Reference & Manual > Glossary > P

Packets
Pieces of electronic information sent from computer to computer via email, a network or the INTERNET.

Packet Switching
The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet switching, all the data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many different sources to co-mingle on the same lines, and be sorted and directed to different routes by special machines along the way. This way many people can use the same lines at the same time.

Page
Name for a basic web document. Websites usually consist of many (web) pages.

Page Ranking
PageRank is Google's ranking software that calculates the relevance of a webpage to the search keywords entered. The software analyses both the number of incoming links and the 'quality' of the referring webpage to generate a relative measurement between 0 (low-relevance) and 10 (high-relevance). (The 'quality' of the referring webpage is an abstract measure of how authoritative it is on the subject matter.)

Parking (Domain Name)
Registries require the use of name servers or hosts for every domain registered. Parking is the process by which someone selects a domain name, and "parks" it by registering the domain name under someone's name servers. Parking can be done by anyone, to anyone else who has active name servers. However, parking a domain name alone will result in no service (web hosting, e-mail) for that particular domain name.

Password
A code used to gain access to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7. A good password might be: Hot-6

PDF (Portable Document Format)
Portable Document Format is a file standard developed by Adobe to allow documents to be distributed electronically while maintaining layout integrity. PDFs are useful where a large amount of information is to be provided and where reading such material onscreen in unfeasible or inappropriate.

To view PDF files you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. This is available as either a stand alone application or browser plug-in from the Adobe website.

To create PDF documents you will need to purchase the Adobe Acrobat software.

Peer-to-Peer network
A peer-to-peer network is a collection of computers that can communicate and share information, but that don't have any kind of hierarchical structure. This is the opposite of the client/server model.

PERL
Popular Extraction and Report Language, the most widely used language for programming CGI applications.

PHP
PHP is a popular CODING language. Coding languages or CGI SCRIPTS allow you to make your site interactive by including DATABASE results, EMAIL FORMS, guestbooks, bulletin boards, chat, etc.

PHP Hosting
Web hosting that supports P HP: Hypertext P re-processor, an open source server-side scripting language.

Ping
A network management tool that checks to see whether you can communicate with another computer on the Internet. It sends a short message to which the other computer automatically responds. If the other computer does not respond to the ping, you usually cannot establish communications.

PKZIP or PKUNZIP
Popular compression and decompression programs.

Plug-in
A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape? browser and web server . Adobe Photoshop? also uses plug-ins.

The idea behind plug-in's is that a small piece of software is loaded into memory by the larger program, adding a new feature, and that users need only install the few plug-ins that they need, out of a much larger pool of possibilities. Plug-ins are usually developed by a third party.

POP
Storage space for e-mails delivered via the most recent version of the Post Office Protocol (POP). Your POP3 Accounts should end in @yourdomainname.com. You can use a standard e-mail client, such as Eudora, Netscape Mail or Internet Explorer Mail to download the e-mail to your computer.

Port
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a personal computer is where a modem would be connected.

On the Internet port often refers to a number that is part of a URL , appearing after a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens on a particular port number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers, e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-standard ports, in which case the port number must be specified in a URL when accessing the server, so you might see a URL of the form:

gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/
shows a gopher server running on a non-standard port (the standard gopher port is 70). Finally, port also refers to translating a piece of software to bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows program so that it will run on a Macintosh.

Posting
A single message entered into a network communications system. E.g. A single message posted to a newsgroup or message board.

PPP
(Point to Point Protocol) -- Most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IP connections and thus be really and truly on the Internet.

Propagation
The process whereby the nameservers throughout the world have updated their records for a specific domain. For example, if you move your domain from one host to another, it will take around 24 hours or so for the new address to broadcast everywhere. During that 24 hour period, the traffic is decreasing at the old location and increasing at the new location.

Protocol
A language Computers use when talking to each other. The TCP/IP protocol suite is the basis of todays Internet.

PSTN
(Public Switched Telephone Network) -- The regular old-fashioned telephone system.