HomePlease browse the open areas of this site but currently log-ins are restricted.
Glossary of Terms
This section is a straight collection of terms used within this site with a brief explanation. Many of these terms are technical and few explanations offer any assistance to users other than perhaps to satisfy their curiosity about those terms.
- Account
- A secure log-in account is allocated to all users who have completed the registration process.
- Basket
- A logged in registered user can add product items to a shopping basket, which is stored in the user's session data. This basket can become an order at the checkout stage.
- CAPTCHA
- A device to hinder web-robots submitting data and e.g. creating spurious user accounts. CAPTCHA is a (contrived) acronym for 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart'.
- Checkout
- The checkout stage of the ordering process converts any product items added to a user's shopping basket into an order. Payment is made once the order has been confirmed.
- Cookies
- A cookie is stored in a small file on the client PC by the user's own browser. This site requires cookies for maintaining user sessions, but cookies will not be used by this site to gather any other non-essential user data.
- Friendly Name
- This is how you would like us to refer to you, instead of your formal First and Last names.
- HTML
- Hyper-Text Markup Language - the source code that provides structure and content to all web-pages.
- HTTP
- Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol - the standard communications protocol used to transfer web-pages, as used by this web-site.
- HTTPS
- Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol over Secure socket layer - the secure implementation of HTTP, not provided by the server hosting this web-site.
- Javascript
- Javascript is a programming language that is often used to provide additional client-side (browser) functionality. This site uses Javascript to supplement server-side functionality, e.g. for form vetting and security. Javascript is required for all user account registration, log-in and hence ordering.
- IPR
- Intellectual Property Rights are ownership of creative ideas, e.g. published designs.
- Log-In
- When a user logs in to the site a session is created that identifies and allows that user to access privileged areas of the site and order products.
- MySQL
- MySQL is an Open-Source powerful database management system that stores all of the dynamically generated data for this web-site.
- Nasha's Knitwear
- The name of the outlet for the designs and creations of Nasha Hayes (BA).
- Nonce
- In security engineering, a (cryptographic) nonce stands for number used once (it is similar in spirit to the English term "Nonce word"). It is often a random or pseudo-random number issued in an authentication protocol to ensure that old communications cannot be reused in replay attacks. A nonce token is used in several forms within this site to: both prevent a hacker replay attack and to prevent users refreshing a submitted page and hence accidentally perhaps reentering the same details.
- Null or [Null]
- Null means a value has not been set. May be displayed in reports or in error messages.
- PayPal
- PayPal is a safer, simpler way to send and receive money online.
- PHP or PHP5
- PHP - a recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor" - is a script programming language that runs server-side to dynamically generate the HTML (actually XHTML) web pages. This site currently uses PHP version 5.
- Referer
- Deliberately (mis)spelt 'referer', which like many computing terms is American in origin. This is the URL of an external page that links to a page in this site and may be included in the request from a browser for a page in this site. Referer is collected with page statistics, but it is often [Null] because it is not always included in the HTTP request and because referers within this site are excluded.
- Registration
- Registration on this site means the details of a user are securely stored in the system's database. This means that a registered user can log-in to this site and hence access privileged areas and be able to order available items.
- RIPA
- UK Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) outlines the offence relating to the unauthorised interception of telecommunications. The penalty for persons committing these offences is up to 2 years imprisonment.
- Session
- A session is created when a user logs-in to the site, with the session ID and other data being stored both by the client browser (cookies) and server application. Sessions require cookies to be enabled in the user's browser, as sessions are a 2-way transaction enabling state information to be retained between pages (e.g. shopping basket, etc.).
- Shopping Basket
- A logged in registered user can add product items to a shopping basket, which is stored in the user's session data. This basket can become an order at the checkout stage.
- Sign-Out
- When a user signs out from (logs out of) the site the session that identifies that user is destroyed, including e.g. any shopping basket.
- SQL
- Structured Query Language for fetching and inserting data from/to the MySQL database.
- State
- The Internet is designed to be stateless, i.e. every page rendered by a browser does not (normally) know about activities in previous pages. Many dynamic web-sites, such as shopping sites, must use cookies and sessions to carry state information (like shopping basket) between pages.
- SSL
- Secure Sockets Layer is the predecessor of TLS - SSL or TLS is used to implement HTTPS.
- TLS
- Transport Layer Security has all but replaced SSL - SSL or TLS is used to implement HTTPS.
- URL
- Uniform Resource Locator is the internet address of a web page.
- User(s)
- A user is any one who accesses this site, to browse or shop. Only registered users can add products to a shopping basket and hence place an order from this site (see registration).
- W3C
- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) "develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential".
- WAI
- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the W3C.
- WCAG
- From the W3C. These guidelines are the closest there is to official accessibility standards.
- XHTML
- eXtensible Hyper-Text Markup Language - similar to and based upon HTML, but more strictly defined.
- XML
- eXtensible Markup Language - a mark-up language that is easily extensible and can define various data structures. This site uses XML to define its start-up set of configuration parameters.
This page is best viewed in a web browser that fully supports style sheets (CSS2). You will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser but some aspects may not be optimally rendered.