I'm confused on the difference between SHA-2 and SHA-256 and often hear them used interchangeably (which seems really wrong).  I think SHA-2 a "family" of hash algorithms and SHA-256 a specific algorithm in that family.

Is that correct?  Can someone please clarify?  

Just to cite wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2:


  The SHA-2 family consists of six hash functions with digests (hash values) that are 224, 256, 384 or 512 bits: SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, SHA-512/224, SHA-512/256.


So yes, SHA-2 is a range of hash functions and includes SHA-256.
