95%ile ISP Industry Standard method for calculating bandwidth usage for billing purposes. The average bandwidth value is sampled every 5 minutes. Then the top 5% (appx 36 hours per month) is ignored as unusual peak levels, and the utilised bandwidth is calculated from the remaining 95% of samples.

Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line - digital overlay to standard phone line, allowing for high-speed data connections

Acronym for "As Far As I Can Remember"

As Far As I Can Tell Disclaimer used to indicate that the results have been seen, but no exhaustive stress testing has been performed.

As Far As I Understand It Disclaimer used to indicate real-world experience which may or may not be text-book correct.

Web Log An online journal, much over-hyped slimline version of a web content management system.

A bonded-ADSL service links multiple telephone lines with ADSL into 1 more powerful ADSL circuit. Bonded-ADSL is available in 2, 3 or 4 line variations, giving a maximum download of 4Mb/s, 6Mb/s or 8Mb/s respectively

Common term to describe high-speed internet access over a standard telephone (copper) cable. Usually associated with ADSL/SDSL services.

Country Code Top Level Domain is the extension (last part) of a domain name that is specific to a country or region - for example .uk .tv .mx etc

Generic term for scripts used on websites, usually written in Perl.

UNIX command to set the various permissions on a file +/-Read (4) +/-Write (2) +/-Execute (1)

Collocation is the housing of your own server on our network.

The number of people who share the same connection circuit at the BT exchange. This means that the higher the contention rate, the slower the DSL network will become at peak periods. 1:1 (uncontended) means *all* the allocated bandwidth is available to you. 50:1 contention means that *upto* 50 people will be sharing that bandwidth, so you are only guaranteed 1/50th of the allocated speed.

A type of Ethernet cable required to cross-connect two similar devices. So a switch-to-switch connection or pc-to-pc connection requires a crossover.

Data Centre custom built facility for providing internet connectivity to racks of servers

Allocation of an IP address at connection from a 'pool' of available addresses. Also referred to as a Dynamic IP Address. DHCP assigned IP addresseshave a 'lease' whereby the address will be returned to the pool if unsused for the time specified.

System by which domain names (nice, friendly, easily remembered) are looked up by nameservers to get their IP Address (quad dotted numbers, unfriendly, not-so-easy to remember)

DSLAM equipment is located at the BT exchanges, and connects the exchange side of your telephone line to the ADSL service

Hope That Helps / Hurts The Head TLA used to sign off advice which would if not given cause headaches attempting to learn the black-magic arts of computer skills.

I Am Not A Lawyer Disclaimer used to express that the common-sense and well-founded advice may or may not get you into trouble, so check with a lawyer before relying on it. Remember that free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Geek-speek for "i think" :)

Communication Protocol (method) used across the internet, usually in conjuction with TCP.

All machines that want to communicate using IP require a unique IP address for the data to be 'routed' to the correct place. IP Addresses are available in IPv4 (4 numbers separated by dots - also known as dot1q) and IPv6 (8 hexadecimal numbers separated by colons). An IP address is divided into a network part, which must be the same on any one network, and a host portion, which must differ.

Internet Service Provider Organisation that provides internet connectivity, email, web hosting etc

Java Server Pages On-the-fly compiled java based webpages.

Refers to the telephone network between your location and the nearest BT exchange being operated by a 3rd party (i.e. not BT)

Laugh Out Loud TLA for something thats amusing or humorous.

Network Attached Storage Stand-alone machine with large disks in RAID configuraion used for backup in replacement of tape-units.

Process whereby one IP Address is translated to another. Generally used to 'map' an internal (private) address to a globally valid (real) IPAddr.

Also called an Ethernet card. Hardware device that is installed in your PC in order to connect to a local area network (LAN). Variants include 10BaseT (10Mb/s) 100BaseTX (100Mb/s) 1000BaseSX (1000Mb/s) GigE (1000Mb/s or 1Gb/s) and 10G (10Gb/s)

Telco equipment installed at your location. Usually for providing 'hand-off' of ISDN lines into your network.

Oh For Fvcks Sake Expletive reference used when explaining something which should be mind-numbingly obvious.

Portable Document Format Originally by Adobe (Acrobat) a generic document format, viewed/printed by free \"reader\" software available for every platform.

Audio file distributed by RSS (Really Simple Syndication) usually downloaded onto mobile music players (like an mp3 player or ipod) for later listening.

Term given to the general distribution of various types of audio (Podcasts) by RSS for downloading onto your computer or portable music player.

Point of Presence Physical location where equipment is housed

Post Office Protocol v3 General method by which email is collected over the internet.

Provide data service - setup I.P. transit, broadband (adsl/sdsl/shdsl) or leased line.

The 'normal' circuit-switched based telephone network we use for voice and data.

Redundant Array Of Inexpensive Disks RAID is using smaller disks to make logically larger or more complex storage spaces, by \"striping\" (writing data across multiple disks).

Upgrade or Downgrade Line Speed Regrading a dataline (ISDN/ADSL/SDSL) updates the speed characteristic, changing 512Kb/s to 1Mb/s etc

Realy Simple Syndication A web standard method of people collecting content from websites into their RSS reader for viewing later. Often mentioned in relation to blogs and ipods.

Storage Area Network Group of machines with large disks in RAID configuraion used for off-server backup.

Synchronous Digital Subscriber Line High speed broadband that offers same speed up and down.

Second (or Sub) Level Domain is the classification part (penultimate)of a domain name - for example .co for "company" in .co.uk .net for "network" in .net.sg etc

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol General method by which email is sent over the internet

Secure SHell Encrypted form of Telnet, used for command line access and control of remote servers

Signalling Protocol (method) used to regluate flows of data across a network.

Slang for telephone line provider e.g. BT

Three Letter Acronym Generic term used for abbreviations used online. Originally covered only 3 Letter abbreviations, like HTH, but now more generally used for any online abbreviations.

Top Level Domain is the extension (last part) of a domain name - for example .com .net .org etc

Connector type for PC peripherals (devices). Able to transmit data at speeds upt 12megabits/per second - available in various types USB1 (A and B) and new style USB2

Wireless Application Protocol

Using a webmail (web based email client) you can read/reply/compose/delete your email from any web-browser worldwide.

Your Mileage May Vary - basically the solution works for us in our setup but may or may not work for you in yours.