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What is a POP or POP3 server?
POP stands for Post Office Protocol, which is the
standard access method for most internet email accounts.
POP may occasionally also be used to mean Point
of Presence, or a location where a network can be
accessed.
What is an SMTP server?
SMPT stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol. It
is the standard for sending email (as opposed to POP3
which is for receiving).
What is an NNTP server?
NNTP stands for Network News Transfer Protocol,
which is uses to access Usenet News newsgroups.
What is a DNS server?
DNS stands for Domain Name Service. DNS is used by
all internet actions to convert the hostname or server
name to the actual address of a computer on the
internet (its IP address). If your computer does not know
the IP address of Cyber Internet Services, Inc.'s DNS server(s), it will
not be able to find and web pages or check your email.
What is an IP address?
IP stands for Internet Protocol. This involves a
numerical naming system for all computers connected to a
network. These numbers look like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx where
each number is between 0 and 255. When you connect to
Cyber Internet Services, Inc. your computer receives a temporary IP
address (such as 66.182.17.40) which lets web pages and
any other kind of data be sent to your computer. Other
computers such as servers that are always expected to be
part of the internet have a permanent, or static IP
address. An IP address can always be used in place of a
domain name, for example http://www.cyberis.net/
is the same as http://66.182.17.10/
(try it).
What are Cookies, and are they bad?
A "cookie" is a mechanism employed by some web sites to remember things
about you. For example, content providers like MSN let you customize what
information (like stocks, sports, etc) is displayed on your personalized
page. The cookie is stored on your computer, and the next time you visit
that page it asks for the cookie from your computer and uses the
information in the web page it gives you. I use cookies on my personal
home page where you enter your name the first time you visit, and it will
then greet you by name every time you come back. Cookies usually have an
expiration date, so if you never come back to the page that created the
cookie, it will eventually evaporate.
Cookies are also used in conjunction with much of the advertising that you
see on popular sites to keep track of what types of ads you respond to and
deliberately show you ads that they think are most likely to appeal to you.
Cookies cannot do any damage to your computer in any way, except take up a
very small amount of disk space. If you have windows 95, your cookies are
stored in the directory C:\WINDOWS\COOKIES. If you have Netscape, I think
it uses a file called cookies.txt in your netscape directory. You can
delete any or all of these yourself without causing any harm.
Deleting a cookie or not accepting it will not cause any trouble; it is the
equivalent of making every visit a "first-time" visit if the site is
keeping track. In general, many more sites will create cookies on your
computer than I think need to, so if you're really conscientous you could
screen cookies and only let sites you want to personalize create cookies,
but that's almost absurd.
There's really nothing to worry about.
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