Unicode --
Like ASCII, Unicode is a code which assigns a number to each key on the keyboard. Unicode is newer and includes many characters not found in ASCII such as international characters and alphabets.
Uniform Resource Locator --
(abbreviation: URL)
An addressing scheme used by World Wide Web browsers to locate resources on the Internet.
UNIX --
The operating system upon which the Internet was developed. UNIX was developed in the late 1960s/early 1970s as a joint venture between General Electric, AT&T Bell Laboratories, and Massachusetts Institute for Technology. UNIX grew with support from the University of California Berkeley and other universities. Pure UNIX is based upon a command line interface. However, just as DOS has Windows to provide a GUI environment, UNIX has GUI overlays as well -- the two most notable are NextStep and X Windows. There are several free versions of UNIX; Linux and FreeBSD are examples. Also spelled "Unix".
upload --
To send a file to a network. See also download and crossload.
urban legend --
A story, which may at one time have been true, that has grown from constant retelling into a mythical yarn.
URL --
See Uniform Resource Locator.
USENET --
The most available distribution of newsgroups is USENET, which contains over ten thousand unique newsgroups covering practically every human proclivity. It is not part of the Internet, but can be reached through most Internet service providers. USENET was originally implemented in 1979-80 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University. The names of newsgroups are comprised of a string of words separated by periods, such as "rec.humor.funny" or "misc.jobs.offered". The first word (i.e.. "rec" or "misc") represents the top level category of newsgroups. The second word (in these examples "humor" and "jobs") represents a subcategory of the first level, and the third word a subcategory of the second.
user --
A person who uses computer software or hardware as opposed to someone who develops computer software or hardware. Sometimes used in a diminutive sense as in "I can't believe how brain-dead our users are."
user ID --
The name by which you are identified by a particular network. In order to log onto a system, you need to supply both a user ID and a password
utility --
A small computer program that performs some very useful function. For example, utilities exist to convert files from one format to another, to compress files, to detect and eliminate viruses, and to defragment hard drives. Utilities fill the gaps in an operating system, providing useful features that were left out. As an operating system grows, it often incorporates the features that were previously delivered only by utilities.
UUCP --
Abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. UNIX software that allows email and news messages to be exchanged on a store-and-forward basis between remote computers. Before the rise of the Internet, this was the main way that remote UNIX machines were networked. It is no longer in wide use.
uuencode --
A process of converting a binary file to ASCII characters so that it can be easily transmitted by an ASCII-only protocol such as basic text email. Once the uuencoded file has been transferred it is uudecoded at the other end to transform it back to its original binary form. Uuencoding is not a form of cryptography or a security protocol. Anyone with a uuencoded file has the capacity to uudecode (assuming of course they have the uudecode utility program on their computer).