Below are some common words and terms used on the Internet and in association with web hosting.

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Anonymous FTP
Many sites that run FTP servers enable so-called "anonymous ftp". Under this arrangement, users do not need an account on the server. The user name for anonymous access is typically 'anonymous' or 'ftp'. This account does not need a password. Although users are commonly asked to send their email addresses as their passwords for authentication, usually there is trivial or no verification, depending on the FTP server and its configuration.

Apache HTTP Server
Apache HTTP Server is a free software/open source web server for Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows, Novell NetWare and other operating systems. Apache is notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web, and continues to be the most popular web server in use, serving as the de facto reference platform against which other web servers are designed and judged.

Apache features configurable error messages, DBMS-based authentication databases, and content negotiation. It is also supported by several graphical user interfaces (GUI) which permit easier, more intuitive configuration of the server. Apache is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation.

Application Server
An application server is a server computer on a computer network dedicated to running certain software applications (as opposed to e.g. a file server or print server).

Generally, an application server is a software engine that delivers applications to client computers. Moreover, an application server should handle most, if not all, of the business logic and data access of the application. The main benefits of application server technology are ease of application development and centralization.

Although the term Application server applies to all platforms, it has become heavily identified with the Sun Microsystems J2EE platform; however, it has also come to encompass servers of web-based applications, such as integrated platforms for e-commerce, content management systems, affiliate management systems and occasionally, even applied to simplistic web-site page builders. The paradigm is more similar to mainframe based applications than traditional client-server.

Application Service Provider -- (ASP)
An application service provider (ASP) is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. Software offered using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-demand software. The most limited sense of this business is that of providing access to a particular application program (such as medical billing) using a standard protocol such as HTTP.

The need for ASPs has evolved from the increasing costs of specialized software that have far exceeded the price range of small to medium sized businesses. As well, the growing complexities of software have led to huge costs in distributing the software to end-users. Through ASPs, the complexities and costs of such software can be cut down. In addition, the issues of upgrading have been eliminated from the end-firm by placing the onus on the ASP to maintain up-to-date services, 24 x 7 technical support, physical and electronic security and in-built support for Business Continuity and Flexible Working.

The importance of this marketplace is reflected by its size. As of early 2003, estimates of the United States market range from 1.5 to 4 billion dollars. Clients for ASP services include businesses, government organizations, non-profits, and membership organizations.

ASCII -- (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), generally pronounced [‘æski], is a character encoding based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. Most modern character encodings—which support many more characters—have a historical basis in ASCII.

ASCII was first published as a standard in 1967 and was last updated in 1986. It currently defines codes for 128 characters. 33 are non-printing, mostly obsolete control characters that affect how text is processed, and the other 95 printable characters are as follows (starting with the space character):

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~

Autoresponder
An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically answers e-mail sent to it. They can be very simple or quite complex. The first autoresponder's were created within mail transfer agents that found they could not deliver an e-mail to a given address. These create bounce messages such as "your e-mail could not be delivered because..." type responses. Today's autoresponder's need to be careful to not generate e-mail backscatter, which can result in the autoresponses being considered E-mail spam.

Autoresponder's are often used as e-mail marketing tools, to immediately provide information to their prospective customers and then follow-up with them at preset time intervals. Such follow-up autoresponder's can be divided into two categories:

Outsourced ASP model — these autoresponders operate on the provider's infrastructure and are usually configurable via a web-based control panel. The customer pays a monthly usage fee. This is easiest to implement for the end-user. Server-side — enables users to install the autoresponder system on their own server. This requires technical skills. Autoresponders are also incorporated into electronic mailing list software, to confirm subscriptions, unsubscriptions, posts, and other list activities.

Backup
In the field of information technology, backup refers to the copying of data so that these additional copies may be restored after a data loss event. Backups are useful primarily for two purposes: to restore a computer to an operational state following a disaster (called disaster recovery) and to restore small numbers of files after they have been accidentally deleted or corrupted.

Backups differ from archives in the sense that archives are the primary copy of data and backups are a secondary copy of data. Backup systems differ from fault-tolerant systems in the sense that backup systems assume that a fault will cause a data loss event and fault-tolerant systems assume a fault will not. Backups are typically that last line of defense against data loss, and consequently the least granular and the least convenient to use.

Since a backup system contains at least one copy of all data worth saving, the data storage requirements are considerable. Organizing this storage space and managing the backup process is a complicated undertaking.

Bandwidth
In website hosting, the term "bandwidth" is often incorrectly used to describe the amount of data that can be transferred to or from the website or server, measured in bytes transferred over a prescribed period of time. This can be more accurately described as "Monthly Data Transfer".

Web hosting companies often quote a monthly bandwidth limit for a website, for example 500 gigabytes per month. If visitors to the website download a total greater than 500 gigabytes in one month, the bandwidth limit will have been exceeded.

Blog -- (web log)
A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.

Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.

The term "blog" is derived from "Web log." "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. As of November 2006, blog search engine Technorati was tracking nearly 60 million blogs.

Blogger
A contributor to a blog or online journal. A blogger can write about any topic. Though often in the press, bloggers are meant to refer to journalists, amateur or professional, who run a blog.

Broadband Internet Access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to "broadband Internet" or just "broadband", is a high data-transmission rate internet connection. DSL and cable modem, both popular consumer broadband technologies, are typically capable of transmitting faster than dial-up modem (56 kbit/s (kilobits per second)). The real maximum download speed of a dial-up modem is only about 48 kbit/s (depending on phone-line quality and distance from the phone company), and upload speed is even slower (31.2 kbit/s for V.90, 44 kbit/s for V.92).

Cascading Style Sheets -- (CSS)
In computing, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL. The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

CSS has various levels and profiles. Each level of CSS builds upon the last, typically adding new features and are typically denoted as CSS1, CSS2, and CSS3. Profiles are typically a subset of one or more levels of CSS built for a particular device or user interface. Currently there are profiles for mobile devices, printers, and television sets. Profiles should not be confused with media types which were added in CSS2.

The use of CSS to position the content of a web page is sometimes referred to as CSS-P or CSS Positioning.

Catch All -- (Catch-All Email Address, Catch All Mailbox)
A Catch All for email, usually refers to a default mailbox on a domain that will "catch all" of the email addressed to non existent email addresses.

CGI -- (Common Gateway Interface)
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server. This allows the server to pass requests from a client web browser to the external application. The web server can then return the output from the application to the web browser.

CGI-BIN
The most common name of the directory on a web server where cgi scripts are stored.

Client
A client is a computer system that accesses a (remote) service on another computer by some kind of network. The term was first applied to devices that were not capable of running their own stand-alone programs, but could interact with remote computers via a network. These dumb terminals were clients of the time-sharing mainframe computer.

The client-server model is still used today on the Internet, where a user may connect to a service operating on a remote system through the internet protocol suite. Web browsers are clients that connect to web servers and retrieve web pages for display. Most people use e-mail clients to retrieve their e-mail from their internet service provider's mail storage servers. Online chat uses a variety of clients, which vary depending on the chat protocol being used. Game Clients usually refer to the software that is the game in only multiplayer online games for the computer.

Increasingly, existing large client applications are being switched to websites, making the browser a sort of universal client. This avoids the hassle of downloading a large piece of software onto any computer you want to use the application on. An example of this is the rise of webmail.

Cold Fusion
ColdFusion is an application server and software development framework used for the development of computer software in general, and dynamic web sites in particular. In this regard, ColdFusion is a similar product to Microsoft ASP.NET or Java Enterprise Edition.

The primary feature of ColdFusion is its associated scripting language, ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), which compares to JSP, C#, or PHP and resembles HTML in syntax. "ColdFusion" is often used synonymously with "CFML", but it should be noted that there are additional CFML application servers besides ColdFusion, and that ColdFusion supports programming languages other than CFML, such as server-side Actionscript.

Originally a product of Allaire, in 2001 the company was purchased by Macromedia, who subsequently merged with Adobe Systems in 2005.

Control Panel
A Control panel in web hosting refers to the interface provided by the hosting company for the maintenance and monitoring of the hosted website. Some of the commonly available modules in most control panels:

Visitor statistics using web log analysis software.
Details of available and used web space and bandwidth.
Web based file manager.
Email account configuration.
Managing database.
Maintaining FTP users accounts.
Access to server logs.

Cookie -- (HTTP Cookie)
HTTP cookies, sometimes known as web cookies or just cookies, are parcels of text sent by a server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. HTTP cookies are used for authenticating, tracking, and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences and the contents of their electronic shopping carts. The term "cookie" is derived from "magic cookie," a well-known concept in Unix computing which inspired both the idea and the name of HTTP cookies.

Cookies have been of concern for Internet privacy, since they can be used for tracking browsing behavior. As a result, they have been subject to legislation in various countries such as the United States and in the European Union. Cookies have also been criticized because the identification of users they provide is not always accurate and because they could potentially be used for network attacks. Some alternatives to cookies exist, but each has its own drawbacks.

Cookies are also subject to a number of misconceptions, mostly based on the erroneous notion that they are computer programs. In fact, cookies are simple pieces of data unable to perform any operation by themselves. In particular, they are neither spyware nor viruses, despite the detection of cookies from certain sites by many anti-spyware products.

Most modern browsers allow users to decide whether to accept cookies, but rejection makes some websites unusable. For example, shopping baskets implemented using cookies do not work if cookies are rejected.

Cron Jobs -- (crontab)
The crontab command, found in Unix and Unix-like operating systems, is used to schedule commands to be executed periodically. It reads a series of commands from standard input and collects them into a file also known as a "crontab" which is later read and whose instructions are carried out.

Generally, the schedules modified by crontab are enacted by a daemon, crond, which runs constantly in the background and checks once a minute to see if any of the scheduled jobs need to be executed. If so, it executes them. These jobs are generally referred to as cron jobs.

Custom Error Page(s)
A custom error page is a feature of most Web server software that allows you to replace default error messages with ones you create. The default error messages tend to be fairly generic, and not particularly user-friendly, so making custom messages for a site is recommended.

You can make them look more like the rest of a site, and/or provide better recovery navigation. The Not Found (404) error is the one users are most likely to encounter, so it is the most likely to be customized.

Database Server
A database server is a computer that is specifically configured to run database software, such as MySQL. Typically, a database server is used in combination with other servers to run complex eCommerce applications.

Dedicated IP Address
An IP address that is used solely by one website.

Dedicated Server
A dedicated server is a type of web hosting where the client leases an entire server not shared with anyone. This is more flexible than shared hosting, as the client has full control over the dedicated server, including choice of operating system, hardware, etc. DHCP -- (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a set of rules used by a communications device (such as a computer, router or networking adapter) to allow the device to request and obtain an Internet address from a server which has a list of addresses available for assignment.

Disk Space The amount of hard drive space on a server that is available for your website. DNS -- (Domain Name System)
The domain name system (DNS) stores and associates many types of information with domain names, but most importantly, it translates domain names (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. It also lists mail exchange servers accepting e-mail for each domain. In providing a worldwide keyword-based redirection service, DNS is an essential component of contemporary Internet use.

Useful for several reasons, the DNS pre-eminently makes it possible to attach easy-to-remember domain names (such as "wikipedia.org") to hard-to-remember IP addresses (such as 66.230.200.100). People take advantage of this when they recite URL's and e-mail addresses. In a subsidiary function, the domain name system makes it possible for people to assign authoritative names without needing to communicate with a central registrar each time.

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. For example, the domain names: ebay.com, pages.ebay.com, whatever.ebay.com can all refer to the same machine, but each domain name can refer to no more than 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.

Domain Parking
Domain parking is an advertising practice used primarily by domain name registrars and internet advertising publishers to monetize type-in traffic visiting an under-developed domain name. The domain name will usually resolve to a page containing relevant advertising listings and links. These links will be targeted to the predicted interests of the visitor and may change dynamically based on the results that visitors click on. Usually the domain owner is paid based on how many links have been visited (e.g. pay per click) and on how beneficial those visits have been. The keywords for any given domain name provide clues as to the intent of the visitor before arriving.

Another use of domain parking is to be a placeholder of an existing website. A company might choose to use this method to redirect its website traffic to another website it owns. On domains with a 'one-click' implementation, a click on a keyword is not necessary to generate ads. The ads are targeted based on the domain name. Domains with 'two-click' implementations require a click on a keyword or a keyword search to generate ads.

Domain parking can be classified as monetised and non-monetised. In the former, ads are shown to visitors and the domain is 'monetised'. In the latter, an "Under Construction" or a "Coming Soon" message is put up on the domain. This a single page website that people see when they type the domain name in a web browser. This is one quick way for getting an Internet presence. Domain names can be parked before a website is ready for launching.

Download
Transferring data (usually a file) from a another computer to the computer you are are using. The opposite of upload.

Email -- (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.

Email Alias
An email alias is not a real email account. Instead, its an address that forwards all email it receives to another email account. For example, if you establish an email alias called info@yourdomain.com to go to john@yourdomain.com, then all email sent to info@yourdomain.com will be automatically forwarded to john@yourodmain.com (in this case, "info" is the alias of "john").

You can setup email alias so that email is forwarded to an account outside of your domain name as well. For example, you can setup info@yourdomain.com to go to john@aol.com.

Email Forwarding
Email forwarding is simply transferring email received at one email address to another. If you have more than one email account, or several family members share a single account, you can set things up so that different email addresses at your domain will be forwarded to different accounts.

For example, email addressed to support@yourdomain.com could forward to your account on AOL, while sales@yourdomain.com could forward to your Google Gmail account.

Fantastico
Fantastico is a commercial script library which automates the installation of web applications to a website. Fantastico scripts are executed from the administration area of a website control panel such as cPanel.

Fantastico scripts are usually executed when a new website is created, or a new application is added to an existing website. The scripts typically create tables in a database, install software, adjust permissions, and modify web server configuration files. Although Fantastico is typically associated with open-source software, a handful of scripts are also available which install commercial products, which once installed, are available to all of the domains hosted by a physical server; such as web site builder SohoLaunch, PerlDesk customer support software, and AccountLab Plus software for interacting with Internet registrars. There are more than 50 applications that have Fantastico scripts associated with them.

FAQ -- (Frequently Asked Questions)
FAQ's are documents that list and answer the most common questions on a particular subject. There are hundreds of FAQ's on subjects as diverse as Pet Grooming and Cryptography. FAQ's are usually written by people who have tired of answering the same question over and over.

Firewall
Software, or a combination of hardware and software, designed to protect a web server from hacker attacks/unauthorized access.

FrontPage -- (Microsoft FrontPage)
Microsoft FrontPage (later full name Microsoft Office FrontPage) was a WYSIWYG HTML editor and website administration tool from Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems. It was part of Microsoft Office application suite from 1997 to 2006. A Macintosh version was also released in 1998. One of the notable features of FrontPage is its built-in support for automated web templates. The main distinction between these templates and HTML templates generated by other products is that FrontPage templates include an automatic navigation system that creates animated buttons for pages that have been added by the user. It also creates a multi-level navigation system on the fly using the buttons and the structure of the web site.

FTP -- (File Transfer Protocol)
A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a 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".

GIF -- (Graphic Interchange Format)
A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color. GIF format files of simple images are often smaller than the same file would be if stored in JPEG format, but GIF format does not store photographic images as well as JPEG.

Gigabyte -- (GB)
A gigabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one billion (short scale, meaning a thousand million) bytes. It is commonly abbreviated GB (not to be confused with Gb, which is used for gigabits).

GUI -- (Graphical User Interface)
A graphical user interface (GUI) allows for interaction with a computer which employs graphical images, special graphical element devices called widgets (a window or text box), along with text to represent the information and actions available to a user. The GUI familiar to most people today are the Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, or the X Window System interfaces.

Hit
As used in reference to the World Wide Web, "hit" means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server; thus in order for a web browser to display a page that contains 3 graphics, 4 "hits" would occur at the server: 1 for the HTML page, and one for each of the 3 graphics.

Home Page (or Homepage)
Originally, the web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new Home Page."

Host
Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such as SMTP (email) and HTTP (web).

Hotlink Protection -- (Hotlinking, Inline Linking, Leeching, Bandwidth Theft)
Hotlinking (also called inline linking, leeching, and bandwidth theft) is when another website is linking to your images or files. Web browsers do not distinguish between a HTML reference for an image or file on the same server and one on a different server, even if it is entirely located on a different website. Both links would be written with the same HTML "tag".

Hotlink protection will stop others from stealing your bandwidth. Apache servers are capable of partially protecting hosted media from inline linking by utilizing .htaccess files. On Microsoft's Internet Information Services Web servers, there are a number of third party tools available to combat inline linking and hotlinking, including LinkDeny and ColdLink.

HTML -- (HyperText Markup Language)
The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear.

The "hyper" in Hypertext comes from the fact that in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or an image, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a "Web Browser".

HTML is loosely based on a more comprehensive system for markup called SGML, and is expected to eventually be replaced by XML-based XHTML standards.

HTTP -- (HyperText Transfer Protocol)
The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program (such as Apache) on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW).

Hypertext
Generally, any text that contains links to other documents - words or phrases in the document that can be chosen by a reader and which cause another document to be retrieved and displayed.

IMAP -- (Internet Message Access Protocol)
IMAP is gradually replacing POP as the main protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers.

Using IMAP an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate message stored on the server, without having to actually retrieve the messages. So messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can be managed, etc. IMAP is defined in RFC 2060.

IP Address -- (Internet Protocol Address)
An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)—in simple terms, a computer address. Any participating network device—including routers, computers, time-servers, printers, Internet fax machines, and some telephones—can have their own unique address. Also, many people can find personal information through IP addresses.

An IP address can also be thought of as the equivalent of a street address or a phone number (compare: VoIP (voice over (the) internet protocol)) for a computer or other network device on the Internet. Just as each street address and phone number uniquely identifies a building or telephone, an IP address can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on a network.

ISDN -- (Integrated Services Digital Network)
Basically a way to move more data over existing regular phone lines. ISDN is available to much of the USA and in most markets it is priced very comparably to standard analog phone circuits. It can provide speeds of roughly 128,000 bits-per-second over regular phone lines. In practice, most people will be limited to 56,000or 64,000 bits-per-second.

Unlike DSL, ISDN can be used to connect to many different locations, one at a time, just like a regular telephone call, as long the other location also has ISDN.

ISP -- (Internet Service Provider)
An Internet service provider (abbrev. ISP, also called Internet access provider or IAP) is a business or organization that provides access to the Internet and related services. In the past, most ISP's were run by the phone companies. Now, ISP's can be started by just about any individual or group with sufficient money and expertise. In addition to Internet access via various technologies such as dial-up and DSL, they may provide a combination of services including Internet transit, domain name registration and hosting, web hosting, and colocation services.

IT -- (Information Technology)
Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is: "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware." In short, IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve information.

Java
Java refers to a number of computer software products and specifications from Sun Microsystems (the Java™ technology) that together provide a system for developing and deploying cross-platform applications. Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms spanning from embedded devices and cell phones on the low end to enterprise servers and super computers on the high end.

Java is fairly ubiquitous in cell phones, Web servers and enterprise applications, and somewhat less common in desktop applications, though users may have come across Java applets when browsing the Web.

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 file 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.

JDK -- (Java Development Kit)
A software development package from Sun Microsystems that implements the basic set of tools needed to write, test and debug Java applications and applets.

JPEG -- (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
JPEG is most commonly mentioned as a format for image files. JPEG format is preferred to the GIF format for photographic images as opposed to line art or simple logo art.

JSP -- (JavaServer Pages)
JavaServer Pages (JSP) is a Java technology that allows software developers to dynamically generate HTML, XML or other types of documents in response to a Web client request. The technology allows Java code and certain pre-defined actions to be embedded into static content.

The JSP syntax adds additional XML-like tags, called JSP actions, to be used to invoke built-in functionality. Additionally, the technology allows for the creation of JSP tag libraries that act as extensions to the standard HTML or XML tags. Tag libraries provide a platform independent way of extending the capabilities of a Web server.

AN -- (Local Area Network)
A computer network limited to the immediate area, usually the same building or floor of a building.

Linux
A widely used Open Source Unix-like operating system. Linux was first released by its inventor Linus Torvalds in 1991. There are versions of Linux for almost every available type of computer hardware from desktop machines to IBM mainframes. The inner workings of Linux are open and available for anyone to examine and change as long as they make their changes available to the public. This has resulted in thousands of people working on various aspects of Linux and adaptation of Linux for a huge variety of purposes, from servers to TV-recording boxes.

Maillist -- (or Mailing List)
A (usually automated) system that allows people to send e-mail to one address, where their message is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist. In this way, people who have many different kinds of e-mail access can participate in discussions together.

Managed Dedicated Server
A Managed Dedicated Server differs from a dedicated server or unmanaged dedicated server as the customer is not expected to be the full time system administrators. Managed Dedicated Server providers employ full time system administrators that maintain dedicated servers for their clients

Meta Tag
A specific kind of HTML tag that contains information not normally displayed to the user. Meta tags contain information about the page itself, hence the name ("meta" means "about this subject")

Typical uses of Meta tags are to include information for search engines to help them better categorize a page. You can see the Meta tags in a page if you view the pages' source code.

MIME -- (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
Originally a standard for defining the types of files attached to standard Internet mail messages. The MIME standard has come to be used in many situations where one computer programs needs to communicate with another program about what kind of file is being sent.

For example, HTML files have a MIME-type of text/html, JPEG files are image/jpeg, etc.

Mirror
Generally speaking, "to mirror" is to maintain an exact copy of something. Probably the most common use of the term on the Internet refers to "mirror sites" which are web sites, or FTP sites that maintain copies of material originated at another location, usually in order to provide more widespread access to the resource. For example, one site might create a library of software, and 5 other sites might maintain mirrors of that library.

Modem -- (MOdulator, DEModulator)
A device that connects a computer to a phone line. A telephone for a computer. A modem allows a computer to talk to other computers through the phone system. Basically, modems do for computers what a telephone does for humans.

The maximum practical bandwidth using a modem over regular telephone lines is currently around 57,000 bps.

mod_perl
An add-on for the Apache web server software, mod_perl makes it possible to use the Perl language to add new features for the Apache server, and to increase the speed of Perl applications by as much as 30 times.

mSQL
mSQL or Mini SQL is a lightweight client/server database from Hughes Technologies. Originally developed in 1994, mSQL filled a vacuum that existed between the embedded desktop databases like Microsoft Access and the enterprise-level commercial databases such as Oracle and DB2. Between 1994 and 1997, it grew in popularity and became the primary database of choice for open source developers.

Though it was the database of choice of open source, mSQL itself was not an open source technology. By 1996, development on mSQL began to stagnate and MySQL arose to fill that void. By 1999, MySQL had gone well beyond mSQL in popularity and today mSQL has less visibility. Nevertheless, the database is still in active development with version 3.8 released as recently as June 9, 2006.

Name Server
A name server is a computer server that implements a name service protocol. It will normally map a computer-usable identifier of a host to a human-usable identifier for that host. For example, a Domain Name System (DNS) server might translate the domain name en.wikipedia.org to the Internet Protocol (IP) address 145.97.39.155.

DNS is the protocol implemented by Internet name servers.

Network
Any time you connect 2 or more computers together so that they can share resources, you have a computer network. Connect 2 or more networks together and you have an internet

NIC -- (Network Information Center)
Generally, any office that handles information for a network. The most famous of these on the Internet was the InterNIC, which was where most new domain names were registered until that process was decentralized to a number of private companies. Also means "Network Interface card", which is the card in a computer that you plug a network cable into.

NNTP -- (Network News Transport Protocol)

The protocol used by client and server software to carry USENET postings back and forth over a TCP/IP network. If you are using any of the more common software such as Netscape, Nuntius, Internet Explorer, etc. to participate in newsgroups then you are benefiting from an NNTP connection.

NOC -- (Network Operations Center)
A Network Operations Center or NOC (pronounced "nock") is one or more locations from which control is exercised over a computer or telecommunications network, or part thereof.

Large organizations may operate more than one NOC, either to manage different networks, or to provide geographic redundancy in the event of one site being unavailable or offline. The location housing the NOC may also contain many or all of the primary servers and other equipment essential to running the network, although it is not uncommon for a single NOC to monitor and control a number of geographically dispersed sites.

Node
Any single computer connected to a network

OS -- (Operating System)
An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that manage the hardware and software resources of a computer. An operating system rationally processes electronic devices in response to approved commands. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking, and managing file systems. Most operating systems have a command line interpreter as a basic user interface, but they may also provide a graphical user interface (GUI) for ease of operation. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software.

Password
A code used to gain access (login) to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7. A good password might be: Ae9iHHha3c2 (but don't use that one).

Password Protected Directories
This feature allows you to restrict access to certain directories on your website. When somebody attempts to access the protected directory, they will be prompted to enter their username and password.

PDF -- (Portable Document Format)

A file format designed to enable printing and viewing of documents with all their formatting (typefaces, images, layout, etc.) appearing the same regardless of what operating system is used, so a PDF document should look the same on Windows, Macintosh, linux, OS/2, etc. The PDF format is based on the widely used PostScript document-description language. Both PDF and Postscript were developed by the Adobe Corporation.

Perl -- (Practical Extraction and Report Language)
Perl is a programming language that is widely used for both very simple, small tasks and for very large complex applications.

During the 1990s it became the de-facto standard for creating CGI programs. Perl is known for providing many ways to accomplish the same task, with "there's more than one way to do it" being something of a motto in the Perl community.

Because it is so easy to perform simple tasks in Perl it is often used by people with little or no formal programming training, and because Perl provides many sophisticated features it is often used by professionals for creating complex data-processing software, including the "server-side" of large web sites. Perl does not provide significant support for creating programs with a graphical user interface.

Permalink
A "permanent link" to a particular posting in a blog. A permalink is a URI that points to a specific blog posting, rather than to the page in which the posting original occurred (which may no longer contain the posting.)

PHP -- (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor)
PHP is a programming language used almost exclusively for creating software that is part of a website. The PHP language is designed to be intermingled with the HTML that is used to create web pages. Unlike HTML, the PHP code is read and processed by the web server software (HTML is read and processed by the web browser software).

Ping
To check if a server is running. From the sound that a sonar systems makes in movies, you know, when they are searching for a submarine.

POP -- (Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol)
Two commonly used meanings: Point of Presence and Post Office Protocol. A Point of Presence usually means a city or location where a network can be connected to, often with dial up phone lines. So if an Internet company says they will soon have a POP in Belgrade, it means that they will soon have a local phone number in Belgrade and/or a place where leased lines can connect to their network. A second meaning, Post Office Protocol refers to a way that e-mail client software such as Eudora gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail. Another protocol called IMAP is replacing POP for email. Port
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a personal computer is where a modem would be connected.

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, so you might see a URL of the form:

This shows a gopher server running on a non-standard port (the standard gopher port is 70).

Finally, port also refers to translating a piece of software to bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows program so that is will run on a Macintosh.

Portal
Usually used as a marketing term to described a Web site that is or is intended to be the first place people see when using the Web. Typically a "Portal site" has a catalog of web sites, a search engine, or both. A Portal site may also offer email and other service to entice people to use that site as their main "point of entry" (hence "portal") to the Web.

Proxy Server
A Proxy Server sits in between a Client and the "real" Server that a Client is trying to use. Client's are sometimes configured to use a Proxy Server, usually an HTTP server. The clients makes all of it's requests from the Proxy Server, which then makes requests from the "real" server and passes the result back to the Client. Sometimes the Proxy server will store the results and give a stored result instead of making a new one (to reduce use of a Network). Proxy servers are commonly established on Local Area Networks.

Registrar -- (Domain Name Registrar)
A domain name registrar is a company accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and/or by a national ccTLD authority to register Internet domain names. ICANN has authority over gTLDs, or Generic Top Level Domains. Examples of gTLDs include .com, .net and .org. ICANN does not have authority over ccTLDs, or Country Code Top-Level Domains, though it is quite common for domain name registrars to offer ccTLD registration services as well. Most registrars provide DNS hosting service, but this is not required, and is often considered a separate service.

Reseller -- (Reseller Hosting)
A reseller is a company or individual that purchases goods or services with the intention of onselling them rather than consuming or using them. This is usually done for profit (but could be onsold at a loss).

Another example of this occurs on the Internet where individuals or companies act as agents for ICANN accredited registrars. They either sell on commission or for profit and in most cases, but not all, the purchase from the registrar and the sale to the ultimate buyer occurs in real time. Resellers, by the very nature of their business are retailers.

Another common example on the Internet is in the web hosting area, where a reseller will purchase bulk hosting from a supplier with the intention of onselling it to a number of consumers at a profit.

Router
A special-purpose computer (or software package) that handles the connection between 2 or more Packet-Switched networks. Routers spend all their time looking at the source and destination addresses of the packets passing through them and deciding which route to send them on.

Security Certificate
A chunk of information (often stored as a text file) that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection.

SEO -- (Search Engine Optimization)
The practice of designing web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search results from search engines.

There is "good" SEO and "bad" SEO. Good SEO involves making the web page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to the page.

Server
A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running, e.g. "Our mail server is down today, that's why e-mail isn't getting out."

A single server machine can (and often does) have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network.

Sometimes server software is designed so that additional capabilities can be added to the main program by adding small programs known as servlets.

Server Log
A server log is a file (or several files) automatically created and maintained by a server of activity performed by it.

A typical example is a web server log which maintains a history of page requests. The W3C maintains a standard format for web server log files, but other proprietary formats exist. More recent entries are typically appended to the end of the file. Information about the request, including client IP address, request date/time, page requested, HTTP code, bytes served, user agent, and referer are typically added. These data can be combined into a single file, or separated into distinct logs, such as an access log, error log, or referer log. However, server logs typically do not collect user-specific information.

These files are usually not accessible to general Internet users, only to the webmaster or other administrative person. A statistical analysis of the server log may be used to examine traffic patterns by time of day, day of week, referrer, or user agent. Efficient web site administration, adequate hosting resources and the fine tuning of sales efforts can be aided by analysis of the web server logs. Marketing departments of any organization that owns a website should be trained to understand these powerful tools.

Shell Account
A shell account is a personal account that gives a user access to a Unix shell on another machine, usually through ssh (and historically telnet). With a shell account a user can log into a remote server and run commands on it.

SMTP -- (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the de facto standard for e-mail transmissions across the Internet.

SQL -- (Structured Query Language)
A specialized language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will have its own slightly different version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable databases support a common subset of SQL.

SSI -- (Server Side Includes)
Server Side Includes or SSI is an easy server-side scripting language used almost exclusively for the web. As its name implies, its primary use is including the contents of a file into another, via a Web Server. Today, SSI has largely been replaced by the more complex programming languages PHP, ASP, and JSP.

SSL -- (Secure Sockets Layer)
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), is a cryptographic protocol which provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers. This protocol was developed by Netscape Communications.

Tag
The term "tag" can be used as a noun or verb. As a noun, a tag is a basic element of the languages used to create web pages (HTML) and similar languages such as XML. Another, more recent meaning of tag is related to reader-created tags where blogs and other content (such as photos, music, etc.) may be "tagged" which means to assign a keyword, such as "politics" or "gardening", this enables searches for "all the blog postings in the past week that are tagged 'prenatal care'".

TCP/IP -- (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
This is the suite of protocols that defines the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now included with every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software

TLD -- (Top Level Domain)
A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. For example, in the domain name www.website.com, the top-level domain is com (or COM, as domain names are not case-sensitive).

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) currently classifies top-level domains into three types:

country code top-level domains (ccTLD): Used by a country or a dependent territory. It is two letters long, for example jp for Japan.
generic top-level domains (gTLD): Used (at least in theory) by a particular class of organizations (for example, com for commercial organizations). It is three or more letters long. Most gTLDs are available for use worldwide, but for historical reasons mil (military) and gov (governmental) are restricted to use by the respective U.S. authorities. gTLDs are subclassified into sponsored top-level domains (sTLD), e.g. .aero, .coop and .museum, and unsponsored top-level domains (uTLD), e.g. .biz, .info, .name and .pro.
infrastructure top-level domains: The top-level domain arpa is the only confirmed one. Root has been known to exist without reason.

Transfer Rate -- (Data Transfer Rate)
In telecommunications, data transfer rate or just transfer rate is the average number of bits, characters, or blocks per unit time passing between equipment in a data transmission system.

Transfer rates can serve several functions. The response time can help a network administrator pinpoint where slowdowns and potential hangups exist in a network. By analyzing data transfer rates and adjusting accordingly as a preventative measure, a system can be made more efficient and will be more prepared to handle extra bandwidth constraints in times of heavy usage. Testing mechanisms such as fiber optic loopbacks can assist in measuring and conducting data transfer tests.

Unix
Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations.

The present owner of the trademark UNIX® is The Open Group, an industry standards consortium. Only systems fully compliant with and certified to the Single UNIX Specification qualify as "UNIX®" (others are called "Unix system-like" or "Unix-like").

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Unix's influence in academic circles led to large-scale adoption (particularly of the BSD variant, originating from the University of California, Berkeley) of Unix by commercial startups, the most notable of which is Sun Microsystems.

Today, in addition to certified Unix systems, Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X and BSD derivatives are commonly encountered.

Upload
Transferring data (usually a file) from a the computer you are using to another computer. The opposite of download.

Uptime -- (Uptime Availability)
Refers to the amount of time within a given period that a server is available. For example, if a hosting provider claims 99.9% uptime, they are claiming that your website will up all the time except for about 43 minutes each month.

Uptime Guarantee
A guarantee made by a hosting company that refers to the amount of time that a server will be available. See Service Level Agreement.

URL -- (Uniform Resource Locator)
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a technical, Web-related term used in two distinct meanings:

in popular usage, it is a widespread synonym for Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) — many popular and technical texts will use the term "URL" when referring to URI; strictly, the idea of a uniform syntax for global identifiers of network-retrievable documents was the core idea of the World Wide Web. In the early times, these identifiers were variously called "document names", "Web addresses" and "Uniform Resource Locators". These names were misleading, however, because not all identifiers were locators, and even for those that were, this was not their defining characteristic. Nevertheless, by the time the RFC 1630 formally defined the term "URI" as a generic term best suited to the concept, the term "URL" had gained widespread popularity, which has continued to this day.

Virtual Hosting -- (sometimes called shared hosting)
Virtual hosting (sometimes called shared hosting) is the most basic type of hosting available. With virtual hosting, one server is used to host numerous websites. Typically, there are hundreds of websites hosted on the server.

This is generally the most economical type of hosting as many people share the overall cost of server admininistration and maintenance. With a wide variety of bundled features, and a low monthly fee, virtual hosting is a very popular choice for beginning webmasters and small start-up companies.

VOIP -- (Voice Over IP)
A specification and various technologies used to allow making telephone calls over IP networks, especially the Internet. Just as modems allow computers to connect to the Internet over regular telephone lines, VOIP technology allows humans to talk over Internet connections.

Costs for VOIP calls can be a lot lower than for traditional telephone calls. Because the IP networks are packet-switched this allows for vastly different ways of handling connections and more efficient use of network resources.

VPN -- (Virtual Private Network)
Usually refers to a network in which some of the parts are connected using the public Internet, but the data sent across the Internet is encrypted, so the entire network is "virtually" private.

VPS -- (Virtual Private Server)
A virtual private server (also referred to as virtual dedicated server or virtual server, and abbreviated VPS or VDS) is a method of partitioning one physical server computer into multiple servers that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and each server can be independently rebooted.

Web Hosting -- (Web Hosting Service)
A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to provide their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web.

Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Webhosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called colocation

Web Mail -- (Web-Based Email, webmail)
The terms Web-based email (also called Web based e-mail or webmail) refer to the implementation of an e-mail client as a Web application that allows users to access their e-mail through a Web browser, as an alternative to using a desktop-based client such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Eudora.

Webmaster
A webmaster is a person responsible for designing, developing, marketing, or maintaining website(s). The webmaster of a website may also be called a system administrator, the author of a site, or the website administrator.

Wi-Fi -- (Wireless Fidelity)
A popular term for a form of wireless data communication, basically Wi-Fi is "Wireless Ethernet".

Windows NT
Windows NT (New Technology) is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level language-based processor-independent multiprocessing multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix to complement consumer versions of Windows that were based on MS-DOS until 2001. It was the first fully 32-bit version of Windows, whereas its consumer-oriented counterparts, Windows 3.x and Windows 9x, are 16-bit/32-bit hybrids. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 are the latest versions of Windows based upon the original Windows NT system, although they are not branded as Windows NT releases.

XHTML -- (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language)
Basically HTML expressed as valid XML. XHTML is intended to be used in the same places you would use HTML (creating web pages) but is much more strictly defined, which makes it a lot easier to create software that can read it, edit it, check it for errors, etc.

XHTML is expected to eventually replace HTML.

XML -- (Extensible Markup Language)
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language that supports a wide variety of applications. XML languages or 'dialects' may be designed by anyone and may be processed by conforming software.

XML is also designed to be reasonably human-legible, and to this end, terseness was not considered essential in its structure. XML is a simplified subset of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different information systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet.

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