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Netiquette
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Network
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Newbie
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NIC
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NNTP | NTFS
Netiquette
Netiquette, or net etiquette,
refers to etiquette on the Internet. Good netiquette involves respecting others'
privacy and not doing anything online that will annoy or frustrate other people.
Three areas where good netiquette is highly stressed are e-mail, online chat,
and newsgroups. For example, people that spam other users with unwanted e-mails
or flood them with messages have very bad netiquette. You don't want to be one
of those people. If you're new to a newsgroup or online chat room, it may help
to observe how people communicate with each other before jumping in.
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Network
When you have two or more computers connected to each other, you have a network.
The purpose of a network is to enable the sharing of files and information
between multiple systems. The Internet could be described as a global network of
networks. Computer networks can be connected through cables, such as Ethernet
cables or phone lines, or wirelessly, using wireless networking cards that send
and receive data through the air.
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Newbie
A new user of a technology, such as a computer, a certain
computer program, or the Internet, is often referred to as a
"newbie." The term originated sometime around 1990 and
supposedly comes from the English phrase, "new boy," which
refers to someone in their first year of public schooling. In
online chat rooms, veteran net users like to call anybody who
asks an easy question a newbie.
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Newsgroup
This is a discussion group that is based on postings about a particular topic.
These topics range from sports, cars, investing, teen problems, and some stuff
you probably don't want to know about. Users post messages to a news server
which then sends them to a bunch of other participating servers. Then other
users can access the newsgroup and read the postings. The groups can be either
"moderated," where a person or group decides which postings will become part of
the discussion, or "unmoderated," where everything posted is included in the
discussion.
To participate in a newsgroup, you must subscribe to it. It typically doesn't
cost anything, but some groups can be hard to get into unless you know people in
the group. Nearly all newsgroups are found on Usenet, which is a collection of
servers around the world. Because of the global spectrum of newsgroups, they
make up largest bulletin board system (BBS) in the world. Last time I checked,
there were more than 13,000 newsgroups in existence, with new ones being added
all the time. You can choose from a number of different "Newsreader" programs
that allow you to access and participate in newsgroups. Newsgroup access has
also been integrated into Netscape and Internet Explorer, so you can just use
your Web browser if you want.
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NIC
Stands for "Network Interface Card." Pronounced "nick," this is the card that
physically makes the connection between the computer and the network cable.
These cards typically use an Ethernet connection and are available in 10, 100,
and 1000 Base-T configurations. A 100-Base-T card can transfer data at 100 Mbps.
The cards come in ISA and PCI versions and are made by companies like 3Com and
LinkSys. So if you want to connect your computer to a network, you better get
yourself a NIC.
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NNTP
Stands for "Network News Transfer Protocol." For a message to be posted to a
newsgroup, it must be sent through this protocol that interacts between news
servers and newsreader programs. NNTP is basically the software foundation of a
newsgroup server. It is what queries, distributes, posts, and retrieves news
articles.
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NTFS
Stands for "New Technology File System." It is a file system introduced by
Microsoft with Windows NT and is supported by subsequent versions of Windows,
such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP. (The file system is how the operating
system organizes and accesses files on the hard drive.) NTFS has a number of
advantages over the older file system, named FAT, or file allocation table. One
major advantage of NTFS is that it incorporates features to improve reliability.
For example, the new technology file system includes fault tolerance, which
repairs hard drive errors without displaying error messages. It keeps detailed
transaction logs, which tracks hard drive errors. This can help prevent hard
disk failure as well as make it possible to recover files if the hard drive does
fail.
NTFS also allows permissions (such as read, write, and execute) to be set for
individual directories and files. It even supports spanning volumes, which
allows directories of files to be spread across multiple hard drives. The only
reason why you would not want to select NTFS when formatting your hard drive is
if you like slow, outdated technology or you need to run an older operating
system such as Windows 95 or MS-DOS. Of course, if you are running DOS, there is
a good chance you really do like outdated technology.
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