The following web hosting glossary contains a list of terms and their meaning used on and off the internet. They are here as a reference.

Domain name extension used for commercial enterprises.

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF). It is a file name extension for graphic content.

.jpg or .jpeg
File name extension for images in JPEG format.

File name extension for files with video sequences. A QuickTime player is needed in order to play such a file.

.mpg or .mpeg
Filename extension for files in MPEG format.

File name extension for files compressed with PKZIP program or similar.

Cabling used for Fast Ethernet.

Cabling used for Ethernet.

Active Channel
An Active Channel is frequently updated information residing on a Web server. Users can subscribe to the channel if they have a CDF (Channel Definition Language) and a capable browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox etc.)

ActiveX is a brand name referring to a set of Microsoft’s technologies and services based on COM (Component Object Model) widely released in 1997. On the Internet, ActiveX can be used with IE versions 3 and above and with Netscape Navigator though plug-ins. ActiveX control is a COM object, written as a DLL in a programming language like Visual Basic, which follows ActiveX standards. Once downloaded, ActiveX controls have a large degree of freedom, presenting a security risk. ActiveX controls have to be digitally signed by their creator. Major competitor to ActiveX controls are JavaBeans. Some hosts support ActiveX server components for ASP.

These are unique identifiers of a web page. URL (Uniformed Resource Locator) is more frequently used for this purpose.

ADN refers to Advanced Digital Network. It is a 56kbps dedicated communication line.

ADO refers to ActiveX Data Objects. Different data sources can be accessed in the same way within a single data model. The data can be located in various locations, like spreadsheets, databases or ordinary files.

ADSL refers to Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop. It is used for High speed Internet access using the telephone line. It uses line-adaptive modulation and provides data speeds from 384kbps to 1.5 Mbps (upstream and downstream speeds are usually different). Unlike the dial up, it doesn’t block the telephone line.

AIFF refers to Audio Interchange File Format. It is a High quality audio file format introduced by Apple.

Anonymous FTP (Anon FTP)

Anonymous remailer
SMTP server that allows sending anonymous email messages. It removes or changes the “From” field of all messages that it processes.

American National Standards Institute



An online database of anonymous ftp sites and their contents. It allows searching the ftp repositories using file name queries.


Archive site
This is a server that contains archives. It can be accessed by FTP, E-mail or HTTP.

It is one of the most popular compression formats.

ARPA refers to Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is US governmental organization, responsible for creating the ancestor of today’s Internet.

Network created by ARPA in 1969.

ASCII refers to American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a standard for coding text files. Every character has an associated number and any text can be represented by a sequence of numbers.


Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)

Attachment is a part of an email message. It is usually a file (a data file or a multimedia file) or a webpage. It is not a part of the text of the message; instead it is attached to the message.

AU is Audio file format for Unix systems.


AVI is Audio/Video Interleave. It is Audio file format used by Microsoft Windows.

B Channel
B Channel refers to Bearer Channel. It is a 64 Kbps communication channel in ISDN.

It is a main high-speed network connection composing the Internet. The backbones are operated by major telecommunications companies like Sprint, MCI, or AT&T.


Basic Rate Interface (BRI)
A BRI line is one of two access methods for ISDN (the other one is Primary Rate Interface – PRI). A BRI has two 64 Kbps B channels and one 16 Kbps D channel.

Baud Rate
The rate at which bits are transmitted over a communication link is called Baud rate. Baud is the number of transitions (that are used to encode bits) that take place in one second.

Data represented in binary format uses only two digits – 0 and 1.

Binary mode
FTP client mode used to transfer binary files (multimedia files, executables and other data files). It is not suitable for transferring normal text files.

BIT means Binary DigIT. It is the smallest unit of information, comprising of either a 1 or 0.

Bit rate
The speed at which bits are transmitted over a communication link is the bit rate. It is expressed in bits per second (bps).


Bookmark is a means of storing a frequently visited website address. It makes easier to access the website in the future.


A network device used to connect two LANs using different cabling.

Broadcasting is sending a data packet to all machines on the network.

Computer program that allows to search the World Wide Web. It displays the content of the web pages. Examples are Mosaic, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer.

Browser sniffing


Cable Modem

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

CCIT refers to Comite Consultatif International Telegraphique et Telephonique (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee). It is an International telecommunication standards body.

CERN refers to Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire. It is a nuclear research laboratory where the World Wide Web was invented.

It is the Digital ID used for SSL transactions. It includes owner’s public key, the name of the owner, the issuer, hostname and the expiry date.

Certificate Authority


A directory on the server where the executable CGI scripts reside.

Channel Definition Format (CDF)
A way of defining the server-push channels for accessing frequently changing web content.

CHAP refers to Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol. It is an authentication protocol used in PPP protocol. CHAP uses a username and a password.

A computer program that requests a service from the server program, usually over the network.

A network architecture system is divided into two parts: the client and the server.


Co-location (colo)

Cobalt RaQ
It is the server appliance made by Cobalt specifically for hosting companies. Newest RaQs are Linux-based and provide an easy-to-use interface. RaQs have no features that can’t be had in a regular Linux box but they offer pre-installed programs and Cobalt’s support.

ColdFusion is an easy to use server-side scripting language developed by Allaire. It comes with ColdFusion Studio, a visual IDE. Other popular server-side scripting languages are ASP. Perl, PHP, TCL, Python, and JSP.

command-line interface
Command line interface is opposite of the GUI (Graphical User Interface). It is a way of interacting with a computer system using the keyboard and a text-only display. It is usually more powerful, but less user-friendly than a GUI.

Control Panel (CPanel)


CPU refers to Central Processing Unit. It is the brain of the computer.

Crawler is also known as spider. It is an automated software that retrieves web pages and follows the hyperlinks contained in them. It is used to generate indexes used by search engines.

D Channel
It is ISDN signaling channel. It runs at 16 or 64 Kbps.

Data transfer

Data in a structured format stored on a web server. It is basically the collection of data. Most popular type is a relational database. The most common query (information retrieval) language for relational databases is SQL.

Dedicated Server


DHCP is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. It is an automated way of obtaining an IP address in the Local Area Network.

Dial up

DNS is Domain Name System. Internet service that maps Internet domains into corresponding IP addresses. DNS database is distributed and replicated among many DNS servers, so when you change your domain’s IP address, the changes take a while to propagate.

Domain name

DSL is Digital Subscriber Line. It is a better way of connecting a computer to the Internet using the telephone line. It’s faster than the dialup and doesn’t block the telephone line. However, it is more expensive because the special equipment is required.

Using web and Internet technologies in conducting the business activities. It is also expanding end enhancing traditional business practices by means of the Internet.

EIA is Electronic Industries Association. It is an industry trade organization involved with definition of standards for electrical consumer products. It works jointly with the TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association).

Electronic Mail (E-Mail, email)
Email is one of the most popular Internet services. Basically it’s the transmission of text based messages. An email message can also contain more structured elements, like tables, images and multimedia. It can also be used to send various data files, by means of attachments. You have to have an email account in order to be able to use this service.



A part of the company’s network that is made accessible for some group of people. It is sometimes protected by a password or some other kind of authentication. It allows users to access some of the non-public data, eg. a person’s credit card balance.


Fast Ethernet

FCC means Federal Communications Commission. It is a US telecommunications regulatory organization. It controls standards that pertain to electronic and electromagnetic transmission and also licenses the frequencies and bandwidth for the commercial use.

FDDI is Fibre Distributed Data Interface. It is a very high speed network protocol. It uses fibre-optics cable, and is mainly used as the backbone network protocol due to its speed. It is also often the choice for critical applications due to its reliability.

Fibre Optic Cable
A cable used for transmitting data as a light wave. A fibre optic cable is composed of one or more optical fibres. It is more expensive that copper wire, but offers higher transmission speeds and allows for communication over larger distances.

Filename extension

Screening network packets for certain properties, such as the source or destination address, protocol used or even a pattern in the data. It is used in firewalls in order to decide if the traffic is to be forwarded or rejected. It provides the basis for network security.

A Unix program used to display information about users of the system. It can be used remotely.


An insulting email message sent to an individual as punishment for not adhering to the netiquette. It can be sometimes seen in the newsgroups or on internet message boards.

FPU is Floating Point Unit, A part of the computer responsible for high precision mathematical operations.

Frame Relay
It is a fast packet switching protocol. Used mainly in Wide Area Networks. It differs from ATM in that packets can have variable length.

FrontPage Extensions

FTP is File Transfer Protocol. The Internet protocol defines how to download and upload files between a client and an FTP server. The popular client FTP programs are CuteFTP and WS_FTP. Major browsers also have FTP capability.

Using email messages to access the FTP sites. It requires a special software installed on the server.

A network device used to translate between two different protocols. It interconnects two networks that use incompatible protocols.

GIF means Graphics Interchange Format. It is a graphic file format invented by Compuserve. Its one of the most widely used formats for internet and web. It uses a lossless compression method, thus ensuring that the quality of the image is not lowered.

Gigabit Ethernet
Gigabit Ethernet is the Ethernet standard implementation that runs at 1000Mbps.

Gigabyte (Gb)
1 Gb= 1024 Megabytes.

Graphical User Interface (GUI)
A way of interacting with computer that relies on graphical symbols. Most often requires a mouse. It is less powerful then the command-line interface, but is more user-friendly and is easier to learn for users without technical background.

Hexadecimal color-notation system
It is a way of defining colours. Uses RGB scheme and associates a two digit hexadecimal number with each base colour (red, green and blue).


Home Page


(Hypertext Mark-up Language). It is the language in which web pages are written. It allows the images to be combined with text and offers wide range of formatting capabilities. One of the most important features of HTML is hypertext, which allows web pages to be liked one to each other. HTML relies on tags, which have the following form:


Hub is a network device that is used for connecting computers on a Local Area Network (LAN). It forwards all the packets it receives to all of its ports.

A part of the web page that links to another web page is hyperlink. By clicking on a hyperlink user redirects the browser to another page. The word hyperlink is sometimes shortened to just “link”.


IEEE is Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It is an organization that ensures that electronic devices produced by different companies can interoperate. IEEE developed the 802 family of standards that govern computer networks.

Microsoft Internet Information Server. Microsoft’s Web server that comes built-in with Windows NT Server 4 and Windows 2000 server.

Image Map

IMAP is Internet Message Access Protocol. A method allowing a client email program to access remote messages stored on a mail server. The protocol includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming mailboxes, checking for new messages, message parsing, searching, and setting and clearing flags. IMAP was originally developed in 1986 at Stanford.


Internet backbone

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)

The organization that handles domain name registrations. See



IP Address

IP packet

IPX means Internet Packet Exchange. A Novell’s proprietary network protocol.



ISO: International Organisation for Standardisation. A Geneva-based international organization that develops and publishes various international standards.


ITU: International Telecommunication Union, Formerly CCITT. Another international standards body concerned with telecommunications.



Java class files

Java Servlet

Java Virtual Machine (JVM, Java Runtime Environment)



JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group. It is an image compression format designed for the Internet. Uses lossy compression, meaning that the quality of the image can be lowered.



Kilobits per second. 1Kbps = 1024bps.

Protocol for transferring files over the modem connection. It’s very slow.

Kilobyte (Kb)
I Kb= 1024 bytes.


A LAN Modem is used to connect multiple computers to some other network (eg. ISP) over a phone line. It has a built in hub functionality.

Leased line
It is a dedicated communication line. User is charged a flat fee instead of being billed per minute of usage.

Line provisioning
It is the process of configuring the ISDN line by the service provider to suit user’s particular needs and to assure hardware compatibility. It’s due to the fact that ISDN is not completely standardized.

Another name for connection. Sometimes refers to a physical line.



A compression scheme is lossless when decompressed file is exactly the same as the original. This is needed for compressing executable programs and data files.


LZW compression
Lempel Ziv Welch compression – a popular compression algorithm.

MAC: Media Access Control. A network protocol used to control the access to the network by different devices.

MAC Address
Media Access Control addresses (also hardware or physical address). Every device on the Local Area Network has an unique MAC address. It is used to identify devices and to control access to the network using MAC protocol.

Mailing List


Mainframe Computer
A powerful computer used for computing-intensive tasks.

MegaBytes (MB) per second, 1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes

Megabits (Mb) per second, 1Mb = 1,048,576 bits

Megabyte (MB)
1MB = 1024 KiloBytes = 1,048,576 bytes

MegaHertz = 1.000.000 Hertz

Microsoft Access
Microsoft’s low-end relational database included with the MS Office suite.

Microsoft FoxPro
Microsoft’s RAD tool for creating relational databases. FoxPro is a part of Microsoft’s Visual Studio.

Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft’s high-end SQL database running on Windows systems.

MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions is a method of including binary data and other multimedia content within email messages.

Mirror site

Miva Empressa
Miva’s XML based server-side scripting language. Available for multiple platforms.

Miva Merchant
Browser-based storefront development and management system for merchants.



MPEG: Motion Picture Experts Group. It is a video compression format for movies or animations.

mSQL (Mini SQL)
Light-weight relational database.

A message that is sent to a specific group of hosts.



Netscape Communications


Network Management
Network management can be defined as a set of activities (e.g. network monitoring, gathering and analyzing the statistics, adjusting network configuration) performed in order to increase the network performance and availability.


An application that allows to use newsgroups.

Network Interface Card – a part of the computer hardware responsible for connecting a particular machine to the local area network.



ODBC: Open Database Connectivity. It is a standard allowing applications to access different databases in an uniform way.



Operating system



PAP: Password Authentication Protocol. PAP is the authentication protocol used over PPP connections.

Peer-to-Peer network
A peer-to-peer network is a collection of computers that can communicate and share information, but that don’t have any kind of hierarchical structure. This is the opposite of the client/server model.

Open source CGI scripting programming language, written in 1987. Still, one of the most popular web programming languages mostly due to its powerful text-manipulation facilities. A huge number of Perl scripts are available for download.


Popular compression and decompression programs.


POP: Post Office Protocol. It is popular but inflexible email retrieval standard. All messages are downloaded at the name time and can only be manipulated on a client machine. Current version is POP3. Also see IMAP.


PPP: Point to Point Protocol. It is a network protocol widely used to connect computers to the Internet. Most often used on a telephone line.

PRI: Primary Rate Interface. Its one of the two ISDN access methods. 23 of 64 Kbps B channels and 1 64 Kbps D channel constitute a PRI.


PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network. The set of all the traditional telephone lines and the entire infrastructure that comes with it.



Raw Logs
Raw access data updated in real-time that can be downloaded and used by any statistics program. Typically each line show the user’s IP, date and time of the access, what kind of request was done, which document was requested, HTTP status code, bytes transferred, referrer, and user agent info. If a host doesn’t have statistics, you’ll need access to raw logs to identify who your site’s visitors are. Analyzing raw logs can also provide more detailed look at site accesses than stats.







Scripting Language
A programming language in which programs are the series of commands that are interpreted and then executed one by one. It doesn’t require the compilation phase, for the price of lower performance.

Search engine

Search form
An online form in which a query to the web pages database is specified.

search indexer
A search engine uses search indexer to provide faster search.

Self-extracting Archive

Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP)

A networked computer that handles client requests for Web pages.

Service Provider


Setup fee
Initial fee charged by a host to set up your hosting account. You can review it in our TOS section.

Shopping Cart
Software that allows users to select products from a Web catalogue, modify their choices, calculate prices, review their choices, and order them. Many hosts with e-commerce plans offer installed shopping carts, but you can always get a shopping cart of your choice instead.

Secure HTTP. A version of HTTP protocol that uses encryption to assure that the traffic between the server and the browser cannot be eavesdropped on. It should be considered mandatory for all e-commerce applications.

A few lines of text that are automatically attached at the end of each email message by the email client. Usually it’s some personal identification or an (un)interesting quote.

Signed applet

SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol – a standard way of connecting a computer to the internet via the telephone line.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Very popular protocol used to transfer email messages across the Internet mail servers. .

SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol. A most widespread protocol used for network management.



SPX: Sequenced Packet Exchange. A proprietary Novell network protocol used in conjunction with IPX.




Secure Sockets Layer. It is a protocol developed by Netscape to provide encryption for commercial transactions data that should be protected while travelling over the Internet, like credit card numbers. SSL uses https protocol. Before using SSL in commerce, you’ll also need to get is a certificate from a Certificate Authority.

Static (or dedicated) IP

STP: Shielded Twisted Pair. Cabling consisting of pairs of insulated wires wrapped in metal to minimize interference.


Sub-domain is a way to divide your site into sections with short and easy to remember names. For example, a section of this site for new users could be at Other use of sub domains might be to let somebody else use your account (but this may not be allowed by your host’s terms of use). Large websites might make their sub domains point to another server to reduce load on the main www site.

Using World Wide Web is often referred to as “surfing the web”.

A switch is a network device that forwards packets. Switches are more intelligent than hubs in a sense that they forward packets only to the necessary ports and not to all the ports.



TCL: Tool command language. Simple scripting language and library often used for GUI, string-manipulation, testing, and integration of multiple components.

TCP: Transmission Control Protocol- is the most important of the network protocols used in the Internet.

TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. This protocol suite is the de facto standard for the today’s Internet. TCP is a higher level protocol that runs on top of the IP protocol.


Terabyte (TB)
1 TB=1024 gigabytes

TIA: Telecommunications Industry Association. It is another telecommunications standards organization.



Data packets being transmitted over a network.

Twisted Pair

A 16 bit ISO 10646 character set. It can accommodate way more characters that ASCII, thus allowing for easier internationalization.


URL: Uniform Resource Locator is a way of addressing used for world wide web. An URL consists of the type of service (protocol), then the host name and then the file on the host.

Network of all the newsgroups in the Internet.

UTP: Unshielded Twisted Pair. Similar to the STP, but without the shielding metal layer. It is more prone to interference but is less bulky that the STP cables.

It is a method of sending binary files using email – similar in purpose to MIME.




VPN: Virtual Private Network. A virtual private network is a method of accessing the private network in a secure way over public communication lines and networks.

W3C: World Wide Web Consortium. An international industry consortium that develops standards for the World Wide Web.


A person responsible for the maintenance of a particular website.


Wide Area Network (WAN)
A set of computers that are to far apart to constitute a LAN. In fact, WANs are very often composed of a number of Local Area Networks interconnected together.



XML processor
A program that can XML documents and access their content.

A file transfer protocol. Rather slow.

Your Mileage May Vary

Popular file transfer protocol. It is faster than XMODEM.

A popular compression utility.

A file transfer protocol. It’s the fastest of XMODEM and YMODEM and thus the most popular.