PawPrint.net Glossary of Terms

A protocol developed to enable the transfer of files across a network. It provides a reletively insecure username and password  security but has been more recently enhanced to allow for SSL encryption to provide a secure password exchange.

To some extent the use of FTP has been superceeded by SFTP (a component of SSH) or the secure file transfer protocol.

RAM is a type of computer storage whose contents can be accessed in any order. This is in contrast to sequential memory devices such as magnetic tapes, discs and drums, in which the mechanical movement of the storage medium forces the computer to access data in a fixed order. It is usually implied that RAM can be both written to and read from, in contrast to read-only memory or ROM.

Computers use RAM to hold the program code and data during execution. In the first electronic computers, RAM wa...

Abbreviation of Printer Control Language, the Page Description Language (PDL) developed by Hewlett Packard and used in many of their laser and ink-jet printers. PCL 5 and later versions support a scalable font technology called Intellifont.

A set of rules used to define how email should be sent and governing communication between mail servers to achieve this end.

A lens of variable focal length. For example, in an 50-500mm Zoom Lens, the focal length can be vaired between the lower limit of 50mm and the upper of 500mm. This affects the scale of the image on which the lens is focused without throwing the image out of focus.

An all encompassing term that referrs to the entire collection of publically viewable pages (or nodes) existing on the Internet accessable via HTTP