100 Best Web Hosts Terms

W3C - World Wide Web Consortium
An international consortium of companies involved with the Internet and the World Wide Web. The W3C was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the original architect of the World Wide Web. The organization's purpose is to develop open standards so that the Web evolves in a single direction rather than being splintered among competing factions. The W3C is the chief standards body for HTTP and HTML.

WAN - Wide Area Network
A physical or logical network that provides capabilities for a number of independent devices to communicate with each other over a common transmission-interconnected topology in geographic areas larger than those served by local area networks.

WAV Files
A Wave file is an audio file format, created by Microsoft, that has become a standard PC audio file format for everything from system and game sounds to CD-quality audio. A Wave file is identified by a file name extension of WAV (.wav). Used primarily in PCs, the Wave file format has been accepted as a viable interchange medium for other computer platforms, such as Macintosh. WAV flies stored on your hard disk may be added to your desktop either as a single sound file or as part of a play list.

Web Address
Unique identifier of a web sites individual pages. URL (Uniformed Resource Locator) is the more frequently used term for this purpose, they are basically the same thing.

Web Designer
A Web designer is a person who creates websites. Web designers may use Web-authoring software or an HTML editor to create the actual pages, or they may design the overall look and let a Web master do the actual coding. Most often, they are also proficient with Web graphics and images.

Web Hosting
Web hosting allows your Web site to be connected to the Internet at high speed via a Web server so its information can be viewed globally through a browser. Metaphorically speaking, renting space on a server is comparable to renting an apartment. For a monthly fee, you reside in that apartment and all maintenance is the responsibility of the property. You also have access to certain amenities that would otherwise be a costly investment. A Web hosting company houses your Web site on its own secure servers, enabling you to affordably leverage the power of a high-speed network, 24/7 expert monitoring and support, and state-of-the-art technology.

Web Site Builder
A Web Site Builder is the perfect tool for getting your web site up quickly, without investing in a webmaster or an expensive web development software package. You can choose from a range of professionally designed templates, and simple point and click menus to get you site up in no time, with all the basics, including an automated contact form.

Web Space
Web space is the amount of disk storage space you are allowed on the server. Do not confuse web space with bandwidth. web space is the amount of storage space for your files where bandwidth refers to the amount of data transferred from your account to people requesting those files. This web space is used for files needed for your web site and including HTML files (.html, .htm, .shtml), images (.gif, .jpg), executables and compressed files (.exe, .tar, .zip) and other files (.cgi, .pl, .txt, .log).

Web Template
An cloned source file that is sometimes used to speed up the creation of web pages or other computer work. A web developer for example, will often be able to show you some templates of web sites. Templates are sometimes created in advance by web designers or obtained as part of a web creation program. Each time a new site is created the template may be copied after which the copy is customized.

Webalizer
The Webalizer tool creates a graphical summary display of usage statistics of your site. This is useful to give you a quick and clear overview of your web site activity.

Webmail
A web-based interface that uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to enable access to email through any web browser.

Webmaster
A person responsible for the maintenance of a particular website.

WHOIS
A central domain name registration database which tracks all domain name/IP registrations in the world.

Wide Area Network (WAN)
A set of computers that are to far apart to constitute a LAN. In fact, WANs are very often composed of a number of Local Area Networks interconnected together.

Wildcard
Denoted with an "*". Allows one record to stand in for a number of other records: of the same type, pointing to same data, or in the same zone. Wildcard is used in the name field of a record. The "*" must be the only symbol in its label, and it must be the left most label.

WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the use and protection of works of the human spirit. These works - intellectual property - are expanding the bounds of science and technology and enriching the world of the arts. Through its work, WIPO plays an important role in enhancing the quality and enjoyment of life, as well as creating real wealth for nations.

WKS Record
Well Known Service Record. Experimental, not yet adopted or used by any browser. WKS is generalized version of the MX record. Which is not just for mail but for any service. Examples would be POP, HTTP and FTP. If adopted, it will allow greater flexibility in resolving names from IP addresses and will lessen some of the problems cause by native round robin load sharing in servers.

WML - Wireless Markup Language
An acronym for Wireless Markup Language which was formerly known as HDML (Handheld Devices Markup Language). WML is a language that allows the text portions of Web pages to be displayed on mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) via wireless access. WML is part of the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) that is being proposed by several vendors to standards bodies.

WWW - World Wide Web
World Wide Web (or Web) is the most popular Internet service. It allows access to the information and services from the web servers. A web browser (IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Etc) is needed to use the Web.

WYSIWYG - What you see is what you get
Describes a user interface under which "What You See Is What You Get", as opposed to one that uses more-or-less obscure commands which do not result in immediate visual feedback. True WYSIWYG in environments supporting multiple fonts or graphics is a rarely-attained ideal; there are variants of this term to express real-world manifestations including WYSIAWYG (What You See Is *Almost* What You Get) and WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More or Less What You Get). All these can be mildly derogatory, as they are often used to refer to dumbed-down {user-friendly} interfaces targeted at non-programmers