Web Developer Jargon 101

Internet
A system of interlinked computer networks that allow for communication and the sharing of information on a global scale. The information that can be shared may include such things as e-mail, text documents, images, audio, video and applications.

World Wide Web
The visual component of the Internet. Technically it is a global (Worldwide) hypertext system that uses the Internet as it's transport mechanism. In a hypertext system, you navigate by clicking hyperlinks, which display another document which may also contain hyperlinks. Most Web documents are created using hypertext markup language (html).

Client
Refers to the users computer. The user clicks on a link that requests a document from a server. 

Server
A host computer on a network that holds information (e.g., Web sites) and responds to requests for information from it (e.g., links to another Web page). The term server is also used to refer to the software that makes the act of serving information possible. 

IP address
Internet Protocol address - A numeric address (207.155.248.5) that is given to servers and computers connected to the Internet. For servers it is translated into a domain name by a Domain Name Server aka the DNS. When you are "online" you are assigned an IP address by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). 

URL
Uniform Resource Locator - Indicates the location of a file on the internet. Look at the URL in the location field of the browser's toolbar.
 
Domain Name
The "address" or URL of a particular Web site at the uppermost level.
www.microsoft.com
www.sony.com
www.redrivercollege.mb.ca

Domain names cost money and must be obtained and registered through an approved source. To register a Canadian Domain Name, you must use a Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) certified registrar.

For the .com names I purchase I use GoDaddy.
For the .ca names I purchase I use domainsatcost.ca

Recently GoDaddy has begun to sell .ca domains as well. Over time that is where I'll be migrating my .ca domain names to.

I also recommend you choose as few registrars as possible. Having domain names spread amongst many different vendors can make managing them all difficult.

DNS
Domain Name System (or Domain Name Server) - A database system that translates an IP address into a domain name. For example, a numeric IP address like 207.155.248.5 is converted into xo.com. The DNS is a static, hierarchical name service and it uses TCP/IP hosts, and is housed on a number of servers on the Internet. Basically, it maintains this database for figuring out and finding (or resolving) host names and IP addresses. This allows users to specify remote computers by host names rather than numerical IP addresses. Obviously it is much simpler to remember names rather than numbers. 

Protocol
A set of rules that defines the way in which computers will communicate with each other by providing set patterns and formats for data transfer. Use of standard protocols allows different kinds of computers and software programs to exchange information. 

TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol - These two protocols are what allows the Internet to work. The first, TCP controls the process whereby files on one computer are broken down into packets, transmitted across a network and reassembled in the correct order by another computer. The protocol requires the packets to contain a header before the actual file information. The header information determines how the file is to be reassembled. The IP portion of the protocol allows for the information to be used across varying systems.

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol An Internet standard that specifies how an application can locate and acquire resources stored on another computer on the Internet. The conversation between browsers and servers takes place according to the hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP. The protocol that tells the server what to send to the client, so the client can view Web pages.
 
FTP
File Transfer Protocol - The common protocol used for downloading and uploading files over the Internet. With FTP you can login to another Internet site and transfer (meaning, send or receive) files. FTP is the most common means to upload files to a web server and manage a web site. 

HTML
Hypertext Markup Language HTML is the publishing language of the World Wide Web. It is a nonproprietary format and can be created and processed in a wide range of tools from simple plain text editors to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools. HTML uses tags to control and structure text into headings, paragraphs, lists, hypertext links and more.