Backbone
The Internet's high-speed data highway that serves as a major access point to which other networks can connect.

Bandwidth
1. The range of frequencies a transmission line or channel can carry; the higher the frequency the higher the bandwidth and the greater the information-carrying capacity of a channel. For a digital channel this is defined in bits per second or BPS. For an analog channel it is dependent on the type and method of modulation used to encode the data.

2. Expressed in cycles per second (hertz), the amount of information that can flow through a channel. On the less technical side bandwidth is used to measure the amount of time it takes for a Web page to fully load. Internet users occasionally refer to larger graphics on Web pages as "bandwidth hogs" - the use of the term bandwidth in this case isn't quite accurate, but what it means is that the graphic is loading slowly due to its large file size.

Banner Ad Rotator
Displays alternating banner ads and includes an administration area with the ability to add, edit and delete banners from the rotation list.

BBS - Bulletin Board System
An electronic message center. The Bulletin Board System (BBS) allows you to dial in with a modem, review messages left by others, and leave your own message if you want. Bulletin boards are a particularly good place to find free or inexpensive software products. Most bulletin boards serve specific interest groups.

Binary
Any downloadable file that doesn't simply contain human-readable, ASCII text. Typically it refers to a runnable program available for downloading, but it can also refer to pictures, sounds or movies, among others. Most Usenet newsgroups have subgroups specifically for binaries; a posting in comp.sys.mac.comm might announce that a program is available for downloading, but the binary (the file itself) would be found in comp.sys.mac.comm.binaries. Newsgroups such as alt.pictures.binaries contain files for download which are actually pictures. You will need a newsreader to download and decode these files.

Bit
The smallest unit of computerized data, represented by a single-digit number in base-2--in other words, either a 1 or a zero. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second.

BPS - Bits-Per-Second
A measurement of the speed at which data is moved from one place to another

Browser
A program used to view, download, upload, surf or otherwise access documents (pages) on the World Wide Web. Browsers can be text-based, meaning they do not show graphics or images, but most are text- and graphical-based.

Browsers read "marked up" or coded pages (usually HTML but not always) that reside on servers and interpret the coding into what we see "rendered" as a Web page. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples of Web browsers. The program you are using right now to view this information is called a browser.

Browser Compatibility
A term that compares the way a Web page looks on one WWW browser as opposed to another. Usually this is done with Microsoft Internet Explorer (MIE) and Netscape Navigator, but can also refer to cross-platform compatibility. (For example, the way a page renders or displays on a Windows system as opposed to a Mac.) The reason these incompatibilities exist is due to the way a browser interprets the Web page's code (HTML). The differences are usually very slight, but they're enough to annoy some Web designers and sometimes even their clients to the point in which great time and energy is spent in making a Web site compatible with any browser on any type of system. Browser compatibility is also used in conjunction with (and should not be confused with) the term browser support.

Browser Support
This refers to the ability of a particular browser to even recognize and interpret certain HTML or other Web page codes. For example, Netscape Navigator 1.0 did not have the ability to render a page layout in frames. This feature did not come along until version 2.0, therefore it can be said that Navigator 1.0 did not "support" frames.

Byte
A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there are 8 Bits in a Byte.