| JavaScript |
An interpreted programming or script
language from Netscape. It
is somewhat similar in capability to Microsoft's Visual Basic and
the UNIX-derived
Perl. In general, script languages
are easier and faster to code in than more structured, compiled languages.
Script languages generally take longer to process than compiled languages,
but are very useful for shorter programs. JavaScript code can be imbedded
in HTML pages and
interpreted by the web
browser (or client).
JavaScript can be used to do such things as automatically change a
formatted date on a web
page, cause a linked-to page to appear in a pop-up window, or
cause text or a graphic image to change during a mouse rollover.
|
| Kernel |
The essential center of a computer's operating
system, the core that provides basic services for all other parts
of the operating system. The kernel can be contrasted with the shell,
the outermost part of an operating system that interacts with user
commands. Because the code that makes up the kernel is needed continuously,
it is usually loaded into computer storage in an area that is protected
so that it will not be overlaid with other, less frequently used parts
of the operating system. |
| Kilobyte |
(KB) - 1024 (210) bytes. |
| LAN |
(Local Area Network) - A computer network
limited to the immediate area, such as a building or a floor of a
building. |
| Leased-line |
A phone line that is leased (rented) for exclusive
(24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week) use from one location to another.
The highest speed data connections use leased lines. |
| Link |
(1) A selectable connection from one word, picture,
or information object to another using hypertext.
In a multimedia
environment such as the World
Wide Web, such objects can include sound and motion video sequences.
The most common form of link is the highlighted word or picture that
can be selected by the user (with a mouse or in some other fashion),
resulting in the immediate delivery and view of another file. The
highlighted object is referred to as an anchor. The anchor reference
and the object referred to constitute a hypertext link. (2) In telecommunications,
a link is a physical (and, in some usages, a logical) connection between
two points.
|
| Linux |
(Pronounced LIH-nuhks with a short "i") -
An open-source
UNIX-like operating
system that was designed to provide personal computer users with a
free or very low-cost operating
system comparable to traditional and usually more expensive UNIX
systems. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing
system. Linux's kernel
(the central part of the operating system) was developed by Linus
Torvalds at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linux is a common
operating system in web
server applications. |
| Login |
The account name used to gain access to a computer
or system. |
| Mbps |
(Megabits-per-Second or Millions of Bits-per-Second)
- A measure of bandwidth
of a telecommunications medium. |
| Megabyte |
(MB) - 1024 kilobytes
220 bytes. |
| Message Board |
A script on a web
page with a form that allows a web
site to host discussions. It is also called a web board or a forum. |
| MIME |
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) - An extension of the original
Internet e-mail
protocol
that lets people exchange different kinds of data files on the Internet:
audio, video, images, application programs, and other kinds, as
well as the ASCII
handled in SMTP,
the original protocol. SMTP was extended so that Internet (but mainly
web) clients and
servers could
recognize and handle other kinds of data than ASCII text. As a result,
new file types were added to "mail" as a supported Internet
protocol file type.
Servers insert the MIME header at the beginning of any web transmission.
Clients use this header to select an appropriate "player"
application for the type of data the header indicates. Some of these
players are built into the web client or browser (for example, all
browser come with GIF and JPEG image players as well as the ability
to handle HTML files); other players (such as audio and video) may
need to be downloaded.
|
| Mirror |
To maintain an exact copy of something. (1) With reference
to the Internet,
'mirror sites' are web
sites or FTP sites
that maintain exact copies of material originated at another location,
to provide more widespread access to the resource (more network
bandwidth).
(2) With reference to computers, 'mirroring' is an arrangement where
information is written to more than one hard disk simultaneously,
so that if one disk fails, the computer keeps on working without losing
any data. |
| MP3 |
(MPEG 1 Audio Layer-3) - An audio compression standard,
or file type, for encoding sounds (commonly music). The resultant
file maintains nearly the original quality but is only about 5% of
the original file size. The file suffix is '.mp3'. |
| MS Access |
Microsoft® Access is probably the most common database
program in the world since it comes bundled in Microsoft Office. |
| MS SQL |
High-end performance database
application for Windows®
NT and Windows 2000 servers,
for large and complicated back-end integration of database files. |
| Multimedia |
More than one concurrent presentation medium (for example,
on a web site).
Although still images are a different medium than text, multimedia
is typically used to mean the combination of text, sound, and/or motion
video. Popular web site multimedia (sound, sound and motion video,
or animation) players include MPEG, Quicktime, RealAudio,
RealVideo, and
Shockwave.
|
| Multithreaded |
A computer program that supports multiple concurrent
users or service requests from other programs. In this context, a
thread is the information needed to serve one individual user or a
particular service request. If multiple users are using the program
or concurrent requests from other programs occur, a thread is created
and maintained for each of them. The thread allows the program to
know which user is being served as the program alternately gets reentered
on behalf of different users. |
| Multi-user |
A computer program or operating
system that supports more than one concurrent user. UNIX
is an example of a multi-user operating system. |
| MySQL |
(Pronounced "my ess cue el," not "my sequel")
- An open-source
SQL
database.
MySQL is a true multi-user,
multithreaded
SQL database server
program. MySQL is a client/server
implementation that consists of a server daemon
and many different client
programs and libraries. The main goals of MySQL are speed, robustness
and ease of use.
MySQL currently runs on the Linux,
UNIX, and Windows
NT platforms. Many Internet
companies use MySQL as an alternative to proprietary (and expensive!)
database systems from Oracle, IBM, and Informix.
|
| Name Server |
(Also called DNS Server or Domain Name Server) - A server
that translates domain
names to IP
addresses for Internet
queries. |
| Netscape® |
(1) A web
browser (originally Netscape Navigator) created by Netscape Communications.
(2) The name of a company (Netscape Communications) now owned by AOL. |
| Network |
2 or more computers connected together so that they
can share resources . Connecting 2 or more networks together results
in an internet. |
| Newsgroup |
The name for discussion groups on Usenet. |
| Node |
Any single computer connected to a network. |
| NNTP |
(Network News Transfer Protocol) - The predominant protocol
used by computer clients
and servers for
managing the notes posted on Usenet
newsgroups.
An NNTP client is included as part of web
browsers such as Internet
Explorer, Netscape,
and Opera, or you may use a separate client program called a newsreader. |
| Object Code |
A file containing a sequence of instructions that the
processor can understand and execute. When you purchase or download
operating system or application software, it is usually in the form
of compiled object code and the source code is not included. Recently,
there has been a movement to develop open source software (such as
Linux) that is open to further improvement by anyone who wants to
improve it, and here the source code is also provided. |
| OCx |
(Optical Carrier levels) - Used by SONET
to specify the bandwidth
of optical fiber networks.
The base rate (OC-1) is 51.84 Mbps.
OC-2 runs at twice the base rate, OC-3 at three times the base rate,
etc. (See also DSx
and T-1.) |
| Open-Source |
A software program whose source
code is made available for use or modification as users or other
developers see fit. (Generally, the makers of proprietary software
have not made source code available.) Open source software is usually
developed as a public collaboration and made freely available. Sometimes
these third-party modifications are incorporated into later versions
of the software. |
| Operating System |
(OS) - The program that, after being initially loaded
into the computer by a boot program, manages all the other programs
in a computer. The other programs are called applications or application
programs. The application programs make use of the operating system
by making requests for services through a defined application program
interface (API). In addition, users can interact directly with the
operating system through a user interface such as a command language
or a GUI. Examples
of operating systems frequently used in various web
server applications include Microsoft Windows®
NT, Windows 2000, Linux,
and UNIX. Other common
operating systems include Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows
XP, OS/2 and Mac OS. Earlier command-line driven operating systems
included IBM's PC-DOS, Microsoft's MS-DOS,
and CPM. |
| Packet Switching |
The method used to move data around on the Internet.
In packet switching, the message transmitted by a computer is broken
up into pieces, called packets. Each piece has the address of where
it came from and where it is going as well as a message ID. The entire
message is recreated at the destination from all of the pieces. This
enables pieces of data from many different sources to co-mingle on
the same network,
and be sorted and directed (routed) to different destinations by special
computers (packet-switches or routers)
along the way. Thus, many people and applications can use the same
network at the same time. |
| Parking |
The practice of selecting a domain
name, and 'parking' it on a web
host's web server.
A parked domain name is frequently used as an 'alias' to redirect
Internet requests
to another domain name to avoid having to maintain multiple web sites.
For example, if a domain named parkeddomain.com is parked on another
domain named mydomain.com, an Internet request for a page of parkeddomain.com
will display the corresponding page of mydomain.com except the URL
will still be parkeddomain.com. A parked domain name may not support
any service (hosting,
e-mail, etc.) for
that particular domain name. |
| Password |
A code used to gain access to a secure computer or
system. |
| PDF |
(Portable Document Format) - a file format developed
by Adobe Systems Inc.. PDF files preserve the appearance and layout
of an original document, making it possible for files to be viewed
online and printed exactly as intended, regardless of the hardware
or software the user is using. Viewing PDF files requires the use
of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software. Any document can be converted
to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat application. |
| Perl |
(Practical Extraction and Reporting Language) - A scrip
language which is commonly used to write CGI
programs to be run from a web
site. Perl programs are text files that are parsed (run through
and executed) by a program called an 'interpreter' on the server.
Perl is regarded as a good choice for developing CGI programs because
it has good text manipulation facilities (although it also handles
binary files). |
| PHP |
A script
language and interpreter that is freely available and used primarily
on Linux web servers.
PHP (the initials come from the earliest version of the program, which
was called "Personal Home Page Tools) is an alternative to Microsoft's
Active Server Page (ASP) technology. As with ASP, the PHP script is
embedded within a web
page along with its HTML.
Before the page is sent to a user that has requested it, the Web server
calls PHP to interpret and perform the operations called for in the
PHP script. An HTML page that includes a PHP script is typically given
a file name suffix of '.php' '.php3,' or '.phtml'. Like ASP, PHP can
be thought of as 'dynamic HTML pages,' since content will vary based
on the results of interpreting the script. PHP is free and offered
under an open source license. |
| Pointed Domain |
Similar to a subdomain
except that it has its own domain
name rather than a breakdown of the main domain by identifying
a folder name. A photographer, for instance, might have a main site
called mydomain.com, and then a pointed domain for a gallery of work,
called photos.com, that exists within a folder on mydomain.com. This
allows two separate domains with only one hosting account.
Pointed domains are treated as completely separate sites from the
main domain, and there must be a valid index file in the folder for
the pointed domain before it will be visible in a browser. |
| POP3 |
(Post Office Protocol 3) - A standard protocol
for receiving e-mail.
POP3 is a client/server
protocol in which e-mail is received and held for the e-mail client
by an e-mail server.
Periodically, the client e-mail program checks the mailbox on the
server and downloads any mail. An alternative protocol is IMAP.
With IMAP, e-mail is viewed at the server as though it was on the
client computer. An e-mail message deleted locally is still kept on
the server. E-mail can be kept on and searched at the server. POP
can be thought of as a "store-and-forward service. IMAP can be thought
of as a remote file server. POP and IMAP deal with the receiving of
e-mail and are not to be confused with SMTP,
a protocol for transferring e-mail across the Internet.
E-mail is sent with SMTP and a mail handler receives it on the recipient's
behalf. Then the mail is read using POP or IMAP. |
| Port |
(1) A place where information goes into or out of a
computer. E.g. the serial port on a personal computer is where a modem
would be connected. (2) 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. Servers can also listen on
nonstandard ports, in which case the port number must be specified
in a URL when accessing the server. |
| Propagation |
The process by which the name
servers throughout the world update their records for a specific
domain. For example, if a domain
is moved from one host to another, it will take around 24-48 hours
for the new address to broadcast everywhere. During that period, the
traffic is decreasing at the old location and increasing at the new
location. |
| Protocol |
A special set of rules used by computers or software
programs when they communicate with each other. Examples of protocols
used in Internet communications include TCP/IP,
HTTP, FTP
SSL, and NNTP. |
