Cable Modem
A modem attached to a coaxial cable television system. Cable modems can transmit data at 500 kilobytes a second, much faster than a typical computer modem that sends signals over telephone lines.

CGI-BIN
A directory on a server that "houses" all of the CGI programs. When you see this as a directory in your browser's URL window, it usually means you are either running or about to run a CGI program. The "binary" part refers to when many of the files placed in that directory were binary files. More recently, many of these files are text-based.
See Also: Common Gateway Interface (CGI)

Client
A software program used to contact and obtain data from a server software program on another computer, often across a great distance.

CNAME - Canonical Name
The Canonical Name resource record, CNAME, specifies an alias or nickname for the official, or canonical, host name. Alias records assign an alternate hostname to a specific hostname. Both hostnames point at whatever IP address the primary hostname is assigned to.

Co-Location
Most often used to refer to having a server that belongs to one person or group physically located on an Internet-connected network that belongs to another person or group.

ColdFusion
A Rapid Application Development (RAD) system created by the Allaire Corporation of Cambridge, Mass, ColdFusion integrates browser, server and database technologies into Web applications. Cold Fusion Web pages include tags written in ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) that simplify integration with databases and avoid the use of more complex languages like C++ to create translating programs. ColdFusion is the industry's leading cross-platform Web application server. With ColdFusion, Web developers can quickly develop and deliver a new generation of large-volume, transaction-intensive Web applications for everything from e-commerce to business automation and more.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
CGI is a set of rules that describe how a web server communicates with another piece of software on the same machine, and how the other piece of software (the CGI program) communicates with the web server. Many scripting languages, such as Perl, follow the CGI standard. This allows you to develop more interactive sites, by making use of system features.

Configuration
A general-purpose computer term that refers to the way your computer's operating system is set up. It can also refer to the total combination of hardware components - central processing unit (CPU), video display device, keyboard and peripheral devices - that make up the computer system. The configuration is also at work in the software settings that allow various hardware components of a computer system to communicate with one another. A "vanilla" configuration is the standard "clean" and "no frills" version of a computer's configuration (no device drivers or extra settings). This is what a technician might set a system to when trying to troubleshoot a problem with a computer's hardware.

Connectivity
The state of being connected to the Internet or some other type of computer network. On the Internet, if you lose your connectivity, you are no longer online and must redial into your ISP. When ISPs get many users signing on all at once, the connectivity tends to be poor. "What is your connectivity?" usually means what kind of speed does your Internet connection support, like 28.8 or T-1.

Cookie
A piece of information about your computer, something you clicked on, and/or you (such as your username) that is stored in a text file on your hard drive. A server accesses this information when you connect to a Web site that wants to know this information. One common occurrence of a "handing out a cookie", would be when you as a user, log into a system through a Web site. After you enter in your username and password, your browser saves a text file that it calls upon for later access. This prevents you from having to log in again if you happen to leave the Web site and then return at a later time. Cookies are also used in the process of purchasing items on the Web. It is because of the cookie that "shopping cart" technology works. By saving in a text file the name, and other important information about an item a user "clicks" on as they move through a shopping Web site, a user can later go to an order form, and see all the items they selected, ready for quick and easy processing.

Credit card processing
Online credit card processing is available through many of our partners, such as Verisign Payment Services or Cardservice International.

Cron
A Unix command for scheduling jobs to be executed sometime in the future. A cron is normally used to schedule a job that is executed periodically - for example, to send out a notice every morning. It is also a daemon process, meaning that it runs continuously, waiting for specific events to occur.

CyberCash
A form of real-time credit card processing.