References: Web Site Hosting Glossary
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | P | R | S | T | U | V | W | Z
Applet
An applet is a 'little application' which is embedded by reference in an html page on a web site. The word applet was coined to describe these little application snippets that are, still today, primarily written in Java. They typical provide greater dynamic functionality to a web page.
ARPANet
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) was the precursor to the Internet. It was developed as a fault-tolerant approach to wide area networking that would be able to continue to process messages in the event of a catastrophic failure somewhere in the environment (such as would be suffered in the case of a nuclear attack)
ASCII
This acronym stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange and defines the standard 8 bit binary representation for the (English) letters of the alphabet, numbers, punctuation and a few control codes.
ASP (Active Server Pages)
Active Server Pages is an acronym and technology developed by Microsoft to provide a competitive technology to Java, enabling web developers to make their sites dynamic, especially those that needed database content. ASPs are written primarily VB Script, a scripting version of Microsoft's Visual Basic. The code runs on the server, not in the browser, as do Java applets.
Audio Streaming
It is easiest to understand this in comparison to file uploading and downloading. Under normal circumstances, when you pick a web page, all of the content of that page is downloaded in a complete block to your workstation. If you select a music file from somewhere, it too is downloaded in its entirety before being played on your computer. The alternative to this is audio (and video) streaming. In this case, only a part of the audio is transmitted to your computer before it starts to play and, apart from the buffer, nothing is saved (or cached) on your computer. This means that if you want to listen a second time, the whole file has to be transmitted to you again and cannot be played off your local hard disk. This uses large amounts of bandwidth.
Auto Responder
If you have ever seen a message in your email that says something like: "Gary Smith is out of the office on vacation. He will be checking his email on a regular basis and will try to get back to you as soon as possible", then you have seen a message sent by an auto responder. Auto responders are little configurations that will automatically send a message to someone sending an email. The message can be tailored.
Backbone
The spine of the network. The main series of connections within a network.
Bandwidth
Strictly speaking, this is the amount of data that can be sent over a particular network connection in a specific period of time. However, it is also used to refer to total transmission volume (aggregated transmission). Higher bandwidth means that you can transfer data faster and thus handle more customers concurrently.
Browser
A Client program (an application) that is used to look for and render web pages and other Internet media.
Byte
A set of binary digits (bits) that represent a single memory location. Most commonly there are 8 bits in a byte, sometimes more, and sometimes less, depending on how the measurement is being made.
Certificate Authority
Certificate Authorities (CAs) are companies that have been established to manage the issuance and verification of certificates used in securing Internet data transfers (SSL and TSL certificates).
CGI
A Common Gateway Interface program is a program that translates data from a web server and then displays that data on a web page or in an email. Web forms will often use CGI scripts to send information to the server and vice versa.
cgi-bin
Historically, this was the directory where the CGI scripts were placed. This was, and to a large part still is, used to restrict access to executable files on the server to prevent security breaches.
Client
A Client is an application, or other program, that connects to a server program. The client is most often concerned largely with providing user interfacing to the server. It is not necessary for the client to actually be running on a separate computer, which would make it a remote client, but it is necessary for it to not be an integrated part of the server program.
Co-location
This is the placing of your server in a location where there are a number of other servers, typically in a network operations center or data center. Typically only your web site and Internet services will be running on your co-located equipment.
Cookie
A cookie is a very small text file that contains information about you. This file is stored on your computer and is used by the relevant web site. Cookies almost always expire to ensure that the data is kept current.
Data Transfer
This is the act of transferring information, usually in the form of files, from one location to another. In Internet terms this usually means doing an FTP transfer to another server. This can be the act of copying or moving.
Domain Name
The alphabetical name given to a server (host) or other IP connected device on the Internet. It relates to an IP address (see below).
Domain Name System (DNS)
The domain name system is a distributed directory (index) stored in a database that translates human friendly names to computer friendly Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. A domain name refers to all systems within a domain (servers, hosts, workstations, printers, network equipment) that have an IP address. This name (mydomain.com) , is prefixed by a host, device or server name to refer to a particular piece of equipment within that domain (www.mydomain.com).
DSL
A Digital Subscriber Line is a digitally encoded telephone line. This technology, most often implemented as Asynchronous DSL (provides different speeds in the two directions — upstream and downstream), provides much faster data transfer than a regular analog modem. Upstream speed, i.e. to the Internet, are normally much lower (about 65Kb/sec) than downstream speeds (384Kbits/sec and more) as subscribers are more interested in downloading than uploading and most of the traffic transfers downstream to a subscriber's home.
E-mail
Refers to electronic mail messages sent from one computer to another. Today email can contain all kinds of rich media, including audio and video. However, email is not a real-time communication.
Ethernet
This is the underlying network layer for most local and wide area networks. Originally designed to transfer 1Mbits per second, most ethernet networks are today operating at 100 times that speed and some are operating at 1,000 times that speed. The underlying technology, however, has changed significantly.
FDDI
Fiber Distributed Data Interface is a physical networking technology that transmits network data over fiber optic cables at very high speeds thus allowing large amounts of traffic to transfer over a very short period of time.
Finger
This is a small utility that was originally used to find out information about people connected to a network. It is seldom used today as it is blocked by most servers.
Firewall
As its name implies, firewalls separate internal networks and workstations from insecure environments. They are supposed to protect the information behind the firewall from the wild world of the web outside the firewall.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol is one of the original file transfer definitions used to move data, in the form of files, over the Internet (and other networks). It includes a basic command structure for performing certain tasks on the client and the server, apart from transferring files. One of its idiosyncrasies is that it still distinguishes between text and non-text files.
Gateway
The technical meaning is a hardware and software configuration that translates between two dissimilar protocols and provides a gateway for transferring data between the two. In Internet terms it is almost always used to refer to a persons connection to the Internet.
GIF
Graphic Interchange Format is a graphics encoding standard developed by Compuserve and implementing the Lempel-Zif-Welch compression algorithm for the efficient transfer of color images over a low speed network connection. Although widely used, it is a proprietary format and the LZW algorithm is patented.
Gigabyte (Gig)
1,024,000,000 bytes (a byte being 8 bits, or binary digits, in most circumstances)
Hit
Hits used to be the primary measure of the number of people visiting a web site. However, hits actually refer to the total number of elements downloaded to a browser. For example, a web page that has text and 5 images cause 5 hits every time it is loaded, regardless of whether the person is visiting for the first time or just hit the refresh button. And hence hits are seldom used to count traffic.
Home Page
The page that is first presented to the browser when a person visits a web site.
Host
Any computer on a network that is acting as a server (it is said to be hosting those services).
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the standard developed and used to create Internet web pages.
HTTP
Hyper Text Transport Protocol is the method, or protocol, used to find and transfer HTML documents and files to and from a web server that is serving HTML pages and, in some circumstances, other files.
Hypertext
Text that contains links to other documents and other rich media content is referred to as hypertext.
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
A company that provides connections and other Internet related services such as web and email hosting.
InterNIC
InterNIC was the name given to a project that provided domain name registration services in com, net, org, and edu. The project has ended and commercial companies can now offer domain registration services.
Invoice
A bill providing a record of the services you have received and for which you will have to make a payment (generally).
IP Number
Also called an IP address, refers to the dotted quad number assigned to each device connected to the Internet and running Internet Protocol. Each machine connected to the public / global Internet must be assigned a unique number. There are currently two standards, IPv4, the most widely used, and IPv6, the new standard which extends IPv4.
IRC
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for allowing people to chat with each other over networks. It is multi-user, and, in network terms, real-time (i.e. not store-and-forward like email). Sometimes the chat is purely text but can also include audio.
ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network is another protocol and electrical specification for the transfer of data over telecommunications services. It is not widely used any longer as much greater performance is available using newer technologies.
Java
Java is a programming language invented by Sun Microsystems that is specifically designed for writing programs that can be safely downloaded to your computer through the Internet and immediately run without fear of viruses or other harm to your computer or files.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages and is essentially a somewhat limited scripting version of Java, in much the same way as VB Script is a limited, scripting version of Microsoft's Visual Basic.
JDK
Whenever you see 'DK', it probably refers to a Development Kit. In this case it is a software development kit (SDK) provided by Sun Microsystems for the development of Java applications. Programmers use weird names and even weirder acronyms to describe what they are doing — Swing (which is a GUI library for Java) is a good example. Checkout http://www.gnu.org/ for more.
JPEG
JPEG is most commonly used to refer to a graphic file format optimized for the compression of photographic images. You won't be surprised to find, therefore, that it means Joint Photographic Experts Group. There is a newer JPEG format called JPEG 2000 — because of the year in which it was first proposed.
Kilobyte
A thousand bytes. Normally, when referring to everything but disk drive capacity, kilobyte refers to 1,024 bytes. However, when referring to disk drive capacities it normally refers to 1,000 bytes.
LAN
A LAN is a Local Area Network or a computer network limited to the immediate area. See WAN further down.
Leased Line
Refers to a phone line that is rented for the exclusive use of a single client 24-hours a day, 7 -days-a-week. Subscriber lines, like your home phone line, share lines with as many as 8 other subscribers. This is why, when there is a disaster in one location, or on Christmas day, you sometimes 'cannot get a line'.
Listserv®
Listserv is a program used to maintain a mailing list. There are many such programs but Listserv, being one, is one of the earliest and in widespread use.
Login
As a noun, it is the name by which you gain virtual access to a network resource. As a verb it refers to the function of actually making a virtual connection to that resource.
Megabyte
A million bytes or 1,024 kilobytes where a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, unless referring to disk storage, in which case it refers to 1,000 kilobytes, a kilobyte being 1,000 bytes.
MIME
Because early networked computer systems were limited in the kind of data they could represent, they were only capable of displaying upper case letters, numbers and punctuation, email was similarly limited because one could not be certain that the computer through which ones email was being transferred was going to be capable of handling the data. This resulted in the encoding of the 'richer' media and the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions was developed. Today, almost all of the Internet is capable of handling the rich media data (as 8 bit bytes) and hence the MIME standard, while still in use, if often no longer necessary and not used.
Mirror
Generally speaking, "to mirror" is to maintain an exact copy of something. RAID 1, which refers to Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, is also referred to as mirroring because an exact copy of the data is kept on another disk, concurrently with writing the original data. Today, mirroring is also used to mirror web sites (in case the server on which it is running dies).
Name Server
A name server runs a program called bind, providing indexing services for the domain name service. If you want to know the IP address for www.mydomain.com a name requesting is sent to the specified name server for that domain, typically ns1.mydomain.com., and the IP address is returned.
Network
A group of people with whom you normally communicate. The same thing occurs when connecting computers together so that they can communicate, you get a computer network.
Newsgroup
The name for discussion groups on USENET. This is fast being replaced by forums and blogs (web logs).
NIC Handle
A NIC Handle is a unique identifier, which came from the InterNIC originally, which can be up to 10 alpha-numeric characters, assigned to each domain name record, contact record, and network record in Network Solutions' domain name database. NIC handles can save time and ensure accuracy in domain name records.
NNTP
The Network News Transfer Protocol is a protocol developed, much like HTTP, to transfer news over the Internet, or any TCP/IP based network.
Node
Any single network device connected to a network.
Packet Switching
Data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going, and a sequence number. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special machines called routers. This provides service redundancy as packets can travel along different routes based on what is working and what is not, and many packets can travel from many different places to many different destinations at the same time.
Password
A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good passwords don't resolve to words that can be found in the dictionary.
Plug-in
This is basically a mini-program that cannot run on its own and requires the resources of a main program. For example, Adobe PDF reader has a plugin that inserts itself into a browser so that the browser can correctly render a PDF document without having to run a separate PDF reader application. This results in better performance and greater compatibility as Adobe updates the PDF specification.
POP
The Post Office Protocol was developed for retrieving mail from a mail server / mail exchanger. POP3 is the most widely used standard. An alternative to a POP server is an IMAP server.
Port
In Internet terms, Port normally refers to the specific connection to which and through which data travels. For example, a host called www.mydomain.com will accept connections to port 80 and, because the connection is on port 80, expect HTTP requests for web pages and send web pages. On the other hand, the same machine may be being used as an email gateway (i.e SMTP server). SMTP (see below) is the mail transfer protocol and expects connections on port 25. Hence, by connecting to different ports at the same IP address, it is possible to run multiple services on a single machine. There can be as many as 65,535 ports on a machine.
Portal
A portal site is really a site that provides ready links to other web sites. It seldom provides much other value intrinsic to itself.
Posting
This is a holdover from the days of snail mail and the act of sending mail, or sticking notices on notice boards. Today it refers to putting a message on a forum, in a newsgroup, or sending email.
PPP
Point to Point Protocol is mostly widely known as the protocol for connecting dialup users to the Internet. It functions as a protocol on top of TCP/IP.
Primary Server
The first server to be relied upon to service whatever request is asked and for which it is responsible.
PSTN
Public Switched Telephone Network. The regular old-fashioned telephone system, which itself is referred to as POTS.
Resolve
A resolver is used to match domain names with IP addresses. When the IP address is found, the name is said to have been resolved.
RFC
Is an acronym for 'request for comments' by engineering types in much the same way as marketing and sales types use RFP for 'request for proposal'.
Root
The top of the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy.
Router
A special purpose device that handles the connection between 2 or more networks, sending the correct packets to the correct network.
Second Level Domain
This is the domain immediately 'below' the root, or top level, domain (see above). .com is an example of a top level domain. mydomain.com is an example of a second level domain.
Secondary Server
The server designated to take over should the primary server (see above) fail.
Security Certificate
This is encrypted data, most often stored as a normal text file, used to provide Internet security. It can be used to verify that the client / sender / person is who they say they are or to encrypt data. It offers some degree of security.
Server
A computer that services requests from other computers. A web server and an email server are common examples.
Server Side Includes (SSI)
HTML documents on a server can include other documents by reference. This is one protocol for embedding HTML documents into other HTML documents by reference.
SLIP
Serial Line Internet Protocol was the precursor to PPP, see above, and used over slow communication lines for providing Internet connections.
SMTP
The Simple Mail Transport Protocol is the main protocol for sending and receiving email from one server to another.
SNMP
The Simple Network Management Protocol is a set of standards designed for managing network attached devices. Not all network connected equipment is capable of being managed with SNMP and, of those that can, many are converting to minimal web services embedded on the device to provide more friendly management.
Spam (Spamming)
Refers to unsolicited junk email. Kinda like the brochures you keep getting in your mail.
SQL
Structured Query Language was designed by IBM to create a standardize structure for interrogating and updating databases. It is now a very widely used standard and, even companies that offer proprietary database access methods normally implement SQL as an option.
SSL
Secure Sockets Layer is a protocol used to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet. SSL provides privacy, authentication, and message Integrity. SSL is used in many network related applications now, including ssh, scp, sftp although it was originally developed for http communications and, because it runs a different (encrypted) protocol, it does not run on the HTTP port (port 80) but rather on the HTTPS port (normally port 412).
T-1
Refers to a telecommunications connection standard. More specifically it refers to a 1.54 megabit connection.
T-3
A connection capable of carrying data at 44,736,000 bits-per-second.
TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol is the suite of protocols defining the way data is carried over the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system.
Telnet
The program used to login from one web site to another. This program is seldom used these days, replaced by ssh, as it is not secure and has been the hole through which many hackers have climbed into other people's servers.
Terabyte
1000 Gigabytes.
Terminal
A terminal normal refers to a screen and keyboard, without a mouse, that is used to connect to a server.
Top-level Domain
The highest level of the hierarchy after the root domain. An example of a top level domain is .com.
UDP
User Datagram Protocol is one of the protocols for data transfer that is part of the TCP/IP suite of protocols. UDP is a "stateless", or connectionless, protocol in that UDP makes no provision for acknowledgement of packets received, unlike TCP. Hence, UDP packets are transferred more quickly compared to TCP.
UNIX
A computer operating system designed to be used by many people at the same time. Originally designed by Bell Labs, now owned by SCO.
URL
The Uniform Resource Locator is the standard method for connecting to a web server.
USENET
A completely decentralized network of news and views from Internet users.
UUENCODE
An encoding method for reducing binary messages (like programs) to ASCII messages so that they can be transferred across the Internet as email components.
Video Streaming
The process of providing video data or content via a web page, a chunk at a time, while it is being played on the remote client.
VPN
A Virtual Private Network is a network that connects two private LANs, or a remote computer and a LAN, over the public network that maintains its privacy. This normally means that the data is encrypted and embedded in packets that make the separate systems appear to be connected directly.
WAIS
Wide Area Information Servers — A commercial software package that allows the indexing of huge quantities of information, and then making those indices searchable across networks such as the Internet. A prominent feature of WAIS is that the search results are ranked (scored) according to how relevant the hits are, and that subsequent searches can find more stuff like that last batch and thus refine the search process.
WAN
A Wide Area Network is any internet or network that covers an area larger than a single building.
Whois
Whois is a program used to interrogate a public database that provides information regarding who owns domain names. This program has become less useful as many domains are now 'locked' to prevent spammers from acquiring email addresses.
WWW
The World Wide Web refers to all of the resources available on the Internet, except for the Internet itself.
Zone
A zone is portion of the Internet referred to by a specific domain name.
Zone File
A file that describes the resources, and how to get to address them, for a specific domain name.
http acceleration
php acceleration
multi domain web hosting
powerful control panel
web site performance tools
