Letter: M
mail reflector
reflector A specialized address from which e-mail is automatically forwarded to a set of other addresses, commonly used to implement a mail discussion group.
Maillist
(or Mailing List) A (usually automated) system that allows people to send e-mail to one address, whereupon their message is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist. In this way, people who have many different kinds of e-mail access can participate in discussions together.
Mbone
Mbone is short for multicast backbone on the Internet, and is an extension to the Internet designed to support IP multicasting, or the transmission of data packets to multiple addresses. Most of this traffic is streaming audio and video which, like radio and TV broadcasts, is sent to many people at once. The Mbone was established in 1994 by the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Megabyte
A million bytes. Actually, technically, 1024 kilobytes.
Meta Information
Meta information means "information about information." In HTML, meta tags describe the content of the document in which they're written. Meta tags have two possible attributes: and . Meta tags with an HTTP-EQUIV attribute are analogous to HTTP headers that can control the action of browsers. Meta tags with a NAME attribute are used primarily by indexing and searching tools. These tools can gather meta information in order to sort and classify Web pages. One way to help your document show up more frequently in search engines and directories is to use the META NAME attribute to set keywords that will pull up your site when someone does a search for those words.
Method
A method is a function assigned to an object. For example, any Form object in JavaScript has a submit method, which, when invoked, submits the form. Since JavaScript functions are also data values, you can combine functions or invoke them from other statements by using methods.
Micropayments
Another elusive Holy Grail of online business, micropayments let content providers charge very small fees (some fraction of a penny, say) for access to a site or other electronic information. The aggregated payments are then deducted from a user's ecash account or credit card, making the experience highly fluid. However, unless you rack up a lot of micropayments, the cost of processing each transaction is far greater than the revenue gained. On top of that, your users have to be willing to set up an ecash account.
MILNET
A part if the DDN network that makes up the Internet, centered on non-classified military communications.
MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) -- The standard for attaching non-text files to standard Internet mail messages. Non-text files include graphics, spreadsheets, formatted word-processor documents, sound files, etc.
An email program is said to be MIME Compliant if it can both send and receive files using the MIME standard.
When non-text files are sent using the MIME standard they are converted (encoded) into text - although the resulting text is not really readable.
Generally speaking the MIME standard is a way of specifying both the type of file being sent (e.g. a Quicktime™ video file), and the method that should be used to turn it back into its original form.
Besides email software, the MIME standard is also universally used by Web Servers to identify the files they are sending to Web Clients, in this way new file formats can be accommodated simply by updating the Browsers’ list of pairs of MIME-Types and appropriate software for handling each type.
Mirror
Generally speaking, “to mirror” is to maintain an exact copy of something. Probably the most common use of the term on the Internet refers to “mirror sites” which are web sites, or FTP sites that maintain exact copies of material originated at another location, usually in order to provide more widespread access to the resource.
Another common use of the term “mirror” refers to an arrangement where information is written to more than one hard disk simultaneously, so that if one disk fails, the computer keeps on working without losing anything.
Modem
(MOdulator, DEModulator) -- A device that you connect to your computer and to a phone line, that allows the computer to talk to other computers through the phone system. Basically, modems do for computers what a telephone does for humans.
modem
MOdulator/DEModulator). A device that allows a PC to communicate and exchange information with other modem-equipped computers via telephone lines.
Module
A module is a unit of code designed for a specific task that can be combined with other units to form a software program, and reused for different programs. Module can also refer to hardware components, such as a unit of RAM.
Monospace Font
A monospace font, such as Courier, is one in which every character takes up the same amount of horizontal space. Thus a thin "i" in a monospace font would have the same width, or pitch, as a fat "w." A font in which an "i" is relatively thinner than a "w" would be a proportional pitch font, such as Times. Pitch is usually expressed as the number of characters printed per inch. Common pitch values are 10 and 12. Because monospace fonts have constant widths, they are often used to align tabular data into columns.
MOO
(Mud, Object Oriented) -- One of several kinds of multi-user role-playing environments, so far only text-based.
Mosaic
The first WWW browser that was available for the Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX all with the same interface. Mosaic really started the popularity of the Web. The source-code to Mosaic has been licensed by several companies and there are several other pieces of software as good or better than Mosaic, most notably, Netscape.
Mosaic
The World Wide Web client program developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It was essentially the first graphical WWW browser
Mozilla
Mozilla is an open-source Web browser that is based on an early version of Netscape Communicator 5.0. Like other open-source projects, the development is coordinated through discussion forums. Releases are periodically updated. Mozilla was first released in March
MP3
MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) is an audio compression format that creates files that can be easily sent or downloaded across the Internet. Using ripper and encoder applications, CD tracks can be converted to MP3 and reduced in size by a factor of 12. MP3 files have varying degrees of sound quality, depending on the encoding settings that are used during the compression process. Check out Webmonkey’s MP3 overview for more info.
MPEG
MPEG, for Moving Picture Experts Group, refers to a group of audio/video compression standards used to create videos comparable to VCR quality. The MPEG-1 standard yields a video resolution of 352-by-240 at 30 frames per second, while MPEG-2 offers resolutions of 720x480 and 1280x720 at 60 fps, with full CD-quality audio. To view an MPEG video, you need to download (shareware or commercial) client software that plays it. The MPEG group works within the International Organization for Standardization and periodically improves and updates the compression standards.
MUD
(Multi-User Dungeon or Dimension) -- A (usually text-based) multi-user simulation environment. Some are purely for fun and flirting, others are used for serious software development, or education purposes and all that lies in between. A significant feature of most MUDs is that users can create things that stay after they leave and which other users can interact with in their absence, thus allowing a world to be built gradually and collectively.
Multimedia
Before the personal computer boom, the word multimedia had a much simpler connotation - paper, glass, and acrylic on canvas was (and is) multimedia. Today, the definition has expanded to include using a computer to present and combine text, graphics, video, animation, and sound. The birth of the Web led to a great (perceived) potential for multimedia, because of the ability of networked computers to (someday) deliver this information to all users and to (um, soon) allow everyone to join in the world of multimedia publishing.
MUSE
(Multi-User Simulated Environment) -- One kind of MUD - usually with little or no violence.
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