What MIME is
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).
The meaning of Computer
A device that runs programs for displaying and manipulating text, graphics, symbols, audio, video, and numbers.
A computer accepts information in the form of digital data. Complex computers also include the means for storing data (including software programs). A program may be built into the computer (in the logic circuitry, located on the microprocessors), or may be loaded into the computer's storage and then started by an administrator or user. Today's computers have both kinds of programming.
Most histories of the modern computer begin with the Analytical Engine envisioned by Charles Babbage, who followed the mathematical ideas of George Boole (see: Boolean logic), the mathematician who first stated the principles of logic inherent in today's digital computer. Babbage's assistant and collaborator, Ada Lovelace, is said to have introduced the ideas of program loops and subroutines and she is sometimes considered the first programmer.
Modern computers inherently follow the ideas of the stored program laid out by John von Neumann in 1945. Essentially, the program is read by the computer one instruction at a time; an operation is performed, then the computer reads the next instruction, and so on.
Prior to the PC, which is small and affordable, computers were large and expensive. Companies enabled multiple users to share the computer resources through attached terminals. Starting in the late 1980's, technological advances made it feasible to build smaller-sized computers that individuals could use independently, whether at work or at home. These were then "networked into" the larger system.
Recently, computers and programs have been devised that allow multiple programs (and computers) to work on the same problem, at the same time, in parallel (see: network computing). For many users, though, a computer acts only as a "glorified typewriter," used to cut-and-paste objects and to save documents. But computers can also perform a variety of other tasks, such as accounting and desktop publishing.
A computer system includes peripherals, such as hard and floppy disk drives, a monitor, a mouse, the operating system, software, and a printer. All of these components are designed to work together. You need a computer to access the Internet, browse the Web, and send or receive e-mail, among other things.
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