A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line)
A means of sending data over a standard phone line. ADSL is much faster than a standard phone connection and runs 'along side' it, allowing simultaneous use of both telephone and internet.

Apache
Apache is open-source Linux or FreeBSD based Web server software.

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
The worldwide standard for coding text files, used by computers to represent all the upper-case and lower-case Latin letters, numbers and punctuation marks etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111, plus parity.

Attachment
An attachment, in computer terms, refers to a file that is typically sent with an email. For example a 'jpeg' photo or 'word' document.

B
Bandwidth
The amount of data that can be transferred through a connection during a set time.

Binary Mode
FTP client mode used to transfer binary (non text) files such as exe. or zip files.

Bit (Binary DigIT)

The smallest unit of computerized data: a single digit number in base-2, (either a 1 or a zero). Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second.

BPS (Bits-Per-Second)

A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another. A 56k modem can move 56,000 bits per second.

Browser
Software that is used to look at (browse) the internet. For example, Microsoft Internet Explorer.

C
Catch-all Email Forwarding
Any email sent to anyword@yourdomain.co.uk is automatically forwarded to your current email address. Catch-all email will also 'catch' misspellings of your email address and redirect the email to your email account.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
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') talks to the web server. Any piece of software can be a CGI program if it handles input and output according to the CGI standard. Usually a CGI program is a small program that takes data from a web server and does something with it, like putting the content of a form into an email message, or running a hit counter.

CGI-bin
Most common name of a directory on a server where the executable CGI scripts reside. The 'bin' part of 'cgi-bin' stands for 'binary' although these days most programs found in cgi-bin directories are text files.

CGI Script
Hit counters, guest books, forms and many other useful items can be programmed with CGI scripts.

Cookie
Cookies are small data files written to your hard drive by some websites. These files contain information the site can use to track such things as passwords, lists of pages that you've visited, and the date when you last looked at a certain page. (Trilltec.com do not use cookies).

CPU
Central Processing Unit. The heart of your computer.

D
DNS (Domain Name System)
DNS is a core feature of the Internet. It is a distributed database that handles the mapping between domain names and their numerical Internet addresses, ie: www.yourdomain.co.uk instead of, say, 130.94.122.199.

Domain Name
Domain Names are easier for a user to remember (ie: yourdomain.co.uk) than a long IP address (ie: 101.40.233.68). When a user types a domain name into a browser the DNS locates the registered domain name and translates that into a numeric IP address so that you can view the domain's website with a browser.

Domain Name Registration
The process of registering a domain name. For example if you wanted to set up a website with the name www.bobsbiscuits.co.uk the first thing to do would be to register the domain name to yourself (or your business) and then to order web hosting so that your website could go online.

Domain Parking
The practice of registering a domain name and 'holding on to it' before you are actually ready to use it.

E
Email (or E-Mail)
Electronic Mail. Messages sent from one person to another, via the internet.

F

Filename extension
An filename extension is the part of a filename after the "dot". It usually tells operating systems what type of file it is. For example 'index.html' or 'picture.jpg'

Firewall
From Symantec: "Symantec's Norton™ Personal Firewall keeps hackers out and personal data in. It makes robust firewall protection easy by automatically hiding your PC on the Internet and blocking suspicious connections."

FrontPage Extensions

The set of files that offer websites produced with Microsoft FrontPage additional functionality. Enabling forms, hit counters, search features and other features to be set up and function with ease. FrontPage Extensions are pre-installed on our 'Business Host Plus' and 'Business Host Pro' accounts.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

After a website has been designed it is uploaded to the hosting server typically via an FTP program. We recommend the industry standard 'WS_FTP Pro' for transferring and uploading files, available from www.ipswitch.com

G
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
A graphic image format developed for use by CompuServe which has since become one of the Internets most popular formats for graphics containing up to 256 colours.

Gigabyte
1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte.

H
Hit
A 'hit' is a single request from a web browser for an individual item from a web server. A web page containing text and three graphic files would count as '4 hits' one for the HTML page, and one for each of the 3 graphics. Users often confuse 'hits' with actual 'unique visitors' when discussing how many visitors their website is attracting.

Homepage (also Home or Home Page)
The first page or 'front page' of a website.

Hosting
Equipment and services to 'house' or 'host' a website and to provide Internet connections to that site, so that it may be found on the World Wide Web.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)

The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML files are designed to be viewed using a browser such as Internet Explorer.

HTTP (HyperText Transport Protocol)

The protocol for moving hypertext files across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used on the World Wide Web.

Hyperlink (also Link)
Words or phrases in a document which cause another document to be seen when 'mouse clicked'.

I
Internet
A system of linked computer networks, international in scope, that facilitates data transfer and communication services, such as remote login, file transfer (FTP), email, newsgroups, and the World Wide Web.

Internet Backbone
The physical network, usually relying on fibre optic cable, that carries Internet traffic between different networks and is measured in megabits per second.

IP Address (Internet Protocol Address)
The unique number assigned to every computer linked to the Internet. Your ISP provider assigns you an IP address each time you connect to the Internet.

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Networks)
A set of communications standards that enable a single wire (or optical fibre) to carry voice, data, and video. It gives a user up to 56K of data bandwidth on a phone line (when also used for voice) or up to 128 Kilobits per second if the line is only used for data.

ISP (Internet Service Provider)

A company that offers Internet access. For example btopenworld.com.

J
JavaScript
JavaScript is a client-side scripting language that allows website authors to create dynamic pages that react to user interaction.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
JPEG files contain compressed images. They are used to store graphics and because of their compression features they are better suited for photos as opposed to outline drawings. JPEGs are 'lossy' meaning that the compressed image isn't quite as good as the original.

K
Kilobyte
Abbreviated as K or KB or Kb. A unit of measurement equivalent to one thousand bytes of computer memory or disk capacity.

L
LAN (Local Area Network)

A computer network limited to the immediate area, usually in the same building.

Linux
Linux is a free operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds of Finland. Linux is based on the Unix operating system and includes features such as true multitasking, memory management, virtual memory, demand loading, networking, and shared libraries.

Login
The act of connecting to or accessing a remote computer system, network, server, or website. To login you generally need a 'username' and 'password'.

M
Megabyte
A million bytes. A thousand kilobytes.

Meta tags
The HTML meta tag is used to describe the contents of a webpage, including its title, keywords, and description. Many search engines use spiders to index web pages based on the information gleaned from meta tags, body text and more.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)

An industry-standard code that defines how an email message is sent in code, and then decoded when received, at its destination. It is actually a protocol for email that enables the transmission of non-text data, such as graphics, audio, video, and other binary types of files.

Modem (MOdulator, DEModulator)

A hardware device you connect to your computer (normally built-in) and to a phone line. It enables the computer to talk to other computers through the phone system. Basically, modems do for computers what a telephone does for humans.

N
Name Servers
Computers that perform the mapping of domain names to IP addresses.

Network
Any time you connect two or more computers together so that they can share resources, you have a computer network.

O

P
Perl
Perl is a general-purpose programming language originally developed for text manipulation and now used for a wide range of tasks including system administration, web development, network programming, GUI development, and more.

PHP
A script language and interpreter that is freely available, primarily for use on Linux Web servers. As with Active Server Pages, the PHP script is embedded within the HTML code of a Web page. Its ease of use and similarity with the most common structured programming languages, most notably C, Java and Perl, allows most experienced programmers to start developing complex applications with a minimal learning curve.

Plug-in
A small piece of software that allows you to view content of differing formats. Common Plug-ins include QuickTime, Windows Media Player, Shockwave and Real Audio.

POP3 Email (Post Office Protocol 3)
POP3 Email allows you to send and receive email using your new domain name (as opposed to the one supplied by your Internet Service Provider) via an email program such as Microsoft Outlook Express or via WebMail from any location in the world.

Propagation
The process of updating name servers around the world when your IP address, name servers, or zone record changes. Propagation can take anywhere from 24 to 72 hours to fully update.

Q

R
Red Hat
Red Hat is the world's most trusted provider of Linux and open source technology running systems of all sizes and powering mission-critical computing operations.

Register (Domain Name)
Since every domain is unique, registries have been set up to assign domains to individuals and organisations. When a domain is registered with the appropriate registry, that domain is assigned and is no longer available for anyone else to use.

Registrant (Domain Name)
The person/business that will be using the registered domain name.

S
Search Engine
A server or a collection of servers dedicated to indexing internet pages, storing the results and returning lists of pages which match search queries. The term Search Engine is often used to describe both directories (ie Yahoo.com) and search engines (ie Google.com).

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.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

A protocol for sending email messages across the Internet. It is used in conjunction with both POP3 and IMAP protocols that enable you to download messages from a mail server to your computer. SMTP is used for out going mail while POP3 and IMAP are used for incoming mail.

Spam
Unsolicited mass email - never respond to spam.

Spiders
Also known as Web Crawlers or robots, a Spider is a software program that automatically scans the web indexing websites. Search engines use spiders to find what's on the web and then construct an index of the pages that were found.

SQL (Structured Query Language)

A specialised programming language for sending queries to databases.

SSI (Server-side includes)
HTML-embedded directives that instruct the web server to include data in the HTML document. SSI is an alternative to CGI.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)
A method of ensuring that information submitted through your website is secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorized users. Information submitted via an SSL-secured form is transmitted in an encrypted state. SSL is most commonly used for online credit card transactions.

Statistics Report
Detailed information regarding visits to your website, including the number of hits, the source of those hits, the most popular pages and so on.

Surfing
Using the World Wide Web is often referred to as 'surfing' or browsing the web.

T
Terabyte
1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte.

Traffic
Each time visitors access a webpage, image, audio, video or other element on your site, traffic is generated. Your 'traffic' is the sum of all outward-bound, inward-bound, email and FTP traffic.

Transfer in
The term refers to the process of transferring your domain name 'in' to a new company for web hosting and email services. To 'transfer in' to Trilltec.com please email support for details.

U
UNIX
A computer operating system (the basic software running on a computer, underneath things like word processors and spreadsheets). UNIX is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet.

UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)

UPS keeps web servers and other supporting network devices running during a power outage.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
A term that describes the location and access method of a resource on the Internet. For example, the URL http://www.yourdomain.co.uk describes the type of access method being used: http - the protocol, and the server location that hosts the website: www.yourdomain.co.uk - the address.

V
Virus
A virus is a malicious program written to do as much harm as possible. Viruses spread themselves over the internet. All internet users should install Anti-Virus software.

W
Web
The artificial network generated by the millions of websites existing on the Internet today. While the Internet is a large network of machines which carry various forms of data, the 'Web' is the term used for all of the websites on the Internet.

Web Address
Unique identifier of a web page, ie www.yourdomain.co.uk.

Web Crawlers

Also known as spiders or robots are software programs that automatically scan the web indexing websites. Search engines use crawlers to find what's on the web and then construct an index of the pages that were found.

Web Hosting

Equipment and services to 'house' or 'host' a website and to provide Internet connections to that site, so that it may be found on the World Wide Web.

Website
A website or web site is a collection of web pages (or a single 'home page') accessible via the World Wide Web on the Internet.

Web Redirection

Your domain is pointed to a different URL on the Internet (typically 'free' web space) and the destination website address appears in the browser. The down side is that search engines can't index your site under your registered domain name - it will be indexed under the free web space address instead, which may look something like this: http://www.freeservice.com/kl32x/yournamehere/index.html For this reason web redirection is not recommended.

Web Server

A computer that stores Web documents and makes them available to the rest of the world.

Whois
Most registries maintain a database of domain names and their associated contact information. Users can query these databases through a program called Whois.

WWW (World Wide Web)
'The Web,' as it is more commonly called, can best be described as a collection of 'pages' on the Internet that can be read and interacted with via a computer. You'll need an Internet connection, a computer, a Web browser, and a few specialised programs to access and view this information online.

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