Glossary

Online Glossary

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Client

A computer program that requests a service from the server program, usually over the network.

Co-location (colo)

Putting a web server in a dedicated facility that provides high-speed Internet connection, security, environment, backup power, and technical support. Unlike the dedicated server, the client controls both hardware and software.

.com

A domain name used by commercial enterprises.

.gif

Graphics Interchange Format, and pronounced jiff or giff (hard g). A bit-mapped graphics file format used by the World Wide Web, CompuServe and many BBS's.

.jpg

Joint Photographic Experts Group, and pronounced jay-peg. JPEG can reduce file sizes to about 5% of their normal size, although some detail is lost in the compression.

.zip

File name extension for files compressed with a PKZIP program or similar.

Address

Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locater, the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web.

Apache Web Server

Often referred to as simply Apache, a public-domain open source Web server developed by a loosely-knit group of programmers. The first version of Apache, based on the NCSA http Web server, was developed in 1995. Core development of the Apache Web server is performed by a group of about 20 volunteer programmers, called the Apache Group. However, because the source code is freely available, anyone can adapt the server for specific needs, and there is a large public library of Apache add-ons. In many respects, development of Apache is similar to the development of the Linux operating system. Apache's major competitor is Microsoft's IIS.

Applet

A program designed to be executed from within another application. Unlike an application, applets cannot be executed directly from the operating system. With the growing popularity of OLE (object linking and embedding), applets are becoming more prevalent. A well-designed applet can be invoked from many different applications.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Pronounced ask-ee, ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127. For example, the ASCII code for uppercase M is 77. Most computers use ASCII codes to represent text, which makes it possible to easily transfer data from one computer to another.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Pronounced ask-ee, ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127. For example, the ASCII code for uppercase M is 77. Most computers use ASCII codes to represent text, which makes it possible to easily transfer data from one computer to another.

ASP

Active Server Pages, a specification for a dynamically created Web page with a .ASP extension that utilizes ActiveX scripting -- usually VB Script or Jscript code. When a browser requests an ASP, the Web server generates a page with HTML code and sends it back to the browser. So ASPs are similar to CGI scripts, but they enable Visual Basic programmers to work with familiar tools.

Authentication

Authentication is used to confirm the identity of the other party involved in the data transmission.

AVI

Audio/Video Interleave. Audio file format used by Microsoft Windows.

Backbone

Main high-speed network connection composing the Internet. Backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies like Sprint, MCI, or AT&T. Internet backbone maps are here.

Backbone

Main high-speed network connection composing the Internet. Backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies like Sprint, MCI, or AT&T. Internet backbone maps are here.

Bandwidth

The amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time.

Binary

Data represented in binary format that uses only two digits - 0 and 1.

Binary mode

FTP client mode used to transfer binary files (multimedia files, executables and other data files). Not suitable for transferring normal text files.

Bit

(Binary DigIT) the smallest unit of information, comprising of either a 1 or 0.

Bit rate

The speed at which bits are transmitted over a communication link. Expressed in bits per second (bps).

Body

The part of an email message that contains the actual text of the message.

Bookmark

A way of storing a frequently visited web site address. It is then easier to access the web site in the future.

Browser

Computer program that allows a user to search the World Wide Web, and then displays the content of the web pages. Examples are Mosaic, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer.

C/C++

Popular programming languages (C++ includes objects) that can be used to create server programs that run after compilation. C and C++ were not designed specifically for web programming, but they can still be useful, especially because mature compilers producing very fast code and large code libraries already exist.

Cascading Style Sheets

A style-sheet determines how the HTML document is displayed by the browser. The current version of CSS is version 2 (CSS2).

Certificate

Digital ID used for SSL transactions. It includes owner's public key, the name of the owner, the issuer, hostname, and the expiration date.

Certificate Authority

A company trusted by a browser maker that issues digital certificates that are supposed to guarantee that the company is what it claims to be for use in encrypted digital transactions through SSL. Verisign is the biggest certificate authority.

CGI

Common Gateway Interface. A standard for interfacing web servers with an executable application. A CGI program can be written in any language like Perl or C/C++ and it is often stored in a special directory like /cgi-bin. CGI is often used to process data from HTML forms.

Cgi-bin

A directory on the server where the executable CGI scripts reside.