The following glossary defines 290 terms related to the IT Industry.  
Please do not reproduce without permission.

Page

Name for a basic web document. Websites usually consist of many (web) pages.

PAP

(Password Authentication Protocol). PAP is the authentication protocol used over PPP connections.

Peer-to-Peer network

A peer-to-peer network is a collection of computers that can communicate and share information, but that don't have any kind of hierarchical structure. This is the opposite of the client/server model.

Perl

Open source CGI scripting programming language.  Written in 1987.  Still one of the most popular web programming languages mostly due to its powerful text-manipulation facilities.  A huge number of Perl scripts are available for download.

PHP

PHP is an free, open-source server-side scripting language.  PHP code can be embedded in HTML.  PHP files usually have extensions like .php or .php3.  PHP language style is similar to C and Java.  Here is the PHP group web site.  Other popular server-side scripting languages are ASP, Perl, ColdFusion, TCL, Python, and JSP.

PKZIP or PKUNZIP

Popular compression and decompression programs.

Plug-in

An add-on piece of software that can extend the features of an existing application. For example Netscape browser plug-ins allow displaying of new types of web content, that the browser can't display on its own.

POP

Post Office Protocol.  Popular but inflexible email retrieval standard.  All messages are downloaded at the name time and can only be manipulated on a client machine.  Current version is POP3.  Also see IMAP.

Port

A socket on the computer or other network device used to connect it to the network.

PPP

(Point to Point Protocol) A network protocol widely used to connect computers to the Internet. Most often used on a telephone line.

PRI

(Primary Rate Interface). One of the two ISDN access methods. 23 of 64 Kbps B channels and 1 64 Kbps D channel constitute a PRI.

Protocol

A set of rules by following which two parties can communicate. The TCP/IP protocol suite is the basis of todays Internet.

PSTN

(Public Switched Telephone Network). The set of all the traditional telephone lines and all the infrastructure that comes with it.

Python

Interpreted programming language, sometimes offered by hosts for server-side scripting.  Here is the Python home page.