Reference & Manual > Glossary > C

Cable Modem
A modem designed to operate over cable TV lines. Because the coaxial cable used by cable TV provides much greater bandwidth than telephone lines, a cable modem can be used to achieve extremely fast access to the World Wide Web.

Cache
Pronounced cash, a special high-speed storage mechanism. It can be either a reserved section of main memory or an independent high-speed storage device.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
A style-sheet determines how the HTML document is displayed by the browser. The current version of CSS is version 2 (CSS2).

Catch All E-mail Addresses
A Catch-All E-mail address accepts and delivers any message not addressed to a specific e-mailbox at your domain name to the e-mailbox you specify as Catch-All. This way, no e-mail sent to your domain will be lost.

CCIT
Comite Consultatif International Telegraphique et Telephonique (International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee). International telecommunication standards body.

CDO SEND MAIL:
While you can always add a link to your email address on your website, the ASP COMPONENT CDO, sometimes called "CDONTS", allows you to have a form automatically send an email.

CERN
(Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) A nuclear research laboratory where the World Wide Web was invented.

Certificates: Secure or Digital
Issued by a Certificate Authority (such as Equifax, Thawte or Verisign) , a Secure Certificate (also known as a Digital Certificate) is proof that a Web site is linked to a legitimate business, with a physical address and phone number. It is the job of the Certificate Authority to verify the identity of merchants and issue each a digital or authentication certificate.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)
A set of rules that describe how a Web Server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the 'CGI program') talks to the web server. A CGI program can be written in any language like Perl or C/C++ and it is often stored in a special directory like /cgi-bin. CGI is often used to process data from HTML forms.

cgi-bin
The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGI programs are stored. The 'bin' part of 'cgi-bin' is a shorthand version of 'binary', because once upon a time, most programs were referred to as 'binaries'. In real life, most programs found in cgi-bin directories are text files -- scripts that are executed by binaries located elsewhere on the server. While most programs using CGI are stored in this directory, it is not a requirement for using CGI.

CGI Form Mail
The Form Mail script is a universal form to an email gateway. Use this script if you want to have a form's contents emailed to you, but aren't sure how to write the code for it.

CGI Plug-in Scripts
This is a feature for our customers who want to use pre-written CGI scripts such as Form Mail or Text Counter. Plug-in scripts will be continuously added to the system.

Charge Back
A credit back to a cardholder's account which occurs when a cardholder informs their credit card issuer that a particular charge was not authorized or that goods or services were not delivered or provided as promised.

Chatroom
A chatroom is an internet application that allows users to exchange text messages using a browser.

Chat Server
The web host will allow you to develop a chat room or other type of chat service for your visitors. Be sure to check with the web host company about the details of the chat services offered. Some servers permit you to configure the service, and others pre-configure everything for you while others do not allow chat rooms at all.

Client/Server Architecture
A network architecture in which each computer or process on the network is either a client or a server. Servers are powerful computers dedicated to managing disk drives (file servers), printers (print servers), or network traffic (network servers). Clients are PCs or workstations on which users run applications. Clients rely on servers for resources, such as files, devices, and even processing power.

Client-Side
Client-side scripting enables interaction within a webpage. The code required to process user-input is downloaded and compiled by the browser or plug-in. An example of a client-side interaction is a rollover (typically triggered when choosing a navigation option).

Clustering
Connecting many computers and making them appear as one machine. This is done to increase reliability and performance.

CMS (Content Management System)
A (web) content management system allows a number of people to update content using a simple browser-based interface (instead of manually authoring web pages).

Content management systems generally consist of a number of templates corresponding to standard 'types' of information, e.g. event promotion, staff profiles, press releases and product listings.

Previleges: Users of the system may be assigned specific privileges to restrict the types of change they can make to the website. For example; the communications manager might only be able to add and edit press releases; changes to product pricing can only be made by the product manager.

Co-location (colo)
It is a service whereby a company that owns a server houses it in another company's data center due to the greater security, stronger backbone or other technological reasons.

Cobalt RaQ
Server appliance made by Cobalt specifically for hosting companies.

Code:
Code is instructions for a computer. The most common code used on the web is HTML.

Cold Fusion
Cold Fusion is a scripting language used on web pages to interface with. MS Access, dBase, FoxPro, and Paradox databases. If you use Cold Fusion, you will usually need a host which uses an NT operating system.

Command-Line Interface
The opposite of the GUI (Graphical User Interface). A way of interacting with a computer system using the keyboard and a text-only display. Usually more powerful, but less user-friendly than a GUI.

Components
Components are short-cuts used when coding in ASP. For instance, you can use ASPMAIL to create a form your users fill out that is automatically emailed to you, added to a DATABASE, or both.

Connectivity
A computer buzzword that refers to a program or devices ability to link with other programs and devices.

Contact Record
In the case of many registries, contact information for technical, billing and administrative purposes are maintained in their database. It is important to keep your contact records updated to ensure that billing and renewal can proceed without problems.

Control Panel
Control panel included in web hosting packages is an online web-based application that allows you to easily manage different aspects of your account. A Web site Control Panel provides a simple user interface for maintaining and monitoring your Web site. Features of the Control Panel vary among providers, but most include site administration, design, statistical reporting, and account maintenance tools.

Cookie
The most common meaning of 'Cookie' on the Internet refers to a piece of information sent by a Web Server to a Web Browser that the Browser software is expected to save and to send back to the Server whenever the browser makes additional requests from the Server. Cookies might contain information such as login or registration information, online shopping cart information, user preferences, etc.

Counter
A Counter shows you how many page views or hits occurred on a certain Web page on your Web site.

Country-Specific Domain Names (ccTLDs)
Country code domain extensions represent a specific country. ccTLDs allow you to create an in-language Web site and display different site content to visitors from various cultures around the world. You can also register ccTLDs to prevent unauthorized use of trademarks, brands and licensed names around the world.

CPU
Central Processing Unit. The actual "computer" that executes programs on a machine.

Crawler
Also known as spider, an automated software that retrieves web pages and follows the hyperlinks contained in them. Used to generate indexes used by search engines.

Cyberspace
Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks.

Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk was originally a cultural sub-genre of science fiction taking place in a not-so-distant, dystopian, over-industrialized society. The term grew out of the work of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and has evolved into a cultural label encompassing many different kinds of human, machine, and punk attitudes. It includes clothing and lifestyle choices as well.