| Mac | Colloquial name for the Apple Macintosh family of computers. |
| MAC | Media Access Control - See Ethernet Address, with which MAC is virtually synonymous. The full meaning of MAC is far too technical for this glossary, but if you really want to know then search for terms including "OSI Model, TCP/IP, ARP" or read any textbook on IP networking. |
| MAC Cloning | Computer equipment containing a Network Card (NIC) can be identified by the unique MAC assigned to the card. Some Broadband ISPs attempt to use this to prevent customers on their cheaper packages from sharing their connection by only accepting connections from a single MAC address, usually the first one that the customer connects. Broadband equipment manufacturers therefore helpfully provide Routers that can pretend to have any MAC you like, "MAC cloning", neatly side-stepping the ISP's artificial pricing structure. In principal, Bandwidth is bandwidth - if you have paid for it and choose to share it amongst several computers, that should be your choice, not the ISP's. See also Contention ratio. |
| Macintosh | Apple Computer's family of desktop computers, which dates back to 1984. Current Apple "Macs" include the all-in-one "iMac" which started the craze for translucent consumer electronics. The Mac concept of an intuitive pictorial display, with icons and selection lists and controlled by a mouse, (what we now call a "Graphical User Interface" or GUI) was revolutionary when it first appeared. Macs have always been stylish and relatively expensive computers that appeal to artistic people. The key markets for the Mac are publishing and graphic design. Software that is designed to work on a Mac will not work on a Windows PC, and vice versa, although some titles are available in versions for both. |
| Macromedia | A major Software publisher specialising in tools for Web Site design. Their proprietary Flash file format has become one of the Internet's de facto standards, and their flagship design tool "Dreamweaver" is the market leader in the professional arena. Macromedia's proprietary "ColdFusion" Web Server technology is comparable with PHP and ASP. Macromedia's interesting "Contribute" software is aimed specifically at schools; it is designed to make it easy for non-specialists to update designated areas of a Web Site that has been designed by someone else, without them being at risk of ruining the structure and mechanisms of the site. At the end of 2005 Macromedia became a major part of the Adobe empire. |
| Mailbox | E-mail is very confusing to a lot of people, but it is not really a complicated system, and it is analogous to the old-fashioned "poste restante" mail system, or the current US system. In other words, mail is not delivered through your front door, it is put in a box at the end of the road/drive for you to collect. When an Internet e-mail is sent to you, it is placed in your mailbox at your ISP and sits there waiting for you to either collect it (transfer it to your computer) using an E-mail Client or read it in situ using WebMail. |
| Malware | Contraction of "Malicious Software". Generic term covering Adware, Spyware and various other personae non gratae of the computer world. Malware is difficult to categorise, but one of it's defining features is always that it is installed without the user's informed consent. By this we mean the user was not aware of the likely consequences of their action or inaction, for reasons varying from sheer laziness to outright fraud. Synonymous with Scumware. See www.scumware.com for more information. |
| Managed | A Switch or other Network device that can be configured to work in different ways. Management is usually remote (where have we heard that before) i.e. from afar, and includes performance monitoring. Managed devices are usually only found in bigger networks, because a) small networks don't normally need this sort of facility and b) they tend to be much more expensive than Unmanaged devices. |
| Markup | Originally a publishing concept and practice long before computers. Markup is the placing of marks or symbols, now called "Tags", into blocks of text in order to indicate how the text should be interpreted or processed. At its simplest, markup could indicate features such as <P>paragraphs</P> or <H1>chapter headings</H1>. See also HTML, SGML and XML. |
| Mb | Megabit - Approximately 1 million Bits (actually 2 to the power of 20 bits = 1,048,576). Often misused instead of MB to mean Megabyte. |
| MB | Megabyte - Approximately 1 million Bytes (actually 2 to the power of 20 bytes = 1,048,576). |
| Mbs | Megabits per second - A measurement of communication speed, typically used to describe Network speed, e.g. 100Mbs networking is normally used internally in schools and offices, whereas DSL Broadband only runs at 0.25 to 8Mbs, typically 1 or 2Mbs. |
| MDS | Message Disposition Notification - the technical term for a an E-mail "read receipt". Read receipts are virtually obsolete because most users have their E-mail Client set to reject requests for them. This is a wise precaution since it stops an automatic notification of the validity of your E-mail Addressbeing sent to Spam merchants. |
| Meg | Contraction of Megabit, Megabyte or Megahertz, depending on context. |
| Megabit | (abbreviation Mb) Approximately 1 million Bits (actually = 2 to the power of 20 = 1,048,576 bits). |
| Megabyte | (abbreviation MB) Approximately 1 million Bytes (actually = 2 to the power of 20 = 1,048,576 bytes). A normal floppy disk holds 1.44 megabytes, a CD can store up to 700, a recordable DVD 4,800, a hard disk 10,000 to 500,000. The correct abbreviation is MB, not Mb. |
| Megahertz | (abbreviation MHz) The SI unit of frequency measurement, 1 hertz (Hz) being 1 cycle per second, M being the standard SI million multiplier. Networks operate at very high frequencies, for example Fast Ethernet runs at 100MHz, Gigabit Ethernet runs at 250MHz, Wi-Fi runs at 2.4 or 5GHz (1GHz = 1,000MHz). |
| Memory | Memory, also known as "RAM" (Random Access Memory), is not strictly Internet or Network-related, but is such a common and fundamental computing term that we allowed it into the encyclopaedia. Memory is a computer's temporary working space, as opposed to its permanent storage. If a computer is an office with a strict "clear desk policy", memory is the desktop that has to be cleared at the end of the day; any files that need to be kept have to be cleared off the desk and put away (i.e. saved) in the filing cabinets (i.e. the computer's hard disk), otherwise they will be binned by the cleaners. Having enough memory is essential for a computer to be able to work efficiently - imagine having to use a bedside table to work with several lever-arch files! The demand for memory by Applications and Operating Systems has increased dramatically over the past decade, but not nearly as fast as prices have fallen. Memory is measured in Bytes: a typical modern PC usually has 100's of KB ("K"; 1 KB = 1024 bytes) to 1MB ("Meg"; 1 MB = 1024 KB), whereas Servers have substantially more. |
| MHz | Abbreviation for Megahertz. |
| Microfilter | Usually refers to a device needed for DSL Broadband installations where the phone line is used for telephone or fax calls in addition to Internet access. The microfilter, which is usually also a Splitter, filters out the high frequency broadband signal so that it does not interfere with normal telephones. |
| Microsoft | This encyclopaedia wouldn't be complete without a passing mention of one of the major beneficiaries of the Internet. Everyone in the developed world knows what Microsoft is, and how rich both the company and its founders are, so there's no point dwelling on it. There are any number of Web Sites devoted to extracting the Michael from Microsoft. Corporate, respectable BMW even produced a billboard advert for one of their open-top sports cars: "our hardware runs better without windows". Nice. One of our favourites is this exceptionally accurate spoof. Unfortunately we don't know the attribution, but that's probably because the artist didn't want to be sued. See also: Windows, Unix. |
| MIME | Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - A standard way of labelling file formats so that Browsers and E-mail Clients know what to do with files such as Attachments. |
| Mirror | A Server that holds a copy of the stuff stored on another server. The copy is not back-to-front though. Mirror servers help to spread the load for busy Download sites. |
| Modem | A box that allows a computer to talk to another computer over the telephone system. Usually used for connecting home computers to the Internet. There are currently two types in use, dial-up and DSL, but most people mean the dial-up type. Modern UK dial-up modems are rated at 56Kbs, or 56K for short, also referred to as V90 or V92; anything less is obsolete. Although 8 Bits = 1 Byte, a 56Kbs modem can usually only Download data at about 5.5KB per second or less (not 7) and Upload at 3.5, because of the need to overcome poor line quality. The word Modem is a contraction of Modulator/Demodulator. |
| Mozilla | A powerful, sophisticated, Standards-compliant Browser Application suite that has been developed for free public use - see Open Source. The Mozilla suite has a small but dedicated market share. However it has been all but eclipsed by the phenomenal success of its younger sibling Firefox. Netscape (from version 6) is a commercial offering of Mozilla. The Mozilla Foundation also produces several other applications in the same vein, most notably its widely-used "Bugzilla" Bug Tracking System, and a new pretender to the Outlook Express throne, their excellent "Thunderbird" E-mail Client. |
| MP3 | MPEG-1/2 Audio Layer 3 - MP3 is a popular method of storing music (or any audio) in a file that can be copied and moved around the Internet. To the music industry, the rise of MP3 pirating has been akin to the rise of home taping in the 70's and 80's, only much worse. MP3s store the music in a compressed format, using "lossy" Compression, which means that an MP3 version of a recording will never be as good as the original, but they can come close. The degree of degradation can be traded off against file size, and also depends on what program ("encoder") is used to create the file. Crucially, even at the highest quality (which is difficult to distinguish from an audio CD), an MP3 file will be much smaller than the equivalent file on an audio CD (which is in uncompressed WAV format). Using MP3 it is quite feasible to store 10 albums on a single CD at a reasonable quality or 70 albums on a DVD. Although MP3s are usually created on a home computer or Downloaded from the Internet, the most common method of listening to MP3s is using a small Walkman-like portable MP3 player, such as an iRiver or an iPod. Some mobile phones include an MP3 player. The popularity and availability of ready-made (mostly bootleg) MP3s on the Internet through Peer-to-Peer file sharing has been a key factor in the current domestic demand for Broadband, since downloading a single MP3 track takes several minutes using a Modem, but only seconds using broadband. The MP3 format is not new - it has been around on the Internet since 1995. Some newer proprietary formats such as WMA are even more efficient at reducing the file size, but MP3 remains the format of choice for most people because it has no Digital Rights Management (DRM). If you are thinking of digitising your music collection, we would definitely recommend sticking with MP3. Most DVD players, some CD players in cars and hi-fi systems, and many newer mobile phones, are able to play MP3s. MP3s are to WAVs as JPGs are to BMPs. For the more technical: despite all the applications for creating and playing MP3s, there are very few MP3 encoding "engines". Probably the best is LAME, used by many applications. |
| MPEG | Motion Picture Experts Group - A group of file formats developed specifically for efficient storage of video. MPEG uses high levels of Compression, which requires hefty horsepower both to create files in the first place and to decompress them to view the content. This was beyond the capabilities of typical desktop computers until fairly recently. Video files available on the Internet are often in an MPEG format. MP3 is part of the MPEG specification. Video DVDs use a form of MPEG. |
| mpg | Contraction of MPEG. Windows computers usually use mpg rather than MPEG to indicate that files are in MPEG format. |
| MSIE | Miscrosoft Internet Explorer - Microsoft's Browser. See Internet Explorer. |
| MSN Messenger | MSN for short. Microsoft's proprietary Chat Room system which is very popular with children. A basic MSN Client called "Windows Messenger" is included with Windows XP, but the newer, rebranded and more sophisticated "MSN Messenger" client is available for Windows XP and other versions of Windows. MSN is a relative newcomer on the IM block, but it is nonetheless sophisticated and very youth-friendly. Recent versions include a WebCam facility, allowing Users to see and/or talk to each other while typing. |
| Multimedia | Not strictly anything to do with networking or the Internet per se, but the word crops up so much it is worth a mention. Usually means "moving pictures" and/or "sound". Web Sites that use multimedia, especially on their Home Page, can be a pain unless you've got Broadband, and even then they can still be a pain. Best used carefully and sparingly. See also: Flash, MP3, MPEG, RealAudio, Streaming. |
