|
C, C++
|
A very popular computer
programming language very widely used in the
UNIX world, almost all software written for
UNIX is in C, many operating
systems are written in C, including
UNIX.
See Also:
Operating
System,
UNIX
|
|
Certificate
Authority
|
An issuer of Security
Certificates used in SSL
connections.
See Also:
Security
Certificate,
SSL
|
|
CGI
|
Common Gateway Interface -- A
set of rules that describe how a Web Server
communicates with another piece of software on the
same machine, and how the other piece of software
(the “CGI program”) talks to the
web server. Any piece of software can be a
CGI program if it handles input and output
according to the CGI standard.
Usually a CGI program
is a small program that takes data from a web
server and does something with it, like putting
the content of a form into an e-mail
message, or turning the data into a database
query.
You can often see that a
CGI program is being used by seeing
“cgi-bin” in a URL, but not
always.
Many CGI programs
(scripts) are written in a language called
Perl which is one of the most popular
programming languages used to "program the
web". Perl is a freeware
package.
See Also:
cgi-bin,
Web,
Server,
E-mail,
Perl,
Script
|
|
cgi-bin
|
The most common name of a
directory on a web server in which
CGI programs are stored. The
“bin” part of
“cgi-bin” is a shorthand version
of “binary”, because once upon a
time, most programs were referred to as
“binaries”. In real life, most
programs found in cgi-bin directories are
text files (scripts) that are executed by
binaries located elsewhere on the same
machine.
See Also:
CGI,
Script,
Web,
Server
|
|
Client
|
A software program that is
used to contact and obtain data from a
Server software program on another computer,
often across a great distance. Each Client
program is designed to work with one or more
specific kinds of Server programs, and each
Server requires a specific kind of
Client. A Web Browser is a specific
kind of Client.
See Also:
Browser,
Server,
Web
|
|
Cookie
|
The most common meaning of
“Cookie” on the Internet refers to
a piece of information sent by a Web
Server to a Web Browser that
the Browser software is expected to save and
to send back to the Server whenever the
browser makes additional requests to the
Server.
Depending on the type of
Cookie used, and the Browser’s
settings, the Browser may accept or not
accept the Cookie, and may save the Cookie for
either a short time or a long time.
Cookies might contain
information such as login or registration
information, online “shopping cart”
information, user preferences, etc.
When a Server receives
a request from a Browser that includes a
Cookie, the Server is able to use the
information stored in the Cookie. For example, the
Server might customise what is sent back to
the user, or keep a log of particular user’s
requests.
Cookies are usually set to
expire after a predetermined amount of time and are
usually saved in memory until the Browser
software is closed down, at which time they may be
saved to disk if their “expire time” has
not been reached.
Cookies do
not read your hard drive and send your
life story to the CIA, but they can be used to
gather more information about a user than would be
possible without them.
See Also:
Browser,
Server,
Login,
Internet,
Web
|
|
Cyberpunk
|
Cyberpunk was originally a
cultural sub-genre of science fiction taking place
in a not-so-distant, dystopian, overindustrialised
society. The term grew out of the work of William
Gibson and Bruce Sterling and has evolved into a
cultural label encompassing many different kinds of
human, machine, and punk attitudes. It includes
clothing and lifestyle choices as well.
See Also:
Cyberspace
|
|
Cyberspace
|
Term originated by author
William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer the
word Cyberspace is currently used to describe the
whole range of information resources available
through computer networks.
See Also:
Network
|
|
Digerati
|
The digital version of
literati, it is a reference to a vague cloud of
people seen to be knowledgeable, hip, or otherwise
in-the-know in regards to the digital
revolution.
|
|
Disk Space
(or Web space)
|
Disk space is a measure of
hard drive storage, usually measured in
megabytes (MB) or even
Gigabytes (GB), as a Web Site
grows, more pages and graphics are added, more
space is used, and as pages get bigger and graphics
abound, the response time also decreases due to the
amount of data travelling, so to save space and
increase the responsiveness (speed), the right
balance of complexity and graphics is important
while designing a Site.
See Also:
Bit,
Byte,
Kilobyte,
Megabyte,
Gigabyte,
Terabyte,
Web
site
|
|
Domain Name
|
The unique name that
identifies an Internet site. Domain Names
always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The
part on the left is the most specific, and the part
on the right is the most general. The part on the
right is called "top domain" and can be com,
net, org or many other predetermined names. A given
machine may have more than one Domain Name but a
given Domain Name points to only one machine. For
example, the domain names:
orbhost.net
web.orbhost.net
www.orbhost.net
can all refer to the same machine, but each domain
name can refer to no more than one machine.
Usually, all of the machines on a given Network
will have the same thing as the right-hand
portion of their Domain Names
(orbhost.net in the examples
above). It is also possible for a Domain Name to
exist but not be connected to an actual machine.
This is often done so that a group or business can
have an Internet e-mail address without
having to establish a real Internet site. In
these cases, some real Internet machine must
handle the mail on behalf of the listed
Domain Name.
See Also:
IP
Number,
Network,
Internet,
E-mail
|
|
Download
|
The transfer of file(s) from
a "host" to a user.
See Also:
Upload,
Host
|
|
DS 3
|
A leased line similar
to a T3 or OC3.
See:
T
3,
OC
3
|
|
