Glossary

Hosting glossary

271 definitions · page 2 of 5.

command-line interface: The opposite of the GUI (Graphical User Interface). A way of interacting with a computer system using the keyboard and a text-only display. Usually more powerful, but less user-friendly thatn a GUI.
Control Panel: Control panel included in web hosting packages is an online web-based application that allows you to easily manage different aspects of your account. Most control panels will let you upload files, add email accounts, change contact information, set up…
Cookie: A Cookie is a piece of data that is saved in the user's browser by the web server. It is used to customize user's browsing experience.
Crawler: Also known as spider, an automated software that retrieves webpages and follows the hyperlinks contained in them. Used to generate indexes used by search engines.
D Channel: The ISDN signaling channel. Runs at 16 or 64 Kbps.
Data transfer: In Web hosting, the total size of files transferred by an account in a month. Sites with a lots of graphics, downloads, or streaming audio or video and a lot of visitors will require plans with more available transfer.
Dedicated Server: Similar to co-location, except that you lease or rent hardware from a Web host. The main advantage over co-location is easier upgrade and usually better support. Getting a dedicated server or co-locating is necessary for sites that outgrow shared servers…
DES: Data Encryption Standard - an U.S. government approved cipher. It is easy to break in its simplest form, but used multiple times with key of at least 128 bits provides good security.
DHCP: (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). An automated way of obtaining an IP address in the Local Area Network.
Dial up: Dialup access is a way of connecting a computer to the Internet using a modem and the telephone line. It is rather slow and blocks the telephone line.
DNS: Domain Name System. Internet service that maps Internet domains into corresponding IP addresses. DNS database is distributed and replicated among many DNS servers, so when you change your domain's IP address, the changes take a while to propagate.
Domain name: Domain name is an easy-to-remember address that can be translated by DNS into server's IP address. Domain names are hierarchical. Domain's suffix indicates which TLD (top level domain) it belongs to, for example .com, .gov, .org, .net, or .jp. Recently ICANN…
DSL: Digital Subscriber Line. A better way of connecting a computer to the Internet using the telephone line. It's faster than the dialup and doesn't block the telephone line. However, it is more expensive because the special equipment is required.
E-Business: Using web and Internet technologies in conducting the business activities. Also expanding end enhancing traditional business practices by means of the Internet.
EIA: (Electronic Industries Association). An industry trade organization involved with definition of standards for electrical consumer products. It works jointly with the TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association).
Electronic Mail (E-Mail email): One of the most popular Internet services. Basically it's the transmission of text based messages. An email message can also contain more structured elements, like tables, images and multimedia. It can also be used to send various data files, by means of…
Electronic Mail (E-Mail, email): One of the most popular Internet services. Basically it's the transmission of text based messages. An email message can also contain more structured elements, like tables, images and multimedia. It can also be used to send various data files, by means of…
Encryption: Encryption means encoding data using a cryptographic cipher. Encrypted data can be read (decrypted) only by an authorized entity.
Ethernet: Local Area Network (LAN) protocol invented by Xerox Corporation. It is a broadcast protocol that uses CSMA/CD method and utilizes electrical cables. It can run at various speeds: 10Mbps, 100Mbps and even 1000Mbps. IEEE 802.3 standard describes Ethernet. Word…
Extranet: A part of the company's network that is made accessible for some group of people. Sometimes protected by a password or some other kind of authentication. It allows users to access some of the non-public data, eg. a person's credit card balance.
FAQ: (Frequently Asked Question) Lists of frequently asked questions and answers to them are used as a way of sharing knowledge on the web. They are a very good way of finding solutions to different problems. Some companies include them in their websites to…
Fast Ethernet: Fast Ethernet is the implementation of Ethernet standard that operates at the speed of 100Mbps.
FCC: (Federal Communications Commission). U.S.A. telecommunications regulatory organization. It controls standards that pertain to electronic and electromagnetic transmission and also licenses the frequencies and bandwidth for the commercial use.
FDDI: (Fiber Distributed Data Interface). A very high speed network protocol. Uses fiber-optic cable, and is mainly used as the backbone network protocol due to its speed. It is also often the choice for critical applications due to its reliability.
Fibre Optic Cable: A cable used for transmitting data as a light wave. A fiber optic cable is composed of one or more optical fibers. It is more expensive that copper wire, but offers higher transmission speeds and allows for communication over larger distances.
Filename extension: Last three or four letters of a file name that appear after the dot. Used to designate the type of file and the format used.
Filtering: Screening network packets for certain properties, such as the source or destination address, protocol used or even a pattern in the data. It is used in firewalls in order to decide if the traffic is to be forwarded or rejected. Provides the basis for network…
Finger: A Unix program used to display information about users of the system. Can be used remotely.
Firewall: Firewall refers to either software-only or separate software and hardware combination that serves to protect an internal network or a computer from attacks and unauthorized access by sitting between the Internet and the internal network.
Flame: An insulting email message sent to an individual as punishment for not adhering to the netiquette. Can be sometimes seen in the newsgroups or on internet message boards.
FPU: Floating Point Unit. A part of the computer responsible for high precision mathematical operations.
Frame Relay: A fast packet switching protocol. Used mainly in Wide Area Networks. It differs from ATM in that packets can have variable length.
FrontPage Extensions: Microsoft's server-side applications that lets users of FrontPage Web site creation tool to incorporate "web-bots" that perform pre-packaged function like full-text Web site searching or adding a hit counter. FrontPage extensions are also available for…
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. The Internet protocol defining how to download and upload files between a client and an FTP server. Popular client FTP programs are CuteFTP and WS_FTP. Major browser also have FTP capability.
FTPmail: Using email messages to access the FTP sites. Requires a special software installed on the server.
FYI: A network device used to translate between two different protocols. Used to interconnect two networks that use incompatible protocols.
GIF: (Graphics Interchange Format) A graphic file format invented by Compuserve. One of the most widely used formats for internet and web. Uses a lossless compression method, thus ensuring that the quality of the image is not lowered.
Gigabit Ethernet: Gigabit Ethernet is the Ethernet standard implementation that runs at 1000Mbps.
Gigabyte (Gb): 1024 Megabytes.
Graphical User Interface (GUI): A way of interacting with the computer that relies on graphical symbols. Most often requires a mouse. It is less powerful then the command-line interface, but is more user friendly and is easier to learn for users without technical background.
Hexadecimal color-notation system: A way of defining colors. Uses RGB scheme and associates a two digit hexadecimal number with each base color (red, green and blue).
Hit: In the WWW world "hit" is used to describe a single request made by a web browser. The data transmitted by the web server in response to the request is a text file or a binary file (images, audio, video, executables and other data).
Home Page: Main web page owned by a company, organization or an individual. This is the page that is initially displayed when user makes a request for a particular domain name.
Host: A networked computer dedicated to providing a certain kind of service. Usually refers to a computer that stores the website files and has a web server running on it.
HTML: (Hypertext Markup Language). It is the language in which web pages are written. It allows the images to be combined with text and offers wide range of formatting capabilities. One of the most important features of HTML is hypertext, that allows web pages to…
HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. The main protocol used to transfer and receive data over the World Wide Web. The latest version of HTTP is 1.1. Basic HTTP transaction involves a WWW browser connecting to a server, browser sending a request to the server…
Hub: A hub is a network device that is used for connecting computers on a Local Are Network (LAN). It forwards all the packets it receives to all of its ports.
Hyperlink: A part of the web page that links to another web page. By clicking on a hyperlink user redirects the browser to another page. The word hyperlink is sometimes shortened to just "link".
Hypertext: A text on the web page that is linked to another webpage. Browsers usually display hypertext as underlined and in blue color.
IEEE: (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Organization that ensures that electronic devices produced by different companies can interoperate. IEEE developed the 802 family of standards that govern computer networks.
IIS: Microsoft Internet Information Server. Microsoft's Web server that comes built-in with Windows NT Server 4 and Windows 2000 server. Here is Microsoft's IIS web site.
Image Map: An image displayed on the webpage that has different areas that are hyperlinks. By clicking on different parts of the image browser can be redirected to another webpage, or can display modified version of the current one.
IMAP: Internet Message Access Protocol. A method allowing a client email program to access remote messages stored on a mail server. The protocol includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming mailboxes, checking for new messages, message parsing…
IMHO: In My Humble Opinion (or: In My Honest Opinion)
IMO: In My Opinion
Internet: Not to be confused with internet (with lowercase i). The word Internet refers to all the computer networks worldwide that are connected together. TCP/IP is the de facto standard protocol set for Internet.
Internet backbone: An extremely fast network that connects major cities. Most often it utilizes T3 circuits and provides the bandwidth of 45Mbps.
Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP): A network control protocol running on top of the IP protocol. It is used by Internet hosts to maintain information related to multicast. All machines that want to use the multicast have to have the IGMP implemented.
InterNIC: The organization that handles domain name registrations. See http://www.internic.net/
Intranet: A part of an organization's network that is private. Only authorized individuals have access to the intranet. Besides that an intranet is very similar to the Internet in a sense that it offers the same services and uses the same protocols.