| FAQ | Frequently Asked Questions - (pronounced "fack", except in Essex where that would be confusing). A list of questions and answers on a specific topic such as a product or a service. The aim of a FAQ is to pre-empt the same questions being asked over and over again. If you want to know about something specific such as a particular Newsgroup and there is a FAQ, it is a good idea to read it before you start asking questions because if the question you ask is already answered on the FAQ you may get a less than polite response from other contributors! |
| Fast Ethernet | The most widespread variant of Ethernet networking. Also called 100Base-TX (using wires) or 100Base-FX (using Fibre optics). 100Base-TX requires a minimum of "Category 5" cabling. See also Copper and Fibre. |
| Fibre | Short for "Fibre-Optic Cabling" - relatively expensive cabling used for high speed, heavy Traffic and/or long distance Network connections, usually as a site "backbone" or between sites. Fibre-optics cables use light, rather than electricity, and so are immune to electrical and radio interference. There are lots of different sorts, as usual. |
| Fileserver | Fileservers are probably the most common type of Server. A fileserver is simply a central document filing system on a Network. There are obviously big advantages to storing documents centrally. The key ones are security and safety - it is much easier and cheaper to protect documents if they are all in one place. Accessibility is another advantage: in an environment such as a school, where many people use each computer and each person uses many computers, having a fileserver on the network means that each person can always get at their documents. It also means that if a classroom computer breaks down or is stolen, nobody's work is lost. |
| Firefox | Mozilla Firefox, currently the number 2 Browser and rising, is one of the newest and best browsers. It has stormed its way up the popularity charts and is the first browser to seriously threaten Internet Explorer's dominant position. Firefox has a lot going for it: it is genuinely free, it is "Open Source", it is really user-friendly, it uses a "tabbed interface" allowing you to view simultaneously as many Web Sites as you want, it will run on almost any desktop computer (including Macs and Linux), it is the most accurate at Rendering Web Pages (we use it as our reference browser), it is very fast, it is very secure and, of no real importance but unusual and nice anyway, it is completely "Skinnable". |
| Firewall | Barrier between you and the outside world (usually the Internet) that stops unwanted inbound or outbound Network Traffic. Firewalls can be cheap and cheerful pieces of Software (Windows XP even has half a firewall built-in, but turned off by Default) or expensive and not much fun pieces of Hardware. Expensive, hardware firewalls are usually better, but any firewall is better than no firewall. For example if you had installed a ~Freeware~ firewall such as Sygate's you would have been well protected from Viruses such as the devastating "Blaster" and "Sasser" outbreaks, whether or not you had any Anti-Virus. Firewall settings are a matter of organisational policy as much as technical prudence - e.g. the LGfL firewall deliberately stops schools using various potentially desirable Internet technologies such as: external POP3 E-mail (schools can only use LGfL mailboxes, although most external WebMail works), outbound FTP (schools can only Upload to LGfL-Hosted Web Sites), RealAudio and other Streaming formats (schools cannot listen to BBC broadcasts or connect to external WebCams), IRC/ICQ (schools cannot use Instant Messaging). On the one hand it's a nasty, harsh world out there and you don't want your little computers to be too exposed to the raw Internet, on the other hand there's a balance to be struck. |
| Flash | Macromedia's proprietary format for creating interactive animations. Flash is arguably a "good thing", but it is overused on Web sites, often adding nothing except extra waiting time. It is widely and increasingly used to good effect in educational software. Flash animations usually run in a Browser, and require the browser to have a specific Plug-In installed and enabled. The Flash plug-ins are free, and more recent browsers usually do have a recent Flash plug-in installed already. Most estimates suggest a percentage in the high 90s for the number of desktops that have a Flash player installed. In case you were wondering, Macromedia makes money by charging huge amounts for its Flash authoring Software, although there are cheaper third-party alternatives. There is a new licence and royalty-free Web Standard alternative to Flash called SVG. |
| Flame | The practice of making vitriolic verbal attacks on people who contribute to Internet discussions such as Newsgroups, by other contributors who lack the politeness gene. |
| Forward Slash | The "forward slash" beloved of BBC announcers does not exist in computer land - a slanted line is either a Slash "/" or a Backslash "\". |
| Forwarder | Almost synonymous with an E-mail Alias, the only difference being that a forwarder copies to rather than redirects, so it can have the same address as a Mailbox which results in duplicates. |
| Frames | If a Browser is the "window", frames are the panes. Frames are a widely used feature in HTML for dividing up the viewing area. For example, companies often have their logo and an overall menu at the top, in a separate frame from the content in the middle. Each frame can be handled independently, even to the extent of showing Web Pages from completely different Sites. The borders between frames are not necessarily visible, so you might think you are looking at one Web site when in fact you are looking at several. This feature is sometimes exploited by unscrupulous sites. Frames are very common but they cause a lot of problems and are no longer considered good practice. The latest Web Standards make them unnecessary and they are officially Deprecated, i.e. slated to disappear. |
| Free Lunch | There is no such thing. Many people mistakenly believe that the Internet is "free". Like the NHS (Britain's National Health Service), many aspects of the Internet are free at the point of delivery, but there is always a cost to someone. This free encyclopaedia, for example, is intended to be helpful and useful to teachers so that you will be impressed by RS infotech and mention this fact to your Head or ICT Co-ordinator or your governors, so that they might consider contacting us about your school's ICT support or website, which might lead to some business for us, which is how we make a living. RS infotech pays a Hosting company to provide the Web Space we need for this Site, and some of that money goes towards paying for the infrastructure of Servers, Routers and communication links which make up the Internet. A lot of the Internet works on a similar "indirect" basis, often through advertising rather like commercial television. The money to expand and run the Internet comes from a vast number of sources, but it all has to come from somewhere. Much of it comes from government agencies, especially the US government, and from major media multi-nationals such as AOL Time Warner and Sony. It is always worth thinking about who is paying, and what they might expect to get in return, and how. Free Domain Names are a good example of free lunches that aren't. |
| FTP | File Transfer Protocol - Noun or verb, refers to the usual system used for Uploading and Downloading files to/from Servers on the Internet. FTP is part of TCP/IP. |