The ping command is used in diagnosing network problems and is also used by networking technical people to describe trying to reach their friends and co-workers on the network. There is a PING command available within IRC, this is returned in seconds. A port is rather like a transmission channel on a radio. Gopher usually uses port 70. Telnet usually uses port 23.
Services can use other port numbers to direct connections to specific applications.
If you are given a specific port number, place the number in the port number dialog box before connecting to the remote host. These formats and rules may be those at the level where bits and bytes go onto the wire or those between applications such as file transfer. The distance between the connected computers is not relevant in the definition. Also known as hosts or servers. A signature should contain any information that you would like others to have in order to contact you.