| Raw
Log Files |
For statistical analysis of web
site traffic. Raw log files contain the details about visitors
to the web site such as pages accessed and files downloaded that can
be downloaded for analysis on a local computer. Web site traffic analysis
is also provided by programs that provide detailed
web statistics. |
| RealAudio
/ RealVideo |
A continuous or streaming sound
/ video technology from Progressive Networks. A RealAudio / RealVideo
player or client
program may come included with a web
browser or can be downloaded from the RealAudio web
site. To deliver RealAudio sound or RealVideo video from a web
site, the web server
needs to have a RealAudio or RealVideo server. |
| Rollover |
(Also referred to as a "mouseover")
- A technique that changes a web page element when the user moves
the cursor over something on a web
page (like a line of text or a graphic image). The term rollover
recognizes that there is a little ball in your mouse that you roll
on a surface. |
| Root
Server System |
A set of thirteen name
servers, which together contain authoritative databases
listing all top level
domain names. There is one primary ("A") root server,
which maintains the authoritative root database and replicates changes
to the other root servers on a daily basis. ISPs
may also maintain their own local name servers to speed up Internet
access for their customers. |
| Router |
A special-purpose computer (or
software package) that handles the connection between 2 or more networks.
Routers look at the destination addresses of the packets
and decide which route to send them on. |
| RSA |
An encryption and authentication
system that uses an algorithm developed in 1977 by Ron Rivest,
Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman. The RSA algorithm is
the most commonly used encryption
and authentication algorithm and is included as part of many software
products that use the Internet. |
| Script |
A program or sequence of instructions
that is interpreted or carried out by another program rather than
by the computer processor (as a compiled program is). Some languages
have been conceived expressly as script languages. Examples of scripts
used for web pages are Perl,
PHP, and VB
Script. These script languages are often written to handle forms
input or other services for a web
site and are processed on the web
server. A JavaScript
script in a Web page runs "client-side"
on the web browser
instead of on the web server. |
| Search
Engine |
A database
of web pages. You give them your URL, and they read your page, extract
relevant information from it, and store it in their database. Many
search engines also run "spiders" (also called "bots"
or "web crawlers") that roam around the Internet looking
for new pages. Altavista is an example of a search engine. (See also
Index.) |
| Second-Level
Domain Name |
The portion of a URL
that identifies the specific and unique administrative owner associated
with an IP address.
The second-level domain name includes the top-level
domain name. For example, in ShenValleyOnline.net, "ShenValleyOnline"
is a second-level domain. "ShenValleyOnline.net" is a
second-level domain name (and includes the top-level domain name
of "net"). Second-level domains can be divided into further
subdomain
levels. More than one second-level domain name can be used for the
same IP address.
|
| Security
Certificate |
A digital 'ID Card,' a Security
Certificate contains information about who it was issued to, who it
was issued by, a unique serial number or other unique identification,
validity dates, and an encrypted
'fingerprint' that can be used to verify the contents of the certificate.
In order for an SSL
connection to be created both sides must have a valid Security Certificates. |
| Server |
A computer 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 web
server or e-mail
server, or to the machine on which the software is running. A single
server machine could have several different server software packages
running on it, thus providing many different server functions to clients
on the network. |
| Shared
Hosting |
Where the service provider hosts
multiple web sites, each having its own Internet
domain name,
from a single web
server. Most web
hosting companies provide shared hosting. Since many small business
web sites require
less than 10 MB of disk
space, one server could theoretically host several thousand small
business web sites. The limiting factor to the number of web sites
that can share one server may be the amount of traffic (data
transfer or hits)
generated by all of the sites on the server. Although shared hosting
is satisfactory for most small business web sites, it is not sufficient
for large, high traffic web sites. These sites need a dedicated web
server, either provided by a web hosting service or maintained in-house. |
| Shell |
The interactive user interface
of an operating
system. The shell is the layer of programming that understands
and executes the commands a user enters. As the outer layer of an
operating system, a shell can be contrasted with the kernel,
the operating system's inmost layer or core of services. |
| Shockwave |
A family of multimedia players
developed by Macromedia. They allow users to experience new forms
of multimedia content on the web
such as games, music, chat, interactive product demos, and e-merchandising
applications by displaying and listening to shockwave files. |
| Shopping
Cart |
A software program on a web
server that allows a merchant to sell or a customer to purchase
goods or services via a web
site. |
| SMTP |
(Simple Mail Transport Protocol)
- The most common protocol used to send e-mail
on the Internet.
SMTP consists of a set of rules for how a program sending mail and
a program receiving mail should interact. POP3
and IMAP are two
different protocols for receiving e-mail. |
| SONET |
The ANSI standard for synchronous
data transmission on optical media. It ensures that digital networks
can interconnect and that existing conventional transmission systems
can take advantage of optical media through tributary attachments.
SONET defines a base rate of 51.84 Mbps
and a set of multiples of the base rate known as Optical Carrier levels
(OCx). |
| Source
Code |
The programming statements that
are created by a programmer with a text editor or other programming
tool and then saved in a file. The file is then modified using another
program called a compiler. The output of the compiler contains a sequence
of instructions that the processor can understand and execute and
is usually referred to as object
code or executable code. For script
program languages (programs that not compiled but are interpreted
when executed), such as JavaScript,
the terms source code and object code do not apply since there is
only one form of the code. |
| Spam |
Unsolicited e-mail
on the Internet;
an inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or Usenet
or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast
medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number
of people who didn't ask for it. From the sender's point-of-view,
it's a form of bulk mail. To the receiver, it usually seems like junk
e-mail. It's generally equivalent to unsolicited phone marketing calls
except that the user pays for the cost of the message since everyone
shares the cost of maintaining the Internet.
The term is probably derived from a famous Monty Python sketch ("Well,
we have SPAM®, tomato & SPAM, egg & SPAM, egg, bacon & SPAM...)
that was current when spam first began arriving on the Internet. (SPAM
is a registered trademark for a Hormel meat product that was well
known in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II.) |
| Spider |
A program that visits web
sites and reads their pages and other information in order to
create entries for a search
engine, although other programs are used to identify e-mail
addresses for spam. The major search
engines on the web
all have such a program, which is also known as a 'crawler' or a 'bot.'
Spiders are called spiders because they can visit many sites at the
same time, their "legs" spanning a large area of the web. |
| SQL |
(Structured Query Language) -
A standardized programming language for querying and updating databases.
Most high-level and many smaller database applications can be addressed
using SQL. Many specific applications have proprietary extensions
of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable
databases support a common subset of SQL. |
| SSI |
(Server-Side Includes) - Provide
for interactive real-time features such as echoing the current time,
conditional execution based on logical comparisons, querying or updating
a database, sending
an e-mail, etc.,
with no programming or CGI
scripts.
An SSI consists of a special sequence of characters (called "tokens")
on an HTML page.
As the page is sent from the web
server to the requesting client,
the page is scanned by the server
for these special tokens. When a token is found, the server interprets
the data in the token and performs an action based on the token data. |
| SSL |
(Secure Sockets Layer) - A protocol
originally designed by Netscape® Communications to enable encrypted,
authenticated communications across the Internet.
SSL is used mostly (but not exclusively) in communications between
web browsers
and web servers.
URL's that begin with
'https' indicate that an SSL connection will be used. SSL provides
3 important things - privacy, authentication, and message integrity.
SSL uses the public-and-private key encryption system from RSA.
In an SSL connection each side of the connection must have a Security
Certificate, which each side's software sends to the other. Each
side then encrypts what it sends using information from both its own
and the other side's certificate, ensuring that only the intended
recipient can decrypt
it, and that the other side can be sure the data came from the place
it claims to have come from, and that the message has not been tampered
with. SSL has recently been succeeded by Transport Layer Security
(TLS), which is based on SSL. |
| Subdomain |
A further breakdown of an existing
domain name
(main domain) and is generally used to separate content on a web
site. A photographer, for instance, might have a main site called
mydomain.com, and then a subdomain for a gallery of work, called photos.mydomain.com.
The content for the subdomains is placed into the folder of the same
name (photos, in the example) under the main site contents. See also
Pointed
Domain.
Subdomains are treated as completely separate sites from the main
domain, and there must be a valid index file in the folder for the
subdomain before the subdomain will be visible in a browser. Some
web site hosts (especially
"free" hosts such as GeoCities) use subdomains extensively
rather than hosting registered domain names. |
