Glossary for Web Developer

Apache is a freely available Web server that is distributed under an "open source" license. Version 2.0 runs on most Unix-based operating systems (such as Linux, Solaris, Digital UNIX, and AIX), on other UNIX/POSIX-derived systems (such as Rhapsody, BeOS, and BS2000/OSD), on AmigaOS, and on Windows 2000.

Apple Computer, Inc. is a prominent hardware and software company best known for its Macintosh series of personal computers. Introduced in 1984, the Macintosh was the first widely sold personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). That feature and others -- such as an improved floppy drive design and a low-cost hard drive that made data retrieval faster and more reliable -- helped Apple cultivate a reputation for innovation, which the company still enjoys today.

A software piece or module designed to fill the specific needs of a user; for example, software for project management, issue tracking, file sharing, etc. This contrasts with system software, e.g. operating systems like MS Windows or UNIX.

A copy of database and associated files set aside for security purposes. In case of data loss, backup is used to recover the working database or files.

Administrative mode of a shopping cart protected by administrator's login and password and not accessible for customers.

In computer networks, bandwidth is often used as a synonym for data transfer rate - the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period (usually a second). This kind of bandwidth is usually expressed in bits (of data) per second (bps). Occasionally, it's expressed as bytes per second (Bps). A modem that works at 57,600 bps has twice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps.

BSD (originally: Berkeley Software Distribution) refers to the particular version of the Unix operating system that was developed at and distributed from the University of California at Berkeley. "BSD" is customarily preceded by a number indicating the particular distribution level of the BSD system (for example, "4.3 BSD"). BSD UNIX has been popular and many commercial implementations of UNIX systems are based on or include some BSD code.

CD-ROM (Compact Disc, read-only-memory) is an adaptation of the CD that is designed to store computer data in the form of text and graphics, as well as hi-fi stereo sound. The original data format standard was defined by Philips and Sony in the 1983 Yellow Book.

A cookie is information that a website puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time. (More technically, it is information for future use that is stored by the server on the client side of a client/server communication.) Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular site. Using the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), each request for a Web page is independent of all other requests. For this reason, the Web page server has no memory of what pages it has sent to a user previously or anything about your previous visits. A cookie is a mechanism that allows the server to store its own information about a user on the user's own computer. You can view the cookies that have been stored on your hard disk (although the content stored in each cookie may not make much sense to you). The location of the cookies depends on the browser. Internet Explorer stores each cookie as a separate file under a Windows subdirectory. Netscape stores all cookies in a single cookies.txt fle.

C++ is an object-oriented programming (OOP) language that is viewed by many as the best language for creating large-scale applications. C++ is a superset of the C language. A related programming language, Java, is based on C++ but optimized for the distribution of program objects in a network such as the Internet. Java is somewhat simpler and easier to learn than C++ and has characteristics that give it other advantages over C++. However, both languages require a considerable amount of study.

When used in reference to the WebAsyst applications, a document is any file containing text, media or hyperlinks that can be transferred from/to a server.

Document Object Model (DOM), is a programming interface specification being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It lets a programmer create and modify HTML pages and XML documents as full-fledged program objects.

A process of transferring to your computer a copy of a file that resides on another computer.

The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. Specifically, ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications.