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Web Hosting Glossary :
The following glossary defines 278 terms
related to web hosting.
Please do not reproduce without permission.
Use the form at the bottom of this page to submit new terms
you'd like to see defined here.
Terms Letter:
.com- It is a top level domain name(TLD). Very popular one. Its primary purpose was to be used by commercial enterprises. However nowadays the .COM are the most commonly used domains.
.gif- It is a file extension used for image files. A graphics file format developed by CompuServe and used for transmitting raster images on the Internet. It is very good for use with images that has large areas of one and the same color
.htaccess- A special file used by the Apache Web Server. Using .htaccess you can configure quite a lot options of the web server itself.
For example, you can: change default/start page of your site; prevent directory listing; establish password protection; prevent hotlinking; manage redirects; set some mime types; deny access by ip address or hostname.
.jpg or .jpeg- These are extensions used for image files that utilize a graphics format developed by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, hence the name. JPEG is a popular file compression format which allows the storage of high quality images in relatively small files.
.mov- Apple QuickTime MOVie motion video file format. QuickTime player is needed in order to play such a file.
.mpg or .mpeg- File extension used for movies in high quality video format developed by the Motion Pictures Expert Group, hence the name.
.zip- A compressed file format (.zip). To uncompress the file, you need a utility like WinZip (Windows). Zip files contain vast amounts of information that has undergone compression to reduce the amount of space that the data take up. In other words when you ZIP a file it gets smaller in size.
301 Redirect- Very popular these days. If you happen to read some forum regarding search engine optimization SEO, you will most probably get on a topic for 301 redirects and search engines in particular Google. Simply the 301 redirect is an HTTP response, which tells your browser or the search engine that the URL requested has been moved permanently. There is also 302 response which means moved temporary.
404 Page- Also known as missing page or 404 HTTP error. It is a special response defined by the HTTP protocol. The server tells the browser that the document you have requested cannot be found on the server. Usually a broken hyperling will result in 404 error.
Most web hosting providers give an option to the user to modify the appearance of the 404 page or set their own HTML document to act as an 404 page.
ActiveX- ActiveX is a model for writing programs.Developed by Microsoft ActiveX technologies are based on COM (Component Object Model).
For example Flash movies are using ActiveX to be displayed in a user browser. ActiveX can be used with a variety of programming languages and in an Internet programming environment.
Addon domains- A term used to describe the option to host additional domain names on a shared hosting account. With addon domain names you can host multiple domain names/sites with a distinct content on a single hosting account. The addon domain names usually are pointed to some folder on your web space and open a differnt website from your main site. With most web hosting providers you can have separate email accounts for the addon domain. The only downside is that you do not have a separate Control panel for the addon domain. If you need the option to have separate Control Panels for each additional domain name, then you will have to look for some kind of a Reseller package.
ADO- Microsoft ActiveX data objects. A unit of information that can be addressed individually in the ActiveX architecture. ADO is commonly used to manipulate data in databases, such as Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Oracle, and Microsoft Access.
ADSL- Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - sounds scary doesn't it.
Well, its just a high speed connection to the Internet which uses regular telephone line. It is getting more and more common these days.
Affiliate Program- The name says it all. Most of the web hosting companies do have an Affiliate Program. That is you sign up as an affiliate and you get commission for every new customer your refer to them.
AIFF- Audio interchange file format. It is the default sound file on Macintosh computers
Anonymous FTP (Anon FTP)- It is the option to use an FTP site without having username or a password. You can use Anonymous FTP on your web hosting account to allow users to upload and download files from your site. However you need to use this feature carefully as a malicious user can upload MP3 files or pirated software and your site may be shut down for violation of the web hosting company terms. So in our opinion nobody should use Anonymous FTP - it is just not safe.
ANSI- American National Standards Institute. This organization is responsible for approving U.S. standards in many areas, including computers and communications. Standards approved by this organization are often called ANSI standards
Anti-spam for email- Usually a program that runs either on an email server or locally on your computer that filters incoming messages after some heuristic analysis. A must-have in today\'s Internet, although sometimes it can block legitimate email messages.
Anti-Virus program- A program that scans your computer, files, email attachments for viruses. Usually when a virus is found the program deletes it or prompts the user with several options. Most web hosting companies offer anti-virus for email as almost all of the computer viruses today use email to spread out.
Apache- An open source web server software that is used to host about half the sites on the Internet. The original version of Apache was written for UNIX, but there are now versions that run under OS/2, Windows and other platforms. It is a powerful and stable web server widely used by the web hosting companies that offer UNIX based web hosting services
Applet- Small program written in the Java programming language. The applet runs on your computer, not on the web hosting server. So it is not dependent on the web hosting server at all. Java Applets can be embedded in any HTML page on your site.
ARJ- A compression format. It was very popular under DOS(Disk Operating system). Lost its popularity these days and was replaced by ZIP, RAR, TAR.GZ and BZIP
ARPA- Advanced Research Projects Agency. Now called DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). ARPA funded research and experimentation with ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet.
ARPAnet- 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.
ASCII- American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is the most common format for text files in computers and on the Internet. In an ASCII file, each alphabetic, numeric or special character is represented with a 7-bit binary number (a string of seven 0s or 1s).
ASP- Active Server Pages. A language for creating dynamic applications. Technology designed by Microsoft as an alternative to CGI scripts for creation of interactive Web content, especially when it involves interaction with databases and other programs. ASPs have VBScript or Jscript code embedded in the HTML. One of the major parts of the .NET initiative is ASP.NET, a new version of Active Server Pages.
Attachment- An attachment is a file that is sent along with an e-mail message. Attachments are normally considered separately from the body of the email message, and can be nearly any type of file. When you send your friend an image it goes as an attachment in your email. Unfortunately, these days most of the Internet viruses are spread out as email attachments. So you should always be careful when you open an attachment.
Authentication- The process of verifying one's login credentials. It is the process of verifying the identity of the user at the other end of a link. Usually you are being asked for username and a password so the system can verify if you are granted to access certain resources there
AVI- Audio Video Interleaved - a common video file format (.AVI)
A Microsoft video format files will end with an .avi extension
B Channel- The ISDN bearer server channel. This channel carries digital voice and/or data transmission at a rate of 64 Kbit/sec. Primarily used for data (as opposed to signaling) transmissions.
Backbone- A term that is often used to describe the main network connections that comprise the Internet or other major network. This term is relative since a backbone in a small network will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network.
Backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies such as Global Crossing GBLX Sprint, AT&T.
Bandwidth- That is the amount of data(files, images, HTML documents) that can be transfered through an Internet line for a given period of time. Telephone lines have the lowest bandwidth. Fiber optics have the highest bandwidth. Bandwidth is usually measured in the number of bits that can be transmitted is a second, i.e., Mbps.
Baud rate- The rate of data transmission based on the number of signal elements or symbols transmitted 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).
Binary- Computers use a binary language composed of ones and zeros to do things and talk to other computers. All your files, for instance, are kept in the computer as binary files and translated into words and pictures by the software (which is also ones and zeros). Most of the files you create with word processors, spreadsheets and graphics packages are kept in a binary form that certain software can understand and other software can't.
binary mode- FTP mode for transferring binary files - multimedia files, executables and other data files. Avoid using binary to transfer Perl scripts as they usually get corrupted, you need to use ASCII instead
Bit- Binary digIT - The smallest unit of computerized data. Bandwidthis usually measured in bits-per-second.
Bit rate- The number of bits that "pass" a given point in a telecommunication network usually within a second is referred to as a bit rate. Often abbreviated as bps, kbps, mbps, gbps, tbps
Body- This is a top level HTML document structure which contains the web page content. In context of an email message, it is the part of an email message where you type your message, as opposed to the header or the signature.
Bookmark- In the context of Internet. It is a feature of the Internet browsers(Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera) which allows the user to store favorite or important Internet addresses for future reference.
Bot- The name comes from the word "robot". A bot is a software program used to perform automated tasks. For example all search engines use bots to crawl the internet(e.g Google bot, Yahoo bot)
Bots are also oftenly used in the context of IRC(Internet relay chat), where an IRC bot behaves like a real person in IRC chat rooms
Bridge- Usually a device that is used for establishing connection between two LANs. It is a LAN-to-LAN communicaiton device. Also called network bridge.
Broadcast- A process of simulatenous transmission of data packets to all workstations, computers and/or nodes in a network.
Browser- A computer program that is used for viewing web sites across the Internet. The most popular browsers are: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, Lynx.
Browser detection- When a web server and/or website tries to determine the browser name and version that the visitor is using. Some sites have different coding for different kind of browsers in order to offer better cross-browser compatibility and better user experience. This is done as not all browsers have the same features and or support certain HTML coding techniques.
BTW- Chat acronym for "By The Way"
C/C++- One of the most popular programming languages. Most of the software programs and application are being written in C/C++. These can also be used for web programming. You can write your own C program and execute it as CGI on your web server after compilation. The advantages of programming in C is that the C programming language is extremely fast.
CA (Certificate Authority)- A company that verifies the identity of merchants and their web sites. It is an organization that issues certificates which identify the web server origin. These certificates are called Secure certificates and are a part of the SSL(https) protocol. This protocol has provides secure communication between a use and a web server by encrypting the data transmission. SSL certificates are usually used on eCommerce sites where a user enters sensible information as login details, credit card information, etc.
Cable Modem- A special modem that is designed to utilize cable TV lines for fast Internet Access. It offers better speeds than a telephone line - up to 1.5Mbps
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)- A set of style rules that define how to display HTML elements on your web site. CSS are very powerful and give greater control over how your site will look like in a user browser.
CERN- The European Laboratory for Particle Physics located in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1989 CERN developed Web the hyperlink system to help for scientific researchers to exchange documents easily. This was the birth of the World Wide Web (WWW).
Certificate- Digital signature/ID used for secure transactions over the Internet. SSL certificates are issued by Certificated authorities. It is also possible to have self issued SSL certificate. However in such case your browser will produce warnings about the SSL validity.
CGI- Common Gateway Interface. A set of rules that define how a web server will communicate to another software program and how this other program will talk back to the web server. A CGI program can be any Perl, Python, C/C++ application. Even in some setups PHP scripts are running as CGI as well
cgi-bin- A special folder/directory on the web server where you can place Perl/CGI, Python, C/C++ scripts to be executed.
CHAP- Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol. It as an authentication protocol that is commonly used in dial-up connections. It is a PPP protocol.
CLI (command-line interface)- An interface that enables you to type executable instructions at a user prompt. It is the opposite of the GUI (Graphical User Interface).
Example for operating systems that offer CLI are UNIX, Linux, BSD, DOS
Client- Used to define a computer program running on a user computer that is connecting to a server. Example for a client program will be some FTP program, or email program. They can be referred as FTP client(CuteFTP), email client(Outlook express).
Client/Server- A common network design where the two main parts of the system are the server and the client. A client can be any user with computer or another server. In other word the one that provides the services is the server and the one that receive them is the client. Internet is based on that network architecture.
clustering- A server architecture that connects many small computers to perform a given task. The result is that they behave as one machine. For example Google uses thousands of regular computers to maintain their web site index and deliver search results. Usually this is done for better performance and reliability.
Co-location (colo)- It is a hosting service where a Data center allows you to place your own server in their facility. They provide high-speed connectivity, security, environment, backup power and basic technical maintenance. It differs from a Dedicated server as the user is the owner of the server equipment. He only pays for place and bandwidth to the Data center. Most of the web hosting companies are using co-located servers for their business.
Cobalt RaQ- It is a brand of servers specially designed for web hosting by SUN
ColdFusion- It is a server side application language created by the Allaire Corporation and now owned by Macromedia. It uses HTML-like tags called CFML to enable back-end ODBC database connectivity as well as data manipulation and validation within webpages.
It is offered as a feature with windows hosting plans.
Control Panel- In the context of web hosting it is an on-line application that give us the user ability to control many aspects of his web hosting account including, but not limited to: creating mailboxes, setup email forwarding, uploading and editing files, creating sub domains, park additional domains, automated installing of ready to use scripts and programs, managing databases, setup shopping carts. You need to check what exactly is included in a given control panel with the web hosting company you have chosen to go with.
Cookie- It is a file on your computer saved by your browser and accessible by a given web server. It stores information about your visit on a given site. Cookies are used for example for storing user preferences, for maintaining sessions, etc.
Cpanel- CPanel is web based software that is offered by a lot of web hosting companies. Using CPanel you can manage all aspects of your hosting accounts, such as creating mailboxes, uploading files, managing databases, viewing site statistics, installing scripts, creating ftp users, etc
CPU- Central Processing Unit. It is the computer brain - its most important part.
Crawler- Also referred to as a spider. It is an automated program used by search engines to collect data for web sites. A crawler will download your web page and will analyze its content and links. Then it will usually visit each link and so on. The data collected is used for building the search engine index which is used for providing search results to the users.
D Channel- It is the data chanel of an ISDN connection. Its speed can be 16 or 64 Kbps
Data transfer- In context of web hosting, it is the total amount of data that has been transfered for a given period. The amount it being calculated based on the size of all files - HTML, images, video, audio, etc - that have been downloaded by the visitors of the website. Sites with rich multimedia content usually need more data transfer per month so you will most probably need to look for a web hosting plan with greater transfer limits.
Database- It is a collection of information stored in a structured format. The most popular and widely used ones are the relation databases. Most web hosting plans offer MySQL database support. Other databases offered are Access, MSSQL, Postgre, Oracle.
Dedicated Server- In the context of web hosting, it is a server located in a data center which serves the site(s) of a single customer. The user can use all of its resources, can install any programs that he wishes. It is like co-located server, however in this case you pay a rent for the server(physical machine) as well along with paying for bandwidth and the other expenses. Dedicated servers are suitable for large and popular sites that require great bandwidth allotments and server resources like space, CPU time, memory usage.
DES- Data Encryption Standard - a common algorithm used for encrypting data. It has been developed in 1977 by IBM
DHCP- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol - commonly used in LAN networks it is a protocol that lets network administrators centrally manage and automate the assignment of IP Addresses on the corporate network. There is a DHCP server running which gives out IP addreses to the computers connected to a local network.
Dial up- Dialup access is method of connecting your computer to the Internet. This type of access is the slowest ones compared to ISDN, DSL, etc. Also when you are connected to the Internet - your phone line is busy as well.
DNS- Domain Name System. This is a system that translates a website name - e.g www.besthostratings.com - to an IP address or Internet Protocol address. The global DNS data is replicated on many DNS servers across the Internet, hence when you change your domain name DNS information, it takes a while (24-48 hours) to have the changes propagated worldwide.
Domain name- It is the name of your site. It is unique - there cannot be two sites with using one and the same domain name. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts separated by dots. The part on the right denotes the TLD(top level domain part). It can be .com, .net, .org while the other part is the actual name of your site. It is called SLD(second level domain name). The one responsible for the International TLDs is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). There are also CC(country code) TLDs - e.g .uk, .fr, .it
Domain parking- Domain parking is the option to have more then one domain name pointed to a web site. Usually a parked domain name is a full alias of the main domain name of the site. A parked domain name shows the same content as the main one. With most web hosting providers you can have mailboxes on the parked domain name.
Domain pointers- These are considered additional domain names pointed to a web hosting account. Some web hosting plans provide the option to have several domain pointers pointed to subfolders on subdomains on your hosting account. Having domain pointers included in your plan gives you the option to host more than one site on a web hosting account.
Domain Registrar- A company that handles the registration of a domain name. There is a list of acredited registrars company available at ICANN Accredited Registrar List
There are also Country level registrar companies. A list of registrars that handle each country code domain name extension can be found at IANA CC database
DOS attack- Denial of Service attack. A method of attacking a server by sending an abnormally high volume of requests over a network, which essentially slows down the performance of a server, such that the server is unavailable for any users.
DSL- Abbreviation for Digital Subscriber Line. This is a technology for connecting to the Internet over a regular phone line. However it is faster in times(30 to 50) compared to the dial-up method. A commonly discussed configuration of DSL allows downloads at speeds of up to 1.5 megabits per second
E-Business- Short for electronic business. It is a way of conducting business using web and Internet technologies. In other words you use Internet to sale goods and services. It extends the traditional business practices using the modern Internet technologies. An example for e-Business is a online store with shopping cart and online payments.
Electronic Mail (E-Mail, email)- It is one of the most popular Internet services. Email is electronic messaging that uses standard conventions for addressing and delivering content across the Internet. An email message has three parts: a header, a message, and attachments (documents or computer readable files). The header contains much technical information about the source and the route the message took from sender to recipient. Most of this is irrelevant to normal users, but it is useful to have when things go wrong. You have to have an email account in order to be able to use this service. Usually you get several email accounts with the web hosting provider that hosts your domain name.
Encryption- Encryption is the process of converting readable data into unreadable characters to prevent unauthorized access. To decipher the message, the receiver of the encrypted data must have the proper decryption key. Also there are one-way encryption methods, which cannot be decrypted later. For example MD5. These are used for storing sensible information as passwords for example.
Ethernet- A local-area network protocol developed by Xerox Corporation in cooperation with DEC and Intel in 1976. 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.
Extranet- An Extranet is a private network that uses the Internet protocols and the public telecommunication system to share part of business information with suppliers, vendors, customers, or other businesses. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company's Intranet that is extended to users outside the company.
EZMLM- EZMLM is a popular mailing list software designed for Linux/Unix systems.
Fantastico- A popular script auto-installer. A web based application included in some web hosting Control Panels (CPanel for example). It contains a collection of free scripts such as PHPBB, WordPress, PHPNuke, Mambo, etc. Using Fantastico you can easily have any of the free scripts installed on your hosting account with a few clicks. Very useful utility for people who do not have time or skills to install these on their own.
FAQ- Frequently Asked Question. A list of frequently asked questions and answers to them. FAQ are commonly used along with manuals or help guides for a given products. They are a very good way of finding solutions to different problems. Most web hosting companies have extensive FAQ with answers to commonly asked question of their customers.
Fast Ethernet- A term to describe Ethernet at 100Mbit/sec as opposed to 10Mbit/sec (just called Ethernet). These days 10 Mbit/sec ethernet networks are hard to find :).
FCC- Federal Communications Commission. FCC is the U.S. regulatory authority for telecommunications.
FDDI- Fiber Distributed Data Interface. A very high speed network protocol. A standard for transmitting data on optical fiber cables at a rate of around 100,000,000 bits-per-second. This speed is 10 times as fast as Ethernet, and about twice as fast as T-3.
Fibre Optic Cable- Also called optical fibre, it is a cable used for transmitting data as a light wave. It is more expensive that copper wire, but offers higher transmission speeds and allows data transmission over larger distances.
File permissions- Most web hosting providers run Unix servers. On UNIX servers every systems user has unique username, usually that is you web hosting account username. Each username can be a member of one or more system groups on the server.
Every file or directory on a Unix/Linux server has owner and a dedicated group.
In short the permissions define what privileges the users on the server have for a certain file.
In most FTP programs and web based file managers the file permissions are represented with numbers. For example:
index.html 644
mail.pl 755
The first number represents the owner permissions, the second the group permissions and the last one the permissions for all the other users on the system.
In general the permissions are:
1 - execute
2 - write
4 - read
So 644 means
6 (2+4) - read + write for owner
4 - read for group
4 - read for others
755
7 (2+4+1) write, read, execute for owner
5 (4+1) read and execute for group
5 (4+1) read and execute for others
Usually HTML files, images, CSS should be with 644 permissions
CGI scripts (Perl, Python, Ruby etc) should have 755 or 775 permissions in order to work.
Folders usually should have 775 or 755 permissions.
And if you wish to give full access to your files by all users on the system you need to give 777 permissions
Filename extension- Usually three or four letters that follow a period after the filename. They designate the file type. There are hundreds in existence, and new ones frequently being invented. Examples are: .txt (text file), .gif, jpeg, bmp, exe, com, bat, ini, conf
Filtering- A process for screening network traffic for certain characteristics, such as source address, destination address, or protocol, and determining whether to forward or discard that traffic based on the established criteria. It is used in firewalls in order to decide if the traffic is to be forwarded or rejected. It is the network security basics.
Finger- An program for "locating" people on computers - either one's own or another. 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 and/or whether they are presently logged in. Some sites do not allow outside finger requests, but many do.
Firewall- It is either a software or a hardware device that is used to protect internal network or even a single computer from attacks and unauthorized access.
Frame Relay- Frame Relay is a network technology. It is a communication interface that provides high-speed packet transmission with minimum delay and efficient use of bandwidth. It assumes that all connections are reliable and does not have error detection or control which helps to speed up the protocol.
FrontPage Extensions- A set of programs installed on a web hosting server which enable users of Microsoft FrontPage to use its special components (called Web Bots). The extensions can be installed for Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) and on other Windows (usually Windows NT) and UNIX web hosting servers.
FTP- File Transfer Protocol. A common method for downloading and uploading files to a web hosting server. Popular FTP programs are CuteFTP, SmartFTP, WS_FTP. More of the the contemporary Internet browsers support FTP transfer as well.
FYI- Chat acronym "For Your Information"
Gateway- A TCP/IP host(e.g computer or other hardware or software device) that has access to two or more different LAN networks. As such, it can forward messages across networks that other hosts would not be able to access.
Gigabit Ethernet- A term to describe Ethernet at 1000Mbit/sec as opposed to 10Mbit/sec (just called Ethernet) or the Fast Ethernet that runs at 100Mbit/sec
Gigabyte (Gb)- 1024 Megabytes (MB). 2^30 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.
Graphical User Interface (GUI)- GUI is an object-oriented display format that allows the user to select from menus and icons, using either a mouse or keystroke commands. GUI displays are typical of the Macintosh and Windows environments. However these days there are a lot of GUI solutions for Linux desktop computers - RedHat, Mandrake have KDE and Gnome available as GUI
HEX - Hexadecimal color system- The most commonly used way to define colors in the Web. It is a system that defines colors based on their RGB values and associates a two digit hexadecimal number with each base color (red, green and blue). For example #FFFFFF is representation of white in HEX
Hit- In the context of a web site a "hit" is used to describe a single request made by a web browser. It can be a request either for an image or HTML document or any other document residing on the web site. So a visit to a single web page can result to several hits, depending how many external elements are loaded by the page.
Home Page- In context of web hosting it is the main, start page of your site. That is the page that should be loading first when a user visits some site.
Horde- The most famous part of Horde is the Horde Webmail program. A decent web based email client with a lot of features and options.
Host- Any computer on a network that provides some kind of services - web, mail, FTP, etc. All servers that a web hosting company is running can be called hosts as they have web, mail, ftp server running there.
HTML- Hypertext Markup Language. It is the language used to create web pages. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's text and images for the user. HTML code is stored in a normal text file. The most important feature of HTML are the hyperlinks as they allow pages to be linked one to another. There is no need to know HTML to create a webpage these days. There are many software products that provide you with WYSIWYG interface for creating your site just with drag-n-drop while the program itself takes care to generate the proper HTML code needed for the page.
HTTP- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It is set of rules used between a web browser and a web hosting server to request a web site and transfer its contents. The rules are maintained and defined by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). The latest version of HTTP is 1.1.
HTTPS- HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer, or HTTP over SSL) is a Web protocol developed by Netscape.
A version of HTTP protocol that uses encryption to ensure the security between your browser and the server when exchanging secure information. It is mandatory for eCommerce sites that accept online payments.
Hub- A network device that connects several computers on a Local Network. Smart hubs or switching hubs are often used to improve performance by managing traffic.
Hyperlink- A text, image or some other media that is linked to another web page.
When a user clicks on a hyperlink its browser gets transfered to the linked document. The word hyperlink is sometimes referred to as "link"
Hypertext- Any text on a web page that contains links to other web pages.
Browsers usually display hypertext as underlined and in blue color.
IEEE- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. A professional organisation whose activities include the development of communication and network standards
IIS- Microsoft Internet Information Server. It is a web server, product of the Microsoft corporation. All Windows web hosting plans are using IIS as a web server software.
Image Map- It is an HTML attribute of an image placed on a web page. With image maps you can define certain areas of the image as hyperlinks. These hyperlink act the same way as the usual text based hyperlinks - when clicked they take the user browser to the linked web page.
IMAP- Internet Message Access Protocol. A way of accessing your email directly on the server. It differs from POP the way it reads messages on the server. While POP downloads the messages to your computer and deletes them from the server, with IMAP you can have your messages on the server, even organized in folders. IMAP is useful when you you use to read your email at several computers.
IMHO- Chat acronym for "In My Humble Opinion" (or: In My Honest Opinion)
IMO- Chat acronym for "In My Opinion"
Internet- A global network linking millions of computers for communications purposes.TCP/IP is the standard protocol set for Internet.
Internet Address- Also known as URL(Uniformed Resource Locator) is a unique identifier of a web site. For example our site Internet address or URL is http://www.besthostratings.com. Please note the http:// part. It tells your computer what type of address is that. All web pages start with http://. FTP site start with ftp:// followed by the site domain name.
Internet backbone- Well actually there are many backbones. These are extremely fast connections(T3 and higher) crisscrossing the globe from one major metropolitan area to another. They are operated by global telecommunication companies and all local ISP(Internet service providers) are connected to these backbone connection through access points.
InterNIC- A company that operates the .COM and .NET domain name registry.
Intranet- A private network within an organisation that uses internet technology. An Intranet behaves exactly like the internet in that you can retrieve pages from servers, the difference is that it is not part of the internet, and cannot be accessed from outside the organisation.
IP- Internet Protocol. The Internet Protocol (IP) is used in the TCP/IP set of protocols, which supports the Internet and many private networks.
IP Address- Internet Protocol Address. A unique number for a computer connected to TCP/IP network. The IP address is a numeric address written as a set of four numbers separated by dots, for example 212.5.221.11.
IPX- Internetwork Packet eXchange. A network protocol developed by Novell.
IRC- Internet Relay Chat. A service that allows users located anywhere to participate in discussions, usually in a virtual chat room where they can talk to each other exchanging text messages. To join an IRC service you need to have an IRC program. The most popular IRC client program is mIRC.
ISDN- Integrated Services Digital Network. It is a system of digital phone connections which allows voice and data to be transmitted simultaneously across the world using end-to-end digital connectivity. It has speed of 64Kbps.
ISO- International Standards Organization. The principal international group responsible for standards in many areas.
ISP- Internet Service Provider. Also referred to as local ISP. It is a company that provides access for its subscriber to the Internet. ISP companies provide dial-up, DSL, cable or LAN access. For example AOL, SBC, RoadRunner are ISPs.
ITU- International Telecommunication Union. A United Nations agency that coordinates matters of international telecommunications concern.
JAR- Short for Java Archive, a file format used to bundle multiple files into a single archive file.
Java- Java is a programming language invented by Sun Microsystems. It is expressly designed for use in the distributed environment of the Internet. It was designed to have the "look and feel" of the C++ language, but it is simpler to use than C++ and enforces a completely object-oriented view of programming. Java can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used to build small application modules or applets for use as part of a Web page.
Java class files- These are files that contain the code required by a Java applet on your web page
Java Servlet- Java Servlets are small programs coded in the Java programming laguage that are executed on a web server. They perform certain task and are able to produce dynamic web content - i.e generate web pages on the fly. See also JSP
Java Virtual Machine (JVM, Java Runtime Environment)- Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is a Java interpreter and runtime environment. Java source code is compiled into a format called bytecode (files with a .class extension), which can then be executed by a Java interpreter. Web browsers are often equipped with Java virtual machines.
JavaScript- A scripting language developed by Netscape that adds interactivity to web pages. Its name reflects a shared syntax with the Java programming language. A JavaScript-client Web browser is necessary to run JavaScript code.
JDBC- JDBC allows Java programmers to access relational databases and other tabular data sources. It is a set of methods to connect Java code to databases
JScript- The Microsoft open implementation of JavaScript. JScript complies with the ECMA 262 language specification.
JSP- Java Server Pages. Extension to the Java servlet technology. JSP pages are text documents that have a jsp extension and contain a combination of static HTML and XML like tags and scriptlets.
Kbps- Kilobits per second; a measure of data transfer speed. 1Kbps = 1024bps.
Kilobyte (Kb)- Approximately one thousand bytes, or exactly 1,024 bytes
LAN- Local Area Network. A network connecting computers in a relatively small area such as a building. A LAN can be connected to the internet and can also be configured as an intranet.
Leased line- A dedicated connection line for the transfer of data. The highest speed data connections require a leased line. It is a dedicated telecommunications connection to the Internet for high speed data connections.
Link- An end-to-end transmission path provided by the cabling infrastructure.
Linux- An Open Source implementation of UNIX initiated by Linus Torvalds, which runs on many different hardware platforms including Intel, Sparc®, PowerPC, and Alpha Processors.
Linux and FreeBSD are very often used by web hosting companies as their operating systems.
Login- Noun: The account name used to gain access to a computer system. Usually it is a sequence of characters and digits. It is not secret as opposed to the password.
Verb: The act of entering a computer system.
LOL- Chat acronym for "Laughing Out Loud"
Lossless- A term describing a data compression algorithm which retains all the information in the data, allowing it to be recovered perfectly by decompression.
Lossy- Data compression algorithms that assume some of the data in a image file is unnecessary and can be eliminated without affecting the perceived image quality. It is suitable for audio, video and image compression.
LZW compression- Lempel-Zev-Welch, a graphics compression technique that creates a dictionary of "phrases" found in an image to reduce the data needed to describe an image. Best on repetitive images and those with fewer colors. LZW is used with GIF images.
MAC- Media Access Control. A protocol operating at the data link layer used to manage a station’s access to the network.
MAC Address- Media Access Control address (also hardware or physical address). Unique hardware serial number that uniquely identifies a device on a local area network.
Mailing List- An e-mail based discussion group. Sending one e-mail message to the mailing list's list server sends mail to all other members of the group. Users join a mailing list by subscribing.
A Mailing list can have owner and/or moderators which control what is being distributed across the list.Some web hosting plans allow creation of mailing lists.
Mailserver- A set of programs running on a web hosting server that handle the process of email delivery, sending, forwarding, etc. Mail servers are responsible to for routing our email messages to their recipients.
Mainframe Computer- A large, centralized computer with a great deal of memory and computing power.
Megabyte (MB)- A million bytes. Actually, 1024 kilobytes.
MHz- Abbreviation for megahertz. One MHz represents one million cycles per second. The speed of microprocessors, called the clock speed, is measured in megahertz.
Microsoft Access- Microsoft Access is a database which comes bundled in Microsoft Office® Products. Access is fully compatible with Active Server Pages (ASP) scripting which is only available only on our NT virtual servers. back to top. Windows web hosting plans sometimes include MS Access database.
Microsoft SQL Server- Microsoft's enterprise level SQL database running on Windows systems. More expensive web hosting plans offer access to MS SQL server.
MIME- The Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions protocol (MIME) is used in Internet communications to transmit documents of varying formats. It is used by World Wide Web (WWW) Servers to identify the types of files they send to WWW Clients. The protocol provides a means of specifying the type of file being transmitted (e.g., a motion video file) and the method that should be used to return it to its original form for display. MIME types have been defined for many types of non-text files, including: graphic and image files (jpeg, gif, tif), sound files (au, wav), and motion video files (mpeg).
Mirror site- A server, which contains a duplicate of another WWW or FTP, site. Mirror sites are created when the traffic on the original site becomes too heavy for single server. Often mirror sites are located in different geographic areas allowing users to choose the site closest to them.
Miva Empressa- Miva Empresa installs on most Unix and Windows web servers and enables the server to run Miva Merchant and other Miva Script applications. XML-based Miva Script is a robust scripting language with e-commerce and database capabilities. Miva Script applications running under Miva Empresa execute in a sandboxed data and runtime environment. Special virtual domain and shared server features let busy site administrators create per user and per domain runtime environments
Miva Merchant- Miva Merchant is a dynamic browser based storefront development and management system that allows merchants to create and administrate multiple online stores from anywhere in the world.
Modem- A device that enables a user to dial into another computer via telephone lines to send and receive data. The most common use of modems is for dialing into an Internet service provider to access the Internet or World Wide Web, though they can also be used to send faxes and transmit data directly from one computer to another. Modems do not provide high bandwidth, and as a result, they do not provide high speed Internet access
MP3- Stands for MPEG audio layer 3. A popular compressed audio format widely used to transfer music over the internet. An MP3 file is much smaller than a wave file.
mSQL (Mini SQL)- Light-weight relational database.
Multicast- A one-to-many connection in which multiple clients can receive the same stream from a server. To receive a multicast, a client must have access to a multicast-enabled network. In contrast, a unicast is a one-to-one connection in which one client receives a distinct stream from a server.
MySQL- MySQL is a true multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. MySQL is fast and flexible enough to allow you to store logs and pictures in it. Its main goals are speed, robustness, and ease of use.
It is a freely available database server capable of running on Unix and Windows servers. Many web hosting plans have support for MySQL
Nameserver and DNS(Domain name server)- It is a server on the Internet that is responsible to tell your browser the IP address of your domain name. In other words the Nameserver tells a computer where to look for a given site. For example when you change hosting servers you need to change your Nameservers so your domain name can start pointing to your new web hosting company. The Nameservers translate domain names to network addresses (IP addresses) which computer understand. Nameservers are one of the most important parts of the internet.
Netiquette- Informal set of rules that should be followed when using internet services like email, message boards and newsgroups. Describes what it means to be "well behaved" while interacting with other people online.
Netscape Communications- A company that has developed one of the most popular web browsers: Netscape Navigator.
Network- A collection of devices such as computers and printers that are connected together. A network is a tool for communication that allows users to store and retrieve information, share printers, and exchange information
Network Management- Generic term used to describe systems or actions that help maintain, characterize, or troubleshoot a network
Newsgroup- A Newsgroup is a way of sharing news and information across the network that predates the World Wide Web. They are made up of bulletin boards where individuals make postings to share with the community. More efficient than mass emailing, a message on a newsgroup stays on the news server for all to see without clogging any one's mailbox. Newsgroups are frequently used to post important information.
Newsreader- Program used to read and post to any Usenet newsgroups
NIC- An acronym for network interface card. Network interface cards provide a dedicated, full-time connection to a network, usually LAN
NNTP- Abbreviation for Network News Transfer Protocol, a system for reading and writing Usenet News articles across a network, this service is defined by RFC number 977.
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 Microsoft standard for accessing different database systems from Windows, for instance Oracle or SQL
Offline- When you are not Online :). In other words when your computer is not connected to the internet.
Online- When your computer is connected to the Internet or a network and communicates with other computers.
Open relay- A SMTP server that allows sending email messages without the need of any kind of authorization. It is a SPAMmers heaven.
Operating system- Sometimes abbreviated as "OS", the program that manages all the other programs in a computer. UNIX, Windows XP, Linux, Free BSD, and MAC OS/X are all examples of operating systems.
OSI- Open Systems Interconnection. The OSI Reference Model is a seven-layer network architecture model of data communication protocols developed by ISO and ITU
Page- In contexts of Internet it is a basic HTML document. Web sites usually have many web pages.
PAP- Password Authentication Protocol. Authentication protocol that allows PPP peers to authenticate one another.
Peer-to-Peer network- A network in which there are no dedicated servers or hierarchy among the computers. All computers are equal and, therefore, known as peers. Generally, each computer functions as both client and server.
Perl- Stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language. It is an 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 lot of Perl scripts are available for free download across the Internet
PHP- PHP (recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so you can do anything any other CGI program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or send and receive cookies.PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Linux, many Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD), Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, RISC OS, and probably others. PHP has also support for most of the web servers today. This includes Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Personal Web Server, Netscape and iPlanet servers, Oreilly Website Pro server, Caudium, Xitami, OmniHTTPd, and many others. For the majority of the servers PHP has a module, for the others supporting the CGI standard, PHP can work as a CGI processor.
PKZIP or PKUNZIP- Popular compression and decompression programs.
Plesk- Plesk is another web based control panel, similar to CPanel provides an easy way for a web hosting user to manage his account, to create mailboxes, upload files, etc.
Plug-in- Usually a small software program that adds new features to an existing application. For example the Flash player is a plugin for the Netscape browser.
POP- Post Office Protocol. Also know as POP3. POP3 is an electronic mail protocol used to retrieve messages stored on an Internet/intranet e-mail server. Whenever a client wants to check for messages it connects to its Internet Service Provider's e-mail server and uses POP3 to login to its mailbox and download its messages.
Port- On the Internet port often refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens on a particular port number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing the server.
PPP- Acronym for "Point to Point Protocol", refers to the standard by which Internet connections are maintained on computers without a direct link to the Internet, but using a modem and standard phone line. If you're connected to the Internet at home, you're probably connecting by way of a PPP account.
Protocol- A set of standards used by two computers to communicate and exchange information with each other. The TCP/IP protocol suite is the basis of todays Internet.
Python- Python is an object oriented high level scripting language
RAID- Redundant arrays of independent disks. A disk system with RAID capability can protect its data and provide on-line, immediate access to its data, despite a single (some RAID storage systems can withstand two concurrent disk failures) disk failure.
Raw Logs- Raw logs contain the records for all hits to your site. Each web server has its own log format. You can download the raw logs for your web hosting account and analyze them with a software of your choice.
RBL or DNSBL- Stands for Real-time BlackHole List. Usually used to identify networks and/or IP addresses of servers that relay spam or are vulnerable/open relay. Many web hosting providers use RBL lists as part of their anti-spam protection.
Reseller- In context of web hosting it is usally a smaller starter company that that resells hosting services of a parent bigger web hosting company.
RJ-11- A standard connector, the type of modular jack used with telephones.
RJ-45- Standard 8-wire connectors for networks. Also used as phone lines in some cases.
Router- A system responsible for making decisions about which of several paths network traffic will take, and for keeping track of routing information which is being passed along a network be one of several different possible protocols.
RSA- (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) RSA is an Internet encryption and authentication system that uses an algorithm developed in 1977 by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. The RSA algorithm is the most commonly used encryption and authentication algorithm and is included as part of the Web browser from Netscape and Microsoft. It's also part of Lotus Notes, Intuit's Quicken, and many other products. The encryption system is owned by RSA Security.
Ruby- Relatively new web programming language. It is object oriented.
It has many features to process text files and to do system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, extensible, and portable. You can find more about ruby at http://www.ruby-lang.org
S/MIME- Secure Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extension (S/MIME) is a specification for encrypting and authenticating MIME data.
It is a way of making email messages more secure.
Scripting Language- A programming language designed specifically for Web site programming. Examples are PHP, Perl, Java Script, VBScript, ETC
Search engine- A "search engine" is a Web site that employs bots to search the Web. Search engines take the information gathered by its bots and use it to create a searchable index of the Net. The Major search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves
Search form- An HTML form on your site which submits a query to a program or script on the web server which performs search on your site and then returns the results.
Self-extracting Archive- An archive files that can extract itself. It is usually an executable program which contains both the compressed files and the decompressing program. Once executed it extracts the compressed files. You do not need to have the original program that created the archive installed on your computer.
SEO- Short for Search Engine Optimization. That is to optimize your page to rank well and be search engine friendly. The goal is to achieve higher placement in the search results for particular terms/keywords.
SERP- Stands for Search Engine Result Pages/Positions.
Server- A server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs. In the client/server model, a server is a program that fulfills requests from client programs. A computer application may function as a client with requests for services from other programs and also as a server of requests from other programs. Specific to the Web, a Web Server is the computer program that serves requested HTML pages or files. The Web browser in your computer is a client that requests HTML files from Web servers.
Service Provider- A company that provides certain services, usually for a certain fee. As you are looking at our page you are already using the services of your local ISP(Internet service provider)
Session- It is the period of time during which two parties exchange data. It starts the moment when one of the party establish a connection to the other one and ends once the connection is terminated.
Setup fee- In context of web hosting it is the initial fee that a web hosting company will charge you for setting up a web hosting account.
Some companies do not have setup fees. You can use our Price search page to find web hosting companies that do not have setup fees - e.g Free setup hosting plans.
Shopping Cart- It is a web based program/software that allows visitors to your site to browse a product catalog on your site and place orders online. Usually shopping cards are designed to handle various payment method as well as to calculate taxes and shipping fees. Many web hosting companies with e-commerce web hosting plans offer pre-installed shopping carts. However there are many shopping carts available for download as well as there are many paid ones that you can download and install on your own.
Signed applet- A Java applet that is digitally signed by its vendor.
SLIP- Acronym for Serial Line Internet Protocol, SLIP is a serial packet protocol used to connect a remote computer to the Internet using modems or direct connections, SLIP requires an Internet provider with special SLIP accounts. It is similar to PPP protocol
Smileys- Characters used in email, chat, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo messaging that are used to express emotions. For example:
:) :P ;) :X :| :( :o)
SMTP- Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol for transferring email messages from one server to another. It is also used by the email programs to retrieve email messages from a mail server
Snail Mail- A normal mail, delivered with regular postal services.
SNMP- Simple Network Management Protocol. Commonly used protocol that is used for network management.
Spam- Unsolicited email message most often for marketing purposes that is being sent out to users that have not subscripted for such information. It is the Email equivalent of junk mail. It is becoming one of the biggest problems in the Internet today.
Spider- An automated program (sometimes called a webcrawler) which crawls over the World Wide Web, gathering web pages for search engines.
SPX- Sequenced Packet Exchange. A common protocol used on Novell networks.
SQL- Structured Query Language. A specialized programming language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL.
Many web hosting companies have hosting plans that offer SQL databases like - MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL
SSH- Secure Shell. It allows a user to connect remotely to a Unix based web hosting server. All data exchanged between the server and the user is encrypted using a protocol developed by SSH Communications Security. SSH programs provide strong authentication and encrypted communications, replacing less secure access methods like telnet, rsh, rlogin.
SSI- Abbreviation for "Server-Side Includes". A server-side scripting language. SSI scripting commands are embedded within a webpage and are parsed and executed on the web server to generate dynamic HTML pages. Most web hosting companies require SSI files to end with .shtml file extension.
SSL- Secure Sockets Layer. A technology used on the Internet to secure web pages and transactions by means of public key cryptography. A digitally secure communications channel is established between the server and the client after which all data is encrypted. Message integrity is provided by the use of digital signatures, and trust in an individual or a website is ascertained by using digital certificates which are signed by a Certificate Authority acting as a "trusted third party". The encryption strength used in SSL is 40-bit and 128 bit. Before using SSL in eCommerce, you'll need to get a certificate from a Certificate Authority like Verisign, Thawte, InstantSSL
Static (or dedicated) IP- If a web hosting company offer a dedicated IP with their hosting plan, this means that your site will be assigned its own IP address.
Most shared hosting plans do not have this option. However some web hosting companies will give you a dedicated IP address if you need to install SSL certificate for example.
STP- Shielded Twisted Pair. Copper cable that includes one or more sets of cable pairs which have been molded into an insulating material and covered by a braided shielding conductor. STP offers better noise protection than unshielded twisted pair (UTP) but is much more expensive and more difficult to use.
Streaming- Streaming audio or video is an audio or video is a technique which allows an audio signal to be listened to and a video signal to viewed while it is being transmitted from a Web site without requiring a full download of the streamed media file. Most popular streaming formats are Real Audio/Video as well as Windows Media Audio/Video.
Subdomain- Subdomain is a way to divide your web site into sections with short and easy to remember names. For example you can have a subdomain like eshop.yourdomain.com. Most web hosting companies have subdomains as a feature in their hosting plans.
Surfing- Informal term for exploring the internet (as in "surfing the 'net").
Switch- A device that improves network performance by segmenting the network and reducing competition for bandwidth. When a switch port receives data packets, it forwards those packets only to the appropriate port for the intended recipient. It also provides greater security than hubs.
T1- A high-speed digital connection capable of transmitting data at a rate of approximately 1.5 million bits per second. A T1 line is typically used by small and medium-sized companies with heavy network traffic.
T3- This connection (sometimes referred to as a DS3 line) is made up of a total of 28 T1 lines. This is used to transmit digital signals on fiber-optic cable at a rate of about 43Mbps.
TCL- Tool Command Language. Tcl is a simple textual language, intended primarily for issuing commands to interactive programs such as text editors, debuggers, illustrators, and shells.
TCP- Transmission Control Protocol - a set of rules (protocol) used along with the Internet Protocol (IP) to send data in the form of message units between computers over the Internet.
TCP/IP- Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol is a combined set of protocols that performs the transfer of data between two computers. Internet is based on the TCP/IP protocol.
Telnet- Telnet is a protocol that lets you log in to a remote computer and use programs and data that the remote owner has made available, just as if it were your local computer. These days most web hosting companies offer SSH in place of telnet as SSH offers greater security
Terabyte (TB)- 1024 Gigabytes or 1 099 511 627 776 bytes (2** 40 bytes)
TLD- Short for Top-Level Domain.This refers to the "top level" of an internet address such as .com or .net. There are a limited number of these predefined suffixes, each one representing a top-level domain.
Traceroute- A command available in almost all operating systems. It is a network command which you can use to trace the path between your computer and your web hosting server. It lists all network hops along the way and their average response times.Very useful for debugging network connection troubles..
Traffic- All data that is being transmitted over a network. In context of web hosting it is all the data that you hosting account has transmitted - files, email messages, etc
Twisted Pair- A common form of copper cabling used for telephony and data communications.
Unicode- A 16-bit character set defined by ISO 10646. It maps digits to characters in languages around the world. Because 16 bits covers 32,768 codes, Unicode is large enough to include all the world's languages, with the exception of ideographic languages that have a different character for every concept, like Chinese.
Unix- A multi-processing, multi-user, family of operating systems that run on a variety of architectures. It is a basis for the Linux, which is one of the most commonly used Operating system for web hosting servers.
UPS- Uninterruptible Power Supply. It is a device with a battery that will turn on in case of power failure. Depending on its capacity, a web hosting server can work from several minutes to several hours using a UPS.
URL- Uniform Resource Locator A URL is the distinct address that identifies each resource on the Internet. More formally, a URL is the networked extension of the standard filename concept that can exist on any machine on the network and served via any of several different methods. An example of a URL is http://www.besthostratings.com/hostingplansdir.html
Usenet- Network of all the newsgroups in the Internet
UTP- Unshielded Twisted Pair - Copper wire cabling used to connect network devices to each other and to a network. Made of 8 strands of copper, twisted in four pairs.
UUencode- A method for converting files from Binaryto ASCII (text) so that they can be sent across the Internet via e-mail
VBScript- Short for Visual Basic Scripting Edition, a scripting language developed by Microsoft and supported by Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. VBScript is based on the Visual Basic programming language, but is much simpler. In many ways, it is similar to JavaScript. Yet, Netscape web browsers do not interpret VBScript. Thus, the only environments VBScript will operate are intranets that only use Internet Explorer or web sites that declare the site as best viewed in Internet Explorer.
viewer- A program designed to display files in certain formats. For example a viewer for image files, viewer for media files, etc. Acrobat reader is an example for a viewer of PDF files. ACDSee is a common viewer for image files.
Virtuozo- Virtuozo is a web based application that comes along with VPS (Virtual Private Servers). It provides an option to manage your VPS installation using a web browser. You can restart, reinstall, backup, confiugre services on your VPS.
Virus- A program designed to replicate itself and spread to other computers. Some viruses additionally are designed to damage data or halt operations on a system, other are designed to send out spam message or to participate in DDOS attacks. Viruses can spread themselves over the network in the means of email or security flaws in the Operating systems.
VPN- Acronym for Virtual Private Network. A VPN is a way to provide remote access to an organization's network via the Internet. VPNs send data over the public Internet through secure "tunnels."
VPS- VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. It is a special web hosting setup. Usually a provider will host several VPS clients on a single physical server. All VPSs on the server share the server CPU and Memory. With a VPS you have root access to your virtual server, that is you can manage it as you wish. The VPS behaves as a dedicated server and provides great flexibility. The only difference with a dedicated server is that you share the physical resources with several or more Virtual Private Servers.
W3C- World Wide Web Consortium. An international industry consortium that develops standards for the World Wide Web.
WAN - Wide Area Network- A Wide Area Network connects computers over a long distance via telephone lines or satellite link. Technically, the Internet itself is a gigantic, worldwide WAN which is owned by various individuals and corporate or governmental entities.
WAP- Stands for Wireless Application Protocol. A protocol used by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, pda devices, etc. Most big web sites do have WAP version available, just use your mobile/cell phone and navigate to google.com or cnn.com for example.
WAV- Stands for Waveform sound format. Microsoft's format for encoding sound files. Very accurate, but offers no compression, thus resulting in very large files.
WebMail- A web based email program. Most web hosting companies do provide webmail access to their customers. Often it comes with addressbook, rich text editor, spelling checker, and all the features of any other email program offers. Very useful when you travel and do not have access to your computer to check your email with a program like Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.
Webmaster- The one responsible fo the maintenance and development of a particular website.
whois- This is an Internet service that finds information about a domain name or IP address. If you enter a domain name in a WHOIS search engine, it will scour a huge database of domains and return information about the one you entered. This information typically contains the name, address, and phone number of the administrative and technical contacts of the domain name. WHOIS can also be used to simply check if a certain domain name is available or if it has already been registered.
WinRar- WinRAR is a powerful archive software. It can backup your data, reduce size of email attachments and other files. It is distributed by
http://www.rarlab.com/
A great windows based archive utility, powerfull replacement of WinZip
WWW- Acronym fo the World Wide Web (or Web). It is the most popular Internet service. It allows access to the information and services from the web servers. A web browser is needed to use the Web.
XML- Extensible Markup Language. XML is a programming language that enables designers to create their own tags to indicate specific information. XML is intended to deliver information, not just pages.
A lot content providing services use XML to deliver syndicate their content.
XML/RSS reader- A program designed to retrieve XML documents and display their contents in a user readable format.
ZIP- A comressed file format. Both windows and linux applications are available. There is a nice windows based application named WinZIP which you can use to create ZIP files as well as view the contents of already created such files. ZIP functionality is bundled in the Windows XP operating system. Command line zip/unzip utilities are also available in most UNIX based operating systems.
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