Glossary
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56 Kilobits (Kbps) per second, or .07 Megabytes (MB) per second. A common maximum transmission rate for analogue modems.
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A
A software system developed and sold by Microsoft for creating and running interactive multimedia (text, graphics, video, and sound files) on websites.
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(AVS) A method of reducing fraud in mail order/telephone order transactions by using cardholder billing address information in the authorisation request.
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Short for asymmetric digital subscriber line, a new technology that allows more data to be sent over existing copper telephone lines.
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A set of USENET news-groups that often contain articles on controversial subjects usually considered to be outside of the mainstream. These newsgroups were originally created to avoid the rigorous pro...
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One of the most popular and fastest-growing of the commercial online services, often abbreviated as AOL. America Online provides a well-designed and easy-to-use service that includes a wide range of ...
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Free open source program used by web servers to handle web requests and serve web pages etc.
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(Application program interface) A set of standard software interrupts, calls, and data formats that application programs use to initiate contact with network services, mainframe communications program...
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Software tools or agents running on web servers, which automatically send a standard reply to the sender of an email message.
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(Address Verification Service) A method of reducing fraud in mail order/telephone order transactions by using cardholder billing address information in the authorisation request.
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B
In communications, the portion of the network that manages the bulk of the traffic. The backbone may connect several different locations or buildings, and may also connect to other, smaller networks.
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(web) This is the capacity for traffic on any computer network or the Internet. Usually measured in bps bits per second or variants kbps kilobits per second or thousand bits per second.
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Breadcrumb Trail Breadcrumbs or breadcrumb trail is a navigation aid used in user interfaces. It gives users a way to keep track of their location within programs or documents. There are three types o...
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Broadband refers to communications medium that uses wide-bandwidth channels for sending and receiving large amounts of data, video or voice information.
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An application program used to explore Internet resources. A browser lets you wander from node to node without concern for the technical details of the links between the nodes or the specific method u...
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A release of hardware or software that corrects known bugs but does not contain additional new features. Such releases are usually designated only by an increase in the decimal portion of the ve...
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C
CDONTS is a library (component) provided as a part of IIS starting with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Server using Option Pack 1 up to and including Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. It works in conjunction w...
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CDOSYS is a library (component) provided as a part of IIS starting with Microsoft Windows 2000 Server and later. CDOSYS replaces the older CDONTS and should be used for all new installations when poss...
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A directory where scripts (programs) are stored; most commonly used to process Web forms. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface meaning a shared way to connect various forms of programming technolog...
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(Content Management System) Software that enables you to add and/or manipulate content on a website. Typically, a CMS consists of two elements:
the content management application (CMA)
...
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A smaller, self-contained part of a larger entity. Often refers to a web object that is part of a larger document. Example components are menus, gallery slide shows and latest news.
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Software that enables you to add and/or manipulate content on a website. Typically, a CMS consists of two elements: the content management application (CMA) content delivery application (CDA)...
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A small file that a website leaves on a visitor’s computer so that it can personalize itself for the user next time they visit. Cookies can eventually eat up space on the visitor’s ha...
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Comma-separated value; a non-proprietary comma-delimited file used to transfer data into spreadsheet programs.
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D
Connecting to the internet, a network or another computer over the telephone system.
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A digital certificate is an electronic means of establishing your credentials when doing business or other transactions on the Web. It is issued by a certification authority. It contains your name, a ...
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A set of predefined code, called an Application Programming Interface, written by Microsoft. Programmers can use it to create graphic images or other multimedia effects in their applications. It is di...
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An abbreviation for Domain Name System. The method used when naming Internet host computers and the directory services used when looking up those names. Each of these host names (such as p...
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An area of information on the Internet, such as a website or even a collection of sites grouped together.
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This is a server that performs address verification on the Internet finding the right computer to connect to for access to websites and email.
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To copy or move a file from another computer or disk onto another. On the internet the term normally describes the transfer of files from a website to a local computer. Example: I downloaded photos to...
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Short for Digital Subscriber Line, DSL is a remote access connection technology that will eventually allow users to download at speeds of up to 6Mbps as opposed to the current 56Kbps limitations seen ...
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A language for building “unfixed” pages i.e. pages whose content changes on receipt of further information such as the contents of a database.
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E
The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. Specifically, ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, throu...
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Messages sent over the Internet in a standard format. Modern methods allow the inclusion of pictures and the attachment of other file types. Because the format allows almost instantaneous communicatio...
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When email forwarding is activated, messages sent to a certain email address are forwarded to another address. For example: Fred sends an email to someone@somedomain.com. The message is forwarded imme...
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A set of characters commonly used in e-mail and USENET newsgroups to signify emotions. An emoticon can be as simple as including {TBA} or ;-) in the text, meant to indicate that the writer is jok...
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A mechanism used during a file transfer to determine whether transmission errors have occurred and to correct those errors, if possible. Some programs or transmission protocols request a retransmissio...
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A message from the program or the operating system, informing you of a condition that requires some human intervention to solve.
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F
FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol - used to transmit files between computers on the Internet.
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FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol - used to transmit files between computers on the Internet.
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G
Graphic Interchange Format or GIF is a type of image file. GIF files are graphics or pictures, often used on Web pages. Because GIF files contain a maximum of 256 colours, this file format is ideal fo...
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Pronounced “gig-a-bite” - 1 gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes
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Google Checkout Google Checkout is an online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases. Users store their credit or debit card and s...
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Abbreviated GUI, pronounced “gooey”. A graphics-based user interface that allows users to select files, programs, or commands by pointing to pictorial representations on the screen rather ...
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Abbreviation for Graphical User Ineterface and pronounced “gooey”. A graphics-based user interface that allows users to select files, programs, or commands by pointing to pictorial re...
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H
Abbreviated hex. The base 16 numbering system that uses the digits 0 to 9, followed by the letters A to F (equivalent to the decimal numbers 10 through 15).
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The number of times your site’s server has been hit by a request for a web page or a graphic image. Hits can be very misleading as all the graphics on the page are counted as individual hits and...
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On the Internet World Wide Web, an initial starting page. A home page may be related to a single person, a specific subject, or to a corporation, and is a convenient jumping-off point to other pages o...
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This term is used to refer to the housing of a web site, email or a domain.
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HTML HTML, which stands for Hypertext Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text ...
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Abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. An application layer protocol included with the TCP/IP protocol suite on most operating systems. Used to transfer HTML documents, files, sound, graphics a...
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Abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTP Over SSL. Protocol enabling the secured transmission of Web pages.
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An active cross-reference from one resource to another. The cross-reference is called active because it is presented in a medium which allows the reader to follow it, for example by mouse-clicking it....
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I
Backing up only those files that have been changed since the last backup was performed.
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Sometimes abbreviated to 1-Way. An imprecise albeit popular term often applied to the Internet or to the National Information Infrastructure.
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An IP (i.e.,131.107.2.200) or domain (i.e.,www.microsoft.com) address which identifies a specific node on the Internet.
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An IP-based network serving an organization and it’s business partners. It often includes Web servers, mail servers, and other services found on the Internet, but the communications channels hav...
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Each computer connected to the Internet has an address known as an Internet Protocol address (IP address). The IP address takes the form of four numbers separated by dots, for example: 225.225.225.225
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J
An application language designed by Sun Microsystems to work on any platform Windows, Mac, LINUX etc. and to allow applications on different platforms to talk to one another. An object-oriented prog...
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A client side scripting language used to embed executable instructions in a web page.
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Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG or JPG is a lossy compression technique for colour images. Although it can reduce files sizes to about 5% of their normal size, some detail is lost in ...
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Short for Joint Photographic Experts Group. JPEG or JPG is a lossy compression technique for colour images. Although it can reduce files sizes to about 5% of their normal size, some detail is lost in ...
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K
A word that explains the subject of a page or similar. Used by search engines to find correct pages.
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Any word or phrase that has particular significance to the content of your website. When someone uses a search engine to find information you have, your website should be suggested in response to the ...
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M
Mail groups are used for sending e-mail to a group of people through one address rather than to each individual address.
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On the Internet, a group of people who share a common interest and who automatically receive all the mail posted to the list server, or mailing-list manager program. Contributions are sent as e-...
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Abbreviated Mbit. Usually 1,048,576 binary digits or bits of data. Often used as equivalent to 1 million bits.
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Abbreviated MB. Usually 1,048,576 bytes. Megabytes are a common way of representing computer memory or hard-disk capacity.
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Bank that has an agreement with a merchant to accept (acquire) deposits generated by bankcard transactions.
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In the credit card industry, a merchant ID is a number provided to a merchant by a credit card processor when that merchant retains the services of that processor. Also sometimes called the merchant n...
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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. Their spiders read the information co...
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A piece of hardware that lets a computer talk to another computer over a phone line.
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MySQL is a relational database management system, which means it stores data in separate tables rather than putting all the data in one big area. This adds flexibility, as well as speed. The SQL part ...
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N
Similar to a mailing list subscriber, a newsgroup can contribute to the list and are often actively encouraged to do so. Newsgroups often have a moderator who is there to keep order and can bar people...
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An application used to read the articles posted to USENET newsgroups. There are two kinds of newsreaders; threaded newsreaders group the newsgroup posts into threads of related articles, while unthre...
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A server operating system developed by Microsoft for high-performance processors and networked systems.
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P
Enables websites to accept credit card details with real-time confirmation and electronic settlement.
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PayPal PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks an...
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Paypoint PayPoint plc is a British business offering a system for paying bills in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The Company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constitue...
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Perl Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, a robust programming language frequently used for creating CGI programs on Web servers because it is faster than UNIX shell script programs, it can re...
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(Short for Hypertext Pre-processor) is a server-side; HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web content. PHP scripts can be embedded in HTML code and use similar syntax to the Perl a...
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PNG PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression. PNG was created to improve upon and replace GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) as an image-file...
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POP3 An e-mail protocol used to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over an Internet connection to your local computer.
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A page-description language developed by Adobe Systems, Inc., used when printing high-quality text and graphics. Desk-top publishing or illustration programs that create PostScript output can print on...
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R
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feed A data format for syndicating news and other content. People can subscribe to RSS feeds so they will be notified every time content is updated on a particular site...
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S
This is a programming term that refers to a set of instructions (a program) that is executed by another program to perform an action.
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A computer on a network that is dedicated to a particular purpose and which stores all information and performs the critical functions for that purpose. For example, a Web server would store all files...
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A unique digital identification that forms the basis of a Web server’s SSL security features.
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A general term used to describe those companies providing a connection to the Internet for private and home users. Several of the online services such as CompuServe and America Online are providing ac...
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A general term used to describe those companies providing a connection to the Internet for private and home users. Several of the online services such as CompuServe and America Online are providing ac...
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Acronym for Secure File Transfer Program similar to ftp, but performs all operations over an encrypted SSH transport, thus gaining the features of public key encryption and compression.
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(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) A protocol that describes an email system with both host and user sections. Many companies sell host software (usually for UNIX) that will exchange SMTP mail with propr...
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Social Bookmarking Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of t...
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Source Code In computer science, source code (commonly just source) is any collection of statements or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language. Source code allows the...
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Spam is a term used to mean unsolicited, bulk e-mail that clogs your e-mail inbox and is often annoying. A spam filter is a program that will actually capture e-mails that look like spam before they a...
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Short for Structured Query Language pronounced “sequel”, The standardised query language for requesting information from a database.
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Sub-domains allow you to create second-level domain names under your primary domain name. Sub-domains come in the syntax of anything.#domain#, replacing “www” with a different sub-domain p...
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T
A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (a picture, a geographic map, a blog entry, a video clip etc.), thus describing the item and enabling keywor...
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A graphical view containing keywords used on a website or blog. Tags are typically listed alphabetically, and tag frequency is shown with font size.
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Acronym for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. A set of computer-to-computer communications protocols first developed for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the lat...
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U
Pronounced “you-nix”. A multi-user, multitasking, portable operating system originally developed by AT&T. UNIX is available on a huge range of computational hardware, from a PC to a ...
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Abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator, pronounced “earl” A method of accessing Internet resources. URLs contain information about both the access method to use and also about the reso...
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A voluntary group of users of a specific computer or software package, who meet to share tips and listen to industry experts. Some PC user groups hold large, well-attended monthly meetings, run their ...
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V
The generation of a given application; for example, Kontrolit 2.03 was an upgraded version of Kontrolit 2.01
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W
The World Wide Web Consortium. This is the non-profit making organisation that is supposed to agree technology standards for the Internet. However, technology manufacturers often do not want to wait f...
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You can access your email through a browser (like Internet Explorer) from everywhere in the world, comes with advanced features such as mailboxes, address books etc.
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Abbreviated WWW, W3 or simply the Web. A huge collection of hypertext pages on the Internet. World Wide Web concepts were developed in Switzerland by the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (kno...
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