Glossary of Internet & Industry Terms
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General Terms
Ajax
Ajax (shorthand for asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications.
Apache
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache, is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. The majority of web servers using Apache run a Unix-like operating system.
Application Server
An application server is a software framework dedicated to the efficient execution of procedures (programs, routines, scripts) for supporting the construction of applications. The term was originally used when discussing early client-server server systems and servers that ran SQL services and middleware servers to differentiate them from file servers.
ASP
Active Server Pages (ASP), also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages. Initially released as an add-on to Internet Information Services (IIS) via the Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, it was subsequently included as a free component of Windows Server (since the initial release of Windows 2000 Server). It has now been superseded by ASP.NET.
Content Negotiation
Content negotiation is a mechanism defined in the HTTP specification that makes it possible to serve different versions of a document (or more generally, a resource) at the same URI, so that user agents can specify which version fit their capabilities the best. One classical use of this mechanism is to serve an image in GIF or PNG format, so that a browser that cannot display PNG images (e.g. MS Internet Explorer 4) will be served the GIF version. To summarize how this works, when a user agent submits a request to a server, the user agent informs the server what media types it understands with ratings of how well it understands them. More precisely, the user agent provides an Accept HTTP header that lists acceptable media types and associated quality factors. The server is then able to supply the version of the resource that best fits the user agent's needs.
Port80's PageXchanger software helps with content and language negotiation.
Cookie
A cookie (also tracking cookie, browser cookie, and HTTP cookie) is a small piece of text stored on a user's computer by a web browser. A cookie consists of one or more name-value pairs containing bits of information. The cookie is sent as an HTTP header by a web server to a web browser and then sent back unchanged by the browser each time it accesses that server. A cookie can be used for authentication, session tracking (state maintenance), storing site preferences, shopping cart contents, the identifier for a server-based session, or anything else that can be accomplished through storing textual data.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (that is, the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.
HTML
HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items.
HTML5
HTML5 is being developed as the next major revision of HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the core markup language of the World Wide Web. The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) started work on the specification in June 2004 under the name Web Applications 1.0.
HTTP
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an Application Layer protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is a request-response standard typical of client-server computing. In HTTP, web browsers or spiders typically act as clients, while an application running on the computer hosting the web site acts as a server. The client, which submits HTTP requests, is also referred to as the user agent. The responding server, which stores or creates resources such as HTML files and images, may be called the origin server. In between the user agent and origin server may be several intermediaries, such as proxies, gateways, and tunnels.
HTTP Headers
HTTP Headers form the core of an HTTP request, and are very important in an HTTP response. They define various characteristics of the data that is requested or the data that has been provided. The headers are separated from the request or response body by a blank line. HTTP headers can be near-arbitrary strings, but only some are commonly understood.
Inline Linking
Inline linking (also known as hotlinking, leeching, piggy-backing, direct linking, offsite image grabs) is the use of a linked object, often an image, from one site into a web page belonging to a second site.
Internet Information Services
Internet Information Services (IIS) - formerly called Internet Information Server - is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows.
Internet Media Type
An Internet media type, originally called a MIME type after MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) and sometimes a Content-type after the name of a header in several protocols whose value is such a type, is a two-part identifier for file formats on the Internet. The identifiers were originally defined in RFC 2046 for use in e-mail sent through SMTP, but their use has expanded to other protocols such as HTTP, RTP and SIP.
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or W3).
XHTML
XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely used Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the language in which web pages are written.
