howff: [scottish] meeting place, shelter, haunt....
howff: [scottish] meeting
place, shelter, haunt....
Anti-Virus Program - A program that attempts to stop malicious code from executing on your computer. See "Virus".
Attachment - A file that is added to an Email. This file can be a graphic, document, program or anything else that you have stored on your local computer. Attaching a file will send a copy of this file - not the original - to the Email recipient. Be careful not to send anything too large. See "Size of Files".
Bookmark/Favourites - You can add favourite websites to a list for easy access. See Making the Most of Internet Explorer for more information on this.
Cache - A browser cache stores files locally on your machine. Thus if a page hasn't changed much, it should be very fast at appearing as it is coming mostly from your local machine, not the internet.
Compressed Files - File Compression utilities eg. Winzip will shrink the size of some files. In the case of large text documents rates of 70%+ compression can be achieved. It is always a good idea to compress files before emailing them.
Demoware - This is a version of a retail copy of software. It will either have limited functionality or expire after a set period unless you purchase it. The primary purpose of Demoware is to let you "test drive" software before making a decision to purchase it.
Domain Name - An address that is used on the internet (whether it be for email, webpage etc) that is specific to an organisation or company. Eg. The domain name bt.com is British Telecom and the domain name bbc.co.uk is the BBC. If you are looking for information on a specific company, try guessing their domain name by putting common suffixes at the end of their name or abbreviation. Common suffixes are .com for commercial, .co.uk for UK company, .net for network, ac.uk for UK academic establishments and org.uk for UK organisations.
Frame/Frames - Many webpages are made up of frames. Instead of the document being one page, you are actually looking at multiple pages. For example the navigation may be one frame that appears on every page, whereas the information may change depending on what you select. When it comes to printing, it should print the whole document, unless you specifically tell it you want a particular frame only.
Freeware - Freeware is free, completely, no strings attached.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language. The Language that webpages are written in so that they can be viewed in a web browser.
Ins File - A text file that can hold settings for configuring a dial up connection, Internet Explorer and Outlook Express. If you download the Ins File after registering a Howff account, we suggest you save this in a safe place so that if you ever need to reconfigure, you can just run the file again.
ISDN - ISDN is an advancement on the standard domestic telephone connection that allows computers to communicate at much higher speeds.
Keywords - Words that are of importance. In terms of looking for a page, the "key" "words" are the ones that you think are most important to finding what you want.
Leased Line - A leased line is very similar to a standard telephone line but is optimised to handle computer signals and can transfer an enormous amounts of information compared to a standard telephone and modem.
Mail Folders - A folder that is used to store mail. Most mail programs come with an Inbox, Outbox and Deleted Folders, and you can add as many extra ones as you want.
Mail Rules - A Rule dictates an action for the mail program to perform upon receipt of a mail. This can be based on specific text, the senders Email address or the Subject. The action performed can include moving the mail, deleting the mail or copying the mail.
Patches/Upgrades - Patches and Upgrades are not usually complete programs. Basically a patch or upgrade requires that you already have a particular piece of software on your computer. The patch will alter the software, either correcting a mistake in the system, or adding additional functionality to the software.
PDF - Portable Document Format. A file type used mainly for distributing documentation. A free acrobat reader from http://www.adobe.com will allow you to read these file types.
Search Engine - A place on the internet that stores information about lots of webpages, allowing you to search for words that appear in the pages it has listed or navigate through its categories to find what you want.
Shareware - In many cases today you can get a fully functional program which is shareware, but has a built-in self destruct mechanism causing it to become unusable after so many days of use. Many shareware authors rely on the honor system for people to pay them.
Size of Files - File size is measured in Kilobytes (Kb) and Megabytes (Mb) largely. There are 1024 Kb in a Mb. Email is not a good medium for sending files larger than around 5 mb.
Start Page - The webpage that your web browser is set to open when ever it first runs. Going into Tools then Internet Options will allow you to set this to your preference.
Virus - A piece of code written by someone to do damage or be an annoyance. A virus can eat up diskspace, attach itself to emails or even stop your computer booting in extreme cases. They are distributed attached to a program to download or you may receive one innocently via email. This is why you need an anti-virus program. You can only get a virus on your computer by running the malicious code.
Web Browser - A program like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator used for viewing web pages.
