The following glossary defines 290 terms related to the IT Industry.  
Please do not reproduce without permission.

FAQ

(Frequently Asked Question) Lists of frequently asked questions and answers to them are used as a way of sharing knowledge on the web. They are a very good way of finding solutions to different problems. Some companies include them in their websites to minimize the number of Customer Support inquiries.

Fast Ethernet

Fast Ethernet is the implementation of Ethernet standard that operates at the speed of 100Mbps.

FCC

(Federal Communications Commission). U.S.A. telecommunications regulatory organization. It controls standards that pertain to electronic and electromagnetic transmission and also licenses the frequencies and bandwidth for the commercial use.

FDDI

(Fiber Distributed Data Interface). A very high speed network protocol. Uses fiber-optic cable, and is mainly used as the backbone network protocol due to its speed. It is also often the choice for critical applications due to its reliability.

Fibre Optic Cable

A cable used for transmitting data as a light wave. A fiber optic cable is composed of one or more optical fibers. It is more expensive that copper wire, but offers higher transmission speeds and allows for communication over larger distances.

Filename extension

Last three or four letters of a file name that appear after the dot. Used to designate the type of file and the format used.

Filtering

Screening network packets for certain properties, such as the source or destination address, protocol used or even a pattern in the data. It is used in firewalls in order to decide if the traffic is to be forwarded or rejected. Provides the basis for network security.

Finger

A Unix program used to display information about users of the system. Can be used remotely.

Firewall

Firewall refers to either software-only or separate software and hardware combination that serves to protect an internal network or a computer from attacks and unauthorized access by sitting between the Internet and the internal network. 

Flame

An insulting email message sent to an individual as punishment for not adhering to the netiquette. Can be sometimes seen in the newsgroups or on internet message boards.

FPU

Floating Point Unit. A part of the computer responsible for high precision mathematical operations.

Frame Relay

A fast packet switching protocol. Used mainly in Wide Area Networks. It differs from ATM in that packets can have variable length.

FrontPage Extensions

Microsoft's server-side applications that lets users of FrontPage Web site creation tool to incorporate "web-bots" that perform pre-packaged function like full-text Web site searching or adding a hit counter.  FrontPage extensions are also available for Unix-based operating systems but some hosts refuse to use them because of potential security holes.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol.  The Internet protocol defining how to download and upload files between a client and an FTP server.  Popular client FTP programs are CuteFTP and WS_FTP.  Major browser also have FTP capability.

FTPmail

Using email messages to access the FTP sites. Requires a special software installed on the server.

FTPS

See also SFTP

FYI

For Your Information