B2B (Business-To-Business) - Refers to one business selling products and/or services to another business over the internet.

B2C (Business-To-Consumer) - Refers to a business that sells products and/or services to retail customers over the internet.

B2E (Business-To-Employee) - Refers to a business network that services its employees usually using an intranet portal setup.

Backbone - The Internet’s high-speed data highway that serves as a major access point to which other networks can connect.

Backdoor - A means of disabling a system's security which is deliberately left by designers of the system, often to give access to service technicians or maintenance programmers.

Back Orifice - A hostile application which can be used by a cracker to take remote control of a computer.It appeared in the summer of 1998, then was quickly brought under control by anti-virus and security software programs; the application left a clear 120,000-byte signature.

Back Up - To make copies of important files in case the originals are damaged.Data can be backed up on external hard drives, floppy discs, CD-ROMs, tape, etc.

Bandwidth - - The rate information travels from one place to another either inside a computer or between computers. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits per second, kilobits (thousands of bits) per second, or megabits (millions of bits) per second. A 28.8 modem allows for a connection of 28.8 kilobits per second.

Baud Rate - The number of discrete signal events per second occurring on a communications channel. It is often referred to as Bits per second (BPS) which is technically inaccurate but widely accepted.

Baud - The number of discrete signal events per second occurring on a communications channel. It is often referred to as Bits per second (BPS) which is technically inaccurate but widely accepted.

BBS - Bulletin Board System

Benchmark - A standard test which is run on a computer, a peripheral device, or a program to give a measure of its performance.Benchmarks are criticized because they can be misleading.The best test of a computer's performance is to test a computer with the exact configuration and doing the same tasks the user intends to do.Many computer magazines put new machines through a series of benchmark tests and compare them.

Beta Software - In the preliminary or testing stage, as in “they’re still in the beta mode with that software.” Software developers encourage users to report bugs while beta testing their program. The beta phase comes after the alpha version.

BINHEX - (BINary HEXadecimal) - A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because Internet e-mail can only handle ASCII.

Bit - Binary Digit. A single basic computer signal consisting of a value of 0 or 1, off or on. The smallest piece of digital information understood by computers.

Bitmap - Any picture you see on a Web page is a bitmap. Bitmaps come in many file formats such as GIF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, PICT, PCX, and DIB (device independent bitmap). They can be read and edited by paint programs and image editors such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. As its name suggests, a bitmap is a map of dots or "pixels". If you zoom in on or try to scale up a bitmap, it will look blocky.

Blocking Software - A computer program that allows parents, teachers, or guardians to "block" access to certain Web sites and other information available over the Internet All blocking software has filtered the information before blocking access to it.

Blog - A blog, or weblog, is a personal Web site updated frequently with links, commentary and anything else you like. New items go on top and older items flow down the page. Blogs can be political journals and/or personal diaries; they can focus on one narrow subject or range across a universe of topics. The blog form is unique to the Web -- and highly addictive.

Bookmarks - A placeholder for interesting or frequently used Web sites, so that these sites can be revisited easily without having to remember or retype the Internet address. A list of files or Web pages you plan to use frequently. Netscape’s Navigator lets you maintain a list of your favorite items to make it easy to return to them again. (Called Favorites when using Microsoft Internet Explorer).

Boot - 1.To load a computer’s operating system. 2.The process of loading a computer’s operating system.

bps (Bits-Per-Second) - refers to the speed at which a modem or network connection can transmit data

Broadband - A high-speed, high-capacity transmission channel. Broadband channels are carried on coaxial or fiber-optic cables that have a wider bandwidth than conventional telephone lines, giving them the ability to carry video, voice, and data simultaneously.

Browser - Commonly refers to an Internet Browser like Netscape or MS-Internet Explorer where you may 'browse' the World Wide Web as if it were one big book of information to read and view!

Buffer - A memory area used for temporary storage during input/output operations.

Bulletin Board System - A host system, into which callers may dial with their modems to read and send electronic mail, upload and download files, and chat online with other callers.

Button Bar - A horizontal strip of buttons across a program's window which can be clicked instead of entering the equivalent keyboard commands.Some applications allow the user to custom program some of the buttons, and choose whether to hide or display the button bar.

Byte - A group of Bits acted upon as a group, which may have a readable ASCII value as a letter or number or some other coded meaning to the computer. It is commonly used to refer to 8-bit groups. 1 kilobyte = 1,024 bytes; 64K = 65,536 bytes or characters.