Glossary of Terms

An easy-to-use database application that integrates with many Microsoft® Office products. Access is a good choice if you want to use data from an existing Microsoft Office product or if you do not have large amounts of data. All Hostway Windows plans support Microsoft Access databases. You can connect to your Access database using an ODBC connection (DSN connection) or a DSN-less connection.

The Hostway program that enables organisations and individuals to collect a commission for referring qualified clients interested in receiving Hostway services.

The cost for hosting for 12 months. You can sign up for a Web hosting account annually, which enables you to secure your Web presence and obtain an annual pricing discount.

An open-source Web server for Linux, Windows and other platforms. Originally developed in 1995, Apache has become the most popular Web server in use today, due to its powerful feature set and excellent performance.

Hostway's Linux platforms are available with Apache 1.3.x.

Active Server Page. An HTML page that contains scripts (VBScript or JavaScript) that are processed by a Web server before the page displays to the user. ASP pages end with the extension ".asp." Because ASP pages are dynamically generated, they enable you to tailor, or customise, your Web content to the customer.

ASP is a feature of Microsoft® IIS® (Internet Information Server) and is supported by Hostway's Windows platforms.

An automated email reply sent in response to each incoming message for a specific email address. For example, you can use an auto-response to automatically send every customer who contacts you via email a standard "Thank You" email response.

For each email address/alias on your Hostway account, you can set up a different auto-response.

Also referred to as your Monthly Traffic. The monthly measurement of data coming in and out of the server, and specifically your Web site. Sites are given a guide amount of potential traffic they can receive.

Bandwidth is measured in gigabytes (GB) and is calculated and recorded when a file is downloaded. 1 GB of bandwidth provides approximately 100,000 hits (which are individual requests for files including images, web pages and multimedia) a month. Additional bandwidth can be added to your account as needed.

Our supported off-the-shelf shopping cart software that enables you to sell simple goods easily and manage your shopping environment. You can customise the system online using the easy-to-use browser-based interface. You can add this feature to your existing hosting account easily via your control panel. For more information on Cart32, visit http://www.cart32.com.

A type of email account designed to "catch" any email messages addressed to your domain (@yourdomain.com) but not addressed to an actual POP3 email account or email alias.

Every hosting plan comes with one catchall account as well as a certain number of POP3 email accounts.

An organisation that issues and manages security certificates that are used to establish credentials and verify identities when performing electronic transactions. See also SSL.

Common Gateway Interface Script. CGI protocol enables a Web page to run a CGI program on a Web server. CGI scripts are used to supplement basic HTML to make your Web site more interactive and functional. Hit counters, guest books, order forms and many other useful features can all be programmed with CGI scripts.

All of our hosting plans provide you your own local cgi-bin directory, where you can store custom CGI scripts that you have written yourself or found elsewhere on the Web. Hostway's Linux plans include a free library of CGI scripts that you can use to enhance your Web site.

ColdFusion is a set of Web development products developed by Allaire, which has recently merged with Macromedia. The ColdFusion development environment makes it easy for you to build dynamic Web sites and Internet applications. With ColdFusion, you can develop a site or application that pulls data from a content database and then use templates to dynamically create Web site pages using the content stored in your database. ColdFusion is often used to build ecommerce sites.

Hostway offers ColdFusion version 5.0 professional and supports tags such as:
CFCONTENT
CFDIRECTORY
CFMAIL
CFX_IMAGE
CFQUERY

Hostway's Web-based control panel, SiteControl, is a complete account management toolset that includes everything you need to create, maintain and manage the many features that come with your hosting account. This powerful yet easy to use application is included with every Hostway plan. Learn more about SiteControl.

A UNIX command used to schedule jobs to be executed at some time in the future, typically on a periodic or regular basis. When used as a daemon process, the cron runs continuously and executes in response to specified events.

Hostway approves the use of cron jobs on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration factors such as the resources that will be used.

With our selected packages it is possible to have custom code tags added to your account. These could be ASP components or CF tags. As long as the component has been written by a professional software house, we are happy to install it for you.

A secure location for Web hosting servers that is specially designed to provide physical and network security for servers and the data stored on them.

Hostway provides a Class-A data center carefully designed to avoid any single point of failure.

Also known as your Monthly Traffic. Each time visitors access a Web page, image, audio, video or other element on your site, traffic is generated. Your aggregate traffic is the sum of all outward-bound, inward-bound, email and FTP traffic.

Your monthly traffic allowance is calculated as 31 times the daily traffic allowance. Our daily data transfer allowances are high enough that most of our users stay within the limit.

A server that provides services for only one account or domain. Hostway provides both managed and unmanaged dedicated servers, as well as shared servers.

Also known as Web space. The amount of allocated storage you are given on your Web hosting account. This enables you to store files, Web pages, email, databases and graphics. Web space is measured in MB (megabytes). Hostway enables you to upgrade your disk space if you are approaching your allocated amount.

Domain Name System. The system responsible for translating domain names into numeric IP addresses. The DNS maintains a list of all the domain names and distributes them throughout the world. See also IP address.

Hostway can assist you in registering and transferring your domain name.

A domain name that points to another domain. Domain aliases enable users to access the same Web site through a number of different addresses.

For example, many companies register several similar domain names (such as common misspellings of their domain name) and then use domain aliases to have all of the domain names point to the same site.

Hostway enables you to set up and use domain aliases.

The unique label that identifies a specific Web site, such as Hostway-uk.com. Typically, domain names convey information about a site and are easier to remember than the associated numeric IP address. When a user types a domain name in a browser, the DNS locates the registered domain name and translates that into a numeric IP address.

The process that must be completed before users can access your Web site. The registration process involves two basic steps: Reserving your domain name and then registering the domain name with the name server so that the IP address of your domain name can be disseminated throughout the Internet.

Hostway can assist you with the domain name registration process.

The term used to describe business transactions and communications conducted over the Internet or through company networks. Common ecommerce transactions include the buying and selling of goods, banking and ordering services online.

Hostway offers ecommerce hosting plans that enable you to quickly and easily set up an online store.

An email alias is a “virtual” email account. It enables you to use an email address that doesn’t really exist and have all the messages sent to that address routed to a real email account. For example, you may want to provide a link on your Web site that enables visitors to send email to the Web Master, who is really you. You can use the email alias webmaster@yourdomain.com but have the email routed to your real email account.

You can also use email aliases to overcome problems with duplicate email addresses. If the email address you want to use is already taken, you can still use it as an alias and then route the email to a valid address. Hostway enables you to set up an unlimited number of email aliases.

The feature that enables you to have email messages sent to one address automatically forwarded to a different email address.

For example, you can specify that all email messages sent to you@yourcompany.com be immediately forwarded to you@yourISP.com.

Flash and Shockwave are multimedia tools developed by Macromedia that enable you to provide interactive presentations and Web sites, utilising the latest streaming and audio technology. Our servers fully support .SWF files and MIME associated with Flash and Shockwave.

The set of files that provide FrontPage-based Web sites with extended functionality, such as multi-user and remote authoring support, search features, forms and usage analysis.

In order for you to use all of the features that come with Microsoft FrontPage, FrontPage Extensions must be installed for your account. Hostway will install these for you upon request.

A type of Microsoft SQL Server indexing system that enables users to search for and quickly retrieve static data.

File Transfer Protocol. A method used to transfer files across the Internet. FTP is typically used to upload and download files between your own computer and the Web server hosting your site. FTP requires a valid user name and password.

Hostway provides you unlimited FTP access to your account 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, enabling you to set up, change or maintain your Web site at any time.

The unique number assigned to every computer linked to the Internet. Your ISP provider assigns you an IP address each time you connect to the Internet. The DNS converts your numeric address to your domain name.

A file that contains detailed information about your site's activity in raw Web server format. The information in the log file enables you to perform advanced site analysis and gain valuable marketing insights.

Every Hostway hosting plan comes with a Web-based log analyser that provides a comprehensive analysis of your raw log file. See also Statistics; Referrer Log.

Hostway's Web-based tool for managing email lists. Email lists provide an efficient way for you to distribute information about your services and products to your customers and members.

Mailman provides your site's visitors a Web-based control panel for subscribing and unsubscribing to lists over the Web. MailMan's control panel also enables you to administer your lists from the Web.

A server whose software, hardware and operations are managed by Hostway's team of system administrators. A managed server enables you to focus on your business instead of day-to-day system administration tasks.

A type of bank account that enables you to accept and process credit card payments online. Merchant accounts handle fraud checks on each transaction and manage the transfer of funds from your customer's credit cards to your bank account.

You must have a merchant account in order to perform online credit card transactions. Additionally, you will need an online payment gateway. In some cases, these are included with a merchant account.

Hostway maintain a working relationship with some of the world's leading online merchants such as WorldPay and NetBanx. We can help you obtain an account enabling you to bill clients online and start trading. Our system and shopping cart software is fully supported by all merchant banks.

A hidden tag in your HTML code that describes some aspect of your site. When someone uses a search engine to find a Web site that provides information on a particular subject, the search engine uses the information contained in your pages' META tags to determine if your site is a "match."

Hostway provides a variety of tools that can assist you in submitting your domain name to a number of search engines and generating effective META tags.

Microsoft's SQL database software that enables high performance database querying for larger-scale projects. We support version 2000 and allow you to connect remotely via Enterprise Manager to edit and manage your databases. The standard database size is 30 MB (20 MB database with a 10 MB log). Languages such as ASP and ColdFusion can be used to query the data in your Microsoft SQL Server database.

Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) enables exchange of different file types and formats over the Internet. We support most MIME types including WAP, XML and streaming.

The cost for a rolling hosting agreement, paid on a calendar month basis. When you select the monthly billing option, you can cancel your contract at any time and are free from penalty charges.

A multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. MySQL offers speed, robustness and ease of use. Hostway's MySQL databases are hosted on a dedicated MySQL server, ensuring server resources are devoted to database processing for faster performance.

A program that stores and tracks DNS information.

Directories that require visitors to submit a valid user name and password before accessing the contents. These are frequently used for administrative purposes or for secure date. Your control panel, SiteControl, makes it simple for you to password protect directories.

A payment gateway is a service that connects your online store with your merchant account provider. This service reads the information from the order forms and translates that information for the merchant account. The payment gateway also verifies that the customer�s credit card account has the necessary credit available for the purchase.

Active CGI enables you to run Perl and CGI scripts from your local directory, making it possible for you to install bulletin boards, form scripts or any other scripts you wish. Active CGI means the code can interact with the server extensions efficiently. See CGI Script.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. An open-source scripting language and interpreter. PHP is used primarily on Linux Web servers and is an alternative to Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) technology.

PHP script is embedded within a Web page. The Web server calls PHP to interpret and perform the operations specified in the PHP script. Web pages with embedded PHP script can use the file extensions .php, .php3 or .phtml.

On shared servers, Hostway supports PHP running as a CGI binary. Dedicated servers, however, can support PHP as an Apache module.

Post Office Protocol 3. A method of retrieving email from a server.

Hostway accounts provide POP3 mail boxes that you can access directly to retrieve your email using Hostway's SiteMail or traditional email clients such as Eudora, Outlook Express and Netscape Mail.

The Hostway program that enables you to provide hosting solutions to your customers without investing in the infrastructure and technology necessary to maintain your own hosting platform.

Within the Private Label Program, Hostway is responsible for maintaining the facilities, network, equipment, architecture, deployment and software for you. You are responsible for marketing, sales, billing and support activity for your customers. Because Hostway has no direct contact with your customers, you retain the ownership of your customers.

The process of notifying name servers around the world when your site location changes to a new IP address or when you have registered a new domain name on the Internet. Propagation can take up to 72 hours.

Hostway can assist you with registering and transferring your domain names.

Files that contain detailed information about your site's activity in raw Web server format. By analysing the log file, you can gain valuable insights that will enable you to better market your site.

Every Hostway hosting plan comes with a Web-based log analyser that provides a comprehensive analysis of your raw log file.

The streaming audio and video delivery systems for the Internet developed by RealNetworks. The system is client-server based, meaning both the browser and the server must have RealAudio/Video components for it to work.

You can select a Hostway plan that enables you to deliver streaming multimedia content to your site's visitors.

The optional Hostway log that extends your ability to track how customers access your site. When the Referrer Log is active, it logs not only the different search engines but also the keywords visitors used to locate your site.

A company that has been certified to register domain names. There are a limited number of registrars permitted to access and modify the master database of domain names maintained by InterNic. The organisation ICANN is responsible for certifying companies as domain name registrars. A registrar is not the same as a Web host. Hostway can register your domain name with an accredited registrar for you.

A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of documents where the keywords were found. Internet search engines use the information contained in your site's META tags to generate an index of sites.

Well known search engines include Yahoo!, Excite, AltaVista and Google.

A method of ensuring that information submitted through your Web site is secure and cannot be accessed by unauthorised users. Information submitted via an SSL-secured form is transmitted in an encrypted state. SSL is most commonly used for online credit card transactions. See also SSL Certificate.

An up-front charge assigned to a specific hosting account or feature.

The most powerful type of account. These account types provide access to your servers via FTP, POP3 and, with some plans, SSH. Master Users can transfer files to and from the server, read and send email and log onto the server.

All hosting plans come with one Master User account by default. The default Master User account typically has the same name as your domain. For example, if your domain name is "sampledomain.com," your Master User account is most likely "sampledomain." In some cases, such as when your domain name is particularly long, the Master User name may be shortened or may differ slightly from your domain name.

A Web-based, template-driven tool that enables you to quickly create a Web site without learning HTML.

Hostway's "instant messaging" application that enables users to exchange chat messages in "real time." When you add SiteChat to your Hostway account, you can create customised chat rooms that can be used for customer help desks, multimedia conference rooms, sales counters, distance learning centres and online communities.

Hostway's Web-based account management tool set. SiteControl provides you with all of the tools you need to create, maintain and manage the various features that come with your hosting account. You can use SiteControl to set up and manage email, monitor disk and bandwidth usage, analyse site activity, check billing and account status, register and transfer domain names and set up and manage your account users.

Hostway's Web-based tool that enables you to check your email messages through a Web browser using HTTP. You can use SiteMail to check your email from any location as long as you have a browser and an Internet connection. You can use both SiteMail and traditional email clients such as Microsoft Outlook® to check the same email account.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. A protocol for sending email messages across the Internet. It is used in conjunction with both POP3 and IMAP, protocols that enable you to download messages from a mail server to your computer. SMTP is used for outgoing mail while POP3 and IMAP are used for incoming mail. Hostway does not support IMAP.

The term for unsolicited mass email, also known as UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). Hostway strictly prohibits "spamming" using an email address that is maintained on a Hostway computer or using any Hostway server.

An SSL Certificate, or a digital certificate, is an electronic document that contains the information necessary to establish a secure SSL connection. This is nearly always a must for shoppers, and is usually indicated by a picture of a padlock in the browser window—try https://www.hostway-uk.com. When SSL is used in credit card transactions, the Web site collecting the credit card information and the site to which the information is being transmitted must both have an SSL Certificate.

A virtual or shared SSL certificate is an SSL security certificate you share with other domains. A shared SSL certificate is included with our hosting packages, meaning you can easily add security to your Web site by using SSL.

For larger companies we offer dedicated SSL or private SSL, also available via the control panel.

Detailed information regarding your Web site, including the number of hits, the source of those hits, most popular pages and amount of data transferred, as well as other useful information.

Hostway's detailed Web site activity reports provide statistics in both raw numbers and graphical format, grouped by weeks, days and hours.

Also known as a third-level domain. Domain names are composed of at least two levels, a top-level domain and a second-level domain. The top-level domain is the suffix or extension attached to Internet domain names (for example, .com, .net and .org).

A second-level domain (SLD) is the portion of the URL that identifies the owner associated with an IP address. For example, "hostway-uk.com" is a second-level domain, as it includes the domain name "hostway-uk" and the top-level domain "com."

If you need to further distinguish your second-level domain name, you can use a third-level domain name, or subdomain, such as "resources.hostway-uk.com." Typically a third-level domain name is used to refer to different servers within different departments of a company.

Hostway's plans enable you to set up subdomains.

The URL provided to you so that you can upload and test your site while you wait for the domain name registration and transfer period to complete. Your temporary URL is just another way of accessing your site. Once the propagation period completes, no special action is required in order to start using your domain name—all of the Web site files you uploaded using your temporary URL will still be in place and nothing will have changed. You can find your temporary URL on SiteControl's Home page. The temporary URL is valid for 30 days.

Each time visitors access a Web page, image, audio, video or other element on your site, traffic is generated. Your aggregate traffic is the sum of all outward-bound, inward-bound, email and FTP traffic.

Your monthly traffic allowance is calculated as 31 times the daily traffic allowance. Hostway's daily data transfer allowances are high enough that most of our users stay within the limit.

Urchin 4 is an advanced, Web site analytics software system designed for use by organisations of all sizes. Urchin 4 provides an intuitive, browser-based interface and offers, among other things, flexible date-range reporting, filtering, a search function and an export utility. You can upgrade your standard Web statistics tool to Urchin.

Uniform Resource Locator. The standard way to display an address on the World Wide Web (WWW). For example, www.hostway-uk.com.

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enables Internet files/Web sites to be viewed via mobile devices such as phones and PDAs.

A method for accessing email messages through a Web browser using HTTP.

Hostway's Web-based email application SiteMail enables you to check your email from any location as long as you have a browser and an Internet connection. You can use SiteMail and traditional email clients such as Microsoft Outlook to check the same email account.

Web space, or disk space, is the amount of allocated storage you are given on your Web hosting account. You use this space to store files, web pages, databases and graphics. Web space is always measured in MB (megabytes). You can easily upgrade and increase your Web space if you are approaching your allocated amount.

Hostway's servers fully support Windows media through HTTP streaming protocol. Once you have created your audio/visual file, just set up a meta file following Microsoft's instructions (www.windowsmedia.com), enabling visitors to listen to your media files.

Wireless Markup Language. A language that enables text content of Web sites to be presented on wireless devices such as cell phones and PDAs. WML is part of WAP.

What You See Is What You Get. The term used for Web design applications that display HTML documents on screen as they will appear in a Web browser. These applications make it possible for you to create Web pages without learning the HTML programming language.