Have the technical terms confused you? Don't fret with so many terms it's hard to keep them straight. This section is designed to help explain many of the terms that you should understand before choosing your web host provider.

An A record is part of the zone file. It is used to point Internet traffic to an IP address. For example, you can use an "A record" to designate abc.yourdomain.com to send traffic to your web site at IP address 209.15.32.135. You can also designate xyz.yourdomain.com to go to a separate IP address.

(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) -- A method for moving data over regular phone lines. An ADSL circuit is much faster than a regular phone connection, and the wires coming into the subscriber's premises are the same (copper) wires used for regular phone service. An ADSL circuit must be configured to connect two specific locations, similar to a leased line.
A commonly discussed configuration of ADSL would allow a subscriber to receive data (download) at speeds of up to 1.544 Megabits per second, and to send (upload) data at speeds of 128 kilobits per second. Thus the 'Asymmetric' part of the acronym.

Archie

A tool (software) for finding files stored on anonymous FTP sites. You need to know the exact file name or a substring of it.

(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) -- The precursor to the Internet. Landmark packet-switching network established in 1969 by the US Department of Defense as an experiment in wide-area-networking that would survive a nuclear war.

An applicant service provider (ASP) is a company that provides an application (such as Exchange) over the internet to be used by the client.

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode. International sandard for cell relay in which multiple service types (such as voice, video, or data) are conveyed in fixed-length (53-byte) cells. Fixed-length cells allow cell processing to occur in hardware, thereby reducing transit delays. ATM is designed to take advantage of high-speed transmission media such as E3, SONET, and T3.

(American Standard Code for Information Interchange) -- This is the de facto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111, plus parity.

The delivery of audio files from a server to a web browser in a continuous stream of small packets rather than one large file.

The network of connections and high-speed lines that forms the infrastructure of the Internet. An important consideration in choosing a Web site host is that host's proximity to the backbone. The less network distance between your provider and the backbone, the faster and more reliable your Web site will be.

Bandwidth

The total amount of data that can be sent through a network connection in a certain time, usually measured in bits per second (bps), megabits per second (Mbps), or gigabits per second (Gbps). Think of bandwidth as being similar to the size of a water pipe. The larger the water pipe, the more water it can carry in a specific period of time.
The bandwidth provides for a faster loading time for your web site. It is also important because most web hosts only allow a fixed amount of bandwidth each month. Going over the limit can be costly. Be sure to know your exact bandwidth limitations.

Some colocation providers allow your Web site to use access more than your contractually allotted bandwidth for short periods of time. This is called burstable bandwidth.

Unit of signaling speed equal to the number of discrete signal elements transmited per second. Baud is synonymous with bits per second (bps). In common usage the baud rate of a modem is how many bits it can send or receive per second. Technically, baud is the number of times per second that the carrier signal shifts value - for example a 1200 bit-per-second modem actually runs at 300 baud, but it moves 4 bits per baud (4 x 300 = 1200 bits per second).

(BINary HEXadecimal) -- A method for converting non-text files (non-ASCII) into ASCII. This is needed because Internet e-mail can only handle ASCII.

Byte (or 8 bits)

A byte is composed of 8 bits or "on-off" signals. You can think of a byte as being the computer representation for a letter, like "A," a number like "7," or an instruction to multiply two numbers, like "3 * 6." For the purposes of creating a Web site, the number of bytes will measure the size of your site in terms of disk space. For instance, if your Web hosting plan allows you to publish a 2 MB (Megabytes or million bytes) Web site, then essentially it can be made up of 2 million characters or instructions.

(Bits-Per-Second) -- A measurement of how fast data is moved from one place to another. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per second.

(Because It's Time NETwork (or Because It's There NETwork)) -- A network of educational sites separate from the Internet, but e-mail is freely exchanged between BITNET and the Internet. Listservs, the most popular form of e-mail discussion groups, originated on BITNET. BITNET machines are usually mainframes running the VMS operating system, and the network is probably the only international network that is shrinking.

Client software that is used to look at various kinds of Internet resources. Examples include Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator.

In web hosting, burst is when a client suddenly uses more bandwidth than is expected under its contract.Typically, the web hosting company expects this to happen occasionally and has set fees for the client depending on the bandwidth used.