 |
|
|
Web Hosting Technical Terms
10BaseT 10 Megabit per second baseband Ethernet specification using two pairs of twisted-pair cabling (Category 3, 4 or 5): one pair for transmitting data and the other for receiving data. 10BaseT has a distance limit of approximately 100 meters per segment. 100BaseT 100 Megabit per second baseband Fast Ethernet specification using UTP wiring. Like the 10BaseT technology on which it is based, 100BaseT sends link pulses over the network segment when no traffic is present. However, these link pulses contain more information than those used in 10BaseT. Anonymous FTP Anonymous File Transfer Protocol allows the public to log into an FTP server with a common login (usually "ftp" or "anonymous" and any password (usually the person's e-mail address is used as the password). Anonymous FTP is beneficial for the distribution of large files to the public, avoiding the need to assign large numbers of login and password combinations for FTP access. Applet A small Java program that can be embedded in an HTML page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most other computers across a network. The current rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was sent. Archie A tool (software) for finding files stored on anonymous FTP sites. You need to know the exact file name or a substring of it. ARPANet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) -- The precursor to the Internet. Landmark packet-switching network established in 1969 by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area-networking that would survive a nuclear war. (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) -- This is the de facto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111, plus parity. ASP Active Server Pages. ASP is a scripting language used to provide dynamic content. Unlike CGI and Perl scripts, ASP commands are embedded with regular HTML, making it easier to add code to any page. ASP is generally found on an NT server. ASP files, which provide Web developers with an easier, faster, and more powerful way to build Web applications, are regular HTML pages with embedded scripts. These scripts can be written in any language and processed by the server when the file's URL is requested. ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) International standard for cell relay in which multiple service types (such as voice, video, or data) are conveyed in fixed-length (53-byte) cells. Fixed-length cells allow cell processing to occur in hardware, thereby reducing transit delays. ATM is designed to take advantage of high-speed transmission media such as E3, SONET, and T3. Backbone A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network. The term is relative, as a backbone in a small network will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network. Bandwidth The difference between the highest and lowest frequencies available for network signals. The term is also used to describe the rated throughput capacity of a given network medium or protocol. In short, bandwidth is a loose term used to describe the throughput capacity (measured in Kilobits or Megabits per second) of a specific circuit. Baud Unit of signaling speed equal to the number of discrete signal elements transmitted per second. Baud is synonymous with bits per second (bps). In common usage the baud rate of a modem is how many bits it can send or receive per second. Technically, baud is the number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value - for example a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per second). BBS (Bulletin Board System) A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows people to carry on discussions, upload and download files, and make announcements without the people being connected to the computer at the same time. There are many thousands (millions?) of BBS's around the world, most are very small, running on a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn. Bin hex (BINary HEXadecimal) -- A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because Internet e-mail can only handle ASCII. Bit (Binary DigIT) -- A single digit number in base-2, in other words, either a 1 or a zero. The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second. BITNET (Because It's Time NETwork (or Because It's There NETwork)) -- A network of educational sites separate from the Internet, but e-mail is freely exchanged between BITNET and the Internet. Listservs, the most popular form of e-mail discussion groups, originated on BITNET. BITNET machines are usually mainframes running the VMS operating system, and the network is probably the only international network that is shrinking. Bps (Bits-Per-Second) -- A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per second. Browser Client software that is used to look at various kinds of Internet
resources. Examples include Microsoft's Internet Explorer and
Netscape's Navigator. A set of Bits that represent a single character. Usually there are 8 Bits in a Byte, sometimes more, depending on how the measurement is being made. See Also: Bit Catch-all Email Account A lot of hosts offer a Catch-all Email account. This means that anything@yourdomain.com will go to you. This way, you can have Sales@abc.com, Support@abc.com, WebMaster@abc.com, and so on - with all of it going to the root email account. This also helps when a user makes a typo in the email address, as long as they get the domain correct. CGI CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. It provides a common method of running an executable program, usually written in Perl or C/C++, from a web site to generate dynamic content and takes data from a web server and does something with it, like putting the content of a form into an e-mail message, or turning the data into a database query. A set of rules that describe how a Web Server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the 'CGI program') talks to the web server. Any piece of software can be a CGI program if it handles input and output according to the CGI standard. CGI "scripts" are just scripts which use CGI. CGI is often confused with Perl, which is a programming language, while CGI is an interface to the server from a particular program. Perl is an application of CGI, as well as MIVA, Python, PHP3, and other scripting languages. cgi-bin The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGI programs are stored. The 'bin' part of 'cgi-bin' is a shorthand version of 'binary', because once upon a time, most programs were referred to as 'binaries'. In real life, most programs found in cgi-bin directories are text files -- scripts that are executed by binaries located elsewhere on the server. While most programs using CGI are stored in this directory, it is not a requirement for using CGI. Click Through This term is used to describe the ratio of clicks to impressions on an advertisement, usually a banner ad. If a banner has been shown 100 times and 3 people click on it, it will have a 3% click through ratio.
Client A software program that is used to contact and obtain data from a server software program on another computer, often across a great distance. Each client program is designed to work with one or more specific kinds of server programs, and each server requires a specific kind of client. A web browser and an FTP program are specific kinds of clients. See Also: Browser, Server Co-Location Network Operations Centers such as CommuniTech.Net offer the ability for customers to place their webservers and other network equipment in their NOC which are connected via high speed fiber data lines to the backbone of the Internet. Administration is done remotely so that a customer far away can configure and control their network equipment. Co-location is where you purchase a server and lease space and access for it. A lot of hosts offer co-location plans, usually with a monthly fee as well as fees for bandwidth used. Cold Fusion Cold Fusion is a scripting language for web designers that want
wish to do advanced development and/or database interfacing. Cold
Fusion supports MS Access, dBASE, FoxPro, and Paradox databases. In the case of many registries, contact information for technical, billing and administrative purposes are maintained in their database. It is important to keep your contact records updated to ensure that billing and renewal can proceed without problems. Cookie The most common meaning of 'Cookie' on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. Depending on the type of Cookie used, and the Browser's settings, the Browser may accept or not accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for either a short time or a long time. Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online 'shopping cart' information, user preferences, etc. When a Server receives a request from a Browser that includes a Cookie, the Server is able to use the information stored in the Cookie. For example, the Server might customize what is sent back to the user, or keep a log of particular user's requests. Cookies are usually set to expire after a predetermined amount of time and are usually saved in memory until the Browser software is closed down, at which time they may be saved to disk if their 'expire time' has not been reached. Cookies do not read your hard drive and send your life story to the CIA, but they can be used to gather more information about a user than would be possible without them. CSS Cascading Style Sheets, used to add more functionality to simple HTML pages. Internet Explorer 3.0 and up support a good portion of CSS, while Netscape 4.0 and up supports a small amount of CSS - a fully compliant browser does not exist yet. Cyberspace Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks. Dedicated Server A dedicated server is a web server you purchase or lease for your use only. Usually this gives you root access to install anything you like on that server, as though it were your own PC. For those customers that want the advantages of colocation without the hassles of purchasing their own server. See colocation. Domain Name The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general. A given machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine. Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names in the examples above. It is also possible for a Domain Name to exist but not be connected to an actual machine. This is often done so that a group or business can have an Internet e-mail address without having to establish a real Internet site. In these cases, some real Internet machine must handle the mail on behalf of the listed Domain Name. DNS: Domain Naming System The DNS is a distributed, replicated that allows nameservers to
map easily remembered domain names to an IP number. Electronic Commerce. Refers to the general exchange of goods and services via the Internet. (Electronic Mail) -- Messages, usually text, sent from one person
to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a
large number of addresses (Mailing List). Ethernet A very common method of networking computers in a LAN. Ethernet will handle about 10,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with almost any kind of computer. Exposure Term used to describe when a banner advertisement is loaded on a web page and displayed to a user. Also referred to as Impression. FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) -- FAQs are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject. There are hundreds of FAQs on subjects as diverse as Pet Grooming and Cryptography. FAQs are usually written by people who have tired of answering the same question over and over. FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) -- A standard for transmitting data on optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second (10 times as fast as Ethernet, about twice as fast as T-3). See Also: Bandwidth , Ethernet , T-1 , T-3 An Internet software tool for locating people on other Internet sites. Finger is also sometimes used to give access to non-personal information, but the most common use is to see if a person has an account at a particular Internet site. Many sites do not allow incoming Finger requests, but many do. Fire Wall A combination of hardware and software that separates a LAN into two or more parts for security purposes. Front Page Front Page is an HTML editor made by Microsoft. It is commonly used to create web pages. Front Page Extensions Front Page Server Extensions are server side programs that are used to enable users of Front Page to use it's special components, or Web Bots. Although the extensions can be installed on a Unix server, it is generally found on Windows NT servers. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) -- A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a special way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name anonymous, thus these sites are called anonymous ftp servers. Gateway The technical meaning is a hardware or software set-up that translates between two dissimilar protocols, for example Prodigy has a gateway that translates between its internal, proprietary e-mail format and Internet e-mail format. Another, sloppier meaning of gateway is to describe any mechanism for providing access to another system, e.g. AOL might be called a gateway to the Internet. Gigabyte 1024 Megabytes
|
|
|