Glossary - S
SDSL -- (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line)
A version of DSL where the upload speeds and download speeds are the same.
Search Engine
A (usually web-based) system for searching the information available on the Web.
Some search engines work by automatically searching the contents of other systems and creating a database of the results. Other search engines contains only material manually approved for inclusion in a database, and some combine the two approaches.
Security Certificate
A chunk of information (often stored as a text file) that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection.
SEO -- (Search Engine Optimization)
The practice of designing web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search results from search engines.
There is "good" SEO and "bad" SEO. Good SEO involves making the web page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to the page.
Server
A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running, e.g. "Our mail server is down today, that's why e-mail isn't getting out."
A single server machine can (and often does) have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network.
Sometimes server software is designed so that additional capabilities can be added to the main program by adding small programs known as servlets.
Servlet
A small computer program designed to be add capabilities to a larger piece of server software.
Common examples are "Java servlets", which are small programs written in the Java language and which are added to a web server. Typically a web server that uses Java servlets will have many of them, each one designed to handle a very specific situation, for example one servlet will handle adding items to a "shopping cart", while a different servlet will handle deleting items from the "shopping cart."
SGML -- (Standard Generalized Markup Language)
Developed in 1986 SGML provides a rich set of rules for defining new data formats. A well-known example of using SGML is XML, which is a subset of SGML: The definition of XML is all of SGML minus a couple of dozen items. SGML is an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard: ISO 8879:1986.
SLIP -- (Serial Line Internet Protocol)
A standard that was popular in the early 1990's for using a regular telephone line (a serial line) and a modem to connect a computer as a realInternet site. SLIP has largely been replaced by PPP.
SMDS -- (Switched Multimegabit Data Service)
A standard for very high-speed data transfer.
SMTP -- (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
The main protocol used to send electronic mail from server to server on the Internet.
SMTP is defined in RFC 821 and modified by many later RFC's.
SNMP -- (Simple Network Management Protocol)
A set of standards for communication with devices connected to a TCP/IP network. Examples of these devices include routers, hubs, and switches.
SNMP is defined in RFC 1089
SOAP -- (Simple Object Access Protocol)
A protocol for client-server communication that sends and receives information "on top of" HTTP. The data sent and received is in a particular XML format specifically designed for use with SOAP. SOAP is similar to the XMLRPC protocol except that SOAP provides for more sophisticated handling of complex data being sent between a client and a server. SOAP actually grew from the work that created XMLRPC.
Microsoft's ".NET" system is largely based on SOAP.
Spam (or Spamming)
An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or USENET or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number of people who didn?t ask for it. The term probably comes from a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam repeated over and over. The term may also have come from someone?s low opinion of the food product with the same name, which is generally perceived as a generic content-free waste of resources. (Spam® is a registered trademark of Hormel Corporation, for its processed meat product.)
Spyware
A somewhat vague term generally referring to software that is secretly installed on a users computer and that monitors use of the computer in some way without the users' knowledge or consent.
Most spyware tries to get the user to view advertising and/or particular web pages. Some spyware also sends information about the user to another machine over the Internet.
Spyware is usually installed without a users' knowledge as part of the installation of other software, especially software such as music sharing software obtained via download.
SQL -- (Structured Query Language)
A specialized language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will have its own slightly different version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable databases support a common subset of SQL.
An example of an SQL statement is:
SELECT name,email FROM people_table WHERE contry='uk'
SSL -- (Secure Socket Layer)
A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.
Sysop -- (System Operator)
Anyone responsible for the physical operations of a computer system or network resource. For example, a System Administrator decides how often backups and maintenance should be performed and the System Operator performs those tasks.
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License
This Glossary of Internet Terms is licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution-ShareAlike" license.
The original author and copyright holder is Matisse Enzer, and the current version of the Glossary is available at
