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There are a lot of technical terms used in the IT and web development industries which the layman may not be entirely familiar with.
While we always strive to use plain English when talking to clients, there are inevitably occasions whereby we have to use computer terminology. So, to help you make sense of some of the jargon used in the computer world, we have compiled this handy glossary of techie terms and web speak. We hope it helps to make things a bit clearer!
A unit which houses servers.
Redundant Array of Independent Disks. A system which writes data to more than one hard disk to improve performance and reduce the risk of data loss in the event of a disk failure.
Random Access Memory. A set of circuits within a computer that store data and allow that data to be accessed in any order.
The operation of a computer from a computer at a different location. This is usually done over the Internet or another network.
See spider.
Read-only Memory. data stored on a computer or data storage device which can be viewed or utilised but cannot be changed or deleted.
Hardware used to connect different networks together.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. An RSS Feed is an application used to scan blogs, news websites, and other dynamic web content, in order to provide subscribers with updates every time a new piece of information, such as a blog entry or news headline, becomes available.
A free web application framework designed to make web development faster, simpler and more efficient.
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Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Broadband technology which allows faster data transmission over a normal telephone line (i.e., a traditional line using copper wire). With SDSL, upload and download speed is the same and telephone calls cannot be made at the same time as Internet connection.
An online database of websites, which works like a directory. Users enter keywords or phrases and are shown links to websites which relate to that term. Google and Yahoo! are examples of search engines.
A page listing the results of a keyword entry on a search engine. As most searches produce thousands, or even millions, of results, they are usually spread over many pages, with the websites that the search engine deems most appropriate to the keyword appearing first.
In IT terms, refers to any measures taken to safeguard the integrity of information stored on a computer or network and to prevent unauthorised access or malicious damage to a system.
Search Engine Marketing. The process of improving a website's performance in search engine results, often through but not exclusively through SEO, pay-per-click and the setup of incoming hyperlinks from other websites.
Search Engine Optimisation. The process of making alterations and additions to content, meta data, and other elements of a website in order to improve its chances of getting a higher ranking in search engine results pages for keywords relating to its subject matter.
A program that receives requests for data from a client program, locates the data, and sends it back to the client.
A web page on a website which lists all of the pages on that site.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The common standard by which emails are transmitted over the Internet.
A term used to describe a variety of methods people can use to communicate, share data, and interact with one other on the Internet. These methods include blogging, video or photo sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr, and social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.
The use of software and websites to share interests, activities and data (such as photos, audio or video files) with an online community of people.
A downloadable program which instructs a computer to behave in a particular way.
Small office / Home office. A term used to describe businesses run from home or from a small office.
A company that manufactures Internet security products.
The set of instructions, written in a computer programming language, that make up a program.
Can refer to unsolicited and unwanted emails, or web content which has nothing interesting to offer and serves only to blatantly promote a product or service of little value.
Automated systems used by search engines to search through the content of web pages and assess the core subject matter of a website. This information is then used to rank the site in search engine results pages for its associated keywords. Spiders can also be known as crawlers, robots, or bots.
A piece of code which is hidden within a seemingly harmless program and used to log the user's Internet habits - such as the websites they visit and what they download from them - and relay it to a third party.
A database management system produced by Microsoft.
Free software which allows the user to make VoIP telephone calls over the Internet.
Refers to web pages on which the content remains the same. The majority of pages on the web are static. Web pages which have changing content are referred to as dynamic.
A software company who specialise in IT security and database products.
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Working with i-Zimbra is great because they know how we need to have our sites built. As a web marketing company ourselves, it is vital that our sites look great and are web standards compliant.Katherine Dawson
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