Instant Broadband® Series
Appendix H: Glossary
3DES - 3DES is a variation on DES that uses a
Adapter - Printed circuit board that plugs into a PC to add to capabilities or connectivity to a PC.
AppleTalk - An Apple Computer networking system that supports Apple's pro- prietary local talk.
Backbone - The part of a network that connects most of the systems and net- works together and handles the most data.
Bit - A binary digit. The value - 0 or
Boot - To cause the computer to start executing instructions. Personal comput- ers contain
Bridge - A device that interconnects different networks together.
Broadband - A
Browser - A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web or PC. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse text files online.
Buffer - A buffer is a shared or assigned memory area used by hardware devices or program processes that operate at different speeds or with different sets of priorities. The buffer allows each device or process to operate without being held up by the other. In order for a buffer to be effective, the size of the buffer and the algorithms for moving data into and out of the buffer need to be considered by the buffer designer. Like a cache, a buffer is a "midpoint holding place" but exists not so much to accelerate the speed of an activity as to sup- port the coordination of separate activities.
EtherFast® Cable/DSL Firewall Router with
Cable Modem - A device that connects a computer to the cable television net- work, which in turn connects to the Internet. Once connected, cable modem users have a continuous connection to the Internet. Cable modems feature asymmetric transfer rates: around 36 Mbps downstream (from the Internet to the computer), and from 200 Kbps to 2 Mbps upstream (from the computer to the Internet).
CAT 5 - ANSI/EIA (American National Standards Institute/Electronic Industries Association) Standard 568 is one of several standards that specify "categories" (the singular is commonly referred to as "CAT") of twisted pair cabling systems (wires, junctions, and connectors) in terms of the data rates that they can sustain. CAT 5 cable has a maximum throughput of 100 Mbps and is usually utilized for 100BaseTX networks.
Cookie - Data created by a Web server that is stored on a user's computer. It provides a way for the Web site to keep track of a user's patterns and prefer- ences and, with the cooperation of the Web browser, to store them on the user's own hard disk.
Data Packet - One frame in a
DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System) - Allows a network device with a dynamic Internet IP address to have a fixed host and domain name, such as myhostname.mydomainname.com. It is useful when you are hosting your own website, FTP server, or other server behind a router, so people can find your site no matter how often the Internet IP address changes. Using DDNS requires registering with a DDNS service provider on the Internet.
Default Gateway - The routing device used to forward all traffic that is not addressed to a station within the local subnet.
Denial of Service - A protocol that directs the network to no longer respond to requests that might arise as the result of a Denial of Service attack.
Denial of Service Attack - An assault on a network that floods it with so many additional requests that regular traffic is either slowed or completely interrupt- ed.
DES (Digital Encryption Standard) - Encryption used for data communication where both the sender and receiver must know the same secret key, used to
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