Glossary

What is Connection Speed?
What is a Router?
What is a UPS Power Backup?
What is a Tape Back Up?
What are FrontPage Extensions?
What are Detailed Web Statistics?
What are Raw Log Files?
What are POP 3 E-mail Accounts?
What is E-Mail forwarding?

What is Connection Speed

The connection speed is the rate data is transmitted from the web server hardware to the Internet.  This connection should be as big as possible so that as many people as possible can request information at once.

TCP/IP data is "packetized" which means many people are using the same wire at the same time to get different pieces of information.   The computer sorts out each "packet" and delivers it to the appropriate place.

The key is to have a very fast and reliable connection to the Internet with a very fast server. We have both.

A 28.8 KBPS modem is sending and receiving data at 28.8 Kilobits per second.  If you divide this number by 1,000 you get Megabits per second, or 0.028 MBPS.  The graph below shows the difference between a 28.8 KBPS modem, a 56 KBPS modem, a full T1 (1.53 MBPS) and a T3 which is 45 MBPS.

Our hosting service has multiple T3s to the Internet from different providers.   This means that your uptime is virtually guaranteed.  Even if a big segment of the Internet is busy or down, the traffic to your site is re-routed to a different circuit. All of this is automatic.

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What is a Router?

A router is a device that routes data between networks of different technologies.
It pays attention to the network layer protocol (OSI level 3) and it has an address on the network, so that it can be used as an intermediate destination: by looking at the protocol level address (rather than the MAC address like bridges do) routers only examine packets of data if they are addressed to it and then send them to the right exit on the right network.

Routers can be implemented locally or used in an environment where multiple networks exist in different geographic locations and need the ability to exchange data. The most typical implementation is in frame relay networks, which can be provided by either local exchange carriers (BellSouth, Time Warner, USLEC, etc.) or by inter-exchange carriers (AT&T, Sprint, MCI, etc.).

Frame networks are a great way to connect multiple locations that have Microsoft Windows NT or Novell LAN's. They also work well in IBM SNA environments, or in environments that may need to send SNA and LAN traffic.  If you implemented a multi-point frame network to connect several locations, you will most likely need routers in each location.

Here is a bunch of technical stuff about routing, switches and gateways from Cisco, one of the largest router manufacturers.

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What is a UPS Power Backup?

A UPS is the generic term for Uninterruptible Power Supply.  It is a battery connected to the wall with a built in charger.   Computer equipment plugs into it.  Should the power fail, or some other electrical problem occur, the devices connected to it will keep running off of the battery.  Batteries usually last a few years.  The units vary in price depending on the load which they handle.  Smaller facilitates have small systems.  Larger companies have generators operated by huge diesel engines with banks of car batteries connected to voltage inverters to keep the computers running until the generators can start and take over for the power grid.

A UPS on your home computer will safeguard your machine against a power failure.  Most UPS devices connect to your computer with a cable.   When the UPS activates (goes on battery mode) your computer is issued a "gentle shut down" command.  This prevents the computer from crashing and gives you time to save your data.

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What is a Tape Back-Up?

Your computer data has great value.  It can represent hundreds of hours of work.  Computers are temperamental devices, subject to damage from power outages, mechanical failure, software glitches and other problems.   To protect your valuable information, we strongly suggest a nightly backup of your important data.  You purchase a tape drive and connect it to the computer that holds your valuable data.  In some cases your computers are networked.  This would allow a tape drive connected to your network to save the data from all of your computers to a magnetic tape.  We recommend backing up your entire system on two sets of five tapes.  One tape for every night.  The backup process is automated, running on a timer.  Each morning you change the tape.  During the next evening the system will be backed up.  At the end of the week, the set of five tapes should be taken off site and stored in a safe place.  Should your office suffer a fire, flood or break in, you would have a complete set of information.  You would simply replace the lost or damaged hardware and restore the data from tape.  Your network could be back on line within a few hours, missing only the data lost since the last backup.  The investment in configuring your network for this basic disaster recovery can save your company thousands of dollars.

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What are FrontPage Extensions

One of the most handy tools a web developer has are html tools like Microsoft FrontPage.  HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is a primitive form of computer code that makes a web browser display text and images.  It is difficult to write web pages in this language and create them to look artistic and interesting.  Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor.  It isn't perfect, but it is the best we have used for creating web pages.

Server extensions are programs installed on the web server that allows you to "publish" to the server.  If you are interested in using FrontPage, we can train you to make your own modifications to your pages.   The editor looks much like a word processor.  When you click on "save" you are really transmitting or "publishing" the web page to the remote server via the Internet.  It basically makes the web server many miles away act like a disk drive connected to your local computer.  The alternative to a tool like FrontPage is to use a text editor to create the HTML.  The code references images.  All of the elements (HTML code and images) needs to be separately transmitted to the web server.  This is a time consuming process and adds little to the message conveyed by the web site.

If you don't like FrontPage, that's OK too.  You can use your favorite editor and then transmit your pages to the system using FTP.

Do you want to know what I think about Microsoft?

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What are Detailed Web Statistics?

You need to know how many people are visiting your site and what they look at.  The web server that hosts your pages has the ability to keep a log of who connected to your site and which page they looked at.  Unfortunately the server can't give you their name and address, but at least you can see what is popular on your site.

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What are Raw Log Files?

There is more than one way to analyze web server logs.   We prefer a program called Webtrends which creates a very detailed analysis of the log files.  Having direct access to the raw log files means that we can use this Webtrends program to do analysis for you.  Ask about it.  If your current provider doesn't offer analysis, we can if we have access to the raw log files.

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What are POP 3 Mail Accounts?

This is the standard mail format used for delivering mail on the Internet.  With a $25 per month account, you get two accounts.  This means that you get two separate user names and passwords to send mail to.  Additional POP 3 mailboxes cost $5 per month.

With POP (Post Office Protocol), mail is delivered to a shared server, and a personal computer user periodically connects to the server and downloads all of the pending mail to the "client" machine. Thereafter, all mail processing is local to the client machine.

Think of POP as providing a store-and-forward service, intended to move mail (on demand) from an intermediate server (drop point) to a single destination machine, usually a PC or Mac. Once delivered to the PC or Mac, the messages are typically deleted from the POP server.

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What is E-Mail Forwarding?

If you already have a mail account, you can add an unlimited number of "forwarded" mail addresses to point at your real address.   For example, you may want to create a mailbox called "sales@mycompany.com". Instead of having to check for mail on a separate POP 3 mail server, you can simply "point" mail from the new address to your existing mail account.  It doesn't matter if you use America On Line or AT&T Worldnet or Erol's.  All you do is specify the name for the new mailbox and the actual POP 3 Internet address to send the mail to.

You get an unlimited number of these with your $25 per month account.

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