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
Accessibility
Web accessibility means that people who are disabled can still benefit from and contribute to the Internet. For more information, read my page about accessibility or visit some of the sites in the resources section.
bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred from one place to another. In website and webhosting terms, it is typically used to describe a monthly limit. This is different than web storage, which is the amount of space taken up by the files of a website.
browser
If you can read this, you’re using a web browser. A browser is your way of connecting to and viewing the World Wide Web. It interprets HTML code and lets you view sites and navigate from one Internet site to another. Some common browsers today are Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari, and Camino.
cache
A cache stores information where you can get to it fast. A Web browser cache stores the pages, graphics, sounds, and URLs of online places you visit on your hard drive so that when you go back to the page, you don’t have to wait for them to be downloaded all over again.
cookie
Cookies are small data files written to your hard drive by some Web sites when you view them in your browser. They contain information the site can use to track such things as passwords, lists of pages you’ve visited, and the date when you last looked at a certain page.
CSS (cascading style sheets)
CSS has become an industry-standard as recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Style sheets allow developers to control the style and layout of multiple pages all at once, separating style and design from the content. Before cascading style sheets, changing an element that appeared on many pages required changing it on each individual page. With CSS, when you want to make a change, you simply change the style, and that element is updated automatically wherever it appears within the site.
database
A database is used to help organize and manage information. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet with rows and columns, or it can be advanced with multiple tables all relating to one another. On the web, these can be used to store customer data, product information, and even your website’s content, such as in a content management system.
DHTML
Dynamic HTML (DHTML) combines HTML, style sheets, and scripts to make web pages more interactive.
DNS
Domain Name System (DNS) refers to the names used for accessing websites. When you visit an internet domain such as inksplashdesigns.net, the domain name system translates the names into IP addresses (a series of numbers looking something like this: 999.999.99.9). This makes it much easier to remember your favorite websites by name, rather than by number.
domain name
A domain name is the name that people will use to find your site, ie: www.yourdomainname.com.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used to copy files between computers over the Internet- usually from a personal computer to a web server. There are many FTP programs (sometimes called ‘clients’) that make this process easy.
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a compact file format is ideal for graphics that use only a few colors. Most color images and backgrounds on the Web are GIF files. GIF89a files can be animated.
gigabyte
Abbreviated as GB, this is a unit of storage commonly used when describing webhosting packages. It is equivalent to 1073741824 bytes, 1048576 kilobytes, or 1024 megabytes.
HTML/XHTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is the language of the web. When you visit a webpage, the browser interprets the HTML commands embedded in the page and uses them to format the page’s text and graphic elements. HTML commands cover many types of text formatting (bold and italic text, lists, headline fonts in various sizes, etc), and also have the ability to include graphics and other nontext elements.
hyperlink
Hyperlinks are the words or phrases, usually underlined, that you click in webpages to go to another page. They are also called anchors.
IP Address
An Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) is a unique string of numbers that identifies a computer on the Internet. These numbers are usually shown in groups separated by periods, like this: 999.999.99.9. All resources on the Internet have an IP address.
ISP
An ISP is your Internet Service Provider- usually a local company that acts as your front end to all that the Internet offers. Most ISPs have a network of servers (mail, news, Web, etc) attached to a permanent, high-speed Internet backbone connection.
Javascript
JavaScript is a scripting language that can be added to webpages to create interactive documents.
JPEG
JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It is designed for compressing either full-color or gray-scale digital images of “natural”, real-world scenes. You can choose how much to compress a JPEG file, but the smaller you compress the file, the more color information will be lost.
MySQL
MySQL is an open-source, relational database management system often used with PHP to add dynamic functionality to webpages.
PDF stands for Portable Document Format. This technology by Adobe allows documents to be viewed and printed exactly as intended on multiple platforms using the free Adobe Acrobat reader.
PHP
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a scripting language used to create dynamic webpages. It is often used in conjunction with a database to allow for advanced functionality.
POP
POP is Post Office Protocol. It allows you to download your email messages from a web server, which are then deleted from the server. The latest version is POP3.
resolution
Resolution is a measure of graphics that is used to describe what a printer can print, a scanner can scan, and a monitor can display. In printed documents and for scanners, resolution is measured in dots per inch (dpi). A monitor’s resolution refers to the number of pixels in the whole image, as opposed to per inch, because the number of dots per inch varies depending on the screen’s physical dimensions. Common resolutions are 1,024 by 768, 1,280 by 1,024, and 800 by 600.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search engine optimization helps your website get found by potential customers and contacts. There are many aspects to SEO. To find out more, read my page about SEO or visit some of the sites in the resources section.
server
A server is a computer that provides the information, files, Web pages, and other services to the user that logs on to it. It is where the files for your website would reside.
SSL
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. SSL is a transaction security standard that enables commercial transactions to take place over the otherwise nonsecure Internet. It uses a third-party (a Certificate Authority - CA) to identify one end or both ends of the transaction, and then issues a certificate. These certificates can be used as online identification, much in the same way a driver’s license can verify your identity in the physical world. When an order comes through with an attached digital certificate, the recipient can be more confident that the document is genuine.
URL
URLs are the Internet-equivalent of addresses. An example:
http://www.mysite.com/somedirectory/index.html
First you have the protocol: http:/
then the server address or domain: /mysite.com
and finally the directory: /somedirectory/ which contains the file index.html
Web Standards
Web standards have been established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for creating and developing web-based content. If you’d like to learn more, read my page about Web Standards.