Instant Messaging Glossary

Account

An account consists of all of the information that defines a user on a network. This includes the user name and password required for the user to log on, the groups in which the user account has membership, and the rights and permissions the user has for using the system and accessing its resources.
 

Authorization

The process of deciding if the user is allowed to have access to a certain service. A valid username and password is required for a successful authorization process.

Bandwith

"It's not the speed of your modem, it's the size of your bandwidth." anon. Actually, it's both. Bandwidth is the size of the "highway" through which your internet data is passed. At times, the information "super" highway may not seem so super. That's because the more information being passed through this highway, the slower it goes. Just like I-5 at rush hour, the more cars, the slower the going. If they were to expand I-5 into a 20 lane highway, things would flow much more smoothly. Your internet connection is your highway and modems are freeway entrances and exits. The term "bandwidth" is a collective term for all this (except the modem part).

Chat

Synchronous (real-time) text-based communication over a computer network, involving at least two users. Text-based chat means that the users "talk" to each other by typing messages on their respective keyboards and monitor the flow of discussion as a scrolling dialog on the computer screen.

Client

Typically, a client is an application that runs on a personal computer and relies on a server to perform some operations. In client-server architecture, client software handles sending and receiving on your end, while server software handles sending and receiving on the Internet's end. For example, your e-mail client (for instance Outlook Express) is an application that enables you to send and receive e-mail, and it gets your mail from e-mail servers (for instance hotmail etc.).

Community

In the context of the Internet and electronic commerce, people who participate in a online discussion group or bulletin board, or who return frequently to a Web site because of a common interest in a given subject. All users of Syndicon form the "Syndicon-Community".

Docking

When docking is activated in Syndicon preferences, the Contact-/Buddylist snaps to the left or right margin of the desktop automatically. It stays locked on this position, until the user drags the title bar, again making it freely movable on the desktop.    

Gateway/Transport

A combination of hardware and software that links two different types of networks. Gateways between e-mail systems, for example, allow users on different e-mail systems to exchange messages. In case of Syndicon, gateways make it possible to chat with users of different messaging systems like ICQ, MSN, AIM and Yahoo.

Instant-Messenger

A program that allows you to communicate one on one (or: nearly real-time) with another internet user who is currently online. It allows both open group discussions and private conversations.

Jabber

Jabber is a set of streaming XML protocols and technologies that enable any two entities on the Internet to exchange messages, presence, and other structured information in close to real time. The first Jabber application is an instant messaging (IM) network that offers functionality similar to legacy IM services such as AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo. However, Jabber is more than just IM, and Jabber technologies offer several key advantages. Checkout www.jabber.org for detailed information.

Online-Contact

In the internet you can communicate in nearly realtime with friends, relatives, business partners etc. via an Instant-Messenger like Syndicon. You get the contact informations (Jabber ID) of your conversational partner directly from him/herself, or you can alternatively seek for specific new contacts/buddies. The new contact appears in your buddy-list and from now on you are able to watch his online-status and initiate a conversation.     

Online-Status

Syndicon displays optically, if your online-contact is online, offline or busy at the moment.

There are the following online-status states:

On the other hand, your personal online-status is shown to other users. The online-status is switched automatically by the program (in case you activate it in the preferences). It is possible, to customize the online-status messages individually in the preferences of Syndicon.  

Open-Source

Open source software goes one step beyond freeware. Not only does it provide the software for free, it provides the original source code used to create the software. Thus, curious users can poke around with it to see how it works, and advanced users can modify it to make it work better for them. By its nature, open souce software is pretty well immune to all types of computer virus. Examples of open source projects include BSD, Linux, and Mozilla. For a more precise and detailed definition, visit www.opensource.org.

Server

A computer which is designed to be accessed by many other computers. A Server is a computer, or a software application that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. An example of this is a Web, or HTTP server, which serves Web pages to other computers.

  central-server-structure

A centralized network is one in which each user of the network must connect to a central server. This server acts as an agent between all communications. According to that, all communications and user data is stored on this particular server, which constitutes a safety risk. AIM, MSN, YAHOO and ICQ are all based on a centralized server-structure. 

  decentral-server-structure

A network topology where each user of the network is able to distribute communications and data directly through other users of the network rather than relying on a central server to act as an agent.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

A communications protocol designed to transfer mail reliably and efficiently across networks such as the Internet. It is a server to server protocol, so other protocols (like POP) are needed to transfer the E-mail to a client machine. SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and a program receiving mail should interact.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)

A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet. SSL used mostly in communications between web browsers and web servers. URL's that begin with 'https' indicate that an SSL connection will be used. SSL provides three important things: Privacy, Authentication and Message Integrity.

Syndicon

Syndicon is a free of charge IM service based on Jabber. Syndicon makes it possible to communicate with your "conversational partners" in nearly real-time. Our Syndicon Messenger offers anyone interested an account on our server to send and retrieve messages and to communicate with users of other IM services (ICQ, MSN, AIM, YAHOO) freely via our gateways.

XMPP/Jabber Protocol (EXtensible Messaging Presence Protocol)

An open, XML-based protocol for server-to-server near-real-time extensible instant messaging and presence. XMPP also is known as the Jabber protocol because Jabber is based on XMPP. Jabber is not, however, the only instant messaging application that relies on XMPP.

XML (EXtensible Markup Language)

Extensible Markup Language. Like HTML, XML is a markup language, but unlike HTML, it is not limited to Web documents. Another difference is the markup tags in HTML define how the elements thus tagged are displayed, whereas the tags in XML define the data contained in the tagged elements. XML is expected to eventually bring about great changes in the delivery of information on the Web.

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