Glossary

Hosting glossary

271 definitions · page 1 of 5.

.com: A domain name used by commercial enterprises.
.gif: Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) filename extension
.jpg or .jpeg: Filename extensions of images in JPEG format.
.mov: File name extension for files with video sequences. A QuickTime player is needed in order to play such a file.
.mpg or .mpeg: Filename extension for files in MPEG format.
.zip: File name extension for files compressed with PKZIP program or similar.
100BaseT: Cabling used for FastEthernet.
10BaseT: Cabling used for Ethernet.
Active Channel: An Active Channel is a frequently updated information residing on a Web server. Users can subscribe to the channel if they have a CDF (Channel Definition Language) capable browser (e.g. Internet Explorer)
ActiveX: ActiveX is a brand name referring to a set of Microsoft's technologies and services based on COM (Component Object Model) widely released in 1997. On the Internet, ActiveX can be used with IE versions 3 and above and with Netscape Navigator though plug-ins…
Address: Unique identifier of a web page. URL (Uniformed Resource Locator) is more frequently used for this purpose.
ADN: (Advanced Digital Network). A 56kbps dedicated communication line.
ADO: ActiveX Data Objects. Different data sources can be accessed in the same way within a single data model. The data can be located in various locations, like spreadsheets, databases or ordinary files.
ADSL: (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop). High speed Internet access using the telephone line. It uses line-adaptive modulation and provides data speeds from 384kbps to 1.5 Mbps (upstream and downstream speeds are usually different). Unlike the dial up, it…
AIFF: Audio Interchange File Format. High quality audio file format introduced by Apple.
Anonymous FTP (Anon FTP): A method for downloading and uploading files using FTP protocol without having a username or a password. In place of a username, word "anonymous" is used, and in place of a password, email address is usually used. If a hosting plan offers this service, your…
Anonymous remailer: A SMTP server that allows sending anonymous email messages. It removes or changes the "From" field of all messages that it processes.
ANSI: American National Standards Institute. The U.S. standards organization.
Apache: Apache is an open-source (source code is freely available and can be shared) HTTP Web server software. According to Netcraft survey, it is currently the most popular web server on the Net. It is usually run on Unix operating system versions like Linux or…
Applet: Most often refers to a small Java program designed to run in a Web browser. Java applets run in a sandbox, so they can't perform unauthorized functions like file reading or opening Net connections to other computer from your computer.
Archie: An online database of anonymous ftp sites and their contents. It allows to search the ftp repositories using file name queries.
Archive: Archives are large files containing valuable data. Archives are often compressed to save space.
Archive site: A server that contains archives. It can be accessed by FTP, E-mail or HTTP.
ARJ: One of the most popular compression formats.
ARPA: (Advanced Research Projects Agency) US governmental organization responsible for creating the ancestor of today's Internet.
ARPAnet: Network created by ARPA in 1969.
ASCII: (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). A standard for coding text files. Every character has an associated number and any text can be represented by a sequence of numbers.
ASP: Active Server Pages. ASP is Microsoft's server-side scripting technology. An Active Server Page has an .asp extension and it mixes HTML and scripting code that can be written in VBScript or JScript. ASP is distributed with Microsoft's IIS web server, so most…
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): A set of network protocols designed for multimedia transmission. Data is partitioned into cells (53 bytes each) and passed along a virtual circuit. ATM allows for building very high speed networks.
Attachment: A part of an email message. Usually a file (a data file or a multimedia file) or a webpage. It is not a part of the text of the message, instead it is attached to the message.
AU: Audio file format for Unix systems.
Authentication: Authentication is used to confirm the identity of the other party involved in the data transmission.
B Channel: Bearer Channel. It is a 64 Kbps communication channel in ISDN.
Backbone: Main high-speed network connection composing the Internet. Backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies like Sprint, MCI, or AT&T. Internet backbone maps are here.
Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred over the network in a fixed amount of time. On the Net, it is usually expressed in bits per second (bps) or in higher units like Mbps (millions of bits per second). 28.8 modem can deliver 28,800 bps, a…
Basic Rate Interface (BRI): A BRI line is one of two access methods for ISDN (the other one is Primary Rate Interface - PRI). A BRI has two 64 Kbps B channels and one 16 Kbps D channel.
binary mode: FTP client mode used to transfer binary files (multimedia files, executables and other data files). Not suitable for transferring normal text files.
Bit: (Binary DigIT) the smallest unit of information, comprising of either a 1 or 0.
Bit rate: The speed at which bits are transmitted over a communication link. Expressed in bits per second (bps).
Body: The part of an email message that contains the actual text of the message.
Bot: An automated piece of software that can be used in chat rooms or to crawl the web.
BRB: Be Right Back
Bridge: A network device used to connect two LANs using different cabling.
Broadcast: Sending a packet to all machines on the network.
Browser sniffing: The process in which the web site tries to determine what kind of web browser the user is using. This is done to suit the website to the particular capabilities of the browser.
BTW: By The Way
C/C++: Popular programming languages (C++ includes objects) that can be used to create server programs that run after compilation. C and C++ were not designed specifically for web programming, but they can still be useful, especially because mature compilers…
Cable Modem: A cable modem is used for connecting to the Internet using the cable TV infrastructure. It offers high speed Internet access.
CCIT: Comite Consultatif International Telegraphique et Telephonique (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee). International telecommunication standards body.
CERN: (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) A nuclear research laboratory where the World Wide Web was invented.
Certificate: Digital ID used for SSL transactions. It includes owner's public key, the name of the owner, the issuer, hostname, and the expiration date.
Certificate Authority: A company trusted by a browser maker that issues digital certificates that are supposed to guarantee that the company is what it claims to be for use in encrypted digital transactions though SSL. Verisign is the biggest certificate authority.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface. A standard for interfacing web servers with an executable application. A CGI program can be written in any language like Perl or C/C++ and it is often stored in a special directory like /cgi-bin. CGI is often used to process data…
cgi-bin: A directory on the server where the executable CGI scripts reside.
Channel Definition Format (CDF): A way of defining the server-push channels for accessing frequently changing web content.
CHAP: (Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol). An authentication protocol used in PPP protocol. Uses a username and a password.
Client/Server: A network architecture where a system is divided into two parts: the client and the server.
Co-location (colo): Putting a web server in a dedicated facility that provides high-speed Internet connection, security, environment, backup power, and technical support. Unlike the dedicated server, the client controls both hardware and software.
Cobalt RaQ: Server appliance made by Cobalt specifically for hosting companies. Newest RaQs are Linux-based and provide an easy-to-use interface. RaQs have no features that can't be had in a regular Linux box but they offer pre-installed programs and Cobalt's support…
ColdFusion: ColdFusion is an easy to use server-side scripting language developed by Allaire. It comes with ColdFusion Studio, a visual IDE. Here is Allaire's ColdFusion page. Other popular server-side scripting languages are ASP. Perl, PHP, TCL, Python, and JSP.