Glossary

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | XYZ

A

• Ascending order: from smallest to largest; for alphabetical sorting, from A to Z; for date sorting, from oldest to most recent.
• Attachment: a separate file included as part of an email message; for example, a multimedia or document file.
• Avatar: a character that you can use when interacting with friends online. By changing hairstyles, clothes, accessories, and backgrounds, you can create your own unique persona.

B

• Base name: the first part of your disposable address, which is common to all the disposable addresses you create.
• Bcc: short for "blind carbon copy"; an email address in this field won’t be visible to any other recipients of the message.
• Blocked address: an email address or domain from which you never want to receive messages.

C

• Case-sensitive: lower and uppercase letters are not treated the same; for example, "a" is not the same as "A".
• Category: a group of contacts in your Yahoo! Contacts. Categories let you send the same email to everyone in a category and let you organize information by groups.
• Cc: short for "carbon copy"; use this field to add secondary recipients to an email message.
• Cleaning: removing a virus or other infection from your computer.
• Compose: to enter the text of an email message.
• Compose page: the page in Yahoo! Mail where you address, write, and send email messages.
• Condition: the part of a filter that defines what constitutes a matching message.
• Connection: a person you spend significant time online with and with whom you want to share personal information. Connections have privileged access to each others’ profiles.
• Connection invitation: a message sent to you through Profiles inviting you to become a connection of the person who sent the invitation. You can accept or ignore the invitation.
• Connection suggestions: people that Yahoo! thinks you might like to connect with; usually people you communicate with most often through email or instant messaging.
• Contact: a person with whom you interact; someone to whom you might want to send an email, instant message, or text message.

D

• Descending order: from largest to smallest; for alphabetical sorting, from Z to A; for date sorting, from most recent to oldest.
• Disposable email address: a customized email address that you create to protect your regular Yahoo! Mail Plus address.
• Distribution list: a group of contacts to whom you want to send the same email message.
• Domain: a set of Internet addresses, such as for a web site or email. On the Web, a domain is the part after "www." such as "my-domain.com".
• Download: to transfer a file from a remote computer to your computer.
• Draft: an unfinished version of an email message that you save in the Drafts folder to complete and send at a later time.
• Drag and drop: the ability to move an object from one place to another by placing the cursor over an object, pressing the left mouse button, dragging the selected object to another location, and releasing the mouse button.

E

• Email address: A contact’s address that identifies an electronic location where email can be sent. An email address includes the contact’s email name followed by the "@" followed by the contact’s email domain, such as "person@domain.com".
• Email domain: a set of Internet addresses, such as for a web site or email. In email addresses, a domain is the part after the "@", such as "my-domain.com".
• Emoticon: a small character that shows someone how you feel during an IM conversation, such as happy, sad, or laughing.
• External email account: an email account that uses a mail server other than the Yahoo! Mail server.

F

• Filter: a set of rules that Yahoo! Mail uses to direct an incoming message to a particular folder.
• Folder: a container that holds individual elements specific to the context; for example, email messages in Yahoo! Mail.
• Forward: (two uses in Yahoo! Mail) to send an email message that you receive on to someone else or to configure Yahoo! Mail to send all email messages that come into your Yahoo! Mail account to another email address.

I

• Inbox: a folder where you receive incoming email.
• Inline reply: when you type your reply to a message between the lines of text in the original message.
• Instant messaging: the ability to exchange messages in real time with other people over the Internet.

J

• Junk mail: unsolicited email on the Internet; also called spam.

K

• Keyword: the unique, second part of a disposable address.

L

• List: a group of contacts to whom you want to send the same email message.

M

• Mail server: an application that receives incoming email and forwards outgoing email for delivery. A computer dedicated to running such applications is also called a mail server.
• Message header: the information used to deliver an email message, including the To, From, Date, and Subject fields.
• Messenger ID: the Yahoo! ID a person uses to sign in and use Yahoo! Messenger.
• Messenger List: a list of coworkers, friends, family, and associates who also use Messenger.
• Mobile device: a wireless communication device for exchanging voice, text, and/or graphic information; includes pagers, mobile phones, web phones, pagers, two-way pagers, PDAs, and Internet appliances.
• Mobile text messaging: sending and receiving written messages on a variety of devices via "short message service" (SMS).

N

• Nickname: a shortcut to a person’s email address.

O

• Offline: not connected to the Internet or any other network.
• Online: connected to the Internet.
• Online contact: a contact with a Messenger ID who is signed in at the same time you are.
• Online status: a setting that lets others know your availability to chat.

P

• PC-to-PC calling: the ability to call another person’s computer from your computer; similar to placing a phone call. Both you and the person you are calling must have a Yahoo! ID and be logged into Yahoo! Messenger.
• Permanent folder: a mail folder that is automatically created in a Yahoo! Mail account and can’t be deleted.
• Personal folder: a mail folder that you create and use to organize your email messages.
• POP3: Post Office Protocol 3, a standard client/server protocol for receiving email in which a mail server receives and holds email messages for you.
• Profile: a public web page associated with your Yahoo! ID where you can share personal information with others.
• Public photo: a picture or avatar representing you in some way that you share with others on your profile on Yahoo!

R

• Reply: to respond to an email message you received.

S

• Scan: the process of checking files to see if they contain known viruses.
• SMS: abbreviation for "short message service", which is another name for text messaging.
• Snippet: a couple of lines of text from the message body.
• Spam: unsolicited email on the Internet; also called "junk mail".
• Spam folder: a permanent folder that SpamGuard uses to hold messages it considers spam.
• Spammer: someone who sends spam.
• Synchronize: to cause items in multiple locations to match exactly.

T

• Thumbnail: a small version of an image, often linked to a larger version.
• Trash folder: the folder into which Yahoo! Mail moves all deleted email messages.

U

• Updates: mini-stories about online activities that you can share with your friends and family.
• URL: Universal Resource Locator; specifies the location of a file or web page, such as http://my.yahoo.com.

V

• Virus: a computer program that attaches itself to other programs and causes harm to computer software, data, and/or hardware, often undetected until it is too late.

W

• Web-based mail client: a program (usually a web site) that any computer with an Internet connection and a web browser can use to access the mail server.
• Windows Live™ Messenger: Microsoft® Windows’ free instant messaging application.

XYZ

• Yahoo! Contacts: your Yahoo! online address book with a listing of people and their personal information.
• Yahoo! ID: the name by which a person is known to all Yahoo! networks.
• Yahoo! Messenger: an application that lets you communicate using your voice, text, or other means with one or more people over the Internet in real time (instantly).
• Yahoo! Phone In: a premium, subscription-based service of Yahoo! Voice that attaches a phone number to your Yahoo! ID so that you can receive phone calls to your computer through Messenger.
• Yahoo! Phone Out: a pre-paid Yahoo! Voice account that allows you to make calls using Messenger from your computer to any regular phone or mobile phone in over 30 countries.
• Yahoo! Toolbar: a customizable toolbar that allows you to use your favorite Yahoo! features from buttons on your browser.