Return to RESOURCES

Return to SUPPORT

NIC  (Network Information Center):

A domain name registry, also called Network Information Center (NIC), is part of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet which converts domain names to IP addresses. It is an organization that manages the registration of Domain names within the top-level domains for which it is responsible, controls the policies of domain name allocation, and technically operates its top-level domain.

Top ^

NOC  (Network Operations Center):

One or more locations from which control is exercised over a computer or telecommunications network, or part thereof. Large organizations may operate more than one NOC, either to manage different networks, or to provide geographic redundancy in the event of one site being unavailable or offline.

Top ^

Page Fold:

A website design convention taken from the direct-mail marketing industry which means everything you can see on one screen without scrolling the window. The direct-mail marketing equivalent is everything you can see on a paper brochure (for instance) without unfolding it at all. How big a Page Fold is depends entirely on how a person sizes and organizes their browser windows on their computer. In web design this typically means a maximized browser window rather than a user sized window.

Top ^

Password:

A "challenge code" used to gain access (login) to a secure computer system or system area. Good passwords contain letters, numbers and symbols (where allowed). They are not simple combinations or words that can be easily guessed. They should never be bits of personal information like a Social Security number, birthday, pet's name, etc.

Top ^

PDF  (Portable Document Format):

A file format designed to enable printing and viewing of documents with all their formatting (typefaces, images, layout, etc.) appearing the same regardless of what operating system is used, so a PDF document should look the same on Windows, Macintosh or linux. The PDF format is based on the widely used PostScript document-description language. Both PDF and Postscript were developed by the Adobe Corporation.

Top ^

Perl  (Practical Extraction and Report Language):

Perl is a programming language that is widely used for both very simple, small tasks and for very large complex applications.

During the 1990s it became the de-facto standard for creating CGI programs. Perl is known for providing many ways to accomplish the same task, with "there's more than one way to do it" being something of a motto in the Perl community.

Because it is so easy to perform simple tasks in Perl it is often used by people with little or no formal programming training, and because Perl provides many sophisticated features it is often used by professionals for creating complex data-processing software, including the "server-side" of large web sites. Perl does not provide significant support for creating programs with a graphical user interface.

Top ^

PHP  (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor):

PHP is a programming language used almost exclusively for creating software that is part of a web site. The PHP language is designed to be intermingled with the HTML that is used to create web pages. Unlike HTML, the PHP code is read and processed by the web server software (HTML is read and processed by the web browser software.)

Top ^

Ping:

Sending a small packet of data to a remote computer system with a request that it respond if possible. Can be used to check if a server is running. The term derives from the sound that a sonar system makes. Also useful for checking how many relays or "bounces" are between two systems and how long it takes for the "Ping" data to travel.

Top ^

PNG  (Portable Network Graphics):

PNG is a graphics format specifically designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG enable compression of images without any loss of quality, including high-resolution images. Another important feature of PNG is that unlike GIF anyone may create software that works with PNG images without paying any fees - the PNG standard is free of any licensing costs whereas GIF is not.

Top ^

Podcast or pod cast:

A form of audio broadcast using the Internet, podcasting takes its name from a combination of "iPod" (the popular audio player made by Apple computer) and broadcasting. Podcasting does not actually require the use of an iPod.

Podcasting involves making one or more audio files available as "enclosures" in an RSS feed. A pod-caster creates a list of music, and/or other sound files (such as recorded poetry, or "talk radio" material) and makes that list available in the RSS 2.0 format. The list can then be obtained by other people using various podcast "retriever" software which read the feed and makes the audio files available to digital audio devices (including, but not limited to iPods) where users may then listen to them at their convenience.

Top ^

POP  (Post Office Protocol):

Post Office Protocol (aka POP3) refers to a way that e-mail client software such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc. gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail. Another protocol called IMAP is replacing POP for email.

Top ^

Protocol:

On the Internet "protocol" usually refers to a set of rules that define an exact format for communication between systems. For example the HTTP protocol defines the format for communication between web browsers and web servers, the IMAP protocol defines the format for communication between IMAP email servers and clients, and the SSL protocol defines a format for encrypted communications over the Internet.

Top ^

RSS  (Really Simple Syndication {RSS 2.0}):

A commonly used protocol for syndication and sharing of content, originally developed to facilitate the syndication of news articles, now widely used to share the contents of blogs and podcasts. There are RSS "feeds" which are sources of RSS information about web sites, and RSS "readers" which read RSS feeds and display their content to users.

Top ^

Search Engine:

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information which must be consulted, akin to other techniques for managing information overload.

The most popular form of a search engine is a Web search engine which searches for information on the public World Wide Web

Some search engines work by automatically searching the contents of other systems and creating a database of the results. Other search engines contain only material manually approved for inclusion in a database, and some combine the two approaches.

Top ^

Security Certificate:

See "SSL Certificate".

Top ^

SEO  (Search Engine Optimization):

The practice of designing, or redesigning, web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search results from search engines.

There is "good" SEO and "bad" SEO. Good SEO involves making the web page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to the page, keyword spamming, and etc. Bad SEO can get your website banned by the Search Engines.

Top ^

Server:

A computer, paired with proper software, that provides a "service" to client computers connecting to it. A single server machine can (and often does) have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing multiple servers to clients on the network.

Top ^

SGML  (Standard Generalized Markup Language):

The Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) is a meta-language in which one can define markup languages for documents. SGML is a descendant of IBM's Generalized Markup Language (GML), developed in the 1960s. A well-known example of using SGML is XML, which is a subset of SGML: The definition of XML is all of SGML minus a couple of dozen items.

Top ^

SMTP  (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol):

The main protocol used to send electronic mail from server to server on the Internet.

Top ^

Spam (or Spamming):

An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast medium by sending the same message to a large number of people who didn't ask for it. Spam is synonymous with the term "junk mail".

Top ^

SQL  (Structured Query Language):

Structured Query Language, is a computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in computer program relational databases.

Top ^

SSL  (Secure Socket Layer):

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, e-mail, Internet faxing, instant messaging and other data transfers.

Top ^

SSL Certificate:

SSL provides endpoint (server) authentication and communications privacy over the Internet using cryptography. Typically, only the server is authenticated (i.e., its identity is ensured) while the client remains unauthenticated; this means that the end user (whether an individual or an application, such as a Web browser) can be sure with whom they are communicating. SSL Certificates are issued by Certificate Authorities.

Top ^