Protocol – refers to formalities and conventions observed by computers during cross-computer communication. Simply, the "language" spoken between computers to help them exchange information

Internet Protocol (IP) – Refers to internet communications protocol

TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP is the standard communications protocol required for computers to communicate on the internet.

File Trasfer Protocol/FTP– Designed in 1971, File Transfer Protocol is a standardized way to connect computers so that files can be shared between them easily. There is a set of commands in FTP for making and changing directories, transferring, copying, moving, and deleting files. Formerly, all FTP connections were text based, but graphical applications are now available that make FTP commands as easy as dragging and dropping.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol/ SMTP – Designed in 1982 to support e-mail communciation.

HTTP/Hyper-text Transfer Protocol – Designed in 1990 so that web browsers can read documents written in hypertext.

IP Address – unique signature that identifies all computers, whether clients or servers, PCs of mainframes, that are connected to the internet. This "address" is 32 bits of binary information that is more typically represented in "dot" notation. (Loyola non-medical campus IP is 147.126.x)

Hostnames – symbolic name that is an alias for an IP address. So a computer with an IP address of 128.119.40.195 could (and in this case does) have a hostname of freya.cs.umass.edu. Symbolic host names are always converted to their numeric IP addresses for purposes of network communication.

Uniform Resource Locator/URL – More commonly referred to as the URL, the Uniform Resource Locator refers to the entire address that is recognized "universally" as the address for an Internet resource. Each resource on the Internet has a unique URL. URLs begin with letters that identify the resource type, such as http, ftp, gopher, etc. These types are followed by a colon and two slashes. Next, the computer's name is listed, followed by the directory and filename of the remote resource.

Hand1 2/1/2000