We realize that not everyone lives and breathes digital music jargon the way we do, so we've put together this handy list of Terms. Watch out - this list includes lots of Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs).

AIFF: Apple Interchange File Format. An audio format used mostly on the Macintosh platform, but widely available on the net.

Bitrate: A measure of digital audio sound quality. A bitrate is measured in kilobytes per second. The higher the bitrate the better the audio fidelity.

Bot: An automated script or program that can perform tasks or other actions. Some bots can be useful but some are malicious. Napster currently prohibits any type of bot.

CDDB: Online service that identifies and names tracks on a CD.

CODEC: Short for compressor/decompressor; a way by which to encode and/or decode data. For example, MP3 and WMA are CODECs.

Constant Bit Rate (CBR): Digital audio files that have every second of music on it compressed to the same number of bits (see Variable Bit Rate).

Compact Disc Audio (CDA): Standard audio format on a CD.

Data Port: Where Napster users communicate with your computer.

Digital Audio Extraction (DAE): DAE lets a CD-ROM drive play an audio CD on your computer.

Firewall: A firewall is a device that keeps your network safe from intruders outside your network.

Frequency: Frequency is the number of sound samples per second. The frequency of most compressed audio files is 44,000 kHz.

ID3: An open standard for additional tags appended to the MP3 file format that provide information about a specific MP3 file including the artist, song title, genre, etc. For more information, check out the ID3 website - www.id3.org.

M3U: A file containing a playlist of digital audio files. Most M3U files downloaded from the web point to a URL that contains a playlist of digital audio files or even a single audio file. Most media players are configured to stream the files in the playlist, as opposed to downloading them.

MP3: Stands for Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) version 1, audio layer 3. This file format compresses audio files, making it easier to transfer them.

Peer-to-Peer: In contrast to the currently predominant client-to-server model, where users go to a centralized server for information, Napster incorporates a peer-to-peer model. Users in the Napster Community "share" files, transferring them directly between users, not to and from a centralized server.

Ping: Ping represents the time in milliseconds required to send a small message to another computer. This is one measure of how fast the connection is from your computer to the computer sharing this file. In Napster results, lower numbers are better.

Proxy Server: An intermediary server used by some Internet services to improve security or network performance.

Transfer: To send information over a computer network.

Variable Bitrate (VBR): A type of compression used for audio files. VBR encodes audio information at different bitrates so that sounds that are complicated get a higher rate and the simpler sounds get a lower rate.

Virus: Used to infect a computer, a virus is software written and hidden in another program. If you open an infected program, your computer may be infected with a virus.

WAV: A Windows audio file. A WAV file can be a large file because the information contained in the file is not compressed.

WMA: Windows Media Audio file. Like MP3, the WMA file format compresses digital audio files into smaller file sizes than the standard file format used on most CDs today.