Glossary

Hosting glossary

271 definitions · page 4 of 5.

NIC: Network Interface Card - a part of the computer hardware responsible for connecting a particular machine to the local area network.
NNTP: (Network News Transfer Protocol) An Internet protocol that describes how the newsgroups messages are distributed, stored, posted and retrieved.
OC-1 OC-3 OC-12 OC-24 OC-48: Optical Carrier transmission speeds, used in fiber optic networks conforming to SONET standard. OC-1 is 51.85 Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed.
OC-1, OC-3, OC-12, OC-24, OC-48: Optical Carrier transmission speeds, used in fiber optic networks conforming to SONET standard. OC-1 is 51.85 Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed.
ODBC: (Open Database Connectivity) A standard allowing applications to access different databases in an uniform way.
Offline: The state of the computer when it is not connected to the network (i.e. it is not online).
Online: Tha state of a computer when it is connected to the network and communicate with other machines.
Operating system: A software heart of the computer. It is a set of programs that manage the hardware resources of a computer, provide the environment for application programs to run and provide the user interface. Most known operating systems are: different flavors of Unix…
OSI: (Open System Interconnection). A network standard developed by ISO and CCITT. It describes the way in which protocols of different layers communicate. This enables machines of different vendors to communicate over the network.
Page: Name for a basic web document. Websites usually consist of many (web) pages.
PAP: (Password Authentication Protocol). PAP is the authentication protocol used over PPP connections.
Peer-to-Peer network: A peer-to-peer network is a collection of computers that can communicate and share information, but that don't have any kind of hierarchical structure. This is the opposite of the client/server model.
Perl: Open source CGI scripting programming language. Written in 1987. Still one of the most popular web programming languages mostly due to its powerful text-manipulation facilities. A huge number of Perl scripts are available for download.
PHP: PHP is an free, open-source server-side scripting language. PHP code can be embedded in HTML. PHP files usually have extensions like .php or .php3. PHP language style is similar to C and Java. Here is the PHP group web site. Other popular server-side…
PKZIP or PKUNZIP: Popular compression and decompression programs.
Plug-in: An add-on piece of software that can extend the features of an existing application. For example Netscape browser plug-ins allow displaying of new types of web content, that the browser can't display on its own.
Port: A socket on the computer or other network device used to connect it to the network.
PPP: (Point to Point Protocol) A network protocol widely used to connect computers to the Internet. Most often used on a telephone line.
PRI: (Primary Rate Interface). One of the two ISDN access methods. 23 of 64 Kbps B channels and 1 64 Kbps D channel constitute a PRI.
Protocol: A set of rules by following which two parties can communicate. The TCP/IP protocol suite is the basis of todays Internet.
PSTN: (Public Switched Telephone Network). The set of all the traditional telephone lines and all the infrastructure that comes with it.
Python: Interpreted programming language, sometimes offered by hosts for server-side scripting. Here is the Python home page.
RAID: Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks. Type of disk, often used on servers, where several physical disks are combined into an array for better speed and fault tolerance. Level 0 implements data striping where file blocks are written to…
Raw Logs: Raw access data updated in real-time that can be downloaded and used by any statistics program. Typically each line show the user's IP, date and time of the access, what kind of request was done, which document was requested, HTTP status code, bytes…
RJ-11: A standard connector that is used to connect to the telephone line.
RJ-45: A standard connector that is used to connect to the Ethernet network.
ROFL: Rolling On the Floor Laughing
Router: A network device (can be a dedicated computer) that is used to connect two or more networks together and route packets between them.
RSA: A public key cryptosystem developed by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. It can be used to encrypt session keys and to generate digital certificates.
S/MIME: Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions - a way of making email messages more secure. S/MIME uses digital certificates to attest the message origin and encryption to ensure that message could not be read while in transit.
Scripting Language: A programming language in which programs are the series of commands that are interpreted and then executed one by one. Doesn't require the compilation phase, for the price of lower performance.
Search engine: An Internet service that stores a vast number of web pages and allows for fast searching among them. Also, a piece of software that implements a website search functionality.
Search form: An online form in which a query to the webpages database is specified.
search indexer: A search engine uses search indexer to provide faster search.
Self-extracting Archive: An archived file that is also an executable program. The original archived file is decompressed when that program is run.
Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP): Another network protocol used to connect computers to the networks. Similar to PPP.
Server: A networked computer that handles client requests for Web pages.
Service Provider: A company that provides access to the Internet, usually for a fee.
Session: All the data exchange between two parties, starting when the connection is established and ending when connection terminates.
Setup fee: Initial fee charged by a host to set up your hosting account. You can use our Price Search to minimize your costs over a period of time including the setup fee.
Shopping Cart: Software that allows users to select products from a Web catalog, modify their choices, calculate prices, review their choices, and order them. Many hosts with e-commerce plans offer installed shopping carts, but you can always get a shopping cart of your…
SHTTP: Secure HTTP. A version of HTTP protocol that uses encryption to assure that the traffic between the server and the browser cannot be eveasdropped on. Should be considered mandatory for all e-commerce applications.
Smileys: Characters used in text-only communications to convey emotions. Example :) :-) ;-) :O :(...
SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Very popular protocol used to transfer email messages across the Internet mail servers.
Snail Mail: A normal paper mail delivered by the Post Office.
SNMP: (Simple Network Management Protocol). A most widespread protocol used for network management.
Spam: Unsolicited email sent in mass quantities to multiple receipents, most often for marketing purposes. Highly annoying and constituting one of the most serious netiquette violations.
Spider: An automated software that retrieves webpages and follows the hyperlinks contained in them. Used to generate indexes used by search engines.
SPX: (Sequenced Packet Exchange). A proprietary Novell network protocol used in conjunction with IPX.
SQL: Structured Query Language. Limited programming language used for updating and performing queries on relational databases. All databases share a common subset of SQL. Most popular SQL databases available with hosting plans are MySQL and MS SQL.
SSH: Secure Shell. Developed by SSH Communications Security, it is a standard for encrypted terminal Internet connections. SSH programs provide strong authentication and encrypted communications, replacing less secure access methods like telnet.
SSI: Server-Side Includes. Instructs the server to include some dynamic information in a Web page before it is sent to a client. This dynamic information could be current date, an opinion poll, etc. Many hosts require that SSI pages have .shtml extension to…
SSL: Secure Sockets Layer. Protocol developed by Netscape to provide encryption for commercial transactions data that should be protected while traveling over the Internet, like credit card numbers. SSL uses https protocol. Before using SSL in commerce, you'll…
Static (or dedicated) IP: If a host offers a static IP, it means that your site will be assigned a unique and unchanging IP address. See the FAQ for some possible advantages of using a static IP.
STP: Shielded Twisted Pair. Cabling consisting of pairs of insulated wires wrapped in metal to minimize interference.
Streaming: Playing multimedia files (audio and video) without requiring a full download. Audio and video are compressed but they still may require a lot of bandwidth. Most popular streaming media formats are Real Audio/Video.
Subdomain: Subdomain is a way to divide your site into sections with short and easy to remember names. For example, a section of this site for new users could be at newbies.webhostingratings.com. Other use of subdomains might be to let somebody else use your account…
Surfing: Using world wide web is often referred to as "surfing the web".
Switch: A switch is a network device that forwards packets. Switches are more intelligent than hubs in a sense that they forward packets only to the necessary ports and not to all the ports.
T1: Dedicated telecommunications line providing 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. Consists of 24 individual channels 64 Kbps each, that can be configured for voice or data transmission. T1 lines can be leased by businesses that required a dedicated Net connection of with…