Tech Jargon VII
Readers, through this space, I've been trying for the past few weeks to help those who were curious about technological jargon, but did not have time to go through big fat books to enhance their knowledge. Hope I've been successful in doing so. With this expectation, I'm winding up my series this week and giving up my space to other deserving enthusiasts and their articles…Oh the pain of goodbyes! Well then, let's begin my final batch of words… Protocol: A person well versed in English can easily tell what this means. A protocol, as the Oxford English Dictionary says, is a system of fixed rules. When applied to computers and the internet, it is a set of rules that computers use to communicate with each other over the internet. That brings us to the word IP, which basically stands for Internet Protocol. This protocol is used by your computer to understand the information that comes from the internet. Router: Split this word and you end up with the word 'route'...which is precisely what the router does. It is a device that basically guides signals in a network to its relevant path or 'route'. This becomes especially necessary when a single computer is connected to a number of computers, such that the signals need somebody to guide them to the required path, as in a LAN…remember Tech Jargon I? Java: Just hearing the name makes you want to reach for a hot cup, isn't it? Well, if you know what Java means in the computer world, you may change your mind! Java is a programming language that is often used to produce special effects on web pages. The language helps programmers and web developers to create small programs called applets…mind you, I didn't say 'apples'…and these applets help produce your special effect while you browse the internet. ADSL: Short for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, ADSL is a method for connecting a computer to the internet over an ordinary phone line, which produces a much faster connection. Interestingly, it is called asymmetric because it is faster from internet to PC than the other way round. DNS: DNS stands for Domain Name Service / System. It is an internet service that converts a web address provided by you (e.g. www.yahoo.com) into the numeric address that computers use and understand to track the relevant server (once again, look back through the previous issues if you want to know what a server is). The numeric address is called the "IP address". The IP address is a unique number assigned to any computer that is connected to the internet, including yours, and is often of the form 255.255.255.255, where each of the four blocks of numbers can be any value from 0 to 255. You might have at some point during your internet browsing come across an annoying "Can't resolve DNS" message. This usually means that this conversion has failed and therefore, your required website cannot be found. Nahid Akhter
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