I received an email today asking if I could do a post on this.

Here you go Amy!

First of all lets understand what each stands for:

HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

HTTPS - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secured

A typical webpage will use HTTP while a information sensitive site such as paypal will use HTTPS. The difference is simple, one is secure and one is not.

You will want to pay close attention to this when you are on a webpage asking you to enter personal information such as your phone number, credit card number and other information you would rather not share with the rest of the world.

If you don’t see the “S” then you don’t enter the info.

Be safe and ask questions, its the only way to really know.

STCFX,

I’m new to this whole webmaster deal and I’ve been trying to get something straight the past few days with no luck. Every site I visit gives me a different explanation. At this point I’m very frustrated and confused - please help. What is DNS?

Alan.

Hey there Alan, thank you for submitting your question!

Unfortunately when it come to DNS there are a few variated meanings. This does cause a bit of confusion with new webmasters when trying to learn and understand the internet and web development.

Let me see if I can help clear up a bit of the confusion.

DNS ( digital nervous system ), this is a term cooked up by none other than Bill Gates to describe a network of PCs ( Personal Computers ) that make it easier to obtain and understand information.

DNS ( domain name system ), is the system that translates domains into IP ( Internet Protocol ) addresses. The domain microsoft.com is a type of short cut to the IP 207.46.232.182 Because the IP address is long and complicated we use a domain name that will be easier to remember. The domain name system will translate microsoft.com to 207.46.232.182 and take us to the right place.

DNS ( domain name server ), is the particular server used to run the domain name system.

DDNS ( dynamic domain name system), If your computer uses a dial up connection, chance are each time you start up your computer you are given a new IP address; this is called a dynamic IP - whereas a computer that always have the same IP address would be called a static IP. The dynamic name system uses the same methods as the domain name system to translate domain name in to IP address.

DDNS ( dynamic domain name server ), is the particular server used to run the dynamic domain name system.

I hope you will find this information helpful Alan. Best of luck to you!

Keyword density is an indicator of the number of times the selected keyword appears in the web page. But mind you, keywords shouldn’t be over used, but should be just sufficient enough to appear at important places.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:
• Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.
• Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.
• Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.
• When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.
• Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. If you wish, they will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally your search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to build an integrated plan right away so that all aspects of design are considered at the same time.

It is the search engines that finally bring your website to the notice of the prospective customers. Hence it is better to know how these search engines actually work and how they present information to the customer initiating a search.

There are basically two types of search engines. The first is by robots called crawlers or spiders.

Search Engines use spiders to index websites. When you submit your website pages to a search engine by completing their required submission page, the search engine spider will index your entire site. A ‘spider’ is an automated program that is run by the search engine system. Spider visits a web site, read the content on the actual site, the site’s Meta tags and also follow the links that the site connects. The spider then returns all that information back to a central depository, where the data is indexed. It will visit each link you have on your website and index those sites as well. Some spiders will only index a certain number of pages on your site, so don’t create a site with 500 pages!

The spider will periodically return to the sites to check for any information that has changed. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine.

A spider is almost like a book where it contains the table of contents, the actual content and the links and references for all the websites it finds during its search, and it may index up to a million pages a day.

Example: Excite, Lycos, AltaVista and Google.

When you ask a search engine to locate information, it is actually searching through the index which it has created and not actually searching the Web. Different search engines produce different rankings because not every search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.

One of the things that a search engine algorithm scans for is the frequency and location of keywords on a web page, but it can also detect artificial keyword stuffing or spamdexing. Then the algorithms analyze the way that pages link to other pages in the Web. By checking how pages link to each other, an engine can both determine what a page is about, if the keywords of the linked pages are similar to the keywords on the original page.

STCFX,

What are the differences between internet, intranet and extranet?

Carl

Hi Carl,

Thanks for submitting your question. Let’s see if we can help you understand the differences. We have color coded each to make things easier to follow.

Internet

This is the world-wide network of computers accessible to anyone who knows their Internet Protocol ( IP ) address - the IP address is a unique set of numbers (such as 209.34.28.100) that defines the computer’s location.

Most will have accessed a computer using a name such as http://www.stcfx.com . Before this named computer can be accessed, the name needs to be resolved (translated) into an IP address. To do this your browser (for example Netscape or Internet Explorer) will access a Domain Name Server ( DNS ) computer to lookup the name and return an IP address - or issue an error message to indicate that the name was not found. Once your browser has the IP address it can access the remote computer.

The actual server (the computer that serves up the web pages) does not reside behind a firewall - if it did, it would be an Extranet. It may implement security at a directory level so that access is via a username and password, but otherwise all the information is accessible.

Intranet

This is a network that is not available to the world outside of the Intranet. If the Intranet network is connected to the Internet, the Intranet will reside behind a firewall and, if it allows access from the Internet, will be an Extranet. The firewall helps to control access between the Intranet and Internet to permit access to the Intranet only to people who are members of the same company or organisation.

In its simplest form, an Intranet can be set up on a networked PC without any PC on the network having access via the Intranet network to the Internet.

For example, consider an office with a few PCs and a few printers all networked together. The network would not be connected to the outside world. On one of the drives of one of the PCs there would be a directory of web pages that comprise the Intranet. Other PCs on the network could access this Intranet by pointing their browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer) to this directory - for example

U:\inet\index.htm. From then onwards they would navigate around the Intranet in the same way as they would get around the Internet.

Extranet

An Extranet is actually an Intranet that is partially accessible to authorised outsiders. The actual server (the computer that serves up the web pages) will reside behind a firewall. The firewall helps to control access between the Intranet and Internet permitting access to the Intranet only to people who are suitably authorised. The level of access can be set to different levels for individuals or groups of outside users. The access can be based on a username and password or an IP address (a unique set of numbers such as 209.34.28.100 that defines the computer that the user is on).

If you have any other terms that we might have missed, feel free to post below.

0-9

• 1337 - From the word Leet, derived from the word elite
• 2 - too, or to
• 4 - for

A

• AFAICR/S/T - As far as I can recall / remember / see / tell
• AFAIK - As far as I know
• AFK - Away from keyboard
• ANFSCD - And Now For Something Completely Different. Used to change the subject of conversation.
• ASAP - As soon as possible
• ASL - Age / sex / location
• ATEOTD - At The End of the Day
• ATM - At the moment
• AWOL - Absent Without (Official) Leave
• AYBABTU (also abbreviated as AYB) - All your base are belong to us (from the video game Zero Wing)

B

• B2B - Business to Business
• BBIAB - Be back in a bit
• BBL/S - Be back later / shortly / soon
• BCNU - Be seein’ you
• Blog - Also known as web log or an online journal
• BOF - Beginning of file
• BOFH - Bastard operator from hell
• Bot - Any type of automated software in chatrooms and web-cataloging software
• BRB - Be right back
• BRT - Be right there
• BS - Backstab / Bullshit
• BSOD - Blue Screen of Death
• BTDT - Been there done that
• BTDTGTTSAWIO - Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and wore it out
• BTW - By the way
• Bump - Increment (For example, C’s ++ operator.) or a backronym for “Bring Up My Post”

C

• CBA - Can’t Be Arsed. A term to indicate or dictate laziness.
• Crawl - To retrieve a web page along with the hyperlinks that reference it
• Crapplet - A poorly written computer application
• CU - See you (later)
• CYA - See ya OR Cover Your Ass
• Cyber (prefix) - A term used to connect the subsequent word loosely to the world of computers or the Internet or sex over a computer
• Cyberspace - Virtual reality, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and other kinds of computer systems. Science fiction author William Gibson popularized the term in his novel Neuromancer. Gibson used the word to describe a virtual world of computer networks that his cyberpunk heroes ‘jacked into’

D

• DFTT - Don’t feed the trolls
• DGAF - Don’t Give A Fuck
• DIAF - Die in a fire
• DILLIGAF/D/S - Does it look like I give a flip / fuck / damn / shit
• DND - Do not disturb
• DOA - Dead on arrival. Refers to hardware that is broken on delivery.

E

• EOF - End Of File
• EOM - End of Message
• EOL - End of Life. Device or hardware that is at the end of its product life cycle.
• EQ - EverQuest
• ETA - Estimated time of arrival

F

• FAQ - Frequently Asked Question(s)
• FFS - For fuck’s sake
• Flamer - Someone who makes inflammatory, abusive or directly offensive comments. Similar to, but not quite the same as an Internet troll.
• FMCDH - From My Cold Dead Hands
• FOAD - Fuck off and die
• FOAF - Friend of a friend
• FTHOI - For the hell of it
• FTL - For the loss
• FTW - For the win
• FU - Fuck you
• FUBAR - Fucked up beyond all recognition / repair (from military slang; pronounced “foo-bar”)
• FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (the purposeful spread of misinformation)
• FWIW - For what it’s worth
• FYI - For your information

G

• GBTW - Get back to work
• GF - Great/good fight/girlfriend
• GFETE - Grinning from ear to ear
• GFU - Good for you
• GFY - Go fuck yourself
• GG - Good game, used at or near the conclusion of a gaming match
• GL - Good luck, often used at beginning of a contest
• GJ - Good job, often used in online gaming when a teammate performs an act benefitting his team, such as killing an opponent or enabling that kill
• GMTA - Great minds think alike
• Godwin’s Law - Dictates that the longer a thread, the more likely someone will post a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler
• Gratz - Congratulations
• GTFO - Get the fuck out
• GTG or G2G - ‘Got to go’ or ‘Good to go’
• GR -Good Race
• GR8 - Great

H

• HAND - Have A Nice Day
• Handle - Name used in online chat, (AKA nick(name), alias, screen/user name)
• HF - Have fun
• Haxor or H4×0r (1337) - Hacker
• Hit - A request made to the web server, (noun) the results of an internet search, (verb) loading a Web page. Hits are not equivalent to visitors of a webpage.
• Home page - The website’s introduction page, starting point, and guide. The technical term is “index”
• Hot list - A collection of publicly available URLs (World Wide Web site addresses), sometimes available as text files.
• HTH - Hope this / that helps, or happy to help
• H8 - Hate

I

• IANAL - I am not a lawyer
• IAWTC - I agree with that/this comment
• IBTL - In before the lock
• IDC - I don’t care
• IDK - I don’t know
• IINM - If I’m not mistaken
• IIRC - If I recall / remember correctly
• IIUC - If I understand correctly
• ILY- I love you
• IMO/IMHO/IMNSHO/IMAO - In my (humble / honest / not so humble / arrogant) opinion
• Information superhighway - The Internet (AKA: I-way, infobahn)
• IONO - I don’t know
• IOW - In other words
• IRC - Internet Relay Chat
• IRL - In real life
• ITYM - I Think You Mean
• IWSN - I want sex now
• IYKWIM - If you know what I mean

J

• Jaggy - Aliased computer graphics
• JAS - Just a second
• JK or j/k - Just kidding, or joke
• JFGI - Just Fucking/Freaking Google It

K

• k or kk - OK
• KISS - Keep it simple stupid.
• KS(ing) - Kill-Steal(ing)
• KOS - Kill on sight
• KTHX - OK, thanks
• KTHXBAI or KTHXBYE - OK, thanks, goodbye, used either to cut short a conversation or to express displeasure with being cut short

L

• L2P - Learn to play; an admonishment to MMORPG players who are incompetent and/or whine
• L8R - Later, L8R also sometimes abbreviated as L8ER is commonly used in chat rooms and other text based communications as a way of saying good bye.
• Lag - Slang term for slow Internet speeds or high Internet latency; Lag is sometimes due to a server problem, but more frequently due to the connection between client and server. A slow or intermittent connection may often be referred to as laggy
• Lamer - A know-nothing, one who is lame.
• Leet - Often spelled as l33t or 1337 in ASCII form. It originally meant elite
• LFG - Looking for group
• LFM - Looking for more
• LM(F)AO - Laughing my (fucking) ass off
• LMIRL - Let’s meet in real life.
• LMK - Let me know
• LOL - Laughing out loud, laugh out loud
• LOTI - Laughing on the inside
• LTNS - Long time no see
• LYLAS - Love you like a sister
• Lurker - Someone who frequents a Usenet group without participating in discussions

M

• MMORPG, MMO - Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game
• MMOFPS - Massive Multi-player Online First Person Shooter
• MOTD - Message of the day
• MS - MapleStory, an MMORPG
• MTFBWY - May The Force be with you
• MUD - Multi-User Dungeon
• MUSH - Multi-User Shared Hallucination
• MYOB - Mind your own business
• M8 - Mate

N

• NE1 - “Anyone”
• Newbie, noob, or n00b - An inexperienced user of a system or game, or an annoying person.
• NIFOC - Naked In Front Of Computer
• NFW - No freaking way (polite form)
• NM - (Sometimes written N/M) Not much, Never mind or no message, used on message boards or in e-mails to indicate that everything is already said in the subject line.
• NP - No problem
• NSFW - Not safe for work. Warning about content that may get the viewer in trouble with his employer or co-workers.
• NVM, NVMD, or nm - Nevermind, not much

O

• O RLY - Oh really?
• OIC - Oh, I see
• OFN - Old fucking news
• OMG - Oh my god
• OMFG - Oh my fucking god/gosh
• OMGWTFBBQ- Oh my God, What the Fuck/Freak, Barbecue
• OMW - On my way or Oh my word
• OP - Original poster / Operator / Outpost
• OS - Operating systemOT - Off topic
• OTOH - On the other hand
• OTP - On the phone or One true pairing

P

• P2P - Peer to peer, or pay to play
• PAW - Parents are watching
• PEBKAC - Problem exists between keyboard and chair
• Ping - From the popular network monitoring tool, used as a greeting similar to “Are you there?”.
• PITA - Pain in the arse / ass
• PLMK - Please let me know
• plz - Please
• PM - Personal message or private message
• PMSL - Pissing myself laughing
• POS - Piece of shit, or parent over shoulder.
• POTS - Plain old telephone service
• POV - Point of view
• PPL - People
• PST - Please send tellPTKFGS - Punch the Keys For God’s Sake
• pr0n - Intentional misspelling of porn
• PW - Persistent World (gaming)
• pwned — Intentional misspelling of owned

Q

• QFA - Quoted for accuracy. Similar to QFT
• QFT - Quoted for truth. Used on internet message boards to show agreement from a previous message

R

• Rehi (or merely re) - Hello again
• RL - Real Life
• RO(T)FL - Rolling on (the) floor laughing
• RO(T)FLMAO - Rolling on (the) floor laughing my ass off
• RO(T)FLOL - Rolling on (the) floor laughing out loud
• RSN - Real soon now (used sarcastically)
• RTFB - Read the fucking binary (or book)
• RTFS - Read the fucking source
• RTFM/RTM - Read the (fucking) manual

S

• SCNR - Sorry, could not resist
• sk8/sk8r - skate/skater
• Smiley - Another name for emoticons
• SMH - Shaking my headSNAFU - Situation normal: all (fucked/fouled) up
• Snail mail - Normal paper mail service
• SOHF - Sense of humor failure
• Spider - The program behind a search engine
• STFU - Shut the fuck up
• STFW - Search the fucking web

T

• TANSTAAFL - There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
• TBF - Time between failures
• TBH - To be honest
• TG - That’s great
• TGIF - Thank god it’s Friday
• TH(N)X, TNX or TX - Thanks
• TIA - Thanks in advance
• TINC - There Is No Cabal, a term discouraging conspiracy theories
• TL;DR - Too Long; Didn’t Read, an admonishment that a post is too lengthy or lacks worthwhile content
• TMI - Too much information
• TOS - Terms of service
• TTBOMK - To the best of my knowledge
• TTFN - Ta ta for now
• TTT - To the top, used in forums to bump a thread
• TTTH - Talk to the hand
• TTYL - Talk to you later (also spelled TTUL, T2UL or T2YL)TTYTT - To Tell You The
• TruthTweedler - One who has deep love for all computer related technology and gadgets
• TWIMC - To Whom It May Concern
• TY - Thank you
• TYT - Take your time
• TYVM - Thank you very much

U

• U - You
• UTFSE - Use the fucking search engine

V

No Entries *

W

• w00t, w00T or WOOT - First two express exuberance, the latter is a backronym for the term “We Own the Other Team”.
• W/ or W/O - With or without
• WB - Welcome back
• W/E - Whatever
• WoW - World of Warcraft (game)
• WP - Well Played
• WRT - With respect / regard to
• WTB - Want to buyWTF - What the fuck
• WTG - Way to go
• WTH - What the hell
• WTS - Want to sell
• WTT - Want to trade
• WUG - What you got?
• WUBU2 - What (have) you been up to?
• WUU2 - What (are) you up to?
• WUW - What you want?
• WYSIWYG - What you see is what you get
• W8 - Wait

X

No Entries *

Y

• YARLY - Yeah Really
• YIS - Yours in service -or- Yours in Scouting. (Boy Scouts of America)
• YHBT - You have been trolled.
• YKW - You know what?
• YMMV - Your mileage may vary.
• YTMND - You’re The Man Now, Dog
• YW - You’re welcome.
• YOYO - You’re On Your Own.
• YOYOW - You own your own words.

Z

• ZOMG - An intentional misspelling of the acronym shorthand for “Oh My God/Gawd” and pronounced “Zoh My God/Gawd” This version is mainly used in jest or to ridicule people who use abbreviations like OMG and OMFG

STCFX,

What are widgets?

I have looked all over the place for an answer that I can understand, but after reading up I am more confused than ever. Could you please help me? What are widgets?

Karley

Hi Karley, thanks for sending in your question.

There are many forms of widgets available for use either online or on your computer.

A great example of a widget would be a computer desktop icon - by clicking on the icon you are telling the computer to open a program.

Another more common example would be the now ever popular drag and drop features offered on many blogs and social networking sites. You select the “widget” you would like to have on your sites sidebar and simply drag and drop it where you want it to appear.

If you look on our sites sidebar you will see various “widgets”.

Widgets were created with the intention of simplifying the users experience.

Buttons, drop-down menus and text-boxes are all considered “widgets” due to the fact that they can be manipulated by the user to preform a desired action.

If you can click it, mouse over or type something and it causes a reaction chances are its a “widget”.

Hope that helps.