Glossary of Terms

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E

E-Mail - Electronic mail (also called e-mail or just mail) messages sent by way of the Internet to a particular person.

E-Commerce - The processing of economic transactions, such as buying and selling, through electronic communication. E-commerce often refers to transactions occurring on the Internet, such as credit card purchases at web sites.

E-Mail Auto Responder - See Auto Responder

E-Mail Aliasing - See Mail Forwarding

E-Mail POP Account - An email account so that other may send and receive email over the Internet with you. This differs from Email forwarding in that this is an actual email address on your hosts mail server.

E-Mail Forwarding - See: Mail Forwarding

EDC - (Electronic Data Capture) - The use of a POS terminal for validating and submitting credit card transactions to a merchant account provider or other credit card processor. In online credit card processing, software takes the place of the POS terminal.

Edu - When these letters appear in the last part of an address (for example, in info@mit.edu ), it indicates that the host computer is run by an educational institution, probably a college or university.

Electronic Wallet - Rather than supplying your credit card number every time you want to make an online purchase, electronic wallets allow you to store your credit card information in an encrypted form and access it from your hard drive when you buy something. Also See: Digital Cash

Electronic Data Interchange - (EDI) - EDI is the transfer of electronic messages from one company to another using a network. Companies use EDI to facilitate business-to-business transactions like purchase orders, purchase confirmations, invoices, and payments.

Encryption - Encryption is a way to secure electronic data transactions by transforming the readable message into an unreadable message. In this way you can guarantee that only the intended reader can decipher the message.

Ethernet - A cable that connects pieces of a local area network in a particular pattern. Developed by Xerox, it is sometimes called IEEE 802.3, which refers to the standard that defines it. A very common method of networking computers in a LAN. Ethernet will handle about 10,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with almost any kind of computer.

Eudora - A mail-handling program that runs on the Macintosh and under Windows. Originally a shareware program, it is now sold by Qualcomm.

Euro - The common currency shared by most of the members of the European Union (Britain, Greece and Denmark are not participating). Introduced in January 1999, the Euro will eventually replace national currencies, such as the German Mark, French Franc, and Italian Lira. Explorer See: Microsoft Explorer, Browser

Extranet - An extranet is the part of a corporate intranet that allows companies to communicate with the intranets of their customers and suppliers, facilitating electronic transactions.