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Glossary
- File Manager
- Software used to manage files on a disk. It provides functions to delete, copy,
move, rename and view files as well as create and manage directories. The file
manager in Windows 3.x was appropriately named File Manager. In Windows 95/98,
NT 4.0 and 2000, the file manager is known as Explorer.
- Frontpage
- A popular Web authoring program from Microsoft for Windows and the Mac. FrontPage
Editor is the graphical editor for designing the pages and FrontPage Explorer is the
management tool that lets you construct and maintain the entire site. It also includes
WebBots, which generate code for complex functions such as searching and password
protection.
- Frontpage Extensions
- Microsoft Frontpage extensions are a series of files allowing Frontpage as an
authoring tool on a web server.
- FTP
- Abbreviation of File Transfer Protocol, the protocol used on the Internet
for sending files.
- Guestbook
- A method of tracking information and comments from visitors to a domain.
Usually made for accepting comments and entering personal or demographic
information about the domains visitors.
- HTML
- Short for HyperText Markup Language, the authoring language used to create
documents on the World Wide Web.
- HTTPS
- (1) (HyperText Transport Protocol Secure) The protocol for accessing a secure
Web server. Using HTTPS in the URL instead of HTTP directs the message to a secure
port number rather than the default Web port number of 80. The session is then
managed by a security protocol. See security protocol.
- (2) (HyperText Transport Protocol Server) A Web server that runs under Windows NT,
developed by the European Microsoft Windows Academic Centre.
- Image map
- A single graphic image containing more than one hot spot. For example, imagine
a graphic of a bowl of fruit. When you click on a banana, the system displays the
number of calories in a banana and when you click on an apple, it displays the
number of calories in an apple. Image maps are used extensively on the World Wide Web.
Each hot spot in a Web image map takes you to a different Web Page.
- Internet Explorer
- Microsoft's Web browser. Like Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer enables you to
view Web pages. Both browsers support Java and JavaScript. Internet Explorer also
supports ActiveX.
- JAVA
- A high-level programming language developed by Sun MicroSystems. Java is an
object-oriented language similar to C++, but simplified to eliminate language
features that cause common programming errors.
- JavaScript
- JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages, usually
to add features that make the web page more interactive. When JavaScript is included
in an HTML it relies upon the browser to interpret the JavaScript. When JavaScript
is combined with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and later versions of HTML (4.0 and later)
the result is often called DHTML.
- LINUX
- Pronounced lee-nucks, a freely-distributable implementation of UNIX that runs
on a number of hardware platforms, including Intel and Motorola microprocessors.
It was developed mainly by Linus Torvalds. Because it's free, and because it runs
on many platforms, including PC's, Macintoshes and Amigas, Linux has become extremely
popular over the last couple years.
- Mail Client
- An application that runs on a personal computer or workstation and enables you
to send, receive and organize e-mail. It's called a client because e-mail systems
are based on a client-server architecture. Mail is sent from many clients to a
central server, which re-routes the mail to its intended destination.
- Mail Relay
- The act of pointing one Domain’s MX Record to another IP address, thereby relaying
it to another domain.
- Merchant Account
- An agreement between a credit card processor and a seller that establishes the rules
for accepting credit card purchases and transferring funds.
- Meta Tag
- A special HTML tag that provides information about a Web page. Unlike normal HTML
tags, meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed. Instead, they provide information
such as who created the page, how often it is updated, what the page is about, and which
keywords represent the page's content.
- Microsoft Access
- A database program for Windows, available separately or included in the Microsoft
Office suite. Access is programmable using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Access
can read Paradox, dBASE and Btrieve files, and using ODBC, Microsoft SQL Server, SYBASE
SQL Server and Oracle data.
- MIME
- (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) A common method for transmitting non-text files
via Internet e-mail, which was originally designed for ASCII text. MIME encodes the files
using one of two encoding methods and decodes it back to its original format at the receiving
end. A MIME header is added to the file which includes the type of data contained and the
encoding method used. S/MIME (Secure MIME) is a version of MIME that adds RSA encryption
for secure transmission.
- MX Record
- An MX Record (Mail eXchange) denotes the destination IP address for a domain’s POP email.
- MySQL
- (Structured Query Language) Pronounced "SQL" or "see qwill," a language used to interrogate
and process data in a relational database. Originally developed by IBM for its mainframes,
all database systems designed for client/sever environments support SQL. SQL commands can be
used to interactively work with a database or can be embedded within a programming language
to interface to a database. Programming extensions to SQL have turned it into a full-blown
database programming language.
- Netscape
- Officially called Netscape Communications Corporation, Netscape was founded by
James H. Clark and Marc Andreessen in 1994. It revolutionized the computer software
market by giving away for free its popular Navigator Web Browser.
- Network Appliance
- A computer that interfaces with multiple other computers to act as a central
information point. Primarily used to increase speed and efficiency by being the
central point of requests for information.
- Nslookup
- A command used to acquire the IP address of a given domain name, or vice versa.
- OC3
- Short for Optical Carrier, used to specify the speed of fiber optic networks
conforming to the SONET standard. The following table shows the speeds for common OC levels.
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OC Level
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Speed
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OC-1
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51.85 Mbps
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OC-3
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155.52Mbps
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OC-12
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622.08Mbps
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OC-24
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1.244Gbps
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OC-48Gbps
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2.488Gbps
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- PGP
- A technique for encrypting messages developed by Philip Zimmerman. PGP is one of the
most common ways to protect messages on the Internet because it is effective, easy to use,
and free. PGP is based on the public-key method, which uses two keys -- one is a public key
that you disseminate to anyone from whom you want to receive a message. The other is a
private key that you use to decrypt messages that you receive.
- PHP
- Personal Home Page is a server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create
dynamic Web pages.
- Ping
- (Packet INternet Groper) An Internet utility used to determine whether a particular
IP address is online. It is used to test and debug a network by sending out a packet and
waiting for a response.
- POP Account
- Short for Post Office Protocol, a protocol used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server.
Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail client) use the POP protocol, although
some can use the newer IMAP (Internt Message Access Protocol).
- POP mail server
- Post Office Protocol 3 A standard mail server commonly used on the Internet. It
provides a message store that holds incoming e-mail until users log on and download it.
POP3 is a simple system with little selectivity. All pending messages and attachments
are downloaded at the same time. POP3 uses the SMTP messaging protocol.
- Python
- An interpreted, object-oriented programming language developed by Guido van Rossum.
The name comes from one of van Rossum's favorite television shows, Monty Python's Flying
Circus. Python is very portable since Python interpreters are available for most operating
system platforms. Although Python is copyrighted, the source code is freely available, and
unlike GNU software, it can be commercially re-sold.
- Real Audio
- The Real Corporation offers streaming audio. Streaming audio is an audio transmission
over a data network. The term implies a one-way transmission to the listener, in which both
the client and server cooperate for uninterrupted sound. The client side buffers a few
seconds of audio data before it starts sending it to the speakers, which compensates for
momentary delays in packet delivery. Audio conferencing, on the other hand, requires
realtime two-way transmission for effective results.
- Real Video
- The Real Corporation offers streaming video as well. Streaming video is Video
transmission over a data network. The term implies a one-way transmission to the viewer,
in which both the client and server software cooperate for uninterrupted motion. The client
side buffers a few seconds of video data before it starts sending it to the screen, which
compensates for momentary delays in packet delivery. Videoconferencing, on the other hand,
requires real-time two-way transmission for effective results.
- Root directory
- In hierarchical file systems, the starting point in the hierarchy. When the computer
is first started, the root directory is the current directory. Access to directories in the
hierarchy requires naming the directories that are in its path.
- Router
- A device that connects any number of LAN's. Routers use headers and a forwarding table
to determine where packets go, and they use ICMP to communicate with each other and configure
the best route between any two hosts.
- Search Engine
- A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the
documents where the keywords were found. Although search engine is really a general class
of programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Alta Vista and
Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web and USENET newsgroups.
- Shell access
- The outer layer of a program that provides the user interface, or way of commanding the computer.
In UNIX, the Bourne shell was the original command processor, with C shell and Korn shell
developed later. In DOS, the shell command typically specifies COMMAND.COM, the command
processor that interprets commands such as Dir and Type. DOS also came with an optional
user interface, known as the DOS Shell, which was a different kind of shell.
- Shopping Cart
- A shopping cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store's catalog and
ordering process. Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company's Website
and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to select merchandise; review what they
have selected; make necessary modifications or additions; and purchase the merchandise.
- SHTML
- (Server-parsed HTML) A file extension used to identify HTML pages that contain server-side
includes. Server-parsed means that the server scans the page for commands that require additional
insertion before the page is sent to the user.
- SMTP server
- Short for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a protocol for sending e-mail messages between
servers. Most e-mail systems that send mail over the Internet use SMTP to send messages from
one server to another; the messages can then be retrieved with an e-mail client using either
POP or IMAP.
- SQL
- Abbreviation of structured query language, and pronounced either see-kwell or as separate
letters. SQL is a standardized query language for requesting information from a database.
The original version called SEQUEL (structured English query language) was designed by an
IBM research center in 1974 and 1975. SQL was first introduced as a commercial database
system in 1979 by Oracle Corporation.
- SSL
- Short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private
documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that's transferred
over the SSL connection.
- Statistics
- A program that tracks information either by input of a form (like a guestbook) or by
monitoring information about the users that visit (ie: name, location, age, IP address, etc…).
- Subdomains
- A method of putting multiple domains under one “Parent” domain by separating them
with a period (IE: www.arishost.com is the parent domain, and support.arishost.com is the
subdomain).
- T1
- A dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of 1.544Mbits per second. A T-1 line
actually consists of 24 individual channels, each of which supports 64Kbits per second. Each
64Kbit/second channel can be configured to carry voice or data traffic. Most telephone
companies allow you to buy just some of these individual channels, known as fractional
T-1 access.
- T3
- A dedicated phone connection supporting data rates of about 43 Mbps. A T-3 line actually
consists of 672 individual channels, each of which supports 64 Kbps.
- Tape Backup
- To copy files to a second medium (a disk or tape) as a precaution in case the first
medium fails.
- Telnet
- A terminal emulation protocol commonly used on the Internet and TCP/IP-based networks.
It allows a user at a terminal or computer to log onto a remote device and run a program.
Telnet was originally developed for ARPA net and is an inherent part of the TCP/IP
communications protocol.
- Tracert
- An Internet utility that traces the route from the client machine to the remote
host being contacted. It reports the IP addresses of all the routers in between.
- UNIX
- Pronounced yoo-niks, a popular multi-user, multitasking operating system developed
at Bell Labs in the early 1970s. Created by just a handful of programmers, UNIX was designed
to be a small, flexible system used exclusively by programmers.
- UPS
- Abbreviation of uninterruptible power supply, a power supply that includes a battery
to maintain power in the event of a power outage. Typically, a UPS keeps a computer
running for several minutes after a power outage, enabling you to save data that is
in RAM and shut down the computer gracefully.
- URL
- Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator, the global address of documents and
other resources on the World Wide Web. The first part of the address indicates what
protocol to use, and the second part specifies the IP address or the domain name
where the resource is located.
- Virtual Web Server
- On the World Wide Web, a server that contains multiple Web sites, each with its
own domain name. As of the first version of the Web protocol (HTTP 1.0), each Web site
on a virtual host must be assigned a unique IP address. HTTP Version 1.1 eliminates
this requirement.
- Web Host
- A computer that acts as a source of information or signals. The term can refer to
almost any kind of computer, from a centralized mainframe that is a host to its terminals,
to a server that is host to its clients, to a desktop PC that is host to its peripherals.
In network architectures, a client station (user's machine) is also considered a host,
because it is a source of information to the network in contrast to a device such as a
router or switch that directs traffic.
- Web Server
- A computer that delivers (serves up) Web pages. Every Web server has an IP
address and possibly a domain name. For example, if you enter the URL
http://www.mydomain.com/index.html in your browser, this sends a request to the
server whose domain name is mydomain.com. The server then fetches the page named
index.html and sends it to your browser.
- Windows NT
- The most advanced version of the Windows operating system. Windows NT is a 32-bit
operating system that supports preemptive multitasking. There are actually two versions
of Windows NT: Windows NT Server, designed to act as a server in networks, and Windows NT
Workstation for stand-alone or client workstations.
- XML
- Short for eXtensible Markup Language, a specification developed by the W3C.
XML is a pared-down version of SGML, designed especially for Web documents.
It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition,
transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between
organizations.
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