B	Glossary



This glossary briefly defines some terms that are used in this 
guide. Additional information may be found online in the 
hyperlinks and the menus.

	anchor	the highlighted text or graphic in a file that, 
when clicked, moves to the linked file

	anonymous FTP	a process for document retrieval using the 
File Transfer Protocol (FTP); user logs on (as 
ÒanonymousÓ) but does not need a pass-
word to access documents on the server

	annotation	feature of NCSA Mosaic that lets you add a 
comment to a document being viewed

	Archie	search device for documents on anonymous 
FTP server machines; the search matches 
filenames (Archie is to anonymous FTP serv-
ers as Veronica is to Gopher servers)

	.au	common extension for audio files (myaudio-
clip.au)

	browser	another term for viewerÑthat is, a software 
package that permits you to look around the 
World Wide Web (Web); NCSA Mosaic is a 
browser

	CERN	particle physics institute located in Geneva, 
Switzerland, and home of the World Wide 
Web

	client	a computer running client software that 
connects to server machines holding infor-
mation; the client makes requests to a 
server for documents and is responsible for 
displaying the information; NCSA Mosaic is 
an example of client software

	document	unit of information sent from servers to cli-
ents; a document may contain plain or for-
matted text, inlined graphics, sound, other 
multimedia data, or hyperlinks to other doc-
uments; often also referred to as a file

	FAQ	Frequently Asked Question; a direct link to 
the NCSA Mosaic FAQ list is on the Help 
menu

	FTP	File Transfer Protocol

	.gif	the CompuServe Graphics Interchange For-
matÑcommon extension for a graphics file 
(mygraphic.gif)

	Gopher	menu-driven system on a server machine 
that presents the files available for retrieval 
in a hierarchical fashion; Gopher is consid-
ered particularly easy to use because of the 
menu system

	Gopherspace	term for the interconnected Gopher servers

	Home Page	start-up document that serves as home base 
for Internet explorations

	hotlist	a personalized online reference of impor-
tant documents as developed and main-
tained by the user; a hotlist can be shared by 
mailing the file to another NCSA Mosaic user

	HTML	HyperText Markup Language, the collection 
of styles used to define the various compo-
nents (e.g., bulleted list, citation, emphasis) 
of a hypertext document

	.html	the extension used on a file that is coded 
using HTML (myfile.html)

	HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the protocol 
used by Web servers

	hyperlink	a word or graphic in a file displayed on-
screen with some form of highlighting (color 
or underlining or both); the word or graphic 
represents hidden text containing the URL 
information of another document, which is 
displayed when you click on the highlighted 
word or graphic

	hypermedia	richly formatted documents containing 
hyperlinks

	inlined	a graphic image that is displayed along with 
text in a NCSA Mosaic Document View win-
dow (versus an image that opens in a sepa-
rate window using an external viewing 
program)

	Internet	the interconnected network of networks 
providing easy, reliable connections to com-
puters virtually anywhere in the world

	JPEG	Joint Photographic Expert Group, a com-
pression/decompression standard

	link	see hyperlink

	MIME	Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension, a 
sndard for specifying and describing the 
format of Internet message bodies

	NCSA	National Center for Supercomputing Appli-
cations on the campus of the University of 
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the home 
of NCSA Mosaic

	NCSA Mosaic	distributed hypermedia system developed 
at NCSA by staff in the Software Develop-
ment Group; designed for information dis-
covery and retrieval using the global 
Internet

	QuickTime	Macintosh-supported format for movies

	server	a computer that provides services (docu-
ments, software) to other machines that run 
specific software (called clients) and request 
those services

	SGML	Standard Generalized Markup Language, a 
language that defines the structure of a doc-
ument and the logical relationship of its 
parts

	source file	the file that is formatted for display in your 
Document View window

	tags	codes used in HTML (e.g., <H1>, </H1>, <p>)

	TIFF	Tag Image File Format, a graphics format 
type that NCSA Mosaic can display using an 
image display utility

	UIUC	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

	URL	Uniform Resource Locator, server and path 
information used in an HTML-coded source 
file to locate another document; URL is 
inserted in a document in the following for-
mat: 

	scheme://host-domain[:port]/path/file-
name 

	more information is available on the Help 
menu in On URLs

	Veronica	search device that matches filenames on 
Gopher servers (Veronica is to Gopher serv-
ers as Archie is to anonymous FTP servers)

	viewer	see browser

	WAIS	Wide Area Information Server, an index and 
retrieval system; when you enter a keyword, 
a search is performed on indexed docu-
ments, which can then be retrieved

	Web	another name for the World Wide Web

	WWW	World Wide Web, a distributed hypertext-
based information system developed at 
CERN

	.xbm	 X-bitmapped (composed of dots or pixels) 
file formatÑcommon extension for a 
graphic file (mygraphic.xbm)