ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange; this is a list of the standard letters, numbers, and symbols that can be included in text files;

autoresponder - a mechanism that sends an automatic reply back to the sender whenever you receive e-mail at a certain address

bit - the smallest amount of computer data (either a 0 or a 1)

byte - equal to 8 bits, usually represents a single character

DS-3 - a fiber-optic, high speed Internet line capable of carrying up to approximately 45,000,000 bits per second

FTP - the File Transfer Protocol; used to transfer files between two machines

gigabyte - equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes (approximately one billion bytes, or 1024 megabytes

GigE - a fiber-optic, high speed Internet line capable of carrying up to approximately 1,000,000,000 bits per second

.htaccess - a control file used by the Apache Web server to configure many customizable features for your Web site

HTTP - stands for "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol"; HTTP is the protocol by which Web pages are sent and received

IP Address - the unique, numeric address that identifies all machines connected to the Internet (example: 209.68.1.11)

kilobyte - equal to 1,024 bytes

mailing list - a group of e-mail addresses involved in a discussion on a particular subject or topic; when a member of the list sends an e-mail to it, all subscribers receive a copy

megabyte - equal to 1,048,576 bytes (approximately one million bytes, or 1024 kilobyes)

OC-3c - a fiber-optic, high speed Internet line capable of carrying up to approximately 155,000,000 bits per second

OC-12c - a fiber-optic, high speed Internet line capable of carrying up to approximately 622,000,000 bits per second

POP - the "Post Office Protocol"; POP is the most popular protocol for downloading e-mail

server - a machine or program which processes requests from and interacts with client machines and/or programs

SMTP - stands for "Simple Mail Transport Protocol"; SMTP is a protocol that allows mail to be sent; your outgoing mail is sent through an SMTP server

spam - a processed meat product of (dubious) quality; a registered trademark of Hormel; e-mail promoting products, services, or ideas sent to hundreds (thousands, or even millions) of recipients who have not asked to receive it

SSL - Secure Sockets Layer; the protocol by which the secure server sends and receives encrypted data  

traffic - the amount of data sent out from your account; for instance, a 15KB page that is viewed 10 times in one day uses 150 KB traffic for that day

UCE - "Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail"; see spam

UBE - "Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail"; see spam

Unix - a powerful, multi-user operating system; probably the most popular OS for internet applications hosting