100 Best Web Hosts Terms

Name Server
A server responsible for translating domain names and IP addresses.

Negative Caching
A DNS resolver with negative caching will remember when it is told that a domain does not exist.

Netiquette
Informal set of rules that should be followed when using internet services like email, message boards and newsgroups. Describes what it means to be "well behaved" while interacting with other people online.

Netscape
Once the dominant web brower application. Internet explorer has more market share now. Still popular with developers (not as popular as Mozilla with developers).

Netscape Communications
A company that developed one of the most popular web browsers: Netscape Navigator.

Network
A group of electronic devices connected together that are able to communicate with each other.

Network connectivity
The physical (wired or wireless) and logical (protocol) connection of a computer network or an individual device to a network, such as the Internet or a LAN. In web hosting this can be referring to how the company receives it's bandwidth and how it is connected to the provider.

Network Management
Network management can be defined as a set of activities (e.g. network monitoring, gathering and analyzing the statistics, adjusting network configuration) performed in order to increase the network performance and availability.

Newsgroup
A virtual Internet place where people exchange thoughts, ideas and interests, amuse themselves and do a zillion other things, all by means of text messages.

Newsreader
An application that allows to use newsgroups.

NIC - Network Interface Card
A part of the computer hardware responsible for connecting a particular machine to the local area network or to other computers.

NNTP - Network News Transfer Protocol
An Internet protocol that describes how the newsgroups messages are distributed, stored, posted and retrieved.

NOC - Network Operations Center
A hosting company's "home base," so to speak. The NOC is usually where most administration, technical support and physical server storage takes place. For most web hosting companies the NOC is either the main office or is located at the data center.

Node
A computer that is attached to a network; also called a host. A node is also a junction of some kind. On a local area network, a node is a device that is connected to the network and is capable of communicating with other network devices.

Nominet
The domain overseer for .uk domain names.

Non virtual domain
Common in free web hosting. The company may offer a folder within their domain such as : www.domain-name-here.com/WHATEVER_YOU_WANT_HERE/yourpages.html

NS Record
Name Server Record. An NS record declares that a given zone is served by a given name server. Every NS record is either a delegation record or an authority Record. If the name of the NS record is the name of the zone it appears in, it is an authority record. If the name of the NS record is that of a descendant zone, then it is a delegation record.

NSI (Network Solutions Inc.)
Network Solutions, Inc. NSI was the company that acted as the sole registry and registrar for the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains from 1993-1999, pursuant to a cooperative agreement with the United States Government. NSI has been acquired by VeriSign, Inc., which currently operates the .com, .net, and .org top-level domain registries pursuant to agreements with ICANN and the United States Government. NSI is also one of nearly 100 companies that have been accredited by ICANN to offer registrar services in those and other top-level domains.

NSlookup
Standard tool for querying name servers in command line operating systems like Unix and NT.

NT
Web server platform : Windows NT. Developed by Microsoft Corp.

100 Best Web Hosting Terms
Term of the day
Authentication
Determines a user's identity, as well as determining what a user is authorized to access, eg a financial database or a support knowledgebase. The most common form of authentication is user name and password, although this also provides the lowest level of security. VPNs use digital certificates and digital signatures to more accurately identify the user.

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