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 "Nuts
and Bolts"
Industry lingo and essential information:
Review
some of the industry terminology, which will be useful in understanding
the Web site creation process. Follow the internal links for a
quick overview on some important topics and find out why they
are crucial to you in the development of your Web site.
Cross-browser
Compatibility
Many
people don't realize that the use of the popular proprietary Microsoft
Front Page™ editor results in Web sites than can only be
read properly by Microsoft browsers. Similarly, Netscape Composer
puts out pages that are incompatible with any browser but Netscape.
Most editing software is biased toward the company's own browser
product and puts out code that either makes other browsers crash
or limit what features they can see. Welcome to browser wars!
To combat this problem, Boyer Web Design uses standard coding
practices and multi-browser testing across platforms to assure
reliable usability.
Domain
Name
A text-based address used to locate a specific set
of Web pages.
Host,
Web Host
The
server that stores the pages of your Web site, offered by both
ISP's and dedicated hosting companies.
Hyper
Text Markup Language - HTML
The
code used to write a Web page. The language uses text commands
to create a series of "tags" that specify how information
should appear on the Web page
Hyper-Text
Transport Protocol - HTTP
The
protocol used to access pages across the Web.
Internet
A
worldwide network of interconnected computers. The Internet uses
the TCP/IP protocol to send information between disparate systems.
Internet
Service Provider - ISP
ISP's
offer businesses and consumers connections to the Internet. Some
offer Web hosting and site development services as well.
IP
Address
A
string of number that is used to identify the location used to
identify the location for your domain name on the Web. The domain
name systems translates domain names into these addresses, which
are represented by a series of number that look like this: 126:125.45.6.
Java
A
programming language developed for Web sites. Java gives Web sites
the ability to create small development services as well.
JavaScript
A
scripting language for developing client and server Internet applications.
Links
Another
very important way of promoting your site, when "clicked"
a link leads the visitor to your site from another Web site.
Meta-tags
What
is a meta-tag? A meta-tag is a list of keywords placed in your
HTML telling the search engine what your Web site consists of
and what searches most people are likely to do. This allows your
site to place higher in the search results. Unlike many Web designers,
we include this crucial, but often overlooked detail, in our quote.
Open
Directory - 
This
is an increasingly important index. It is now used by numerous
popular search sites such as Alta Vista, AOL Search,
Dogpile, Hotbot, Lycos, Netscape Search, etc. Unlike the
search engines,
the Open Directory Project is staffed by an army of over 21,000
volunteers editors rather than bots. It is more akin to using
a phone book yellow pages with a database of 1.4 million sites
in 200,000 categories.
Portal
Another
term for search engine. A portal is basically an Internet hub
that acts as a starting point for locating information on the
Web. Some examples of portals are Yahoo!, Lycos, and Excite.
Search
Engines
Search
engines, or "bots", are the most popular way people
discover web sites.
Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol - TCP/IP
These
2 protocols were developed by the U.S. military to allow computers
to talk to each other over long distance networks. IP is responsible
for moving packets of data between nodes. TCP is responsible for
verifying delivery from client to server. TCP/IP forms the basis
of the Internet and is built into every common modern operating
system.
URL
Uniform
(or Universal, depending on to whom you are speaking) Resource
Locator. In essence, it's a Web address that represents a particular
Web page on the Internet. URL's have an "http" prefix.
Web
Site
A
collection of Web pages or files that are extensions of a particular
domain name.
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