A6 - DNS Record

The A6 record is a new DNS record, meant to replace the AAAA record in IPv6 address resolution.
The primary new feature of A6 records is the possibility to divide the IPv6 address to a chain formed by several A6 records residing on different name servers...

A - DNS Record

(address record). Returns a 32-bit IPv4 address, most commonly used to map hostnames to an IP address of the host, but also used for DNSBLs, storing subnet masks etc.
A records are used to pass the IP address for machines associated with the domain name

AAAA - DNS Record

(IPv6 address record). Returns a 128-bit IPv6 address, most commonly used to map hostnames to an IP address of the host.
IPv6 addresses are represented in the Domain Name System by AAAA resource records (so-called quad-A records) for forward lookups.

AFS

(The Andrew File System). AFS is a distributed networked file system which uses a set of trusted servers to present a homogeneous, location-transparent file name space to all the client workstations. Its primary use is in distributed computing.

AFSDB - DNS Record

(AFS database record). Location of database servers of an AFS cell. This record is commonly used by AFS clients to contact AFS cells outside their local domain. A subtype of this record is used by the obsolete DCE/DFS file system.

AJAX

(Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). XJAX refers not to a scripting language (like JavaScript) but rather to a method for creating rich web interaction. JavaScript is one of those languages used to create this interaction, XML is the other one (though HTML can be used)...

API

(Application Program Interface). This is essentially a way to communicate with content provider's database in XML format. Like RSS, APIs can be used to embed, aggregate, or republish content in other websites and applications...

ASP

(Active Server Page). Active Server Pages, also known as Classic ASP, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages.

Authority Name Server

An authoritative name server is a name server that can give an authoritative answer to a DNS query, and not just a cached answer that was given by another name server. All primary and secondary name servers give authoritative answers, as can certain other "shadow" name servers.

Client-side

This refers to processing that is completed by your browser (explorer, firefox, safari etc) on your computer ie. Some form validation on the fly as in you are typing a telephone number into a box its making sure you are typing in numbers not letters.

CMS

A content management system (CMS) is a computer application used to create, edit, manage, search and publish various kinds of digital media and electronic text.

CNAME - DNS Record

(Canonical name record). A type of DNS record. A CNAME record maps a single node of the name space.
The CNAME is an alias of one name to another: the DNS lookup will continue by retrying the lookup with the new name...

CSS

(Cascading Style Sheets). Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language...

DNAME - DNS Record

(Delegation Name). The DNAME provides the capability to map an entire subtree of the DNS name space to another domain. DNAME will delegate an entire portion of the DNS tree under a new name. In contrast, the CNAME record creates an alias of a single name...

DNS

(Domain Name System), DNS is a hierarchical naming system for computers, services, or any resource participating in the Internet. It associates various information with domain names
assigned to such participants...

DNSSEC - DNS Record

(Domain Name System Security Extensions). The DNSSEC are a suite of IETF specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided by the Domain Name System (DNS) as used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks...

DOM

(Document Object Model). Document Object Model is a platform and language-independent standard object model for representing HTML or XML and related formats. A web browser is not obliged to use the DOM in order to render a HTML document...

DS - DNS Record

(Delegation Signer). The record used to identify the DNSSEC signing key of a delegated zone

Ecommerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The amount of trade conducted electronically has grown extraordinarily with wide-spread Internet usage...

FLASH

Adobe Flash (previously called Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform created by Macromedia and currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems...

FLV

(Flash Video). FLV files have a .flv file extension and are either used from within .swf files or played through a flv aware player, such as VLC, or QuickTime and Windows Media Player with external codecs added...

Front End / Back End

Front-end and back-end are generalized terms that refer to the initial and the end stages of a process. The front-end is responsible for collecting input in various forms from the user and processing it to conform to a specification the back-end can use...

Google Checkout

Google Checkout is an online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases. Users store their credit or debit card and shipping information in their Google Account...

HINFO - DNS Record

(Host Information record). Identifies hardware & OS.
The HINFO record specifies the manufacturer and the operating system type. Most sites do not use HINFO records because of security reasons, if everyone knows what type of hardware you have and what type of OS is running...

HTML

(Hypertext Markup Language). Hypertext Markup Language is the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document—by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists...

IPv6

(Internet Protocol version 6). IPv6 is the next-generation Internet Layer protocol for packet-switched internetworks and the Internet. IPv4 is currently[update] the dominant Internet Protocol version, and was the first to receive widespread use.

JavaScript

JavaScript is a scripting language use to enhance or modify the presentation layer of a page by interacting with HTML source code, typically at the client-side rather than service-side level...

LOC - DNS Record

(Location record). Specifies a geographical location associated with a domain name.
In the Domain Name System, a LOC record is a means for expressing geographic location information for a domain name...

Merchant Account

A merchant account is a contract under which an acquiring bank extends a line of credit to a merchant, who wishes to accept payment card transactions of a particular card association brand. Without such a contract, one cannot directly accept payments by any of the major credit card brands...

MP3

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard encoding for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players.

MP4

MPEG-4 Part 14, formally ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003, is a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4. It is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG...

MX - DNS Record

An MX record or Mail exchanger record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) specifying how Internet e-mail should be routed using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)...

MYSQL

MySQL is a relational database management system which has more than 11 million installations. The program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases...

NAPTR - DNS Record

(Naming Authority Pointer). Allows regular expression based rewriting of domain names which can then be used as URIs, further domain names to lookups, etc.
NAPTR pointers provide a general, flexible, extensible, and standard mechanism to pass new kinds of information...

NS - DNS Record

(Name Server Record). Delegates a DNS zone to use the given authoritative name servers.
The Name Server (NS) record identifies the authoritative DNS servers for a domain...

Paypal

PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders...

PPC

Pay Per Click (PPC) is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market...

Product Feed

A product feed is a file containing information about the products listed on your site. Product feeds are used by e-commerce companies to provide information about products in an online store to search engines, product comparison websites, and other similar aggregators of e-commerce information...

Protx

Protx is a Payment Gateway, also known as a Payment Service Provider (PSP). A Payment Gateway provides the secure link between your website and your merchant bank to ensure that your customers’ card details remain secure throughout the transaction process...

PTR - DNS Record

(Pointer Record). Pointer to a canonical name. Unlike a CNAME, DNS processing does NOT proceed, just the name is returned. The most common use is for implementing reverse DNS lookups, but other uses include such things as DNS-SD.

RP - DNS Record

(Responsible Person record). The technical contact for a host.
A RP record is a new type of record, that offers a way to assign an EMail (with the @ sign replaced by a . , eg. ahj@aber.ac.uk would become ahj.aber.ac.uk) address to a host.

RSS

(Really Simple Syndication). This is an XML-based format for sharing and delivering regularly updated web content such as news, blog posts and notifications. Output files are referred to as RSS feeds, and these feeds can be read using feed reader or RSS aggregator software (ie Google Reader)...

SEM

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs)

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results...

SERPs

A search engine results page, or SERP, is the listing of web pages returned by a search engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the keywords have matched content within the page...

Server Redundancy

Server redundancy means the back up measures for your server in case it should go down or there are any problems at all. It is the Plan B option should plan A fail etc.

Server-side

This is processing that is done on the server before the webpage is sent to your browser. PHP is a server-side programming language which is what we use, there are others though ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PERL and Ruby.

SPF - DNS Record

(Sender Policy Framework). A SPF is an e-mail authentication system that verifies that the message came from an authorized mail server. SPF is designed to detect messages from spammers and phishers who falsify the sender's IP address in the e-mail header...

SRV - DNS Record

(Service Locator). A SRV is a generalized service location record, used for newer protocols instead of creating protocol-specific records such as MX.

As with PTR records, SRV records must point to the canonical name of the host. Aliases or CNAMEs cannot be used as valid targets...

SSL

(Secure Sockets Layer) The leading security protocol on the Internet. Developed by Netscape, SSL is widely used to do two things: to validate the identity of a Web site and to create an encrypted connection for sending credit card and other personal data.

SVG

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a family of specifications of XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic (interactive or animated)...

SWF

(Shock Wave Flash). Files in the SWF format, traditionally called "ShockWave Flash" movies, "Flash movies" or "Flash games", usually have a ...

TXT - DNS Record

(Text record). Originally for arbitrary human-readable text in a DNS record. Since the early 1990s, however, this record more often carries machine-readable data, such as opportunistic encryption, Sender Policy Framework, DomainKeys, DNS-SD, etc...

XHTML

(Extensible Hypertext MarkUp Language). XHTML, is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but also conforms to XML syntax.

XML

(Extensible Mark-up Language). Extensible Mark-up Language is a general-purpose mark-up language, where the writer can define their own tags. XML is commonly used to make data readable by lots of different applications or programming languages...