glossary

CGI Applications
On the web you will often use CGI applications, they are applications that run on a webserver and produce web pages dynamically. They can retrieve information from databases, process the contents of a form that a user has just filled in and much, much more. They allow web developers to do things like allow customers to fill forms which are then sent to a email addresses. The Contact us page on this website is an example of a CGI application that does exactly this. You will also find more subtle examples on other web sites, for example when a website remembers and greets visitors by name a CGI application has been used.

Intranets and the Internet
The Internet is basically a massive number of computers that are connected. As well as being physically connected they have been setup to all talk the same language. The Internet is accessible by anyone, Intranets still use the same language as the Internet but differ by the fact that only people and computers within a single organisation can see and use these computers. What this means is that there are Web sites that only people within a given company can view.

Hosting
A Web page is a computer file, that is sent upon request to a Web browser. These files have to live on a computer that is connected to the Internet continuously. In most cases it isn’t feasible for a small business to have this. This is where Hosting companies come in. They, for a price, place your website on a computer which is connected to the Internet 24hrs a day, every day of the year. Some companies offer to do this service for free, but very often there is either a catch or poor performance. ewonder will ensure that your business gets the hosting it needs.

Domain Names
When typing in a Web address to visit a website, part of that address is the domain name. For example with http://www.bbc.co.uk/ the bbc.co.uk section is the domain name. The www part is the machine upon which the website lives. The uk part of the domain name refers to the country which domain is registered in. A company that trades internationally would typically look for one of the generic TLD’s (Top Level Domains) such as .com or .net. Domain names are distributed on a first come first serve basis, upon the payment of a registration fee, with the holder being allowed to renew the registration indefinetly.

Domain names are becoming increasingly important in the success of websites. It needs to be something relevant to your business, for example your business name. In many cases the domain name that you want will have already been registered by someone else. In this case you have a number of options, buy the domain from the holder, if infriging on your trade marks, take them to court, or more usually find a name that is close enough although not perfect.ewonder can act on your behalf in negotiations with existing domain name holders, or provide technical advice in the event of a court case, finally and more commonly, find an alternative domain name that works for your company.

Search Engines
Search engines attempt to catalog all the Web Pages on the Internet, they then allow vistors to them to search this catalog. AltaVista and Google are good examples of this. To get the best positions in a list of results from a search engine, web sites and pages have to be carefully constructed, ewonder does this. Also as part of the service ewonder ensures that pages and sites that it produces are added to some of the top search engines for free, and will if required arrange additional paid placement.

Web Applications
Web Applications are programs designed to run over the Internet with a Web based user interface. They don’t need to be installed on your Computer explicitly and in many cases don’t care which hardware or operating system you are using. CGI is one type of application that runs on the Web Server. JavaScript runs in the web browser. Knowing which technology to use in which circumstance is key.

Email Accounts
Email accounts allow you to transmit and receive email (Electronic Mail). Often you are given an email account by a dial up ISP (Internet Service Provider). Your email address is often along the lines of [email protected]. ewonder can setup [email protected] or [email protected] allowing you to be more professional in your email correspondence.

On-Line
Just a quick way of saying “Connected to the Internet”, which has come to cover many ideas from having a web site, to using email.

Gimmicks
Often a Website will use “Gimmicks” to grab the interest of people viewing a web page. It could be an impressive animation, an on-line game or some kind of offer. It is important that a Website is not used as one big “Gimmick”, there are many sites that fall into this catagory, where usability is sacrificed for gimmicks.

Website
The term website is used to describe a collection of web pages belonging together. Very often a website is single themed and purposed, for example all of the pages that start with http://www.ewonder.co.uk/ are part of the ewonder website. The purpose of these pages is to show you what our company is capable of and hopefully inspire you to use our expertise.

Web Browser
A Web Browser is an application that is installed on your computer that requests, receives and displays Web pages. Without a Web Browser the information on the web is much harder to understand (Click view source to see what this page would look like without a web browser). Recent Web Browsers are Netscape 4.7 and MS Internet Explorer 5, they are available for free. Different Web Browsers have different capabilities, the same web page can look very different in one browser to the other. Sometimes Web pages don’t even get displayed.

ewonder uses both years of experience and a comprehensive testing process to ensure that pages produced are usable in many different browsers and systems.

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Free site for dating in London, and the rest of the United Kingdom, so for UK dating see Where’s My Date.

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