WebitPromotions Technology Definitions - Close Window

ASP - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
An Active Server Page (ASP) is an HTML page that includes one or more scripts (small embedded programs) that are processed on a Microsoft Web server before the page is sent to the user. An ASP is somewhat similar to a server-side include or a common gateway interface (CGI) application in that all involve programs that run on the server, usually tailoring a page for the user. Typically, the script in the Web page at the server uses input received as the result of the user's request for the page to access data from a database and then builds or customizes the page on the fly before sending it to the requestor.

ASP is a feature of the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), but, since the server-side script is just building a regular HTML page, it can be delivered to almost any browser. You can create an ASP file by including a script written in VBScript or JScript in an HTML file or by using ActiveX Data Objects (ADOs) program statements in the HTML file. You name the HTML file with the ".asp" file suffix. Microsoft recommends the use of the server-side ASP rather than a client-side script, where there is actually a choice, because the server-side script will result in an easily displayable HTML page. Client-side scripts (for example, with JavaScript) may not work as intended on older browsers.

Browser - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse (navigate through and read) text files online. By the time the first Web browser with a graphical user interface was generally available (Mosaic, in 1993), the term seemed to apply to Web content, too. Technically, a Web browser is a client program that uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make requests of Web servers throughout the Internet on behalf of the browser user. A commercial version of the original browser, Mosaic, is in use. Many of the user interface features in Mosaic, however, went into the first widely-used browser, Netscape Navigator. Microsoft followed with its Microsoft Internet Explorer. Today, these two browsers are the only two browsers that the vast majority of Internet users are aware of. Although the online services, such as America Online, originally had their own browsers, virtually all now offer the Netscape or Microsoft browser. Lynx is a text-only browser for UNIX shell and VMS users. Another recently offered and well-regarded browser is Opera.
While some browsers also support e-mail (indirectly through e-mail Web sites) and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a Web browser is not required for those Internet protocols and more specialized client programs are more popular.

Database - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
A database is a collection of data that is organized so that its contents can easily be accessed, managed, and updated. The most prevalent type of database is the relational database, a tabular database in which data is defined so that it can be reorganized and accessed in a number of different ways. A distributed database is one that can be dispersed or replicated among different points in a network. An object-oriented programming database is one that is congruent with the data defined in object classes and subclasses.
Databases contain aggregations of data records or files, such as sales transactions, product catalogs and inventories, and customer profiles. Typically, a database manager provides users the capabilities of controlling read/write access, specifying report generation, and analyzing usage. Databases and database managers are prevalent in large mainframe systems, but are also present in smaller distributed workstation and mid-range systems such as the AS/400 and on personal computers. Structured Query Language is a standard language for making interactive queries from and updating a database such as IBM's DB2, Microsoft's Access, and database products from Oracle, Sybase, and Computer Associates.

Domain Name - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
A domain name locates an organization or other entity on the Internet. For example, the domain name
www.totalbaseball.com
locates an Internet address for "totalbaseball.com" at Internet point 199.0.0.2 and a particular host server named "www". The "com" part of the domain name reflects the purpose of the organization or entity (in this example, "commercial") and is called the top-level domain name. The "totalbaseball" part of the domain name defines the organization or entity and together with the top-level is called the second-level domain name. The second-level domain name maps to and can be thought of as the "readable" version of the Internet address.
A third level can be defined to identify a particular host server at the Internet address. In our example, "www" is the name of the server that handles Internet requests. (A second server might be called "www2".) A third level of domain name is not required. For example, the fully-qualified domain name could have been "totalbaseball.com" and the server assumed.

Subdomain levels can be used. For example, you could have "www.nyyankees.totalbaseball.com". Together, "www.totalbaseball.com" constitutes a fully-qualified domain name.

Second-level domain names must be unique on the Internet and registered with one of the ICANN-accredited registrars for the COM, NET, and ORG top-level domains. Where appropriate, a top-level domain name can be geographic. (Currently, most non-U.S. domain names use a top-level domain name based on the country the server is in.) To register a U. S. geographic domain name or a domain name under a country code, see an appropriate registrar.

On the Web, the domain name is that part of the Uniform Resource Locator(URL) that tells a domain name server using the domain name system (DNS) whether and where to forward a request for a Web page. The domain name is mapped to an IP address (which represents a physical point on the Internet).

More than one domain name can be mapped to the same Internet address. This allows multiple individuals, businesses, and organizations to have separate Internet identities while sharing the same Internet server.

To see the IP address for a domain name, (ping).

It may be worth noting that the domain name system contains an even higher level of domain than the top-level domain. The highest level is the root domain, which would be represented by a single dot (just as in many hierarchical file systems, a root directory is represented by a "/" ) if it were ever used. If the dot for the root domain were shown in the URL, it would be to the right of the top-level domain name. However, the dot is assumed to be there, but never shown.

Download - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
Downloading is the transmission of a file from one computer system to another, usually smaller computer system. From the Internet user's point-of-view, to download a file is to request it from another computer (or from a Web page on another computer) and to receive it.
uploading is transmission in the other direction: from one, usually smaller computer to another computer. From an Internet user's point-of-view, uploading is sending a file to a computer that is set up to receive it. People who share images with others on bulletin board systems (BBS) upload files to the BBS.

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is the Internet protocol for downloading and uploading files and a number of special applications can furnish FTP services for you. (However, if you are downloading through a Web page, the FTP request is set up for you by the Web page. You are usually asked where you want the downloaded file placed on your hard disk, and then the downloading transmission takes place.)

When you send an attached file with an e-mail note, this is just an attachment, not a download or an upload. In practice, many people use "download" and "upload" rather indiscriminately so you just have to understand the context. For example, if someone says to you "Download (or upload) such--and-such a file to me by e-mail," they clearly mean "Send it to me as an attachment."

In general, from the ordinary workstation or small computer user's point-of-view, to download is to receive a file and to upload is to send a file.

Dynamic HTML - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
Dynamic HTML is a collective term for a combination of new Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tags and options, that will let you create Web pages more animated and more responsive to user interaction than previous versions of HTML. Much of dynamic HTML is specified in HTML 4.0. Simple examples of dynamic HTML pages would include (1) having the color of a text heading change when a user passes a mouse over it or (2) allowing a user to "drag and drop" an image to another place on a Web page. Dynamic HTML can allow Web documents to look and act like desktop applications or multimedia productions.
The features that constitute dynamic HTML are included in Netscape Communications' latest Web browser, Navigator 4.0 (part of Netscape's Communicator suite), and by Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer 4.0. While HTML 4.0 is supported by both Netscape and Microsoft browsers, some additional capabilities are supported by only one of the browsers.

eCommerce - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web.

Email - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
E-mail (electronic mail) is the exchange of computer-stored messages by telecommunication. (Some publications spell it email; we prefer the currently more established spelling of e-mail.) E-mail messages are usually encoded in ASCII text. However, you can also send non-text files, such as graphic images and sound files, as attachments sent in binary streams. E-mail was one of the first uses of the Internet and is still the most popular use. A large percentage of the total traffic over the Internet is e-mail. E-mail can also be exchanged between online service provider users and in networks other than the Internet, both public and private.
E-mail can be distributed to lists of people as well as to individuals. A shared distribution list can be managed by using an e-mail reflector. Some mailing lists allow you to subscribe by sending a request to the mailing list administrator. A mailing list that is administered automatically is called a list server.

E-mail is one of the protocols included with the Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite of protocols. A popular protocol for sending e-mail is Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and a popular protocol for receiving it is POP3. Both Netscape and Microsoft include an e-mail utility with their Web browsers.

Flash - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
Macromedia Flash MX is the fastest way to create rich Internet content and applications with a better return on investment. Powerful video, multimedia and application development features allow the creation of rich user interfaces, online advertising, eLearning courses and enterprise application front-ends. Deploy consistently to over 455 million Internet users across all major platforms and devices with the leading rich client.

FTP - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a standard Internet protocol, is the simplest way to exchange files between computers on the Internet. Like the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which transfers displayable Web pages and related files, and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which transfers e-mail, FTP is an application protocol that uses the Internet's TCP/IP protocols. FTP is commonly used to transfer Web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as their server for everyone on the Internet. It's also commonly used to download programs and other files to your computer from other servers.
As a user, you can use FTP with a simple command line interface (for example, from the Windows MS-DOS Prompt window) or with a commercial program that offers a graphical user interface. Your Web browser can also make FTP requests to download programs you select from a Web page. Using FTP, you can also update (delete, rename, move, and copy) files at a server. You need to logon to an FTP server. However, publicly available files are easily accessed using anonymous FTP.

Basic FTP support is usually provided as part of a suite of programs that come with TCP/IP. However, any FTP client program with a graphical user interface usually must be downloaded from the company that makes it.

GIF - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
The GIF (the original and preferred pronunciation is DJIF; it stands for Graphics Interchange Format) is one of the two most common file formats for graphic images on the World Wide Web. The other is the JPEG.
On the Web and elsewhere on the Internet (for example, bulletin board services), the GIF has become a de facto standard form of image. The LZW compression algorithm used in the GIF format is owned by Unisys, and companies that make products that exploit the algorithm (including the GIF format) need to license its use from Unisys. In practice, Unisys has not required users of GIF images to obtain a license, although their licensing statement indicates that it is a requirement. Unisys says that getting a license from them does not necessarily involve a fee.

The GIF uses the 2D raster data type and is encoded in binary. There are two versions of the format, 87a and GIF89a. Version 89a (July, 1989) allows for the possibility of an animated GIF, which is a short sequence of images within a single GIF file. A GIF89a can also be specified for interlaced GIF presentation.

A patent-free replacement for the GIF, the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format, has been developed by an Internet committee and major browsers support it or soon will. Meanwhile, many GIF downloaders and Web site builders on the Web continue to be ignorant of or indifferent to the requirement to get a license from Unisys for the use of their algorithm.

HTML - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of markup symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser page. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words and images for the user. Each individual markup code is referred to as an element (but many people also refer to it as a tag). Some elements come in pairs that indicate when some display effect is to begin and when it is to end.
HTML is a formal Recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and is generally adhered to by the major browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator, which also provide some additional non-standard codes. The current version of HTML is HTML 4.0. However, both Internet Explorer and Netscape implement some features differently and provide non-standard extensions. Web developers using the more advanced features of HTML 4 may have to design pages for both browsers and send out the appropriate version to a user. Significant features in HTML 4 are sometimes described in general as dynamic HTML. What is sometimes referred to as HTML 5 is an extensible form of HTML called Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML).

HTTP - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the set of rules for exchanging files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web. Relative to the TCP/IP suite of protocols (which are the basis for information exchange on the Internet), HTTP is an application protocol.
Essential concepts that are part of HTTP include (as its name implies) the idea that files can contain references to other files whose selection will elicit additional transfer requests. Any Web server machine contains, in addition to the HTML and other files it can serve, an HTTP daemon, a program that is designed to wait for HTTP requests and handle them when they arrive. Your Web browser is an HTTP client, sending requests to server machines. When the browser user enters file requests by either "opening" a Web file (typing in a Uniform Resource Locator) or clicking on a hypertext link, the browser builds an HTTP request and sends it to the Internet Protocol address indicated by the URL. The HTTP daemon in the destination server machine receives the request and, after any necessary processing, the requested file is returned.

IIS - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
IIS (Internet Information Server) is a group of Internet servers (including a Web or Hypertext Transfer Protocol server and a File Transfer Protocol server) with additional capabilities for Microsoft's Windows NT and Windows 2000 Server operating systems. IIS is Microsoft's entry to compete in the Internet server market that is also addressed by Apache, Sun Microsystems, O'Reilly, and others. With IIS, Microsoft includes a set of programs for building and administering Web sites, a search engine, and support for writing Web-based applications that access databases. Microsoft points out that IIS is tightly integrated with the Windows NT and 2000 Servers in a number of ways, resulting in faster Web page serving.
A typical company that buys IIS can create pages for Web sites using Microsoft's Front Page product (with its WYSIWYG user interface). Web developers can use Microsoft's Active Server Page (ASP)technology, which means that applications - including ActiveX controls - can be imbedded in Web pages that modify the content sent back to users. Developers can also write programs that filter requests and get the correct Web pages for different users by using Microsoft's Internet Server Application Program Interface (ISAPI) interface. ASPs and ISAPI programs run more efficiently than common gateway interface (CGI) and server-side include (SSI) programs, two current technologies. (However, there are comparable interfaces on other platforms.)

Microsoft includes special capabilities for server administrators designed to appeal to Internet service providers (ISPs). It includes a single window (or "console") from which all services and users can be administered. It's designed to be easy to add components as snap-ins that you didn't initially install. The administrative windows can be customized for access by individual customers.

IP Address - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
This definition is based on Internet Protocol Version 4. See Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) for a description of the newer 128-bit IP address. Note that the system of IP address classes described here, while forming the basis for IP address assignment, is generally bypassed today by use of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) addressing.
In the most widely installed level of the Internet Protocol (IP) today, an IP address is a 32-bit number that identifies each sender or receiver of information that is sent in packets across the Internet. When you request an HTML page or send e-mail, the Internet Protocol part of TCP/IP includes your IP address in the message (actually, in each of the packets if more than one is required) and sends it to the IP address that is obtained by looking up the domain name in the Uniform Resource Locator you requested or in the e-mail address you're sending a note to. At the other end, the recipient can see the IP address of the Web page requestor or the e-mail sender and can respond by sending another message using the IP address it received.

An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which can be a server or a workstation) within that network. On the Internet itself - that is, between the router that move packets from one point to another along the route - only the network part of the address is looked at.

JavaScript - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
JavaScript is an interpreted programming or script language from Netscape. It is somewhat similar in capability to Microsoft's Visual Basic, Sun's Tcl, the UNIX-derived Perl, and IBM's REX. In general, script languages are easier and faster to code in than the more structured and compiled languages such as C and C++. Script languages generally take longer to process than compiled languages, but are very useful for shorter programs.
JavaScript is used in Web site development to do such things as:

Automatically change a formatted date on a Web page
Cause a linked-to page to appear in a popup window
Cause text or a graphic image to change during a mouse rollover
JavaScript uses some of the same ideas found in Java, the compiled object-oriented programming derived from C++. JavaScript code can be imbedded in HTML pages and interpreted by the Web browser (or client). JavaScript can also be run at the server as in Microsoft's Active Server Pages before the page is sent to the requestor. Both Microsoft and Netscape browsers support JavaScript, but sometimes in slightly different ways.

JPEG - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
1) JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) is an ISO/IEC group of experts that develops and maintains standards for a suite of compression algorithms for computer image files.
2) JPEG (usually pronounced JAY-pehg) is also a term for any graphic image file produced by using a JPEG standard. A JPEG file is created by choosing from a range of compression qualities (actually, from one of a suite of compression algorithms). When you create a JPEG or convert an image from another format to a JPEG, you are asked to specify the quality of image you want. Since the highest quality results in the largest file, you can make a trade-off between image quality and file size. Formally, the JPEG file format is specified in ISO standard 10918. The JPEG scheme includes 29 distinct coding processes although a JPEG implementor may not use them all.

Together with the Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file formats, the JPEG is one of the image file formats supported on the World Wide Web, usually with the file suffix of ".jpg". You can create a progressive JPEG that is similar to an interlaced GIF.

META Tag - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
A meta tag is a tag (that is, a coding statement) in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that describes some aspect of the contents of a Web page. The information that you provide in a meta tag is used by search engines to index a page so that someone searching for the kind of information the page contains will be able to find it. The meta tag is placed near the top of the HTML in a Web page as part of the heading.
There are several kinds of meta tags, but the most important for search engine indexing are the keywords meta tag and the description meta tag. The keywords meta tag lists the words or phrases that best describe the contents of the page. The description meta tag includes a brief one- or two-sentence description of the page. Both the keywords and the description are used by search engines in adding a page to their index. Some search engines also use the description to show the searcher a summary of the page's contents.

Although most search engines also use the contents of a page as a way to determine how to index it, the creator of a Web page should be sure to include meta tags with appropriate keywords and description. Well-written meta tags can help make the page rank higher in search results.

Roll Over Image - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
In creating page for a Web site, a rollover (some people call it a "mouseover") is a technique using JavaScript that lets you change a page element (usuallly a graphic image) when the user rolls the mouse over something on the page (like a line of text or a graphic image). The term rollover recognizes that there is a little ball in your mouse that you roll on a surface.
Some common uses of the rollover include:

Inviting user interaction by causing text elements in a menu to "pop up" or otherwise become lively as you roll the mouse over each line. This is done by creating a small graphic image for each text line and a second graphic image for each line that is substituted when a given text line is rolled over with a mouse. The effect invites users to click on one of the rolled over lines.
Causing a previously invisible graphic image or other element to suddenly appear when the user rolls the mouse over a particular page element. Raymond Pirouz's home page site for his book, click here, uses this technique. Try it.
Have one element on a page change color as you roll the mouse over other elements. It's a way to reinforce the user's recognition that certain page elements are "alive" and clickable.

Search Engine - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
On the Internet, a search engine is a coordinated set of programs that includes:
A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") that goes to every page or representative pages on every Web site that wants to be searchable and reads it, using hypertext links on each page to discover and read a site's other pages
A program that creates a huge index (sometimes called a "catalog") from the pages that have been read
A program that receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns results to you
An alternative to using a search engine is to explore a structured directory of topics. Yahoo, which also lets you use its search engine, is the most widely-used directory on the Web. A number of Web portal sites offer both the search engine and directory approaches to finding information.

Server - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
1) In general, a server is a computer program that provides services to other computer programs in the same or other computers.
2) The computer that a server program runs in is also frequently referred to as a server (though it may contain a number of server and client programs).

3) In the client/server programming model, a server is a program that awaits and fulfills requests from client programs in the same or other computers. A given application in a computer may function as a client with requests for services from other programs and also as a server of requests from other programs.

Specific to the Web, a Web server is the computer program (housed in a computer) that serves requested HTML pages or files. A Web client is the requesting program associated with the user. The Web browser in your computer is a client that requests HTML files from Web servers.

Shopping Cart - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
On a Web site that sells products or services online, the shopping cart is a common metaphor (from the original grocery store shopping cart) for the catalog or other pages where a user reads and makes selections. Typically, the user checks off any products or services that are being ordered and then, when finished ordering, indicates that and proceeds to a page where the total order is placed and confirmed. The programming that provides a Web site with the ability to build a catalog and its associated database and to integrate pages into its site that provide users the ability to shop is known as shopping cart software.

TCP/IP - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the basic communication language or protocol of the Internet. It can also be used as a communications protocol in a private network (either an intranet or an extranet). When you are set up with direct access to the Internet, your computer is provided with a copy of the TCP/IP program just as every other computer that you may send messages to or get information from also has a copy of TCP/IP.
TCP/IP is a two-layer program. The higher layer, Transmission Control Protocol, manages the assembling of a message or file into smaller packets that are transmitted over the Internet and received by a TCP layer that reassembles the packets into the original message. The lower layer, Internet Protocol, handles the address part of each packet so that it gets to the right destination. Each gateway computer on the network checks this address to see where to forward the message. Even though some packets from the same message are routed differently than others, they'll be reassembled at the destination.

TCP/IP uses the client/server model of communication in which a computer user (a client) requests and is provided a service (such as sending a Web page) by another computer (a server) in the network. TCP/IP communication is primarily point-to-point, meaning each communication is from one point (or host computer) in the network to another point or host computer. TCP/IP and the higher-level applications that use it are collectively said to be "stateless" because each client request is considered a new request unrelated to any previous one (unlike ordinary phone conversations that require a dedicated connection for the call duration). Being stateless frees network paths so that everyone can use them continuously. (Note that the TCP layer itself is not stateless as far as any one message is concerned. Its connection remains in place until all packets in a message have been received.)

Many Internet users are familiar with the even higher layer application protocols that use TCP/IP to get to the Internet. These include the World Wide Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet (Telnet) which lets you logon to remote computers, and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). These and other protocols are often packaged together with TCP/IP as a "suite."

Personal computer users usually get to the Internet through the Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) or the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). These protocols encapsulate the IP packets so that they can be sent over a dial-up phone connection to an access provider's modem.

Protocols related to TCP/IP include the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which is used instead of TCP for special purposes. Other protocols are used by network host computers for exchanging router information. These include the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP), the Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP), and the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

URL - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) (pronounced YU-AHR-EHL or, in some quarters, UHRL) is the address of a file (resource) accessible on the Internet. The type of resource depends on the Internet application protocol. Using the World Wide Web's protocol, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) , the resource can be an HTML page (like the one you're reading), an image file, a program such as a common gateway interface application or Java applet, or any other file supported by HTTP. The URL contains the name of the protocol required to access the resource, a domain name that identifies a specific computer on the Internet, and a hierarchical description of a file location on the computer.

VB Script - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
VBScript is an interpreted script language from Microsoft that is a subset of its Visual Basic programming language designed for interpretation by Web browsers. VBScript can be compared to other script languages that can be used on the Web, including:
Netscape's JavaScript
Sun Microsystem's Tcl
The UNIX-derived Perl
IBM's Rexx
In general, script languages are easier and faster to code in than the more structured, compiled languages such as C and C++ and are ideal for smaller programs of limited capability or that can reuse and tie together existing compiled programs.

VBScript is Microsoft's answer to Netscape's popular JavaScript. Both are designed to work with an interpreter that comes with a Web browser - that is, at the user or client end of the Web client/server session. VBScript is designed for use with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser together with other programming that can be run at the client, including ActiveX controls, automation servers, and Java applets.

Web Hosting - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
Hosting (also known as Web site hosting, Web hosting, and Webhosting) is the business of housing, serving, and maintaining files for one or more Web sites. More important than the computer space that is provided for Web site files is the fast connection to the Internet. Most hosting services offer connections on T-carrier system lines. Typically, an individual business hosting its own site would require a similar connection and it would be expensive. Using a hosting service lets many companies share the cost of a fast Internet connection for serving files.
A number of Internet access providers, such as America Online, offer subscribers free space for a small Web site that is hosted by one of their computers. Geocities is a Web site that offers registered visitors similar free space for a Web site. While these services are free, they are also very basic.

A number of hosting companies describe their services as virtual hosting. Virtual hosting usually implies that their services will be transparent and that each Web site will have its own domain name and set of e-mail addresses. In most usages, hosting and virtual hosting are synonyms. Some hosting companies let you have your own virtual server, the appearance that you are controlling a server that is dedicated entirely to your site.

Dedicated hosting is the provision of a dedicated server machine that is dedicated to the traffic to your Web site. Only very busy sites require dedicated hosting. Many companies purchase their own servers and place them on a site that provides fast access to the Internet. This practice is called colocation.

Web Server - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
A Web server is a program that, using the client/server model and the World Wide Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), serves the files that form Web pages to Web users (whose computers contain HTTP clients that forward their requests). Every computer on the Internet that contains a Web site must have a Web server program. Two leading Web servers are Apache, the most widely-installed Web server, and Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS). Other Web servers include Novell's Web Server for users of its NetWare operating system and IBM's family of Lotus Domino servers, primarily for IBM's OS/390 and AS/400 customers.
Web servers often come as part of a larger package of Internet- and intranet-related programs for serving e-mail, downloading requests for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) files, and building and publishing Web pages. Considerations in choosing a Web server include how well it works with the operating system and other servers, its ability to handle server-side programming, security characteristics, and publishing, search engine, and site building tools that may come with it.

Web Site - Close Window & Return To "Our Competition"
This definition is also listed under presence, site and Website.
A Web site is a related collection of World Wide Web (WWW) files that includes a beginning file called a home page. A company or an individual tells you how to get to their Web site by giving you the address of their home page. From the home page, you can get to all the other pages on their site. For example, the Web site for IBM has the home page address of http://www.ibm.com. (The home page address actually includes a specific file name like index.html but, as in IBM's case, when a standard default name is set up, users don't have to enter the file name.) IBM's home page address leads to thousands of pages. (But a Web site can also be just a few pages.)

Since site implies a geographic place, a Web site can be confused with a Web server. A server is a computer that holds the files for one or more sites. A very large Web site may be spread over a number of servers in different geographic locations. IBM is a good example; its Web site consists of thousands of files spread out over many servers in world-wide locations. But a more typical example is probably the site you are looking at, whatis.com. We reside on a commercial space provider's server with a number of other sites that have nothing to do with Internet glossaries.

A synonym and less frequently used term for Web site is "Web presence." That term seems to better express the idea that a site is not tied to specific geographic location, but is "somewhere in cyberspace." However, "Web site" seems to be used much more frequently.