Access Service Provider: An ISP that provides any kind of access to the Internet such as Cable modem, DSL, ISDN or dial up.

ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange, it's basically "plain text."

CGI (Common Gateway Interface): A protocol for gathering data from a Form and sending it to a program or Script such as Perl. Often used to indicate the entire method for processing a Form but in fact it is only a transfer interface.

Cookie: A note that a server leaves on your web browser so that it can remember what you looked at the last time you visited and customize your screen when you visit next. Cookies normally don't pose a security risk and are a must for some online browsing but could be used by the unscrupulous to glean information such as your websurfing habits. They are stored in a special folder on your hard drive aptly named cookies.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets): The expanded term is probably worse than the abbreviation. It refers to the ability to assign styles to elements on a web page (HTML document). Examples include position, size, color etc.

CTR - Click-Through Rate (for Banner Ads). The number of people that click a link compared to how many times the link is displayed.

Dialup Service Provider: An ISP that provides telephone connection services so that you can connect to the Internet with your modem. Can you say AOL?

Domain: An Internet Web Site identified with an IP address.

Domain Name: The name of a Web Site that is mapped to an IP address using a URL.

Drag-and-Drop: A GUI that allows you to use your mouse to drag elements from one location to another.

Form: HTML code to collect information from a visitor.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol): The protocol used to transfer files from one computer to another over the Internet. It is what you can use to copy your web pages to your host.

Host: A computer that stores web accounts. You will often get a contract with an ISP to host your web site.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language): The code that is used to define a web page.

IMS (Interactive Multimedia System)

Internet: Is the physical world wide interconnection between computers and their resources using TCP/IP.

IP (Internet Protocol): The protocol that sends packets of data over the Internet.

IP Address (Internet Protocol Address): Defines where an IP packet is going. Often to somebody's computer over the Internet but also to computers on the same network. It is composed of four numbers, between zero and 255, separated by periods. This number tells a network of computers and servers just where to find your computer.

ISP (Internet Service Provider): A company that provides internet services such as web page hosting.

LAN (Local Area Network): A kind of mini network between locally connected computers, often in a business. Gets into intranets, firewalls, etc., which are topics for another day.

Modem (MOdulator - DEModulator): A device connected to your computer that sounds like a looney tunes cartoon whenever you try to use it. If you have not figured out the purpose of this one yet you are probably not reading this.

Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language): The most common scripting language for processing Form data.

PPC - Pay Per Click. Money paid for each click-through for an affiliate or advertiser link, or your cost to purchase traffic this way.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization.

Spam: NOT the luncheon meat made famous by Monty Python but instead it's junk mail distributed over the Internet using TCP/IP on the WWW to your email box as soon as the distributor finds your Domain IP mail box host address.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol): Is a communication protocol between computers that wish to "talk" over a physical connection. It defines the rules on how they communicate. TCP/IP is the method by which all computers talk over the Internet but it works equally as well on a LAN.

URL (Universal Resource Locator): Is the address of any resource on the World Wide Web. It often refers to a Web Page but it can include almost any file that can be found on a server connected to the WWW (see above).

WWW (World Wide Web) (as if you did not know): Is a method for connecting many of the resources available over the Internet using HTML. Often incorrectly used as a synonym for the Internet.

WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get): A computer program that displays a reasonably good example of the finished result as it is being constructed.

GUI (Graphical User Interface): A program that uses a visual interface instead of a command line interface. DOS uses commands, Windows uses a GUI.