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In order for people to view your web pages, the files that comprise those web pages
must be stored on a server. Without storing your files on a server, it would not be
possible to place your website on the worldwide web.
A web host is the person or company that owns, runs, or manages the server and provides
those who need it with web hosting.
If you desire and if you have the necessary knowledge, you can purchase your own server
and host your own site, but this is not usually a viable option for most people because
of the high costs and the large volumes of very necessary technical knowledge that you
will need in order to run your site completely on your own.
This is where a web host comes in. A web host has the technical knowledge and the servers
necessary to host your site. Professional and dependable web hosting is very affordable
for anyone. For less than $10/month, you can rent the space in a web server and get your
site online with no hassles. Most web hosts will also provide you with a free domain name
with your web hosting purchase.
Also, there is an important distinction between a web hosting provider and a domain name
registrar. A web host provides space on a server to store your sites files, while a
domain name registrar handles domain name requests and modifications.
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APOP
POP stands for Post Office Protocol. APOP is considered a command by the people that
wrote it. We assume it stands for Authenticated Post Office Protocol.
ASP / .ASP (Active Server Pages)
An Active Server Page itself is simply a text file script with the extension .asp
containing HTML, client- and server-side script. The implementation behind the ASP
page was created by Microsoft and intended as an open technology server-side framework,
giving web developers the freedom to develop dynamic web sites using information accessed
from the many COM-compliant data sources available to them.
Bandwidth
This is the amount of data that you can send through a connection, almost like a speed
limit for data. It is usually measured in bits-per-second (bps). A 500K modem transfers
data up to 500Kbps, or 500,000 bits-per-second. Bandwidth is interchangeable with "data
transfer" or just "transfer".
CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
A set of rules that describe how a Web Server communicates with another piece of software
on the same machine.
CGI-Bin Access
This function gives the customer the ability to write custom programs to manipulate data
on their Web site.
Client
Any software applicatin that is connected to the server and run to send/retrieve data
to a server is called a client, such as a web browser. This relationship between the
"client" and the "server" is often referred to as a "client server relationship."
Custom Error Messages
This is the ability to create custom pages on a hosting account to replace default
404 and other error pages.
Data Transfer
This is the amount of data that you are allowed to transfer with your account. To give
a sense of scale,1 GIG of data transfer is about equal to 50,000 page views. Typical
monthly data transfer for a hosting package is about 60 GIGS or about 3,000,000 page
views. It's no surprise that most sites don't come close to this amount.
Dial-up Account
This refers to an account that accesses the internet through a telephone modem.
Disk Space (Storage Space)
Amount of hard disk space available for storage of all the files and programs needed
by your website to run properly.
Domain Name
A domain name is a unique internet identity. Such as the domain name of this site.
Domain Name Registration
Refers to registering your own unique domain name. Hosting providers will always
have the option of registering a new domain name/names for your account.
Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce)
This allows website customers to sell products and services online and accept payment
at the same time.
E-Mail Autoresponders
This allows customers to set up an automatic message to respond to anyone who sends
email to the customer.
File Extensions
All of your files have file extentions. It is how files are categorized. Types of
file extentions are .exe, .cgi, .asp, .htm, .jsp, .php, and several others.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
The acronym stands for "file transfer protocol". It is a very common method of moving
files between two Internet sites. FTP is a way to login to another Internet site for the
purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have
established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP,
by logging in using the account name "anonymous", thus these sites are called "anonymous
ftp servers". FTP was invented and in wide use long before the advent of the World Wide
Web and originally was always used from a text-only interface.
FTP Client
This refers to software needed by the customer to upload content files to their Web site.
GIG
1000 MEGS or one billion bytes
Home Page
The first page in the public directory of a domain, usually index.php or index.htm.
Called thome page because it's the first page that loads from a Website.
Hosting Provider
An institution that provides Web space to companies or individuals.
HTML
Hyper-Text Markup Language. The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for
use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where
you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear. The "hyper"
in Hypertext comes from the fact that in HTML you can specify that a block of text,
or an image, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be
viewed using a "Web Browser". HTML is loosely based on a more comprehensive system
for markup called SGML.
HyperText
Generally, any text that contains links to other documents - words or phrases in the
document that can be chosen by a reader and which cause another document to be retrieved
and displayed.
IP Address
Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet
Protocol (IP) address. Since these numbers are usually assigned in country-based blocks,
an IP address can often be used to identify the country from which a computer is
connecting to the Internet.
ISP
Short for Internet Service Provider, an ISP is a company that provides access to the
Internet.
Megabyte (MB)
A million bytes
NOC
The abbreviation for Network Operations Center, NOC is the organization responsible for
the day-to-day operations of the Internet's component networks.
POP (E-MAIL)
Your POP (Post Office Protocol) email is an email account associated with your domain
hosting. POP email requires that you set up an email application (Outlook, Eudora, Apple
Mail or others) to retrieve your email from your server.
Primary DNS
DNS (Domain Name Server) is really nothing more than a directory. A DNS operates sort
of like a telephone operator. A DNS stores address and name pairs, so that when you
request a website by name it can send you directly to the correct address.
DNS plays a major role in e-mail as well as out ability to find websites. If DNS were
to fail, you would not be able to find many websites since there is nowhere to look up
the address. E-mail would be undeliverable since it has no way of finding its destination. An internet without DNS would be like a city without the yellow pages.
Secure Server (SSL)
Secured Sockets Layer is a protocol that transmits your communications over the Internet
in an encrypted form. SSL ensures that the information is sent, unchanged, only to the
server you intended to send it to. Online shopping sites frequently use SSL technology
to safeguard your credit card information.
Server
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 related to a Web site and perform all work necessary for
hosting the Web site. Most congressional offices have at least one server that is
dedicated as both a network server and a file server. This means that, in it's network
server role, the computer is responsible for holding the files and managing the
processes that enable everyone in the office to access and use the network. In it's
file server role, it holds the central computer files and the CMS database.
SSI
Server-Side Include, a type of HTML comment that directs the Web server to dynamically
generate data for the Web page whenever it is requested.
Shell Account
A Unix-based account on a service provider's computer.
Telnet
Telnet is a protocol for remote computing on the Internet. It allows a computer to
act as a remote terminal on another machine, anywhere on the Internet. This means
that when you telnet to a particular host and port, the remote computer (which must
have a telnet server) accepts input directly from your computer (which must have a
telnet client) and output for your session is directed to your screen. There are many
library and information resources that are accessible through telnet.
Transfer
Total amount of transferred data from the customer's Web site to clients. Includes all
HTML, Web pages, images, sounds, videos, etc.
UNIX
A computer operating system (the basic software running on a computer, underneath
things like word processors and spreadsheets). It is the most common operating system
for servers on the Internet.
URL
(Uniform Resource Locator) - The World Wide Web address of a site on the Internet.
The URL for the Internal Revenue Service, for example, is http://www.irs.gov.
Virtual Hosting
Serving multiple websites using a single instance of Apache. IP virtual hosting
differentiates between websites based on their IP address, while name-based virtual
hosting uses only the name of the host and can therefore host many sites on the same
IP address.
Web Server
A computer that stores Web documents and makes them available to the rest of the
world. A server may be dedicated, meaning its sole purpose is to be a Web server,
or non-dedicated, meaning it can be used for basic computing in addition to acting
as a server.
Web Site
A collection of "pages" or files linked together and available on the World Wide Web.
Web sites are provided by companies, organizations and individuals.
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