Monday, October 23, 2000		Bits & Bytes

Domain name: It is the Web site address. It typically consists of a host name, followed by a top-level domain category, such as .com, .co or .org and then perhaps a country abbreviation, like .uk etc. Domain name identifies a computer connected to the Net.

FTP: FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a fast way to transfer i.e. upload or download files from one computer to another or from the Internet. Although Web browsers can perform the FTP downloads, yet dedicated FTP programs do it better.

GPF: GPF stands for General Page Fault. When the operating system cannot process a command generated by a program it falters and cannot continue without dropping the command from memory. Then GPFs are displayed as the Blue Screen of Death by a system error message.

IRC: IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is the part of the Internet (Net on the Web) that allows holding live conversations with other people on the Internet. It is a facility for participants to "chat" online in a live forum that usually centres on a common interest. IRC is the earliest form of online chat.

Home page: The first page or document that Web users see when they connect to a Web server or when they visit a Web site. This can be either the page your Web browser automatically loads when you run it, or your own personal page.

Spider: It is a software program that "crawls" like a spider on the Web. It has to search through the Web pages and sites and index those pages in a database of Web pages. These can then be searched using a search engine.