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
A document, or collection of information, available by way of the World Wide Web. To make information available over the WWW, it is organized into pages. A page may contain text, graphics, video, and/or sound files.

Pageviews
A pageview refers to the viewing of a web page on a web site. The number of pageviews will tell how many times a page was viewed or how many pages was viewed on the whole site.

Paint Shop Pro - JASC PSP
Paint Shop Pro (PSP) - produced by JASC - is the second most popular graphics editing software. While the price is much more affordable compared to Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro does not lack the industry strength graphics editing capability available in Photoshop.

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 (webhosting, 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.

Password Protected Directories
Enables a webmaster to protect specific directories on his website with usernames and passwords - so that only authorized persons can view the web pages within the password protected directories.

Perl
Open source CGI scripting programming language. Written in 1987. Still one of the most popular web programming languages mostly due to its powerful text-manipulation facilities. A huge number of Perl scripts are available for download.

Photoshop - Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop - produced by Adobe is undoubtedly the most popular graphics editing software in the world. Photoshop is used widely in the desktop publishing and graphics design industry as well as the web authoring profession.

For creating stunning web graphics, Photoshop is highly recommended. The other recommended software is JASC Paint Shop Pro.

PHP
PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

You can use it to create forms for user interaction or webpages which require access to the MySQL database backend.

PHP files usually end with the .php extension and can be stored anywhere within the public directory of the web hosting account.

Most web hosting companies provide use of PHP with their accounts. If a company you're looking at does not provide PHP, then you should re-consider the buy as you'll miss out on the ability to run PHP scripts.

PKZIP
ZIP is the file format used by the compression PKZIP file compression algorithm. It is the most popular file compression format used on the Internet, especially on Windows based PCs. Popularized by the Windows-based shareware, Winzip, ZIP is now used to compare all kinds of files to reduce file sizes for delivery via online downloads or email attachments.

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.

PNG
PNG is the acronym for Portable Network Graphics. It was created to replace the GIF format due to patent issues surrounding the GIF format.

However it has not been widely adopted by the majority of webmasters.

POP
Short for Post Office Protocol, a protocol used to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail client) use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol).

There are two versions of POP. The first, called POP2, became a standard in the mid-80's and requires SMTP to send messages. The newer version, POP3, can be used with or without SMTP.

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.

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 is will run on a Macintosh.

Portal
Usually used as a marketing term to described a Web site that is or is intended to be the first place people see when using the Web. Typically a "Portal site" has a catalog of web sites, a search engine, or both. A Portal site may also offer email and other service to entice people to use that site as their main "point of entry" (hence "portal") to the Web.

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.

PRI
Primary Rate Interface. One of the two ISDN access methods. 23 of 64 Kbps B channels and 1 64 Kbps D channel constitute a PRI.

Price
The monthly amount that you will have to pay a hosting company to provide the hosting services requested. Paying monthly is normally perfectly acceptable, but discounts may be available by paying quarterly or annually.

We have our own criteria to decide if the price of a web hosting plan is too high base on the amount of disk space and bandwidth offered. Click here to read our criteria.

Primary Server
The designation of "primary" means that this name server will be used first and will be relied upon before any of the other name servers.

Propagation
The process of disseminiating information throughout a system. For example, password changes often must be made on several different servers and will not complete propagation until all affected servers update their databases.

Updating a given server's database is usually an automated process that is performed at specific intervals. Domain prpragation usually will take anywhere from 24 - 72 hours.

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

Python
Interpreted programming language, sometimes offered by hosts for server-side scripting. http://www.python.org/ is python homepage.