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Delta Web Design 4036 Cypress Gardens Drive Fort Worth, Texas 76123-1440 PH 817-370-1169 FX 817-370-7212 E-mail Delta Privacy Statement |
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| INTERNET DICTIONARY - LETTER "P" | |
| packet | The unit of data sent across a network. "Packet" a generic term used to describe unit of data at all levels of the protocol stack, but it is most correctly used to describe application data units. See also: datagram, frame. |
| Packet InterNet Groper (PING) | A program used to test reachability of destinations by sending them an ICMP echo request and waiting for a reply. The term is used as a verb: "Ping host X to see if it is up!" See also: Internet Control Message Protocol. [Source: RFC1208] |
| packet switching | The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet switching, all the data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special machines along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time. |
| Packet Switch Node (PSN) | A dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet switched network. See also: packet switching, router. [Source: NNSC] |
| Padding the Cells | Adding padding makes a space between the contents of the cell and the inside edge of the cell. |
| Page | An individual frame of content on the World Wide Web, defined by a single HTML file and referenced by a single URL. |
| Paint Shop Pro | One of the easiest, fastest and most powerful image viewing, editing and converting programs you may ever use on the Windows platform. It supports over 30 image formats, and contains several drawing and painting tools, plus effects and the ability to use Adobe Photoshop plugins. This is an excellent choice for converting and preparing GIF's and JPEG's for use on the World Wide Web. |
| password | A secret combinations of letters and other symbols needed to login to a computer system. |
| PC Card | A computer device packaged in a small card about the size of a credit card and conforming to the PCMCIA standard. PC Cards provide additional memory (ROM or RAM), modem and fax modem capabilties, and can even acts as portable disk drives on portable (laptop) computers. |
| PCMCIA | Personal Computer Memory Card International Association - was formed by several modem card manufacturers in the late 1980s to define the card's physical design, computer socket design, electrical interface, and associated software. PCMCIA used some of the Japanese Electronic Industry Development Association's (JEIDA) principles in developing their standard. Both organizations continue to support international standards for PC Cards as they are now called. In fact, the newest release of the standard incorporates both PCMCIA and JEIDA developments which further enhances compatibility between products. PC Cards are now used in many varied applications including several types of RAM memory, pre-programmed ROM cards, modems, sound cards, floppy disk controllers, hard drives, CD ROM and SCSI controllers, Global Positioning System (GPS) cards, data acquisition, LAN cards, pagers, etc. PCMCIA also provides the abilty for hot plugging. |
| PD | Public Domain |
| Portable Document Format - The file format of documents viewed and created by the Adobe Acrobat Reader, Acrobat Capture, Adobe Distiller, Adobe Exchange, and the Adobe Acrobat Amber Plug-in for Netscape Navigator. This file format was developed in hopes to standardize formatting of documents that are used on the Internet. One of the benefits of using Acrobat and PDFs is that whether you're an executive using Microsoft(R) Office products, an engineer using a CAD program, or an art director using desktop publishing software, you can quickly deliver business documents to a colleague or to the entire company, without reauthoring or learning new applications. | |
| PDU | See: Protocol Data Unit |
| peer-to-peer network | A network where there is no dedicated server. Every computer can share files and peripherals with all other computers on the network, given that all are granted access privileges. Such a network is practical only for small workgroups of less than a dozen computers. |
| PEM | See: Privacy Enhanced Mail |
| Ph | The Ph system allows you to look up directory information, usually including e-mail addresses at universities, research institutions, and some governmental agencies throughout the world. You need a program that lets you use Ph. Tell that program which Ph server to use, and then enter a name you would like to search for. |
| PKZIP - PKUNZIP | A shareware utility for compressing and decompressing files developed by PKWARE in 1986. Their are versions for both Microsoft Windows as well as MS-DOS based systems. SEE ALSO WinZIP. |
| PING | See: Packet INternet Groper |
| .planfile | A file that lists anything you want others on the Net to know about you. You place it in your home directory on your public-access site. |
| platform | The type of computer or operating system on which a software application runs. For example, some common platforms are PC, Macintosh, Unix, and NeXT. When someone knows more than one of these platforms or when a program can be used on more than one of these platforms, it is known as cross-platform. |
| Plug and Play | The Plug and Play (PnP) standards were developed by Microsoft, Intel, and other industry leaders to simplify the process of adding hardware to PCs. The standard's intention is to conceal unpleasant details, such as IRQ and DMA channels, from people who just want to add a new board, drive, or other chunk of hardware to their system. |
| plug-in | A smaller "add-on" computer program which works in conjuction with a larger application. Usually a plug-in enhances the capabilities of the program it is "plugged" into. Web browsers like Netscape Navigator have many plug-ins which allow a user to do everything from viewing Quicktime VR animations to visiting VRML worlds to hearing Realaudio. |
| point | The act of placing your mouse arrow onto a link to direct it to another Web page. "Point your browser to" means "go to" that Web site. |
| Point Listing | A database of popular Web sites that will direct you to areas of interest. Some Web sites display the "top 5%" seal indicating the site was selected for it's excellence in content, presentation, and experience . |
| Point Of Presence (POP) | A site where there exists a collection of telecommunications equipment, usually digital leased lines and multi-protocol routers. |
| Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) | The Point-to-Point Protocol, defined in RFC 1171, provides a method for transmitting packets over serial point-to-point links. See also: Serial Line IP. [Source: FYI4] |
| POP | See: Post Office Protocol and Point Of Presence |
| port | The first and most generally used meaning is a place where information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the "serial port" on a person computer is where a modem would be connected. Secondly, on the Internet, port often refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server "listens" on a particular port number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing the server, so you might see a URL of the form: gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/ which shows a gopher server running on a non-standard port (the standard gopher port is 70). Finally, "port" also refers to translating a piece of software to bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows program so that is will run on a Macintosh. See also: Transmission Control Protocol, User Datagram Protocol. |
| post | Subscribers to newsgroups and mailing lists take part in discussions by sending, or posting their articles or comments online. Means the same as "to put up". Also, Power On Self Test, automatic procedure accomplished when a computer is first turned on. |
| Postal Telegraph and Telephone (PTT) | Outside the USA, PTT refers to a telephone service provider, which is usually a monopoly, in a particular country. |
| posting | A single message entered into a network communications system. |
| postmaster | The person responsible for taking care of electronic mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site. See also: Electronic Mail. [Source: ZEN] |
| Post Office Protocol (POP) | A protocol designed to allow single user hosts to read mail from a server. There are three versions: POP, POP2, and POP3. Latter versions are NOT compatible with earlier versions. See also: Electronic Mail. |
| PostScript | PostScript is a programming language designed to be used to describe printing on pages. Apple helped make PostScript popular by selling printers with built in PostScript interpreters. Many programs have evolved to produce PostScript programs as their output, making PostScript the lingua franca of printing. Until recently, in order to print a PostScript file, you had to have a relatively expensive laser printer. The development that changed this was the software PostScript interpreter. These programs allow your computer to interpret PostScript programs, and produce the matrix of dots to send to your normal graphics printer. One of the benefits of PostScript is that it is resolution independent. What this means is that it can support the highest resolution of your device -- and that you can reasonably preview PostScript on a low resolution screen. |
| POTS or PSTN | Plain Old Telephone System or Public Switched Telephone Network. The collection of interconnected systems operated by the various telephone companies and administrations(PTTs) around the world. The PSTN or POTS started as human-operated analogue circuit switching systems (plugboards), progressed through electromechanical switches and are (in 1994) almost completely digital except for the final connection to the subscriber. Other things that make the PSTN less than bit-transparent include A-law to mu-law conversion or vice versa on international calls; robbed-bit signalling in North America (56kbps to 64 kbps); data compression to save bandwidth on long-haul trunks; signal processing such as echo suppression and voice signal enhancement such as AT&T TrueVoice. All this is in contrast to an integrated services digital network or ISDN. |
| PPP | See: Point-to-Point Protocol |
| Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) | Internet email which provides confidentiality, authentication and message integrity using various encryption methods. See also: Electronic Mail, encryption. |
| prolly | Short for probably. |
| prompt | The flashing symbol where you type or place your mouse on the screen. This is when the host system asks you to do something and waits for you to respond. For example, if you see "login:" it means type your user name. |
| Prospero | A distributed filesystem which provides the user with the ability to create multiple views of a single collection of files distributed across the Internet. Prospero provides a file naming system, and file access is provided by existing access methods (e.g., anonymous FTP and NFS). The Prospero protocol is also used for communication between clients and servers in the archie system. See also: anonymous FTP, archie, archive site, Gopher, Network File System, Wide Area Information Servers. |
| protocol | A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet). [Source: MALAMUD] See Introduction to Protocols |
| protocol converter | A device/program which translates between different protocols which serve similar functions (e.g., TCP and TP4). |
| Protocol Data Unit (PDU) | "PDU" is "international standards comittee speak" for packet. See also: packet. |
| protocol stack | A layered set of protocols which work together to provide a set of network functions. See also: layer, protocol. |
| proxy | Or proxy server - A technique used to cache information on a Web server and acts as an intermediary between a Web client and that Web server. It basically holds the most commonly and recently used content from the World Wide Web for users in order to provide quicker access and to increase server security. This is common for an ISP especially if they have a slow link to the Internet. Proxy servers are also constructs that allow direct Internet access from behind a firewall. They open a socket on the server, and allow communication via that socket to the Internet. For example, if your computer is inside a protected network, and you want to browse the Web using Netscape, you would set up a proxy server on a firewall. The proxy server would be configured to allow requests from your computer, trying for port 80, to connect to its port 1080, and it would then redirect all requests to the proper places. |
| proxy ARP | The technique in which one machine, usually a router, answers ARP requests intended for another machine. By "faking" its identity, the router accepts responsibility for routing packets to the "real" destination. Proxy ARP allows a site to use a single IP address with two physical networks. Subnetting would normally be a better solution. See also: Address Resolution Protocol [Source: RFC1208] |
| PSN | See: Packet Switch Node. |
| PTT | See: Postal, Telegraph and Telephone |
| Public Domain | A repository of material that is not protected by copyright and so is free to be used without permission. |
