E-commerce Glossary - N

NAP (Network Access Point)

Several networks within the Internet come together at Internet interconnection points which are in turn part of an even larger whole.

Navigation

With respect to humans and the Internet, is the ability to move about the Internet by an assured means independent of the users access provider so that any and all sites could be found by normal human conventions. This is currently an impossibility in the open Web.

NCSA

Acronym for National Center for Supercomputing Applications. A Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Network

Several computers hooked together so the can exchange information with each other.

Newsgroup

A distributed bulletin board system about a particular topic. Usenet News (also know as Netnews) is a system that distributes thousands of newsgroups to all parts of the Internet.

Nexus

The process used to determine if a company must collect sales tax in a particular state. Generally, this is determined by whether a company has a substantial physical presence in the state, i.e., a store, an office, a warehouse, or a similar physical structure.

Node

(1) In a network, an entity that is associated with or connected to one or more other entities. In network topology or in an abstract arrangement, the nodes are points on a scheme. In a computer network, the nodes are computers or data communication equipment. A network may contain end nodes and intermediate nodes. (2) In a data structure, a point from which subordinate items originate. A node may have no subordinate items and is then called a terminal node. (3) In a data network, a point where one or more functional units interconnect transmission channels or data circuits.

NSF

Acronym for The National Science Foundation charged by Congress in 1992 for the Commercial development of the Internet under former President George Bush. Subsequently having its authority for Internet development removed by Executive Order in 1997 placing the authority of the commercial Internet under the Department of Commerce and National Telecommunications and Information Agency as part of the Government's Framework for Global Electronic Commerce.

NSFNET

Acronym for the early National Science Foundation's networks later to be combined with ARAPNET to become the Internet

NT (Windows NT)

An advanced version of the Windows operating system. Windows NT is a 32-bit operating system that supports preemptive multitasking. There are actually two versions of Windows NT: Windows NT Server, designed to act as a server in networks and Windows NT Workstation for stand-alone or client workstations.