Internet Dictionary - A
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ADSL -- (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line)
A DSL line where the upload speed is different from the download speed. Usually the download speed is much greater.
Apache
The most common web server (or HTTP server) software on the Internet. Apache is an open-source application originally created from a series of changes ("patches") made to a web server written at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the same place the Mosiac web browser was created.
Apache is designed as a set of modules, enabling administrators to choose which features they wish to use and making it easy to add features to meet specific needs inlcuding handling protocols other than the web-standard HTTP.
Applet
A small Java program that can be embedded in an HTML page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most other computers across a network. The common rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was sent.
Application Server
Server software that manages one or more other pieces of software in a way that makes the managed software available over a network, usually to a Web server. By having a piece of software manage other software packages it is possible to use resources like memory and database access more efficiently than if each of the managed packages responded directly to requests.
ARPANet -- (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)
The precursor to the Internet. Developed in the late 60's and early 70's by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area-networking to connect together computers that were each running different system so that people at one location could use computing resources from another location.
ASCII -- (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
This is the defacto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111.
ASP -- (Application Service Provider)
A organization (usually a business) that runs one or more applications on their own servers and provides (usually for a fee) access to others. Common examples of services provided this way include web-based software such as Calendar systems, Human Resources tools (timesheets, benefits, etc.), and various applications to help groups collaborate on projects.
