Glossary Terms - M
mail bombing
The act of sending hundreds or thousands of messages to someone you think
deserves the punishment for transgressions against the Internet. Highly discouraged as it
chews up bandwidth unnecessarily.
mailing list
A list of people who all receive postings sent to the group. Mailing lists exist
on all sorts of topics.
mailserver
A program that provides access to files via email. See also fileserver.
mail transfer agent
A program, typically running on a Unix server, that delivers mail to another
machine on an IP network.
man pages
The Unix manual pages. You must go to the man pages to find out more about a Unix
command. Accessed through use of the man command followed by the command whose description
you want to view.
MCI
A large telecommunications company that provides an email system called MCI Mail.
Microsoft
That programming machine out in Redmond, Washington that continues to define
trends in personal computers. Their applications division includes some of the most
popular software to date, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Works. Their systems
division, of course, is responsible for bringing Windows, Windows for Workgroups, and
Windows NT to the world.
MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. An Internet standard for transferring
nontextual data, such as audio messages or pictures, via email.
mirror site
An FTP site that contains exactly the same contents as another site. Mirror sites
help distribute the load from a single popular site.
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modem
Stands for modulator-demodulator, because that's what it does, technically. In
reality, a modem allows your computer to talk to another computer via the phone lines.
moderator
An overworked volunteer who reads all of the submissions to a mailing list or
newsgroup, to make sure they are appropriate, before posting them.
monospaced font
A font whose characters are all the same width. Courier New is the most common
monospaced font in Windows, but you can find others like Letter Gothic, Courier, and
Orator. You generally want to use a monospaced font when reading text on the Internet.
MPEG
Motion Picture Experts Group. More commonly, a compression format for video.
Files compressed with MPEG generally have the extension .mpg, although it may be .mpeg on
some sites.
MTU
Maximum Transmission Unit. A number that your system administrator must give you
so that you can configure SLIP.
MUD
Multi-User Dungeon, or sometimes Multi-User Dimension. A text-based alternate
reality where you can progress to a level at which you can modify the environment. Mostly
used for games, and extremely addictive.
MX record
Mail Exchange record. An entry in a domain name server database that tells mail
transfer agents where they should route mail.
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