Letter: U
UDP
(User Datagram Protocol) -- One of the protocols for data transfer that is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols. UDP is a “stateless” protocol in that UDP makes no provision for acknowledgement of packets received.
Universe
It sounds pretty grandiose, but universe refers to the number of potential consumers in a given media or market, which is an important concept when gauging your potential customer base. If, for example, you're trying to sell a product to everyone who has access to email, how many people is that? Depending on who you believe, the universe of Americans online is anywhere from 30 million to 75 million.
Unix
Unix, along with Linux and Windows, is one of the most widely-used and oldest operating systems in the world. Since it operates on every hardware platform imaginable, Unix is used to running just about any type of software application you can think of. Banking applications, Web servers, video games and research stations are just a few possible uses for this diverse OS. Since Unix code was originally distributed freely among universities, government institutions and research laboratories, Unix is considered to be the first open-source operating system. Some open-source permutations of Unix are FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Darwin, and Linux. Some commercial distributions of Unix are SCO, Solaris, and AIX.
UNIX
A computer operating system (the basic software running on a computer, underneath things like word processors and spreadsheets). UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.
Upload
The process of transferring information from your computer to another computer through the Internet. Every time you send e-mail to someone you are uploading it.
URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) -- The standard way to give the address of any resource on the Internet that is part of the World Wide Web (WWW). A URL looks like this:
http://www.matisse.net/seminars.html
or telnet://well.sf.ca.us
or news:new.newusers.questions
etc.
The most common way to use a URL is to enter into a WWW browser program, such as Netscape, or Lynx.
See Also: Browser , WWW
URL
Uniform Resource Locator is a means of identifying an exact location on the Internet. For example, http://www.webtrends.com/html/info/default.htm is the URL which defines the use of HTTP to access the Web page Default.htm in the /html/info/ directory on the WebTrends Corporation Web site). As the previous example shows, a URL is comprised of four parts: Protocol Type (HTTP), Machine Name (webtrends.com), Directory Path (/html/info/), and File Name (default.htm).
Usenet
Refers mostly to the newsgroups, but also to e-mail. Usenet travels on the Internet, but also over modems and satellites.
USENET
A world-wide system of discussion groups, with comments passed among hundreds of thousands of machines. Not all USENET machines are on the Internet, maybe half. USENET is completely decentralized, with over 10,000 discussion areas, called newsgroups.
User Agent
Fields in an extended Web server log file identifying the browser and platform used by a visitor.
User ID
This is the unique identifier (like your logon name) that you use to identify yourself on a computer. You probably typed your User ID (and password) when you logged onto the Internet today.
User Interface
A computer science term, interface is the point of communication between the computer and any other entity. User Interface, or UI, narrows that definition down to the communication between the computer and a human being. Web designers have taken the sense of this communication of inputs and outputs as a useful way to describe how a user is informed by the design elements on a page. A "good" user interface can mean that the design fulfills a user's expectations. A "bad" user interface gives you few clues about where you are or what you're supposed to do, leaving you with the sensation that you're drowning and don't know which way is up. This condition is known as Web vertigo.
user session
Commonly called a visit. All time spent on a web site (and all activity performed) by an individual user. By industry standard, a user session is terminated when a user is inactive on the site for more than 30 minutes.
username, user-id
An address that designates a personal account on a large computer. For example, mrbill@oh-no.com, where mrbill is the user-id.
UUCP
Unix-to-Unix Copy) Originally, a program that ran under the Unix operating system and allowed one Unix system to send files to another via dial-up phone lines. At present, the term generally is applied to the large international network that uses the UUCP protocol to pass news and electronic mail.
UUENCODE
(Unix to Unix Encoding) -- A method for converting files from Binary to ASCII (text) so that they can be sent across the Internet via e-mail.
Uuencoding
A common Internet formatting standard for encoding files attached to electronic mail messages. See also MIME, Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.
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