're worried about power outages, you could hook up your computer to an uninterruptible power supply--affectionately known as UPS--a device that contains enough battery power to let you save your unsaved data, finish an in-progress download, and shut down your system properly.  Tech types call this "exiting gracefully." Might as well let them think they do SOMETHING gracefully.

Can you remember the days of DOS? If you can, you probably remember the old file name format: up to eight characters, followed by a dot, followed by three more characters that told you what type of file it was. Microsoft Word file names, for example, always had DOC after the dot, 1-2-3 files had WK1 after the dot, and so on.

Well, those three characters have a name: They're called extensions, and file names still have them. You don't see them often because Windows 95 hides them by default. Anyway, next time someone tells you to search for a file with a DOC extension, you'll know what they're talking about.

When you think of a programmer, you probably picture someone hunched over the computer keyboard, typing line after line of unintelligible gobbledygook. Well, it can be that way, but it isn't always. Some programmers work with a programming tool (actually, a programming environment) called Visual Basic, which lets them build programs just by putting together prewritten bits of code--using the mouse! Actually, programming that way is not quite as easy as we're making it sound; the programmer almost always has to write some code, but Visual Basic makes the process a lot easier than typing everything from scratch. By the way, Visual Basic is a Microsoft product.

If your IS manager tells you the new firewall is installed, does that mean you can ignore the fire alarm? Hardly. A firewall is a system (usually a combination of hardware and software) that prevents unauthorized Internet users from getting into any private servers you have that are connected to the Internet--most notably, your intranet servers. It's your company's last line of defense against hackers, competitors, and others that would do you harm. And if you ask us, it's a great name--a lot more interesting and dramatic than the other terms these nerds use.

Ever wish you could chat on a regular basis with people who share your interests? Ever wish you could argue on a regular basis with people who don't? Either way, you'll probably be interested in the Usenet, a worldwide network of more than 14,000 online forums (or newsgroups, as they're called). A Usenet newsgroup is an ongoing discussion that you can join--and leave and come back to--any time you like; you just read what's been posted, post your comment or response, and come back and see what others had to say. You don't even need an Internet connection to join a Usenet forum; online services, such as AOL and CompuServe, offer them too.

The computing term Java became popular just about the same time we all became obsessed with gourmet coffee, thereby creating no end of confusion in the American workplace. So let's clear things up right now: Java, the computing term, is a programming language created specifically for the Internet. With Java, developers can easily create compact, interactive, animated miniprograms called "applets" that can be embedded in Web pages and used in Web browsers (provided the browsers are "Java-enabled"). Right now, most of the Java applets you encounter on the Web are animations, fancy navigation bars, or games; in the near future, they'll be forms you can use to file insurance claims, minispreadsheets you can use to calculate compound interest, and other stuff like that. Trust us.

A blue bomb (also known as the blue screen of death, or WinNuke) is a technique for causing a network user's Windows PC to crash or suddenly shut down. The bomb is actually a specific packet of information designed to confuse Windows and cause the computer to crash. The good news is that the PC can usually be restarted without any permanent damage beyond the possible loss of data not saved at the time of the crash.

The blue bomb derives its name from the effect it sometimes causes on the crashing PC's monitor: a white-on-blue error screen. The program that causes this is known as WinNuke, and its deployment is known as "nuking" someone.  Many Internet service providers are now filtering out the WinNuke packets so that they don't reach users.              

"DoS attack" is short for "denial-of-service" attack, which is designed to bring a network to a halt by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop, exploit limitations in the network but are easily fixed via software patches. As is the case with viruses, however, new DoS attacks such as the nefarious Smurf (described in a Wired article listed at the end of this tip) are constantly being developed by hackers.

For more information, go to

http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/9506.html                     

As much as we'd like to tell you otherwise, hot swapping has nothing to do with getting together with the neighbors for a little hanky-panky. Hot swapping is simply the term used to describe the plugging in, unplugging, or replacing of a hard drive, CD-ROM drive, power supply, or other device while the connected PC remains in operation.

Be aware, however, that this technique works only with hot-swapable hardware. Removing a standard hard drive, CD-ROM drive, or other device from an operating PC will likely cause damage.

Finger is a UNIX program that takes an e-mail address as input and returns information about the owner of that address. On some systems, the finger program only reports whether the user is currently logged on; on others, it returns information such as the user's full name, address, and telephone number. (Naturally, the user must first enter this information into the system.)

Many e-mail programs now have a built-in finger utility, but you can also have a separate finger program on your computer, or you can use a finger gateway on the Web. For the most part, however, only large corporations, colleges, and universities are "fingerable" (set up to return information on the user you finger).

A contraction of the words "picture element," a pixel is the smallest element--a single point, in other words--on a computer monitor or in a computer image.

A monitor is divided into a grid that cordons the screen into thousands (or even millions) of pixels. For example, a typical VGA monitor contains a grid of 640 pixels across and 480 pixels down (called 640 by 480) which consists of about 300,000 pixels. A higher-quality SVGA monitor, on the other hand, may display 1024 by 768, or nearly 800,000, pixels. Obviously, the image displayed with a greater number of pixels looks better.

Similarly, computer images comprise a grid of pixels, typically defined in terms of pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi). Naturally, the higher the resolution, the more dots in the grid--and the more dots in the grid, the better the image looks.

Vaporware is the (sarcastic) term for software that is either publicly announced before it's available in order to deter customers from buying competitors' products, or hyped and hyped and then delivered very late or not at all--usually with plenty of excuses.

Most software publishers have, from time to time, delivered vaporware, whether intentional or not. However, the gaming industry seems to be one of the worst offenders, which has led to the Vaporware Hall of Shame for games software:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/vaporware/

By the way, Vaporware is also the name of a company that makes products for Amiga users.

By now, you're probably already familiar with the terms "hardware" and "software." (The former is the actual computer and its components, while the latter is the system and applications that run on the computer.) Now, what do you get when you mix the two? Firmware.

Firmware is programming that's built into a portion of your hardware's memory--the section called Programmable Read-Only Memory--thereby becoming a permanent part of the hardware. Firmware is actually created and tested like software, distributed like software, and, using a special user interface, can be installed like other software. However, once it is installed into PROM, the combination of software and hardware is called firmware. Occasionally, firmware will be distributed for printers, modems, and other hardware devices.

By the way, IBM prefers to call firmware "microcode."   

The GPS is a "constellation" of 24 well-spaced satellites that orbit the Earth and enable people with ground receivers to pinpoint their location (the people's location, that is, not the satellites') within 10 to 100 meters. (Actually, the GPS can pinpoint a location within 1 meter, but only military personnel are allowed to have the receivers necessary for that kind of accuracy.) Standard GPS equipment is widely used in science and engineering, and it's becoming cheap enough that many individuals now own GPS receivers.

The GPS is owned and operated by the U.S. Department of Defense and works like this:

- The 24 GPS satellites in orbit about 10,500 miles above the Earth are spaced so that from any point on Earth, four satellites are above the horizon. Each satellite contains a computer, an atomic clock, and a radio. It uses the computer and the clock to determine where it is located at any given time, and it uses the radio to broadcast that information to Earth.

- On the ground, a GPS receiver contains a computer that "triangulates" its own position by getting bearings from three of the four satellites. The result is expressed as a geographic position--longitude and latitude. Some receivers are equipped with a display screen that shows the position on a map.

- If a fourth satellite transmission is received, the receiver/computer can figure out the altitude as well as the geographic position.

Whois is an Internet utility run by InterNIC that returns information about a domain name or IP address. For example, if you enter a domain name such as pcworld.com, whois returns the name and address of the domain's owner.

You can also use Whois to find out whether a domain name is available. If you query a particular name, and the search result finds no match, the domain name is probably available, and you can apply to register it.

A backlink is a link back to a page that has linked to the current page. In other words, it's not the links ON your page--it's the links TO your page. Hopefully, our browsers will someday come with a backlink button so we can check the backlinks to any page we visit. For now, however, you have to use a search engine, such as AltaVista at

http://altavista.digital.com

To find out how many people on the Web have linked to your home page (or any page you choose) go to AltaVista and search for

http://www.nerdworldnj.com

replacing "nerdworldnj" in the preceding with your own URL.

For information on how to use a Java Script or similar technique to add a backlink button to your page, thereby enabling visitors to see which pages have linked yours, see The Backlinks Page at

http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/backlinks.news.html        

E-tailing (or less frequently, etailing) is the selling of retail goods on the Internet. In other words, it's short for electronic retailing, and has been in use now for a couple of years.

Bloatware is the (sarcastic) term for software that has a lot of--or just plain too many--features and requires considerable disk space and RAM. Unfortunately, there's a growing trend among software publishers to disregard the size of applications and create software that insists you continue to increase your computer's RAM and storage, and in some cases even requires you to upgrade your processor. Some people refer to this trend as "creeping featuritis."

Here's a problem that's apparently becoming so widespread that it currently has two names: infonesia and internesia. Each is used to describe the inability to remember where one found a piece of
information. While infonesia can be more broadly applied to all media, internesia makes it clear that the memory lapse is due to the overwhelming amount of electronic information (e-mail, Web sites,
newsgroups, and so on) to which we're exposed. You'll know you've been hit with it when you tell your coworkers about this new thing called "infonesia," but forget that you read it here.

RAID is short for Redundant Array of Independent Disks, which is a specialized category of disk drives that use two or more drives in combination. By combining multiple drives, the user increases
performance and decreases the risk of damage to the data or error. RAID drives are commonly used on servers but until recently were seldom necessary for personal computers. (We say "were" after the new Apple Macintosh, with two 4-gigabyte RAID drives.)

cam or webcam is a video camera, usually attached directly to a computer, whose current or latest image can be viewed from a Web site.  A live cam is one that continuously provides new, live images transmitted in rapid succession (or even in streaming video). The first cams were positioned mainly on fish tanks and coffee machines, but they've recently caught on, and now many are focused on scenic areas, traffic, and elsewhere.

The motherboard is the main circuit board in a PC. It contains the computer's basic components and circuits, including:

- microprocessor and optional coprocessors (the brains)

- memory (the muscle)

- expansion slots, for installing additional components

- controllers, for standard peripheral devices such as the monitor, keyboard, and disk drive

On most PCs, you can replace the motherboard to upgrade to a faster microprocessor. Replacing the motherboard is somewhat more difficult and more expensive than adding an accelerator board (which simply accelerates the existing processor on your motherboard), but it results in optimal performance from all the components.

A tilde (pronounced TILL-duh or TILL-day) looks like this: ~ (provided that your system is displaying a little squiggle and not some other character where that little squiggle should be.) It's a special typographic character found on most keyboards, usually in the upper-left corner, next to the numerals. It's sometimes called a "twiddle" or a "squiggle." 

Short for Accelerated Graphics Port, AGP is a specialized interface that helps 3D graphics display quickly. Developed by Intel, AGP essentially allocates parts of your computer's memory to perform the
complicated task of rendering 3D graphics and then gives it back to the rest of the operating system when it's not in use.
Intel has built AGP into the new Pentium II microprocessor, creating a chip that is well suited for 3D applications.

The dogcow is the unofficial mascot of Apple Computer. His name is Clarus, and he's shaped like a dog but has the spots of a cow. He says "Moof!" when he speaks, and you'd better be careful when and where you "Moof!" because Apple has actually copyrighted Clarus's vocabulary.

For the most part, Clarus the dogcow lives in the Page Setup dialog box, where his two-dimensional self is used to show the page and image orientation. For example, if you change the print option to Flip
Vertical, Clarus switches from his usual left-facing position to a right-facing position. (We'll leave it up to you to decipher the dogcow's political leanings from these scant clues.)

See also:
Legends of the Dogcow
http://www.appledesigns.com/moof.html  
Dogcow TechNote (the definitive word)
http://devworld.apple.com/dev/dts/tn31.html  

Groupware refers to a class of software that supports a group of people working together in a collective effort, despite being located away from one another. Groupware, like the popular Lotus Notes and
Microsoft Exchange, is typically used over a local area network and helps workgroups organize their activities. Features may include the sharing of calendars to schedule meetings and allocate resources,
collective writing and editing, e-mail, shared database access (with password protection) and file distribution, and sometimes even electronic meetings wherein each person is able to see and display
information to others.

Groupware is sometimes called "workgroup productivity software."

For more information, point your browser to
CSCW & Groupware index
http://www.usabilityfirst.com/cscw.html  

Groupware FAQ list
http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/by_category.comp-groupware-faq.html  

Digital cash (also known as e-cash) is money that exists on your computer's hard drive, where it can be spent on electronic commerce (the appropriate sums are subtracted as you spend). In theory, you can
spend the money in very small increments, such as tenths of a U.S. cent or less, but this practice is not yet widely used. There are three primary commercial vendors of digital cash on the Web: DigiCash,
CyberCash, and First Virtual. In general, you set up a digital cash account by making payments with a credit card or by using an account with a participating bank (the list of banks is pretty short, but
likely to grow), but each company handles the details in its own way.
For more information, point your browser to:

DigiCash
http://www.digicash.com/ecash/ecash-home.html  

CyberCash
http://www.cybercash.com 

First Virtual
http://www.fv.com 

Short for Asynchronous Transfer Mode, ATM is a network technology based on transferring data in fixed-size cells (sometimes called packets). Compared to units used with older technologies, cells used
with ATM are relatively small. This smaller, constant cell size allows ATM equipment to transmit video, audio, and computer data over the same network, assuring that no single type of data hogs the line.
Currently, ATM supports data transfer rates from 25 to 622 megabits per second, which can be quite high compared to a maximum of 100 mbps for Ethernet, the current technology used for most local area
networks.

While some people think that ATM holds the answer to the Internet bandwidth problem, there are certain drawbacks. For example, ATM's reliance on a fixed channel, or route, between two points makes for speedy data transfer, but the older standard (called TCP/IP)--which can send each packet on a different route and then compile the packets at the destination--is more adaptable to sudden surges in network traffic and better suited for skirting problem areas.

A digizine is a magazine that is delivered in an electronic (digital) format on a medium such as CD-ROM or the Internet. A digizine can be a stand-alone document or a supplement to a printed manual or magazine. For example, many computer magazines are packaged with a CD-ROM containing a digizine with articles, reviews, interviews, and demos. In addition to text, digizines often include audio and video.

When a geek (or someone in "information technology," as we like to call it) refers to a footprint, he or she is speaking of the amount of space that a particular unit of hardware or software occupies. For
now, the term is mostly used with hardware, in which a footprint is the amount of physical space--or desktop real estate--the unit occupies. Increasingly, however, footprint is being used when describing software, referring to the amount of hard drive space it occupies, the amount of RAM it requires, or both.

BIOS (pronounced "bye-ose") stands for Basic Input/Output System, and it is an integral part of your PC. The BIOS is the lowest-level software in the computer, and it serves two essential functions:

- It is the program your PC uses to start up the system when you turn it on.
- It acts as an interface for the operating system and hardware, managing the flow of data between the system and attached devices such as the hard disk, video card, keyboard, mouse, and printer.

Unlike the operating system, which you can install or reinstall at any time, the BIOS is built into the computer when it is manufactured. Additionally, the PC BIOS is standardized so that all PCs are alike at this level (although there are different BIOS versions). This way, the user can upgrade to a different version of DOS, for example, without changing the BIOS.

LAN stands for local area network, and it's essentially a small system of interconnected computers. Most likely, the computers in your office are connected with one another and maybe even with a server--making you a LAN user, whether you knew it or not. Usually, LANs are limited to a single office or building, but a really large one might span two or more adjacent buildings.

For more information on LANs, see LAN FAQs at 
http://web.syr.edu/~jmwobus/lans/comfaqs/

Unlike the tool you used to create that nifty cutting board back in your high school woodshop days, in technical parlance, a router is a device that connects two LANs. (A LAN is a local area network, as
discussed in yesterday's tip.) In addition to simply bridging two LANs, a router provides additional features such as the ability to filter messages and forward them to different places based on predefined criteria. Routers are used extensively throughout the Internet to forward data from one host computer to another. In this case, a router maintains a table of available routes and their conditions, as well as distance and cost information, which it uses to determine the best route for a given packet of data. Typically, a packet travels through a number of routers before arriving at its destination.

While we're on the subject of LANs (local area networks), Ethernet is a particular protocol--that is, a set of network cabling and signaling specifications--that provides a relatively inexpensive but fast network connection. Developed in 1976, the original Ethernet specifications support transfer rates of 10 megabits per second (mbps), but a new version, called 100BaseT (or Fast Ethernet), supports data transfer rates of 100 mbps. A newly proposed standard, called Gigabit Ethernet, will support data rates of 1 gigabit (1000 megabits) per second.

CPU is short for central processing unit--that is, the brains of a computer. Sometimes referred to simply as the processor or central processor, the CPU is where most system and application calculations take place (in other words, it's where the computer does most of its work). The CPU controls all the other parts of a computer. It receives and decodes instructions from memory and also activates peripherals, such as your monitor and keyboard. In terms of computing power, the CPU is the most important element of a computer system.  The faster and more powerful your CPU, the faster and more powerful
your computer.

IP faxing refers to using the Internet to transmit faxes. IP faxing is similar to Internet telephony (defined yesterday), but it is optimized for transmitting fax data. IP faxing generally works by sending fax data over the Internet to strategically placed fax servers. Once the fax arrives at a server near its final destination, the server transfers the fax over normal telephone lines to the recipient. Because the data is transmitted over the Internet for most of its journey, the total cost of transmission is much less than if it traveled over long-distance telephone lines, as conventional faxes do.

Many products are available that enable companies to set up IP faxing servers for their remote offices; in addition, national and international IP faxing services allow smaller companies and individuals to send IP faxes for a fee. 
See also:

SureFax, an IP faxing service run by Cable & Wireless
http://www.surefax.com

Xpedite Systems, another company providing fax broadcasting services
http://www.xpedite.com

A mirror site is a Web or FTP site that is an exact duplicate copied from another server. Usually, mirroring is employed to lighten the load on sites with heavy traffic, such as those containing the Netscape and Microsoft browsers for downloading; but a mirror site can also create a copy of geographically distant sites (for example, mirroring a popular British site in the United States). Because the mirror site is an exact replica of the original site, it is usually updated frequently to ensure that it reflects the original's content.

Yet Another Bloody Acronym.

This acronym doesn't show up in e-mail, but it is fairly common in Internet chats. It stands for Just A Minute, and can be used to indicate that you're researching/composing an intelligent response (even if all you're doing is sneaking off to the fridge).

It stands for Hanging On Your Every Word

See What I Mean?

Now that CULA has started cropping up in e-mail and chats, it's only a matter of time before IAWC finds its way into the lexicon. The former stands for See You Later, Alligator, so the latter could only
be In A While, Crocodile.

HHOK stands for Ha Ha, Only Kidding, and is best used when you're having a little fun
with someone and you want the person to know you're not serious. Consider it an electronic wink and nudge.