Website Design and Development Glossary

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S

Search Engine

1) A software program that searches a database and gathers and reports information that contains or is related to specified terms.

2) A website whose primary function is providing a search engine for gathering and reporting information available on the Internet or a portion of the Internet.

Source: Dictionary.com

Server Side Include (SSI)

The facility provided by most web servers, e.g. NCSA httpd, to replace special tags in an HTML file with the contents of another file before the file is sent out by the server, i.e. an HTML macro.

Source: Dictionary.com

Server

A program which provides some service to other (client) programs. The connection between client and server is normally by means of message passing, often over a network, and uses some protocol to encode the client's requests and the server's responses. The server may run continuously (as a daemon), waiting for requests to arrive or it may be invoked by some higher level daemon which controls a number of specific servers (inetd on Unix).

There are many servers associated with the Internet, such as those for HTTP, Network File System, Network Information Service (NIS), Domain Name System (DNS), FTP, news, finger, Network Time Protocol. On Unix, a long list can be found in /etc/services or in the NIS database "services".

Source: Dictionary.com

SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)

A generic markup language for representing documents. SGML is an International Standard that describes the relationship between a document's content and its structure. SGML allows document-based information to be shared and re-used across applications and computer platforms in an open, vendor-neutral format. SGML is sometimes compared to SQL, in that it enables companies to structure information in documents in an open fashion, so that it can be accessed or re-used by any SGML-aware application across multiple platforms.

Source: Dictionary.com

Shockwave

A 3D animation and interactive learning technology and format from Macromedia. Macromedia Director generates Shockwave files, which can be viewed through a Web browser plug-in (the Shockwave player) or multimedia applications that access the player directly. Shockwave is used to develop more sophisticated animations and interactions than Macromedia's Flash format. Shockwave uses the .DIR (DIRector) file extension for source files and .DCR extension for the Shockwave "movie" that is created and played.

Source: TechWeb.com

SIMPLE

Short for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions, an application of the SIP protocol for server-to-server and client-to-server interoperability in instant messaging. SIMPLE is a step in bringing standardization to instant messaging.

Source: IntranetJournal.com

SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)

A very simple text-based application-layer control protocol. It creates, modifies, and terminates sessions with one or more participants. Such sessions include Internet telephony and multimedia conferences.

Source: Dictionary.com

Software

The programs, routines, and symbolic languages that control the functioning of the hardware and direct its operation.

Source: Dictionary.com

Spam

Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

Source: Dictionary.com

SQL (Standard Query Language)

An industry-standard language for creating, updating and, querying relational database management systems.

SQL was developed by IBM in the 1970s for use in System R. It is the de facto standard as well as being an ISO and ANSI standard. It is often embedded in general purpose programming languages.

The first SQL standard, in 1986, provided basic language constructs for defining and manipulating tables of data; a revision in 1989 added language extensions for referential integrity and generalised integrity constraints. Another revision in 1992 provided facilities for schema manipulation and data administration, as well as substantial enhancements for data definition and data manipulation.

According to Allen G. Taylor, SQL does _not_ stand for "Structured Query Language". That, like "SEQUEL" (and its pronunciation /see'kw*l/), was just another unofficial name for a precursor of SQL. However, the IBM SQL Reference manual for DB2 and Craig Mullins's "DB2 Developer's Guide" say SQL _does_ stand for "Structured Query Language".

Source: Dictionary.com

SQL Server

A relational DBMS from Sybase and from Microsoft. Sybase introduced SQL Server in 1988 for various Unix versions. In that same year, with help from IBM, Sybase created an OS/2 version that Microsoft licensed and branded as Microsoft SQL Server. Sybase later ported the product to NT and NetWare, and Sybase and Microsoft sold the same version for NT under their own brand names for several years.

The partnership ended in 1994 with Version 4, and each company continued developing its version of the product separately. Microsoft SQL Server became Microsoft's flagship database software for Windows. In 1997, Sybase turned its version into Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, which uses different data stores optimized for specific applications.

Source: TechWeb.com

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)

A protocol designed by Netscape Communications Corporation to provide encrypted communications on the Internet. SSL is layered beneath application protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, Telnet, FTP, Gopher, and NNTP and is layered above the connection protocol TCP/IP. It is used by the HTTPS access method.

Source: Dictionary.com

Supervisor Mode

An execution mode on some processors which enables execution of all instructions, including privileged instructions. It may also give access to different a address space, to memory management hardware and to other peripherals. This is the mode in which the operating system usually runs.

Source: Dictionary.com

System Software

Any software required to support the production or execution of application programs but which is not specific to any particular application.

System software typically includes an operating system to control the execution of other programs; user environment software such as a command-line interpreter, window system, desktop; development tools for building other programs such as assemblers, compilers, linkers, libraries, interpreters, cross-reference generators, version control, make; debugging, profiling and monitoring tools; utility programs, e.g. for sorting, printing, and editting.

Different people would classify some or all of the above system software as part of the operating system while others might say the operating system was just the kernel.

Source: Dictionary.com

Systems Analysis

Study of the design, specification, feasibility, cost, and implementation of a computer system for business. What a systems analyst does.

Source: Dictionary.com

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