Company
	Glossary

SCW Consulting staffs a team of server experts that can create a Microsoft Server solution for your business's needs.

Active Template Library (ATL) - A group of routines provided by Microsoft that can be used to help more easily create ASP, ActiveX, and COM objects in C++.

A set of prewritten codes to make programming faster and easier.

SCW staffs a group of web and program developers that not only offer support on existing sites and software but can also develop custom solutions for your business.

ActiveX - A Microsoft technology that uses COM technology, which is designed to enable easier embedding of interactive objects and multimedia on Web pages. To interact with ActiveX on sites that support it, your browser must support it as well.

Web language that allows for interactive multimedia content to be posted on websites.  Microsoft has eliminated a lot of Active X use because of security issues.

SCW Consulting has a wide base of experience in multimedia web design using a diverse range of languages and tools including active x.

Air gap - A type of network security in which a network is secured, at least in part, by keeping it physically separate from other local networks and the Internet. This can be an effective type of security, although limited.  Clients may not be able to get to all resources they need from a single computer.

A physical type of security that creates a internal network with no outside contact. The most secure but also the most limiting.

Security is a never ending battle in the technology world; SCW understands this and has employed a security expert to deal specifically with hackers, crackers, viruses and worms. Let our security consultants keep your computer systems safe.

American National Standards Institution (ANSI) - This organization represents the United States in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It works to develop coding and signaling standards.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) - Pronounced "ass-kee." This is a standard means of representing characters, consisting of 256 characters. The first 128 characters are standardized, and the first 32 of those are control codes, which don't really represent visible characters but rather codes that can be used for text formatting or actions, such as making the computer beep or clear the screen. After the 32 control codes, the next 96 standardized characters represent numbers, letters (both uppercase and lowercase), and standard punctuation marks. The last 128 characters represent different things on different platforms. ASCII is being largely supplanted by Unicode.

Anti-Aliasing - A method used to better define higher resolution objects in lower resolution. This is most noticeable when dealing with curves, such as circles. For example, if you look at a circle drawn in a simple paint program at a low resolution, you can see the "steps," or "jaggies"--the points it takes to make the circle. If you raise the resolution you'll notice the "steps" much less. If you use anti-aliasing, different shades of the circle's color are used to "fill in" the gaps caused by low resolution, smoothing out its appearance to the user. Typical uses for anti-aliasing are for smoothing out fonts and straight lines in 3D images. If you are using a system with jagged-looking fonts, chances are that it's not anti-aliasing the fonts.

A method of graphical design that creates a clearer presentation of the image or line without taking up more room on the website. This is often used to make pages load faster on slower connections.

SCW's design department works with the client to develop a web site that caters to the target market. This often means imploring certain techniques to make your site look great no matter what the monitor size or connection speed is.

Attachment - A file embedded in an e-mail message. It is possible to have one or more attachments embedded in an e-mail message. If you are sending or receiving attachments, you must have an e-mail client that supports MIME encoding, or the attachments will show up in encoded form, which basically looks like a large block of numbers and letters.

A file sent with an email. This by far is the largest security and virus hole in the last 4 years.

SCW consulting can manage your email services to insure that your computer is not vulnerable to worms or virus through email scanning services. By staying up to date on all the security threats that are happening we are able to make sure our client's computers stay operational.

Basic Input Output System (BIOS) - A program stored on your motherboard that controls all of the interaction between your components and your chipset. Simple access to video, keyboard, hard drive, floppy, CD-ROM, and other devices--enough to get an operating system loaded up--are included in the BIOS. Your BIOS is there to get things started for the operating system.

SCW has a vast amount of computer hardware experience. Our computer consulting service covers all aspects of computer hardware installation, configuration and troubleshooting.

Boot Record (Master Boot Record) - The first sector on a hard disk or other disk media. When a computer boots up it searches for a master boot record wherever the BIOS tells it to (usually the master hard drive on the first IDE channel, but this can also be checked for in CD/DVD drives and floppy drives) and, based on what the master boot record says, loads up an operating system. Thus, if the master boot record becomes corrupt or is tampered with by a virus, it can cause your computer to be unable to boot.

The table of contents for your hard-drive. This is the outermost section and tells the computer where to look for the operating system.

SCW consultants are hardware troubleshooting gurus. Often a master boot record can become corrupted by a virus or external variables. SCW consulting has the experience and knowledge to troubleshoot and fix the problem.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) - The protocol used by the core routers on the Internet to route TCP/IP packets. BGP replaces the older Exterior Gateway Protocol. Core routers use BGP exchange routing information to determine optimal routing paths and also exchange TCP/IP data packets.

A network communication protocol (rule) used between 2 or more networks.

Our Cisco certified network consulting experts know how to set up and troubleshoot all your inter-network needs, no matter what the hardware or software router you have.

C - A programming language developed in the late '70s. It became hugely popular due to the development of UNIX, which was written almost entirely in C. C was written by programmers for programmers, and it lets you write code in sloppy ways that other, more structured languages do not. When you think of programming in C, think of driving a Delorean. It goes really fast, but it's a mess inside.

C Sharp (C#) - An object-oriented programming language from Microsoft based on C/C++ that contains functionality similar to that found in the Java programming language. It is designed to work with Microsoft's .NET platform.

C++ - An extension of the C programming language that adds object-oriented concepts.

SCW Consulting's development team is experienced in a wide range of languages, so no matter what the project is they can program it.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) - You can use CSS to define one or more styles on a single Web page or group of Web pages. The styles determine how information is displayed in browsers. For example, you could define a style for text that sets the font to Arial and the size to 2, and use that style wherever it is appropriate on your HTML pages. A style can affect one page or a group of them. The vast majority of current browsers support CSS.

A style template that is linked to the content so a website can easily be reformatted just by changing the template.

SCW's development team implores Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) when it is necessary to change the look of your website often.

Cat 3 (Category 3 cable standard) - Cat 3 cable is certified to run at up to 16MHz. You can achieve speeds of up to 10Mbps on Cat 3 cable. This cable maxes out with standard 10Mbps Ethernet.

Cat 4 (Category 4 cable standard) - Cat 4 cable is certified to run at up to 20MHz. You can achieve speeds of up to 16Mbps, such as with the 16Mbps token-ring standard.

Cat 5 (Category 5 cable standard) - This was a very common copper wire standard between 1996-2002 and today. It uses a RJ-45 plug and four-pair wire like Cat 3 and Cat 4, but it is certified to run up to 100MHz and is suitable for 100Mbps wiring standards. Higher speeds are possible, and some installers certify Cat 5 wire at 155Mbps or more.

Cat 5e (Category 5e cable standard) - A copper wire cable standard that contains four twisted copper wire pairs, like earlier versions such as Cat 3, 4, and 5. It allows connection speeds of 400MHz.

Cat 6 (Category 6 cable standard) - A cable standard for cable that contains four twisted copper wire pairs, just like earlier copper cable standards. It was designed with Gigabit Ethernet in mind, and typically allows transmission speeds of 400-550MHz.

Cat 3-6 are network cables that are used in standard Ethernet networks.

SCW Consulting's network consulting service will make sure your network is installed correctly and to industry standard. Our network Consulting have the experience to design, implement and troubleshoot any network that your company needs.

Client/Server - Client server technology came about when computers began to cost less. Mainframes are very expensive, and didn't give users much personal freedom. The client/server model promised to change that scenario, and it's much more popular today. Basically, a client computer with its own memory and hard drive communicates with a server whenever it needs data from the server. The client computer can run by itself without the server and communicate with different servers as it needs to.

The client often refers to a desktop computer which connects to a server to gain resources. This is the base network model for any computer communication.

SCW Consulting has experience on server based network solutions from small business to non-profit to multi-site large corporations. Our Sever consulting services are combined with our network consulting services to deploy the best solution for your needs.

Cluster - A group of computers connected over a network that run software that allows them to work on individual pieces of one greater task.

Grouping server/computers together to gain fault tolerance and increased speed.

SCW consulting has experience with many types of clustering on the Microsoft server 2000 and 2003 platform. Our consultants have deployed Network load balance and server clustering in a wide range of industries to increase availability and bust productivity.

ColdFusion - A server side extension developed by Allaire that allows documents similar to HTML, usually with the .cfm extension, to be parsed and run on a webserver. ColdFusion allows Web designers to embed database calls into HTML-like documents, and is designed to provide easier access to database servers than by using standard CGI calls.

Co-Location (CoLo or Co-Lo) - The practice of having your webservers, or other servers, hosted at another location by another company. Often, companies will co-locate their webservers at an ISP that handles the bandwidth, power, cooling, and the care and maintenance of the webservers.

Off site storage of a web site.

SCW Consulting hosts a large number of ecommerce and corporate websites on our servers. Our development team often works with these sites on a daily basis to make sure the site is up and running at peak performance.

Cracker - This is the common term used to describe a malicious hacker, though it can also refer to code breakers. Crackers get into all kinds of mischief, including breaking or "cracking" copy protection on software programs, breaking into systems and causing harm, changing data, or stealing. Hackers largely regard crackers as a less educated group of individuals who cannot truly create their own work, and simply steal other people's work to cause mischief or for personal gain, not to promote understanding.

A hacker or program that breaks into your network, website or software.

Security is an ongoing nightmare. Hackers break into sites, software and servers causing real problems for computer users. SCW Consulting has the security consulting experts to help you plug any of these holes. Our security audit services were developed by ex-hackers to detect the holes that they used to break in. Our security consulting services put that information on your side.

Database - An ordered set of data.

Our consulting and development team can design any database to increase business use of data. Our software development team can create everything from a custom inventory system to a point of sale system for your business.

Defragment - When defragmenting a hard drive, a software utility is to arrange the order of your files so that each file is represented in a physically continuous segment. Defragmentation can improve your hard drive performance because it can read any particular file in a continuous stream instead of jumping here and there around a hard drive to locate each file segment or fragment.

Reorganizes your hard-drive to operate with more efficiency.

SCW Consulting offers a wide range of service contracts that will insure your computer systems are running at peak performance.

Denial of Service (DoS) - A type of network attack that attempts to render a network or Internet resource useless to users, typically by sending large amounts of repeated requests for data. The target may be e-mail services, an IRC server, or access to a particular website. The methods of attack vary, but the end result is that a resource is artificially slowed down or unavailable to legitimate users.

A common attack type used by hackers today. SCW's consultants know how to prevent and stop this type of attack. Just contact our security consulting team and they can help.

Distributed File System (DFS) - A Microsoft technology introduced in Windows 2000 that allows multiple servers and shared directories on a network to appear as a single network drive, thus helping to ease the annoying problem of running out of drive letters in complex environments. With DFS, you can have your users' H: drive, for example, be a collection of network resources instead of just a single share.

DNS (Domain Name Service) - This service maps TCP/IP numbers, such as 123.12.4.245, to a more easily remembered name, such as www.scwconsult.com. Thus, when you type www.scwconsult.com into your browser, it goes out to the DNS server specified by your ISP and asks for a matching TCP/IP address. If the browser finds a DNS entry for the name you typed in, you see the appropriate website. If not, it lets you know. Every domain name that is actually being used for a website has a corresponding TCP/IP address. When you set up a site you have your ISP add a DNS entry to its DNS servers (or manage it yourself). This entry gets replicated across the Internet in a matter of hours, and, once fully replicated, you can reach your website from any Internet connection.

Domain name - A more friendly representation of a more complex TCP/IP addresses. For example, we purchased the www.scwconsult.com domain name so we could use it to represent our server's address. You can now purchase domain names through several providers, although you used to have to go through InterNIC. The fee for owning a domain name typically ranges from US$10-$35 per year. Domain name purchasing is first come first served.

Our Web development and consulting team can help you develop and name and web site that will build your business and customer base.

E-mail - This stands for electronic mail. It is a service provided over the Internet that allows you to send information to another person or list of people.

Ethernet - A network topology that is able to send data at 10 Mbits/second. Workstations can exist on the same cable, but only one can communicate at a time. To get by these limitations, switched Ethernet and Fast Ethernet were invented and also combined. Nowadays, most networking devices you would purchase are switched fast Ethernet, as prices have dropped low enough to make it unnecessary to keep building newer standards.

Extranet - An intranet that extends onto the Internet. Confusing? Yes, at first. Extranets are external extensions of a company's intranet that allow certain people to interact from the Internet. For example, you could offer part of your company's website to be accessed by customers, but not the general public. That's an extranet. Not all intranets are extranets.

Failover - When one device stops working and another device automatically takes its place; typically after a set amount of time has lapsed since the first device stopped responding. Basically, the work done by the failed device falls over onto the other device.

File Server - Any computer that allows other computers to access files stored on its hard drive or other storage media. The file server also controls who can and cannot access these files. Most other types of servers, including database and webservers, are just glorified file servers. Webservers serve up Web pages, but Web pages are files. Database servers serve up data, but that data is contained in files. However, the distinction is that file servers typically allow access to the files in their raw format, such as through a file management program or command, while webservers and database servers may not allow that form of access.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - A common method of moving files from system to system using TCP/IP. To work properly, it requires an FTP client to contact an FTP server in order to transmit data back and forth.

Firewall - A security device that stands between a private network and the Internet. It is like a wall because it can prevent unwanted traffic from passing either way. Some firewalls have proxy functions built-in. In fact, the distinction between a firewall and a proxy is often blurry; the differences and similarities between a firewall and a packet-filtering router is confusing. True firewalls generally support packet-filtering, proprietary application filtering, and some proxy functions, combining the features of other devices or software into one unified package.

SCW Consulting has extensive firewall experience with PIX Raptor and IAS, just to name a few. Our Network Consultants know how to setup your ACL to alow only the traffic you want through.

Geek - (1) A formerly derogatory term given to the outcast elite, usually lacking in social graces. The term has been used so liberally by the masses of people that computer gurus have taken it to heart as not being derogatory, but rather the name given to scientifically savvy folk. (2) A carnival performer who performs grotesque acts, such as biting the heads off of live chickens.

SCW prides it's self on being the only "geeks" your company will ever need to turn to.

Hacker - Someone who seeks to understand computer, phone, or other systems strictly for the satisfaction of having that knowledge. Hackers wonder how things work and have an incredible curiosity. Hackers will sometimes do questionable legal things, such as breaking into systems, but they generally will not cause harm once they break in. Contrast a hacker to the term cracker or malicious hacker.

Help Desk - If you've ever worked in an office environment, you may have a help desk. This is the support organization designed to take care of your computer and network problems.

SCW's support center has 24x7 services to insure that your problems are taken care of. By becoming one of our contract clients our Consultants will strive to make sure that every problem you have is resolved.

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) - A standard language initially created for typesetting. Although it is a language, it isn't really a programming language. It is mainly used for creating documents on the World Wide Web. Included in the language are provisions for displaying graphics and links to other pages.

Internet - The global network of computers constantly connected to each other using standardized communications protocols, specifically TCP/IP.

Intranet - A local network of computers using TCP/IP as the standard communications protocol. Usually an intranet features some sort of HTML content that you can use a browser to look at. Think of it as a mini, private Internet. Many companies have intranets that contain information only of use to their employees.

JavaScript - A simple scripting language designed by Netscape to be embedded into HTML documents. It is unrelated to Java. JavaScript is supported in most modern browsers and can be disabled, but it is so ubiquitous at this point that disabling JavaScript will often limit your browsing ability. JavaScript runs on the client, not the server, and is useful for off-loading operations to client machines. However, there is also server-side JavaScript

Legacy System - Any old computer system that was set up before your time and now continues to work and need support. Often legacy systems are problematic to upgrade because the people that put them together aren't around any more.

Linux - An Open Source, UNIX-like operating system originally developed by Linus Torvalds. Linux is freeware by default, but may be sold for the cost of packaging, bundling, and technical support. Companies such as Red Hat, SuSe, and Caldera sell Linux packages; however, they also allow you to download them for free. Linux was first developed for x86 computers, but now runs on a wide variety of platforms.

Memory leak - A condition where a program continues to request more memory from an operating system and doesn't tell the operating system when it is no longer using the memory. Programs with memory leaks can end up using all of the memory available, or at least enough to cause performance problems. Memory leaks in programs are fixed by using proper memory management techniques.

Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) - A certification program offered by Microsoft. To become an MCSE you must pass a series of standardized tests at Microsoft-approved testing facilities.

Mission Critical Application - Any application that is critical to the proper running of a business. If this application fails for any length of time you may be out of business. For example, an order-entry system may be considered mission critical if your business relies on taking lots of orders. You don't want your mission critical apps running on junky hardware ... or software for that matter.

NAT (Network Address Translation) - A method that many networks use to extend their IP addressing to support more addresses than they own. The interior network uses one addressing scheme, and the exterior network uses the standard IPv4 Internet addressing. NAT devices can be routers, firewalls, or proxy-servers.

Network - A group of interconnected computers. The computers must be capable of transferring data to form a true network--you can't just weld a bunch of computers together. Put that torch down!

Let SCW's network consultants take care of all your network needs.

OS (Operating System) - The program that allows you to access the basic functions of your computer. (Windows) It is the minimum software required to run a program. Thus, you must have an operating system installed and then the programs run on top of it--unless you have a program with an entire operating system embedded into it, which is possible.

PC (Personal Computer) - This is slang for IBM Personal Computer, or IBM-PC. This is the class of computers the works (so far) on the x86 instruction set, and were first developed by IBM as a means to put a computer in your home. After the PC was developed, many clone PC makers began developing them as well, and that has led to the large amount of components that are PC-compatible.

SCW Consulting has the experience and knowledge to support your PC. Our consulting services included anything from the server down to the PC and anything in between.

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) - PDA's are basically beefed-up organizers or toned-down laptops. They have small LCD screens, some form of pen or keyboard input, software for organization, OCR and contact management. Some have even more features, such as Web browsing or Internet e-mail. Most PDAs are designed to fit in one hand while you use the other hand for input.

SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) - Pronounced "skuzzy," this is a standard data pathway used mostly for hard drives and CD-ROM drives; it was also a common interface for scanners and even printers at one point. It is the fastest (and the most flexible) method of interfacing with hard drives. It comes in numerous varieties and is mainly used in servers and high-end workstations.

Server - A machine whose sole purpose is to supply data so that other machines can use that data. This describes any software process that runs on a server machine and responds to client processes or programs locally or across a network. See also client/server.

SCW's consultants are server experts. Our Network consultants know how to design, implement and configure a server solution no matter what the size of your business is.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) - The TCP/IP suite first saw use on the original Department of Defense Internet in 1983. Its first implementation was amazingly successful, and it is still THE protocol of the Internet.

Terabit (Tb) - Approximately 1 trillion bits. More exactly, it is 2^40, or 1,099,511,627,776, bits.

Terabyte - One trillion bytes, or one thousand gigabytes.

TeraFlop (Tflop) - The ability of a system to compute one trillion floating point operations in one second.

Topology - The general structure of a network. Some examples are star and ring topology.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - This phrase was coined by the creators of the Network Computer (NC) to describe the benefits of using a system that is more mainframe and less client/server. Their logic states that NCs, although they may cost the same up front as cheap PCs, have a lower TCO than a network built on PCs.

UNIX - An operating system that was originally developed at Bell Labs in 1969, and is now being developed by many other corporations. Its main use is as a multi-user server environment. UNIX is often used to run computer systems at universities, internet servers and large corporations.

Virtual LAN (VLAN) - This is created when a bunch of physically connected ports are grouped together by network hardware that supports VLANs. These VLANs are each treated as completely separate entities, and can only be joined together by a router. This scheme is useful for grouping departments together for security and minimizing network traffic.

Virtual Private Network (VPN) - A "virtual" network constructed by connecting computers together over the Internet and encrypting their communications so that other people cannot understand the communications.

VoIP (Voice Over IP) - The practice of using an Internet connection to pass voice data using IP instead of using the standard public switched telephone network. This allows a remote worker to function as if he or she were directly connected to a PBX even while at home or in a remote office. It skips standard long distance charges, as the only connection is through an ISP. VoIP is being used more and more to keep corporate telephone costs down, as you can simply run two network cables to a desk instead of separate network and data cables. VoIP runs right over your standard network infrastructure, but it also demands a very well-configured network to run smoothly.

SCW has been at that the forefront of VoIP services. Our Network consultants have experience designing and implementing VoIP solutions.  These VoIP often save our customers on phone service and PBX installation cost.

WAN (Wide Area Network) - Any network that spans more than one location. Typically at least one of the locations is fairly remote. Compare this to a MAN that may encompass several closely located buildings, such as a college campus

Website - This term describes a particular company, user, or organization's Web pages served up by a webserver. It may be split across multiple servers or URLs, but it is one group of HTML pages with a particular association. For example www.SCWConsult.com

Windows 2000 -. Windows 2000 was mainly a 32-bit operating system using the NT code base, but 64-bit versions also came out for Intel's Itanium processors. Windows 2000 ads new functionality into Windows NT, such as support for USB and other new devices, built-in DirectX 7.0, and many other features.

Windows XP - The user-friendly, updated version of Windows 2000, with an almost cartoonish interface that will surely be looked back upon with a wince. XP started to take real "advantage" of the Internet by including numerous hooks and links to Microsoft's website to improve various functionality, and that is part of what made this operating system so controversial. Also, at long last, it moved the Windows NT code-base onto consumer machines, allowing home users to get the benefits of stability that Windows Me didn't offer. Many hold-outs prefer to stick with Windows 2000.

Our Consulting services are experienced in any of the Microsoft operating systems. SCW's consultants can install, configure or troubleshoot anything to do with Microsoft.