What User is
A term that defines the online audience, it also refers to anyone who uses a computer. The term "users" rubs some people the wrong way because, in the past, if you said you were a user, it meant you were habitually consuming an illicit drug. Nowadays, a user is a person who is online. It comes from techies, who refer to people as "computer users." Historical reference: The word "users" is not yet in the American Heritage Dictionary, but the word "user-friendly" made it; perhaps because we are the first group ever to be online users.
Historical Reference: The word "users" isn't in the American Heritage Dictionary but the word "user-friendly" made it. The term "use" is defined in a variety of ways which, when taken in the context of "Internet users," can be quite poignant: "to put into service, to employ, to exploit, to consume completely, the privilege of using something," and so on. In the past you'd never refer to yourself as "a user" unless you were drug addicted... does this say something about how we're all getting addicted to the online world?
The meaning of MIME
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. An industry-standard code that defines how an e-mail message is sent in code and then decoded when received at its destination. It is actually a protocol for e-mail that enables the transmission of non-text data, such as graphics, audio, video, and other binary types of files. These files are encoded into text that would look like gobbledygook to us.
An e-mail program, such as Eudora, is MIME-compliant if it can send and receive files using the MIME standard. The MIME standard is universally used by Internet servers to identify the files that are sent to clients. Since the files are identified by the servers, users can accommodate new file formats by adding them to their browser's list of MIME-types and programs for handling each type. S/MIME, the secure version of the standard, utilizes an encryption system to protect e-mail, even when it is sent between different e-mail clients. S/MIME messages include the message itself and the encryption information (such as a digital certificate).
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