- NAP
- Acronym for Network Access Point, the major internet providers usually
have peering points at one or more NAPs.
- NAS
- Acronym for Network Access Server, this is a
terminal server designed specifically
to provide remote connectivity via
PPP and similar protocols.
- NAT
- Acronym for Network Address Translation, a system included with many
routers and some operation systems where many hosts "behind" the router,
or firewall host are translated to a single
real
IP address.
Fundamentally, NAT is great for any use where the inside client opens a
connection out to a remote site (web browsing), or where the two ends
rendevous on a selected, random port (IRC's CTCP, FTP), but problematic
where a specific port is used and more than one of the translated machines
need to accept new connections in from outside, such as in web
serving, online games, and other servers.
- Nerd
-
The "n" word, this term is deragatory when used by outsiders,
but acceptable when used to describe a fellow nerd. While
geeks must be born, nerds are made, the most
famous case being Bill Gates.
- Netiquette
- The informal set of rules for using the
Internet, ignoring them may result in being
flamed or mail-bombed.
Guidelines for usenet news can be found in
news.announce.newusers.
- Netscape(tm)
- A commercial
GUI
World-Wide-Web
browser
for
X-Windows,
MS-Windows and Macintosh, available from
Netscape Communications.
- Newbie
- Somebody new to the
Internet, or to computers in general. If you
needed to look this up, you are most likely a newbie.
- Newsgroup
- A message area in the
Usenet News, each newsgroup can be either
'moderated' with only postings approved by a moderator publically posted, or
'unmoderated' where all messages are distributed to the newsgroup immediately.
- NeXT
- The Unix workstation manufactuered for several years by NeXT, designed
to run the
MACH operating system, NeXTSTEP.
- NFS
- An acronym for Network FileSystem, this is one method of sharing files
across a
LAN or through the internet.
See also:
AFS.
- NIC
- An acronym for Network Interface Card or for Network Information Center,
such as the Internic. Not to be confused with
NOC.
- NIS
- Network Information Service,
a data-distribution method popular on Sun
workstations. Originally created as Yellow Pages
(YP) until forced to change due to trademark infringement on
British Telecom
- NLRI
- Network Layer Reachability Information. Used primarily in Cisco
router configurations.
- NNTP
- Acronym for Network News Transfor Protocol, a system for
reading and writing
Usenet News
articles across a network, this service is defined by
RFC number
977.
- NOC
- Network Operations Center, a site used by a business or other operation
for controlling and monitoring a
LAN and/or WAN.
- NSF
- An acronym for National Science Foundation, the NSFNet became officially
disconnected from the primary Internet on April 30, 1995.
- NSP
- An acronym for Network Service Provider, these are the companies that
provide connectivity to the internet for
ISPs
and others requiring high speed connections between their
LANs and the Internet.
- nybble
- A "nybble" is four bits (one-half of a byte).
Nybble chips were occasionally used to conserve costs where only values from
0-15 will be stored.