Tired of being bombarded by tons of tech jabber?

We’re assembling a small glossary of tech jargon that you may come across to attempt to help you understand in PLAIN ENGLISH what it is that these crazy tech’s are talking about.  Also, whenever we use a tech term in our website, we will link it to the glossary to help you understand what it is we are talking about.

DNS - Domain Name Service, is one of the key fabrics that keeps today’s Internet running. What DNS does, is provide a translation service and a location service for the Internet. You see, when you came to my website, you typed in http://www.chaosart.com/ into your web browser, or followed a link that sent you to http://www.chaosart.com/. However, the web doesn’t think in terms of textual names, it thinks in what are called IP Addresses, which look like this 12.23.34.45.  What DNS does it take the friendly text name you type and convert it into an IP address, all behind the scenes.

IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol, is one of the two primary methods used by programs for accessing Internet E-Mail (The Other is POP3). Most good mail programs are capable of using both standards. The difference is in HOW they manipulate E-mail. When you use IMAP you connect to the mail server, and the program checks all the messages sitting there. It then allows you to read and manipulate all of the messages DIRECTLY on the server.  IMAP has the advantage that wherever you are, whatever program you are using, you will always have your messages there. Our Webmail programs rely upon IMAP. IMAP has the disadvantage of being slower than POP3, as all of the e-mail reading and work is done live over the Internet.  Some E-mail programs will keep a copy of the messages downloaded to your machine so that you can read them offline, but ultimately, and manipulation of the messages (moving them to a folder, replying to them, deleting them, etc.) has to be relayed back to the server for every message. Whichever method you use, you should stick with it.  Mixing POP3 and IMAP, unless you know specifically WHY you are doing it, will more than likely result in you not having your mail where you want it, when you want it.

IP Address - Internet Protocol Address, every computer, either connected to a network, or to the Internet, has an IP Address.  An IP Address is a number, unique to the computer on the internet that looks like this: 123.234.45.56. Every computer on the internet must have a unique number.  Computers on a private or a business network usually have an IP Address that is part of a bunch of reserved addresses for private use.  If these private addresses weren’t used, we would have a problem of running out of addresses. Currently, there are discussion underway for a new addressing scheme to ... address ... the issue.  The current addressing scheme allows for roughly 4 billion addresses. While that might seem like a lot, you have to keep in mind that not only does every computer need an address, but all of the devices that connect together to keep the internet working, switches, hubs, routers, servers, gateways, etc... must ALL have a unique address.

POP3 - Post Office Protocol, is one of the two primary methods used by programs for accessing Internet E-mail (The Other is IMAP). Most good mail programs are capable of using both standards. The difference is in HOW they manipulate E-mail.  When you use POP3, you connect to the mail server, and the program then grabs all of the messages on the mail server (and usually deletes them from the server afterwards). If then allows you to read and manipulate the messages locally on your computer.  You do not have to be connected to the Internet other than to grab the messages, and perhaps send any replies. POP3 has the advantage that your messages are kept locally on your computer, and you can manipulate them whenever and however you want.  It also tends to be much faster, as it doesn’t have to keep anything synchronized with the server.  It also only ever has to grab whatever is there, and not deal with any other messages sitting there.  POP3 has the disadvantage that all of your messages are stored in one location on a single machine.  Once you have all the mail on your machine, it is only stored on the machine, and (usually) not accessible to other machines.  If you typically only use one machine to connect to the Internet, then POP3 is the preferred method to use. It is also a lot simpler to setup, and more programs and tools (like my Treo 600 and Palm Pilots) will accept POP3.   Whichever method you use, you should stick with it. Mixing POP3 and IMAP, unless you know specifically WHY you are doing it, will more than likely result in you not having your mail where you want it, when you want it.