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A (Address) Record
Address records assign a hostname (e.g.: support.yourdomain.com) to a specific IP address (e.g.: 123.123.123.123).
Access
Refers to the database program "Microsoft Access", also called Jet Database.
Alias
An alias is an e-mail address that forwards its mail to a specified mailbox, masking the true name of the mailbox in which the mail is actually received. For example, Sales@JoesDomain.com could be an alias for Joe1234@aol.com.
Anonymous FTP
An Internet File Transfer Protocol (FTP) option that allows you to let others onto your web site to download files that you have made available, without first establishing an account. Most FTP servers are set up to allow a limited amount of anonymous FTP users to log in at the same time, and only provide access to designated files.
Apache
A popular web server. By some estimates, it is used to host more than 50% of all web sites in the world. The original version of Apache was written for UNIX, but there are now versions that run under OS/2, Windows and other platforms.
Autoresponder
An e-mail that is automatically sent in reply to any e-mail received in a specified mailbox. Also known as a vacation message.
Backbone
The Internet's high-speed data highway that serves as a major access point to which other networks can connect. We utilizes up to nine backbones. We've partnered with Internap Network Services, the North America's top rated commercial bandwidth provider to provide you the ultimate quality bandwidth.
Bandwidth
1. The range of frequencies a transmission line or channel can carry; the higher the frequency the higher the bandwidth and the greater the information-carrying capacity of a channel. For a digital channel this is defined in bits per second or BPS. For an analog channel it is dependent on the type and method of modulation used to encode the data.
2. Expressed in cycles per second (hertz), the amount of information that can flow through a channel. On the less technical side bandwidth is used to measure the amount of time it takes for a web page to fully load. Internet users occasionally refer to larger graphics on web pages as "bandwidth hogs" - the use of the term bandwidth in this case isn't quite accurate, but what it means is that the graphic is loading slowly due to its large file size.
Browser
A program used to view, download, upload, surf or otherwise access documents (pages) on the World Wide Web. Browsers can be text-based, meaning they do not show graphics or images, but most are text- and graphical-based.
Browsers read "marked up" or coded pages (usually HTML but not always) that reside on servers and interpret the coding into what we see "rendered" as a web page. Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer are examples of web browsers. The program you are using right now to view this information is called a browser.
Browser Compatibility
A term that compares the way a web page looks on one WWW browser as opposed to another. Usually this is done with Microsoft Internet Explorer (MIE) and Netscape Navigator, but can also refer to cross-platform compatibility. (For example, the way a page renders or displays on a Windows system as opposed to a Mac.) The reason these incompatibilities exist is due to the way a browser interprets the web page's code (HTML). The differences are usually very slight, but they're enough to annoy some web designers and sometimes even their clients to the point in which great time and energy is spent in making a web site compatible with any browser on any type of system. Browser compatibility is also used in conjunction with (and should not be confused with) the term browser support.
See Also: Browser Support
Browser Support
This refers to the ability of a particular browser to even recognize and interpret certain HTML or other web page codes.
CGI-BIN
A directory on a server that "houses" all of the CGI programs. When you see this as a directory in your browser's URL window, it usually means you are either running or about to run a CGI program. The "binary" part refers to when many of the files placed in that directory were binary files. More recently, many of these files are text-based.
See Also: Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
Client
A software program used to contact and obtain data from a server software program on another computer, often across a great distance.
Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
CGI is a set of rules that describe how a web server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the CGI program) communicates with the web server. Many scripting languages, such as Perl, follow the CGI standard. This allows you to develop more interactive sites, by making use of system features.
See Also: CGI-BIN
Connectivity
The state of being connected to the Internet or some other type of computer network. On the Internet, if you lose your connectivity, you are no longer online and must redial into your ISP. When ISPs get many users signing on all at once, the connectivity tends to be poor. "What is your connectivity?" usually means what kind of speed does your Internet connection support, like 28.8 or T-1.
Cookie
A piece of information about your computer, something you clicked on, and/or you (such as your username) that is stored in a text file on your hard drive. A server accesses this information when you connect to a web site that wants to know this information. One common occurrence of a "handing out a cookie", would be when you as a user, log into a system through a web site. After you enter in your username and password, your browser saves a text file that it calls upon for later access. This prevents you from having to log in again if you happen to leave the web site and then return at a later time. Cookies are also used in the process of purchasing items on the web. It is because of the cookie that "shopping cart" technology works. By saving in a text file the name, and other important information about an item a user "clicks" on as they move through a shopping web site, a user can later go to an order form, and see all the items they selected, ready for quick and easy processing.
Cron
A Unix command for scheduling jobs to be executed sometime in the future. A cron is normally used to schedule a job that is executed periodically - for example, to send out a notice every morning. It is also a daemon process, meaning that it runs continuously, waiting for specific events to occur.
DNS - Domain Name System
A database system that translates an IP address into a domain name. For example, a numeric IP address like 207.219.116.4 is converted into netlingo.com. The DNS is a static, hierarchical name service that uses TCP/IP hosts and is housed on a number of servers on the Internet. Basically, it maintains this database for figuring out and finding (or resolving) host names and IP addresses. This allows users to specify remote computers by host names rather than numerical IP addresses. Also referred to as Domain Name Service and Domain Name Server.
Domain Name or Domain
The unique name identifying a web site, located at the right of the @ sign in an Internet address. Domain names always have two or more parts, separated by dots, as in www.yourdomain.com. Domains are tied to name servers, which direct to which IP address the domain should point. Any server can have multiple domain names, but a domain name can only point to one server.
Extensions
The characters after the dot in a file's name are considered its extension. This is used to determine how the file is formatted and viewed. For example a file named netlingo.html means that the file is coded in HTML and therefore must be viewed with a compatible program such as a web browser in order to see it properly. On the Internet you will come across many different file extensions such as .dcr, .mov, .avi and .au. In order to properly handle these files your browser must be configured to recognize these extensions.
Firewall
A method for keeping a network secure from intruders. It can be a single router that filters out unwanted packets or may comprise a combination of routers and servers each performing some type of firewall processing. Firewalls are widely used to give users secure access to the Internet as well as to separate a company's public web server from its internal network. Firewalls are also used to keep internal network segments secure; for example, the accounting network might be vulnerable to snooping from within the enterprise.
FTP - File Transfer Protocol
Common procedure used for downloading and uploading files over the Internet. With FTP you can log in to another Internet site and transfer (send or receive) files. Some sites have public file archives that you can access by using FTP with the account name "anonymous" and your e-mail address as the password. This type of access is called anonymous FTP. Macintosh users use a program called Fetch; one of the FTP programs for Windows is called WS-FTP.
Gateway
A computer system for exchanging information across incompatible networks that use different protocols. For example, many commercial services have e-mail gateways for sending messages to Internet addresses.
GIF - Graphic Interchange Format
A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color.
Host
Any computer that can function as the beginning and end point of data transfers. An Internet host has a unique Internet address (IP address) and a unique domain or host name.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language
HTML is the language for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed in a wide range of tools from simple plain text editors to sophisticated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) authoring tools. HTML uses tags like h1 and /h1 to structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links and more.
HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The protocol that tells the server what to send to the client, so the client can view web pages, FTP sites, or other areas of the net.
HTTPS - Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure
A type of server software that provides the ability for secure transactions to take place on the World Wide Web. If a web site is running on a HTTPS server you can type in HTTPS instead of HTTP in the URL section of your browser to enter into the "secured mode". Windows NT HTTPS and Netscape Commerce server software support this protocol.
Internet Protocol (IP) Address or IP Number
The IP address is a unique number used to identify a machine on the Internet. The number consists of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by dots (208.233.88.55). Every machine on the Internet must have it's own IP address. Domains are tied to name servers, which direct to which IP address the domain should point.
See Also: Domain
Intranet
A private network inside a company or organization that uses the same kinds of software that you would find on the public Internet, but that is only for internal use. As the Internet has become more popular, many of the tools used on the Internet are being used in private networks, often in the form of web servers that are available only to employees. Note that an "Intranet" may not actually be an Internet; it may simply be a network.
Log File Access
Raw log files are used to track the hits to your web site. You can access them from your root directory.
Meta Tag
An optional HTML tag that is used to specify information about a web document. Some search engines such as AltaVista use "spiders" to index web pages. These spiders read the information contained within a page's META tag. So in theory, an HTML or web page author has the ability to control how there site is indexed by search engines and how and when it will come up on a user's search.

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