Jargon Busters

When working with IT professionals quite often they tend to talk in jargon or technical terms. This can be quite frustrating if your not in the know, so here at Southern Computer Installations we aim to try and avoid using technical jargon whenever possible while discussing solutions with our clients. But just in case you come across them elsewhere we have compiled a list of commonly used jargon to help you along. 

3G - Shorthand reference for 'third generation mobile telephone network'. 3G networks support fast data transfer, making such things as sound and video transmission possible.

Active X - Technology for adding extra features to an application like a web browser. ActiveX components are usually downloaded automatically, or with minimal user interaction.

ADSL - Stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A technology that converts an ordinary household telephone line into an extremely fast internet connection normally around ten times faster than a regular 56K modem.

AGP - Accelerated Graphics Port. A PC interface (either an expansion slot or built-in) used for super-fast 3D graphics facilities. Ideal for handling the 3D worlds depicted in many of today's top games.

Apple – The alternative to the PC, used by web designers and desktop publishers.

API -Stands for application programming interface, a standard used by computer programmers to allow operating systems and software applications to understand one another.

AOL – America On Line.

Apache - A very popular open source web hosting software, available for numerous platforms.

Bandwidth - The amount of data traffic that can or is transported from one computer to another.

BIND - Berkeley Internet Name Domain is an implementation of the Domain Name System (DNS) protocol.

Co-lo - Co-location refers to an agreement that sees a client owned server hosted in an ISP's data centre.

Daemon - An application or utility that runs in the background on the server.

DOS - Stands for Disk Operating System. The standard PC operating system before the dawn of Windows.
DOS manages how files are stored on your PC. It is controlled through typed commands.

DNS - Domain name system, turns domain names in to IP addresses.

Domain name - An alpha-numeric combination that can be used instead of IP addresses.

DVD - A type of disc able to store huge amounts of digital data, including full-length movies, with excellent-quality sound and pictures.

DVDRW - A rewritable version of the DVD-R format whose discs are compatible with most DVD players and DVD-ROM drives.

DVD+R - One of the emerging recordable DVD standards. It uses DVD+RW disks that are designed to have data recorded on to them time and time again. Movies recorded on to DVD+RW disks are fully compatible with DVD players.

DVD+RW - A rewritable version of the DVD+R format.

DVD-R - Standard for Digital Versatile Disc-Recordable format, or blank DVDs onto which information (such as data or music) can be recorded only once. Playable on most DVD players and DVD-ROM drives. You need a DVD-R drive to record onto DVD-R discs.

DVD-RAM - One of a number of competing standards for recordable DVD.DVD-RAM is really only of use in DVDRAM drives fitted in computers and some set-top DVD recorders.

DVD-RW - A rewritable version of the DVD-R format.

DVI - A video connection used on some TFT monitors and graphics cards that provides a purely digital connection between a PC and monitor. This gives a higher quality image than using a standard VGA connection.

Enom - An ICAAN registered domain name registrar.

Fantastico - An integrated application that allows web hosting clients to automatically install popular scripts.

Firewall - A system that prevents unauthorised access to a computer over a network, such as the internet. Firewalls can be either hardware or software, businesses tend to use the former; home users the latter.

FrontPage - A Microsoft web development application.

Gigabyte - A measurement of storage capacity usually for hard disks. 1Gb is equal to 1,024Mb (megabytes).

Managed Hosting - A web hosting service where the provider supports the daily upkeep of the server, including activities like updates and patches.

MySQL - An open source application of a SQL server that is quite popular with numerous web hosts.

NameServer - Converts domain names into appropriate IP addresses and vice versa.

NOC - Network Operations Center.

Overselling - When a web host sells more space, bandwidth or CPU cycles than they have at their disposal, with the belief that the customers won't actually use them all.

PERL - Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, is a programming language frequently used for creating CGI programs for web use.

PHP - An open-source, server-side scripting language used to create dynamic web pages.

phpMyAdmin - A web based application to manage MySQL databases.

POP3 - Post Office Protocol 3. A protocol for remotely accessing and retrieving email from an ISP. Most email applications and ISPs use POP3.

RAM – Randon Access Memory.

RedHat - A commercial Linux distribution, popular amongst web hosts.

Reseller - A webhost who resells web space off of a shared server with other resellers.

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.

Squirrelmail - A web based e-mail program.

SSL - Secure Socket Layer is a protocol that transmits data in an encrypted form.