Terms Letter: B
B Channel
The ISDN bearer server channel. This channel carries digital voice and/or data transmission at a rate of 64 Kbit/sec. Primarily used for data (as opposed to signaling) transmissions.
Backbone
A term that is often used to describe the main network connections that comprise the Internet or other major network. This term is relative since a backbone in a small network will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network. Backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies such as Global Crossing GBLX Sprint, AT&T.
Bandwidth
That is the amount of data(files, images, HTML documents) that can be transfered through an Internet line for a given period of time. Telephone lines have the lowest bandwidth. Fiber optics have the highest bandwidth. Bandwidth is usually measured in the number of bits that can be transmitted is a second, i.e., Mbps.
Baud rate
The rate of data transmission based on the number of signal elements or symbols transmitted per second. Technically, «baud» is the number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value – for example a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per second).
Binary
Computers use a binary language composed of ones and zeros to do things and talk to other computers. All your files, for instance, are kept in the computer as binary files and translated into words and pictures by the software (which is also ones and zeros). Most of the files you create with word processors, spreadsheets and graphics packages are kept in a binary form that certain software can understand and other software can’t.
binary mode
FTP mode for transferring binary files – multimedia files, executables and other data files. Avoid using binary to transfer Perl scripts as they usually get corrupted, you need to use ASCII instead
Bit
Binary digIT – The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidthis usually measured in bits-per-second.
Bit rate
The number of bits that «pass» a given point in a telecommunication network usually within a second is referred to as a bit rate. Often abbreviated as bps, kbps, mbps, gbps, tbps
Body
This is a top level HTML document structure which contains the web page content. In context of an email message, it is the part of an email message where you type your message, as opposed to the header or the signature.
Bookmark
In the context of Internet. It is a feature of the Internet browsers(Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera) which allows the user to store favorite or important Internet addresses for future reference.
Bot
The name comes from the word «robot». A bot is a software program used to perform automated tasks. For example all search engines use bots to crawl the internet(e.g Google bot, Yahoo bot) Bots are also oftenly used in the context of IRC(Internet relay chat), where an IRC bot behaves like a real person in IRC chat rooms
Bridge
Usually a device that is used for establishing connection between two LANs. It is a LAN-to-LAN communicaiton device. Also called network bridge.
Broadcast
A process of simulatenous transmission of data packets to all workstations, computers and/or nodes in a network.
Browser
A computer program that is used for viewing web sites across the Internet. The most popular browsers are: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Lynx.
Browser detection
When a web server and/or website tries to determine the browser name and version that the visitor is using. Some sites have different coding for different kind of browsers in order to offer better cross-browser compatibility and better user experience. This is done as not all browsers have the same features and or support certain HTML coding techniques.
BTW
Chat acronym for «By The Way»