What Those Hosting Terms Mean

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.

E-Mail Forwarding

When a mail server forwards e-mail to another server or e-mail address instead of storing it.

Automatic E-Mail Autoresponder

An e-mail that is automatically sent in reply. Also known as a vacation message. Example: When someone e-mails a sales department at SALES, they automatically receive a reply with the price list.

ODBC/DSN

Allows communication between the web server (active server pages, cold fusion, etc..) to a database.

Active Server Pages

HTML pages with imbedded Visual Basic script. Used for database work and interactive pages.

Telnet

The command and program used to login from one Internet site to another. The telnet command/program gets you to the login: prompt of another host.

SSL

(Secure Sockets Layer) -- A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.

SSL used mostly (but not exclusively) in communications between web browsers and web servers. URL's that begin with "https" indicate that an SSL connection will be used.

SSL provides 3 important things: Privacy, Authentication, and Message Integrity.

In an SSL connection each side of the connection must have a Security Certificate, which each side's software sends to the other. Each side then encrypts what it sends using information from both its own and the other side's Certificate, ensuring that only the intended recipient can de-crypt it, and that the other side can be sure the data came from the place it claims to have come from, and that the message has not been tampered with.

'Web Trends'

Graphical medium to view the statistic of your web page (how many people visited your web site, where they log in from, most hit pages, etc..). The information is generated from raw log files.

Real Audio

Streaming audio, or video (Real Video), on the Internet. For more detailed information about Real Audio and Video, please visit their web site at http://www.real.com.

SQL

(Structured Query Language) -- A specialized programming language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial- strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will have its own version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable databases support a common subset of SQL.

Cold Fusion

A database like active server pages. But, it uses specific scripting from Allaire Corporation (now Macromedia). For more detailed information, please refer to http://www.macromedia.com/.

Domain Parking

When two domains point to the same account.

Domain Mapping

When a domain name points to a subdirectory of the first main account.