Keeping this in mind, during the next few weeks, we will feature a few of such technical jargon in a bid to come to the rescue of the poor layman's soul, so that the next time you hear someone say "my firewall doesn't let me access my ISP's server", you'll know what it means. So all you technophobes out there, watch out for this space every week!

Cyberspace: I can bet there's not a person out there who hasn't heard this word before. Loosely speaking, cyberspace is nothing other than the internet itself.

E-commerce: If you're a businessman, you ought to know this one. E-commerce is the conduct of business over the internet, something that all big companies are beginning to gear towards.

ISP: Abbreviation for Internet Service Provider, it's the nice old company that provides you the connection to the internet. May God bless them!

Network: A group of computers connected together to facilitate sharing of information and other devices.

Server: No, it won't serve you biscuits and tea. A server is a central computer that "serves" other computers by helping them access files from the network, take printouts from a shared printer, and other such services.

WAP: Stands for Wireless Application Protocol. It's something that you'll find on the tip of every youngster's tongue these days. A service provided by most mobile phone companies, it is a system that allows you to access the internet through your mobile phone. That sounds exciting, doesn't it? However, in practice, the site to be accessed has to be specially designed to work for mobile phones, and very few sites have bothered to set up a WAP version!

Nahid Akhter