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ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

ADSL is the most widespread broadband service. ADSL can give you fast download speeds at a flat fee monthly rate. An ordinary analogue telephone line can be enabled for ADSL and you can continue to use that line for voice or fax calls. *Link to Business Broadband page

Active Server Pages (ASP)

A specification for dynamically created web pages that contain Visual Basic or Javascript. When an ASP page is requested the web server generates the HTML code in real-time and sends it to the browser. ASP can also be used to write database driven websites.

Attachment (email)

A computer file that is sent with an email. Attachments can include data files, pictures, and sounds. It is important to be cautious when opening email attachments. You should only open attachments from a trusted source. Even if you do recognise the senders address it is still important to be on your guard. Some viruses will send out bogus emails containing the virus to everybody in the infected persons address book. If you are not expecting an email from your customer, supplier or colleague please be careful. One way to effectively protect yourself is to sign up for our VIRUS FILTER which is free of charge.
See also: (Email)

Bandwidth

A measure of the volume of data that can be transmitted over a network at a given time. The higher the bandwidth, the more data can be transmitted.
See also: (Internet Service Provider)

Bits Per Second (BPS)

A measure of data transfer rates. Today's modems normally download data at up to 56,000 bits per second - business broadband can download data at up to 2,000,000 bits per second.

Bookmark

A link which is stored in a web browser to make it easy to find your favourite sites.
See also: (Web Browser)

Bounce

If an email cannot be delivered to a specific email address it “bounces” back to the sender. This lets the sender know their email has not been received.
See also: (Email, Email Address)

Broadband

A generic term for high speed Internet connections. Broadband connectivity includes ADSL, SDSL and LES Circuits.
See also: (Bandwidth)

Bug

A problem with computer software or hardware which causes some kind of malfunction, “My computer has a bug so I cannot get on with my work”.

Cache

Memory or a directory on your hard drive where frequently used data can be stored for quick access.
See also: (Web Browser)

cc:

An abbreviation for Carbon Copy. The cc: option on your email program allows you to send a copy of your email message to someone else, or to several other recipients, without having to copy or retype the message. Typically you would cc: people who should be made aware of the contents of the email but you are not necessarily expecting them to act.
See also: (Email)

cgi-bin

A directory on a web server that contains executable programs (scripts). This directory is usually set aside for the purpose of running scripts.
See also: (CGI, Script)

Chat Room

A website where people can “chat” to each other in real-time. Once inside a chat room you will see a list of other users in the same room and the text of the current conversation. You chat by typing your message and adding it to the conversation. It is always wise to be careful what you say in a chat room as they can be open to abuse from people posing as somebody they are not.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)

A standard for running programs (or scripts) on an web server.
See also: (ASP, cgi-bin, Script, Web Server)

Cookie

Information stored on your computer by a web site you visit. They are generally used to track your preferences, such as your username when visiting a website.
See also: (Login)

Counter

A number displayed on web pages that show how many times the page has been requested. This indicates how many people have visited the page.
See also: (Hit)

Cracker

A malicious programmer.
See also: (Hacker)

Cross-posting

To post a message simultaneously to multiple newsgroups or discussion groups. Inconsiderate or unnecessary cross-posting is considered bad form.

Cyberspace

General term used to describe the Internet.

Delivery Receipt (email)

An option available on your email program that notifies you when your message has been delivered to its recipient.
See also: (Email)

Domain Name

A unique name that identifies a web site or web page such as: fastnet.co.uk. Domains often appear with www at the beginning or when sending an email “sales@fastnet.
See also: (Email)

Download

The transfer of files from a remote computer to your computer. The opposite action is upload (the transfer from your computer to a remote computer). When you collect your email you download it from a mail server, when you publish your web pages you upload them to your web server.
See also: (FTP, Upload)

Electronic Commerce (e-commerce)

General term used to describe conducting business on the Internet. An e-commerce site will allow you to shop, buy and arrange for your purchases to be delivered. A website which is simply an online brochure is not an e-commerce site.

Email (electronic mail, E-mail, email, e-mail)

A message that is sent via the Internet using an email program such as Outlook, Apple Mail or Eudora. Email is almost instantaneously far cheaper then sending a letter or making a telephone call. Emails can also be used to send computer files as an attachment.
See also: (Attachment, Chat Room, Encryption, Mailbox)

Email Address

An electronic mail address. Email addresses are in the form: emailname@domain for example sales@fastnet.co.uk.
See also: (Email)

Email Alias

An email address used to redirect email to another email address.
See also: (Email)

Encryption

Security system to scramble the contents of an email, file or password before it is sent across the Internet. The recipient must have software to decrypt whatever you send them. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is one of the most commonly used encryption programs.
See also: (Email)

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

A quick reference document that contains the most commonly asked questions and answers on a particular subject.

Feedback Form (Response Form)

A section of a website which allows a web user to input and forward information directly to the website without opening up an email program. Typically these are used as for enquires or call backs. Our COOLMAIL page can help you write the code to create your own feedback form. *Link to coolmail page

Firewall

A hardware or software system for securing data on a PC or local network from unauthorised access.
See also: (LAN) *Link to firewall page

Flash

Multimedia file format. Typically used for complex animation or to add enhanced user interactivity to a website. Before a user can view flash web pages they will need to install a flash plug-in for their web browser. This software is free of charge.
See also: (Web Browser)

Forwarding

Sending on an email message you have received to a third party.
See also: (Email)

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

Standard protocol on the Internet for transferring files.
See also: (Download, Upload, Web Server)

Gateway

A computer or hardware device that connects two networks together. A FastNet ADSL router is an example of a gateway.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)

A popular image file format. It uses a reduced colour spectrum of only 256 colours which compresses images to a small size for quick and easy up and down loading.
See also: (Animated GIF, Button, JPEG, TIFF)

Gigabyte

1024 Megabytes.
See also: (Megabyte, Terabyte

Hacker

An expert programmer who devotes his time to exploring and probing computer systems and networks. The media often confuses the term “hacker” and labels all hackers as having a malicious intent. Typically “hackers” are not malicious. Cracker is the he proper term for a malicious programmer.
See also: (Cracker)

Hit

A single request for a single item on a web server. If a web page has lots of images it will generate a “hit” for every image plus one for the HTML page itself. The number of website hits does not refer to the number of visitors that a web page has received.
See also: (Counter)

Homepage (Home Page)

The first page of a website or to put it another way the top level HTML page or index page. Homepage can also refer to the website which opens up every time you open a web browser, “I have BBC News as my homepage”.

Host (Web Host)

This is the computer where a web site is located. When you open up a web browser and connect to a website your computer connects to the host computer through the Internet to download the relevant pages.

HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language)

HTML is the foundation for most web pages and consists of markers or tags which allow you to format the text, add images etc.
See also: (http, XML)

http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

A protocol that tells computers how to communicate with each other. Most web page locations begin with “http://”.
See also: (HTML)

Hyperlink (Link)

A link to a particular website, file, FTP server etc. Most hyperlinks are found on web pages and will link you to another page or website.
See also: (World Wide Web)

Hypertext

Text on a web page that links the user to another web page, file, or resource.
See also: (HTML, Link)

Internet

A generic term used to describe all website, email and FTP traffic. This is different from the term “World Wide Web” which is just restricted to all websites and web pages.

Internet Service Provider (ISP) (Access Provider)

Company that allows you to access the Internet through dial-up, ADSL, SDSL or a leased-line. FastNet are a business ISP who also offer email, hosting, firewall and VPN services.

InterNIC (Internet Network Information Centre)

Agency that assigns and records unique domain names for the United States. Nominet are the UK’s domain name agency.

Intranet

A private network inside an organization. A private intranet may have its own website to make it easy to find the files you need. This will look much like a normal website but will contain internal information and systems.
See also: (Internet)

IP Address (Internet Protocol Address)

Takes the form 111.222.333.444 and identifies each computer on a network. Needs to be unique for every machine on a local network.

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) - help

A digital telephony system. Typically allows data transfer at rates of up to 128k. You must have an ISDN Terminal Adapter to use the service.

Java

A programming language that developers use to create applets. These are small programs that are embedded in web pages and run when a user accesses the page or clicks on a certain area.
See also: (Javascript)

JavaScript

A programming language that is mostly used for interactive web pages.
See also: (Java)

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) (.jpg, .jpeg)

A compression image file format. Typically used for photographic images because it uses the full colour spectrum, as opposed to the more common GIF format which only has 256 colours.
See also: (GIF, TIFF)

Keyword

A word you might use to search for a website.
See also: (Search Engine, Web Directory)

LAN (Local Area Network)

A computer network limited to the immediate area. Typically a LAN will be all within a building or all on the same floor of a large building.
See also: (WAN)

Leased Line

An private Internet connection, fast, un-contended, secure and extremely reliable. * Link to leased Line page

Link

A shortened version of the term hyperlink.
See also: (Hyperlink)

Login

Connecting to a computer system by using a username and password.
See also: (FTP)

Logout (Logoff)

Disconnecting from a computer system which needed a username and password to connect to in the first place.

Log File

A file created by a web server that contains all of the access information regarding the activity on that server and the web sites it is responsible for.
See also: (Hit, Visitor, Web Server)

Mailbox

Where you store electronic mail.
See also: (Email)

Mail-filter

Mail filtering allows you to decide what sort of emails can reach your inbox. The FastNet mail filter allows you to filter out viruses, junk mail and specific file types. Mail filtering will save you time and money. * Link to mail filtering page

Mailing List (Mail List)

A discussion forum where participants subscribe to a list and communicate via email. When you send an email to a mailing list it is copied and sent to all the other subscribers. When someone responds to messages in the list you receive copies of their replies.

Megabyte

1024 Kilobytes.
See also: (Gigabyte, Terabyte)

Meta-tag

An HTML tag that is not displayed in a web browser. They are typically used to encode keywords into websites. These keywords are then picked up by search engine spiders who will then rank the website accordingly.
See also: (HTML, Search Engine, Spider, Web Directory)

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)

A protocol for allowing email messages to contain various types of files, known as attachments.
See also: (Attachment, Email)

Modem (Modulator-demodulator)

Device that allows a computer to transmit and receive information via an analogue telephone line.
See also: (ISDN)

Navigate (Browse)

To move around the World Wide Web by following hyperlinks. After checking the latest headlines with BBC News you might move on, navigate or browse to see what the latest football scores are with BBC Sport.
See also: (Web Browser)

Network

Connecting two or more computers together so that they can share resources.
See also: (Internet)

Node

Any single computer connected to a network.
See also: (Network)

Offline (Not connected)

Term used to describe not being actively connected to the Internet, “I’m offline at the moment because I need to reboot my PC”.

Online (Connected)

Term used to describe being actively connected to the Internet. If you are online you can check to see if you have any new emails.
See also: (Internet)

Packet

Data across a network is broken up into small packets to be transported. Each packet travels independently of the others from the same file or message. The packets are all reassembled into the file when they reach the destination.
See also: (Network)

Page (Webpage, Web Page)

An HTML document.
See also: (HTML)

Page Views

A measure of how many times a HTML page has been requested from a web server.
See also: (Hit)

Password

A security code used to gain access to a locked system.
See also: (Login)

PDF (Portable Document Format/File)

Documents published in Adobe PDF format can be read and printed by anyone, regardless of platform or operating system. The Adobe Systems platform is an independent file format.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)

A popular encryption scheme. Data is encrypted using the publicly available key, but can only be deciphered by the intended recipient using the private key.
See also: (Encryption)

Ping

A network diagnostic utility that uses an IP Address to determine whether a remote computer is active and where it can be contacted.
See also: (Network)

Pixel

The smallest unit of resolution on a monitor. Commonly used to describe the resolution of an image or computer monitor.
See also: (GIF, JPEG, TIFF)

Platform

The type of computer or operating system on which a software application runs. The most used platform are PC, Mac and Unix.
See also: (Unix)

Plug-in (Plugin)

Usually a small software program that adds features to a larger program. You need to download a Flash plug-in to view flash web pages using your browser.
See also: (Flash)

POP (Post Office Protocol) (Email)

The protocol used to retrieve messages from a mail server. You may already use this protocol if you collect your email from a “POP3” server.
See also: (Email)

POP (Point of Presence)

The nearest connection point at which a user can connect to an ISP.
See also: (Internet Service Provider)

Portal

A website that is intend to be a starting point for users when opening a browser. The term portal is used because users 'pass through' this website to get to other places on the web.
See also: (Search Engine, Web Directory)

Protocol

Standards that ensure different network products can work together and the rules by which computers communicate with each other over a network.
See also: (Network)

Provider

An Internet Service Provider, or ISP, “My provider is called FastNet”.
See also: (Internet Service Provider)

Referrer (Referring Page)

The URL of the page that contained the link to your current page.

 

Response Form

A section of a website which allows a web user to input and forward information directly to the website without opening up an email program. Typically these are used as for enquires or call backs. Our coolmail page can help you write the code to create your own feedback form.
See also: (Feedback Form) *Link to coolmail page

Router

Normally a hardware device, a router is connected to 2 or more networks, and (using mathematical algorithms) determines the best way data packets should go to reach their destination.see also: (Network, Routing)

Routing

The process of locating the most efficient pathway through a network to a destination computer.
See also: (Router)

SDSL – Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line

SDSL is a new type of broadband service. SDSL can give you fast upload and download speeds at a flat fee monthly rate. An ordinary, analogue, telephone line can be enabled for SDSL if your local exchange has been SDSL enabled. * Link to SDSL page

Script

In the context of the WWW, a script is a file that is executed on the server, displaying the result to the user via a web browser. Popular scripting languages include Perl, PHP and ASP.

Search Engine

A non-categorised system for searching a collection of links to websites. This is the easiest way to find information on the web. Google is the most popular search engine.
See also: (Portal, Web Directory)

Security Certificate

A computer file that can be used to positively confirm the identity of a particular website or server.

Server

A machine that serves other clients on a network. A large company will often have a web server, a mail server, and an ftp server.
See also: (Network, Web Server)

Server-Side Include (SSI)

A method, similar to scripting, of inserting content into a page dynamically. Examples can be seen here: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/howto/ssi.html

Signature

A personal tag automatically appended to outgoing e-mail messages. Signatures usually include your name, position, company name, company URL and telephone number.
See also: (Email)

Site (Web Site, Website)

A single web page or collection of related web pages.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

Standard protocol on the Internet for delivering email.
See also: (Email)

Spam (Email)

The Internet version of junk mail. Spam is unsolicited email advertising that is send to you without your permission.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.

Tag (HTML)

Used to format HTML documents. This page is an HTML document so if you right click on the browser and select “view source” you will be able to see all the different tags we have used to create this page.
See also: (HTML, Hypertext)

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)

A collection of protocols that let different types of computers communicate with each other. TCP/IP is the language by which all Internet computers talk to each other, and is essentially the foundation of the Internet.
See also: (Network)

Telnet

A program used to login from one computer to a remote computer, host or server.
See also: (Terminal Emulation)

Terabyte

1024 Gigabytes.
See also: (Megabyte, Gigabyte)

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

A full colour non-lossy compression graphic image file format.
See also: (GIF, JPEG)

Timeout

When a computer fails to respond to another computer within a given time limit.
See also: (Network)

Under Construction

A term used to describe a web page or website that is still in the development stages. This term is usually coupled with an image of a chap digging.

UNIX (Linux)

A computer operating system developed in 1969 at Bell Laborotories. Since then multiple generations and versions have moved UNIX from its roots to a wide-spread operating system. Linux is a unix derivate commonly available under the Open Source licensing system. Web references:
Unix Timeline: http://www.levenez.com/unix/
Linux: http://www.linux.org
GNU: http://www.gnu.org/

Upload

The process of transferring information from your computer to another computer through a network or over the Internet. The opposite of “download”.
See also: (Download)

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) / URI (Uniform Resource Indicater)

An address used to define a point on the World Wide Web. Most commonly used to define the location of a website, web page, or file, e.g.; http://www.fastnet.co.uk/, can also refer to other protocols such as ftp://, telnet://, and news://
See also: (http)

Username (User ID)

A unique string of characters which identify a person on a computer, server, chat room etc. This is a security device used to ensure anonymous access is not permitted.
See also: (Login)

Virtual

"Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name". Commonly used to describe things that do not have a physical presence, For example, a Virtual Private Network describes a collection of machines connected together using the public internet. Although they have no direct physical connection, they can share files as if they did. * Link to VPN page

Virus

A computer virus infects the host (your computer or network) and then does its best to spread to other hosts. The two main sources of viruses are files downloaded from websites and email attachments. You should only open attachments from a trusted source. Even if you do recognise the senders address it is still important to be on your guard. Some viruses will send out bogus emails containing the virus to everybody in the infected persons address book. If you are not expecting an email from your customer, supplier or colleague please be careful. One way to effectively protect yourself is to sign up for our virus filter which is free of charge.
* Link to virus filter page

Visit (Visitor)

Synonymous with viewing a web page or website, for example, "We had 400 visits last week".
See also: (Counter, Hit)

WAN (Wide Area Network)

WAN is similar to a Local Area Network (LAN) but on a larger scale and over much greater distances.
See also: (LAN)

Webmaster (Webmistress)

The person responsible for administering a website.

Webpage (Web Page)

An HTML document.
See also: (HTML)

Website (Web Site)

A collection of HTML documents, usually hyperlinked together.
See also: (Host)

Web Address

The location of a website or resource on the World Wide Web, such as the FastNet web address: www.fastnet.co.uk
See also: (Email Address, World Wide Web)

Web Browser (Browser)

The program that you use to view a website. You are probably using a web browser to view this page. The most popular web browsers are Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, Firefox and Safari.
See also: (Webpage)

Web Directory (Directory)

A collection of hyperlinks organised by category. You can search for the link you want to using keywords or by browsing through the category structure.
See also: (Portal, Search Engine)

Web Server

A server which publishes websites to the Internet. The server is constantly connected to the Internet and waits for web users to request the files it holds via a web browser. Once a request has been made the web server then sends all the relevant files to the users browser to form the web page.
See also: (FTP, Host)

World Wide Web (WWW, Web, The Web)

A generic term used to describe all websites and web pages. This is different from the term “Internet” because the Internet includes email and FTP services.
See also: (Internet, Web Server) FTP

XML (eXtensible Markup Language)

XML is a markup language for documents containing structured information. Structured information contains both content (words, pictures, etc.) and some indication of what role that content plays (for example, content in a section heading has a different meaning from content in a footnote, which means something different than content in a figure caption or content in a database table, etc.). Almost all documents have some structure. A markup language is a mechanism to identify structures in a document. The XML specification defines a standard way to add markup to documents.
See also: http://www.xml.com
See also: (HTML)

ZIP

A compressed file format (.zip). Files can be compressed or “zipped” to reduce storage space and transfer times. To compress and uncompress Zip files, you need a program such as WinZip . These programs can usually be downloaded free of charge for a trial period.

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