Advanced Manufacturing - Internet Primer

There's no getting around the fact that you'll have to learn a new language to join the online world

Wander down to your IT department, ask a straight question, and you'll get answers in some obscure new techno-code-language. So what do you do? If you are like most managers, you nod your head, pretend you understand, and just let them do whatever the heck they were doing before. Fear not, here we present you with an Internet primer that will put you on equal footing with that 20-something Bill Gates look-alike who is now, seemingly, in charge of your manufacturing strategy.

Aggregators:
when you register with website firms like Mercata (www.mercata.com) and with the newly-named MobShop (www.mobshop.com) your small quantity order is pooled with other purchases to negotiate bulk purchase rates from manufacturers.

Auction sites: such as (www.bid.com) and (www.freemarkets.com) facilitate the purchase and sale of a huge range of products and services directly between individuals in the form of an online auction.

Browser or Web browser: software that allows you to surf the Internet. Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples.

Clearing houses: such as (www.priceline.com), let consumers access discount prices by bidding for unsold, time-sensitive inventory.

Commodities exchanges: such as (www.ariba.com) and (www.metalsite.com) facilitate the buying and selling of goods between a vast number of companies by standardizing the process and making it more efficient.

Domain name: The Internet name assigned to an organization. In the U.S. domain names are handled by the InterNIC (rs.internic.net).

E-business: activities carried out over computer-mediated channels.

E-commerce: transactions carried over computer-mediated channels that comprise the transfer of ownership of the entitlement to use tangible or intangible assets.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): transferring business information from one computer application to another in a standard electronic format. EDI messages usually travel over a private, value-added network (VAN) but could go over the Internet.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions. The best way to find information on a subject you are interested in is to use one of the search engines available on the Web.

FTP: Short for "File Transfer Protocol". It is a long-existing Internet standard used for transferring files between different machines on the Web. The standard has two modes, ASCII and Binary. FTP archives are repositories of files (often compressed) that Internet users can access anonymously using either an old-style command line ftp program, or more recently, using GUI interfaces.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language ‹ most documents that appear on the World Wide Web are written in HTML.

Hypertext: A document that contains "Hyperlinks", a.k.a. "Links" or "Hot Spots".

Newsgroup: Internet discussion groups where people post and respond to messages regarding an abundance of topics. Approximately 15,000 newsgroups exist today, covering every imaginable topic.

PPP and SLIP: Point to Point Protocol and Serial Line Protocol. These are both serial line protocols used for Internet access - typically over phone lines. SLIP is TCP/IP based. PPP is "protocol independent", i.e., it can be configured to handle different types of network packets in addition to TCP/IP.

TCP/IP: Transfer Control Protocol / Internet Protocol. The computer networking standards used for most communications on the Internet.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator. URLs specify a location for a document and a method for accessing it.

For an excellent online Internet and technology dictionary, with a robust search engine, visit (www.webopedia.com)
For the best in Internet research stats, visit (www.nua.com).