Backbone - A high-speed line or series of connections that forms a major pathway within a network. The term is relative, as a backbone in a small network will likely be much smaller than many non-backbone lines in a large network.
Bandwidth - The total amount of data that can be sent through a network connection in a certain time, usually measured in bits per second (bps), megabits per second (Mbps), or gigabits per second (Gbps). The bandwidth provides for a faster loading time for your web site. It is also important because most web hosts only allow a fixed amount of bandwidth each month. Going over the limit can be costly. Be sure to know your exact bandwidth limitations.
Baud - Unit of signaling speed equal to the number of discrete signal elements transmitted per second. Baud is synonymous with bits per second (bps). In common usage the baud rate of a modem is how many bits it can send or receive per second. Technically, baud is the number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value - for example a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per second).
BBS (Bulletin Board System) - A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows people to carry on discussions, upload and download files, and make announcements without the people being connected to the computer at the same time. There are many thousands (millions?) of BBS’s around the world, most are very small, running on a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some are very large and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn.
Binary - Pertaining to a number system that has just two unique digits. Computers are based on the binary numbering system, which consists of just two unique numbers, 0 and 1.
Binary Mode - FTP client mode used to transfer binary files (multimedia files, executables and other data files). Not suitable for transferring normal text files.
Bit - Short for binary digit, the smallest unit of information on a machine. A single bit can hold only one of two values: 0 or 1.
BITNET - (Because It’s Time NETwork (or Because It’s There NETwork)) — A network of educational sites separate from the Internet, but e-mail is freely exchanged between BITNET and the Internet. Listservs, the most popular form of e-mail discussion groups, originated on BITNET. BITNET machines are usually mainframes running the VMS operating system, and the network is probably the only international network that is shrinking.
Bit rate - (The speed at which bits are transmitted over a communication link. Expressed in bits per second (bps).
Blog (Web Log), Blogger, Blogging - Blog, a contraction of ‘web ‘ and ‘ log ‘, describes a website consisting of date-related entries (or posts ). Blogs are typically of a personal nature, although their use by companies as a marketing tool is increasing. Categorizes blogs into ‘filter’ and ’short-form journal’ genres. In addition, new tools have created a new type of blog; ‘distributed conversation’.
Bookmark - Nearly all web browsers support a book marking feature that lets you save the address (URL) of a web page so that you can easily revisit the page at a later time.
Bps - (Bits-Per-Second) — A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per second.
Bridge - A network device used to connect two LANs using different cabling.
Broadband - Broadband is a form of data transmission where a single medium (wire) can carry different types of information simultaneously. For example; a single cable may provide internet access, telephone and cable television.
Broadband is commonly used as an synonym for high-bandwidth. Broadband describes the properties of the medium used for data transmission; while bandwidth is the rate of data transfer
Broadcast - Sending a packet to all machines on the network.
Browser - Computer program that allows to search the World Wide Web and displays the content of the web pages. Examples are Mosaic, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and Internet Explorer.
Browser sniffing - The process in which the web site tries to determine what kind of web browser the user is using. This is done to suit the website to the particular capabilities of the browser.
BTW - (By The Way) — A shorthand appended to a comment written in an online forum.
Burst - In web hosting, burst is when a client suddenly uses more bandwidth than is expected under its contract.Typically, the web hosting company expects this to happen occasionally and has set fees for the client depending on the bandwidth used.
Byte - A byte is composed of 8 bits or “on-off” signals. You can think of a byte as being the computer representation for a letter, like “A,” a number like “7,” or an instruction to multiply two numbers, like “3 * 6.” For the purposes of creating a Web site, the number of bytes will measure the size of your site in terms of disk space. For instance, if your Web hosting plan allows you to publish a 2 MB (Megabytes or million bytes) Web site, then essentially it can be made up of 2 million characters or instructions.
March 3rd, 2008
Active Channel - An Active Channel is a frequently updated information residing on a Web server. Users can subscribe to the channel if they have a CDF (Channel Definition Language) capable browser (e.g. Internet Explorer)
Active X - ActiveX is a set of technologies from Microsoft that enables interactive content for the World Wide Web. Before ActiveX, Web content was static, 2-dimensional text and graphics. With ActiveX, Web sites come alive using multimedia effects, interactive objects, and sophisticated applications that create a user experience comparable to that of high-quality CD-ROM titles. ActiveX provides the glue that ties together a wide assortment of technology building blocks to enable these “active” Web sites.
Address - Unique identifier of a web page. URL (Uniformed Resource Locator) is more frequently used for this purpose.
AND - (Advanced Digital Network). A 56kbps dedicated communication line.
ADO - Microsoft Data Access Component Used primarily as a scripting language interface to OLE DB or ODBC data access ActiveX or Active Data Objects.
ADSL - (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Loop). 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.
Alt Tag - HTML tag used to display alternative text for an image. This is useful if your visitor does not have images enabled in their browser or is using software to assist with the reading of your web pages.
Anonymous FTP (Anon FTP) - A method for downloading and uploading files using FTP protocol without having a username or a password. In place of a username, word “anonymous” is used, and in place of a password, email address is usually used. If a hosting plan offers this service, your users will be able to download or upload files with FTP without having their own account.
Anonymous re-mailer - A SMTP server that allows sending anonymous email messages. It removes or changes the “From” field of all messages that it processes.
ANSI - American National Standards Institute. The U.S. standards organization.
Apache - Apache is an open-source HTTP Web server software. It is usually run on Unix operating system versions like Linux or BSD, but it can also be run on Windows. It is a full-featured server with many powerful add-ons freely available. Apache’s major competitor is Microsoft’s IIS.
Applet - A program written in the Java to run within a web browser. Java applets begin execution with a series of init(), start(), and paint() methods. ;stop(), and destroy() methods are available. Every Java applet should extend either class Japplet or class Applet.
Archie - An online database of anonymous ftp sites and their contents. It allows to search the ftp repositories using file name queries.
ARJ - One of the most popular compression formats.
ARPA - (Advanced Research Projects Agency) US governmental organization responsible for creating the ancestor of today’s Internet.
ARPAnet - Network created by ARPA in 1969. The precursor to the Internet. Landmark packet-switching network established in 1969 by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area-networking that would survive a nuclear war.
ASCII – (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). A standard for coding text files. Every character has an associated number and any text can be represented by a sequence of numbers.
ASP - A proprietary Microsoft NT scripting language which may be used to enable web pages to interact with online databases. ASP files, which provide Web developers with an easier, faster, and more powerful way to build Web applications, are regular HTML pages with embedded scripts. These scripts can be written in any language and processed by the server when the file’s URL is requested.
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) - Asynchronous Transfer Mode. International standard for cell relay in which multiple service types (such as voice, video, or data) are conveyed in fixed-length (53-byte) cells. Fixed-length cells allow cell processing to occur in hardware, thereby reducing transit delays. ATM is designed to take advantage of high-speed transmission media such as E3, SONET, and T3.
Audio Streaming - The delivery of audio files from a server to a web browser in a continuous stream of small packets rather than one large file.
AU - Audio file format for Unix systems.
Authentication - The process of identifying an individual, usually based on a username and password.
Auto-responder - Auto-responders allow you to automatically return a pre-set message whenever a selected mailbox receives a message. It will also notify a selected mailbox of the receipt and response.
AVI - Audio/Video Interleave. Audio file format used by Microsoft Windows.
February 29th, 2008
Latest rumors say that ICANN, international domain registrars council, announced intentions to increase .INFO registration fees by the end of 2009 . U.S.A. reached 60 (sixty) million dominio domain registration in 2008, and that includes .COM .NET .ORG and .INFO. The possible reason for such a plan is an increase in .INFO registrations as well registro de dominios, and yet, there are many spammers areusing such this top level domain to abuse. Registration pricing for .INFO varies from US$ 1.20 to 2.25, quite a low price for a personal registrar dominios domain name.
February 10th, 2008
Web Directory owners are often faced with the opportunity to approve any number of websites that submit to their directories. One of the most common mistakes webmasters make is to approve links without checking the quality of the resource they are in fact approving. Free Web Directories are prime examples of directories that usually shun their submission policy and either don’t manually approve links or just ignore the importance of checking each individual resource carefully. Those directories out there that do search for quantity over quality are certain to endure a tough time ahead with Google appearantly making it tougher for web directories to last in the long term.
iGuides Internet Guide is a relatively newly established premium web directory. On the face of things you may believe that the submission review fee is a little steep for one individual backlink. However, what you do have to remember is that not only does this review fee mean your site gets professionally evaluated for quality, but it also keeps out (more often than not) the useless spam sites that are increasingly clogging the world wide web. iGuides.org itself is an extremely attractive web directory boasting a professional and seemingly unique design concept. That combined with thoughtful navigation and a quality Articles Directory things are looking good for this business.
September 18th, 2007
Many of us home owners quite often venture into the world of DIY. For those of you unable to comprehend what exactly DIY stands for, it stands for - Do it Yourself. Putting up curtains, painting walls or perhaps laying some decking down are all prime examples of do it yourself tasks. Although these tasks can be fairly easily done they can often take a length of time to complete and more often that not do not meet industry quality standards. Many of us therefore choose to outsource our DIY projects or tasks to professional companies.
Ultimate Handyman is a website providing free, impartial advice on all aspects of DIY and home improvement. Established in 2004 this resource is a must for all of you budding DIY enthusiasts. With over 1000 pages to date of useful content, hints, tips and tricks Ultimate Handyman is an excellent display of a website built for its readers. The website itself is very nicely structured and relatively easy to navigate (even if the site owner claims otherwise) and also has a DIY Forum for those looking to interact with fellow enthusiasts. The Ultimate Handyman resource is an absolute must before taking on a DIY project!
September 17th, 2007
Web Directory owners often fall fowl to a handful of unconsidered decisions. These poorly thought about decisions more often than not completely break the chance a web directory has to succeeding in the long term. We discuss one of the most common here;
Reputation - Perhaps the biggest resource a web directory has is its reputation. Lose or discount this at your peril. The webmaster world is an extremely fickle industry and with so many businesses all competing in an already flooded market, your web directories reputation is your most powerful asset. There are a lot of factors that can lead to your reputation being ruined beyond repairable cause.
This includes; (but is not limited to)
- Deleting Listings (Disloyal to your customers if they have paid for the placement)
- Ignoring your approval policy (If you don’t have one then you don’t deserve to be a directory owner, all links should be reviewed!)
- Chasing profits rather than resource quality
- Forgetting to backup your files and therefore leaving your directory insecure and irreversibly destroyed if the unthinkable happens!
- Removing spammy links (No brainer!)
- Forget (either deliberately or by accident) to credit those directory designs or mods that you may be using freely under the GPL.
All of these and many more can cost you, a directory owner big time unless you are careful! Don’t be one of the many who do fall into this trap, think about your reputation!
The Ask Web Directory is a prime example of a directory that does look after it’s reputation.
September 9th, 2007
Romance for Everyone is a premium resource for all of those people looking for that little bit of romance in their lives. Feature packed, this resource contains some unique and highly sought after romantic content, tips, ideas and everyones favourite - dating tips! Romance for Everyone has something for everyone whether you are happily married, engaged or even still looking for your perfect match through dating this website has a lot of information for you to soak up. One should also mention that it isn’t for just the “happy relationships”, this resource also caters for those who are experiencing troublesome relationships or are perhaps looking for a new spark to rejuvenate a current relationship!
Romance for Everyone features a whole host of love poems, letters and tips for all of the heartthrobs out there. Not only this but also available are lengthy articles on How to romance your wife, Surviving a break, and what to do after a break. This website is packed to the high hills with useful content and nicely laid out and presented through an uncomplicated and attractive web design.
September 9th, 2007
TheHomeSource.com was established to help home owners find great deals on home furniture, decor, loans and much much more. The Home Source claims to be the number one resource on the Internet to find all your home related items at the very lowest prices. They work with the top retail distributors to provide you with a list of the very best offers combined with sound, professional advice on which to choose. Home source furniture is one of the already very popular pages of the website discussing some of the best retailers providing you with modern to classic furniture for your property.
Also present on The Home Source is feature packed articles on home loans and home services, so if your research is more related to those topics rather than furniture and decor this resource still has something to offer you. The website itself is extremely easy to navigate, aesthetically very pleasing and nicely laid out. Further work on the content on the site in the coming weeks should ensure this sites development is tip top and the resource ploughs to the very top of the market.
September 9th, 2007
Refinance Guide.com is new website formed to help consumers search and grab the very best loan deals available. Established very recently this website helps you shop for the best programs, learn exactly how the market operates and interest rates fluctuate and identify the best credit card offers. In addition to this, students can use this resource to get the best advice on student loan consolidation, vehicle owners can shop for the best value auto loans and home owners can use the market tools available to refinance home loans.
The main attraction for this website is the learning center. They have published a section geared towards helping site visitors understand each of the markets covered by Refinance Guide and go away with confidence that they know more about the finance topics covered. The finance learning centre provides resourceful content on a variety of refinance topics, all of which leave readers with an education and pro active vision to get straight on with getting the most out of their finances.
September 9th, 2007
Webmasters around the world have been bickering for months and more so now with the recent comments made by Matt Cutts, the infamous head of Google’s WebSpam Team about web directories. Just how worthy are these directories that a huge number of us submit to on a daily basis? Well.. the main focus according to Matt Cutts would be on whether the directory is of a decent quality. In a recent post on his own blog and on the Digital Point Forums Matt Cutts stated that from a point of view of a user, does the site in question air quality? - Whilst he didn’t go into too much detail on how to define quality he did mention the role of the webmaster running a web directory (or any site for that matter) how it is their responsibility as the site editor to ensure that the quality of the sites included (or the content) are of a high standard.
With these recent comments is it only a matter of time before a lot of directory owners start enforcing an even stricter inclusion policy to ensure that low or poor quality web sites are not included in their list of resources? - One web directory that won’t have this headache is the Site Sift directory which, since 2004 has been demonstrating exactly that - a strict inclusion policy. A lot of webmasters seemingly forget that its not just about making a quick buck and including every given web site that submits for inclusion, it’s about protecting and enforcing the policy that one presumes you took the time over legislating. Will this latest move by Google finally kill off the rogue webmasters out their defaming the quality of the web? Time will tell.
September 7th, 2007
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