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A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z Apache The most common web server (or HTTP server) software on the Internet. Apache is an open-source application originally created from a series of changes ("patches") made to a web server written at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the same place the Mosaic web browser was created. Apache is designed as a set of modules, enabling administrators to choose which features they wish to use and making it easy to add features to meet specific needs inlcuding handling protocols other than the web-standard HTTP. Applet A small Java program that can be embedded in an HTML page. Applets differ from full-fledged Java applications in that they are not allowed to access certain resources on the local computer, such as files and serial devices (modems, printers, etc.), and are prohibited from communicating with most other computers across a network. The common rule is that an applet can only make an Internet connection to the computer from which the applet was sent. ASCII -- (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) This is the defacto world-wide standard for the code numbers used by computers to represent all the upper and lower-case Latin letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. There are 128 standard ASCII codes each of which can be represented by a 7 digit binary number: 0000000 through 1111111. ASP -- (Application Service Provider) A organization (usually a business) that runs one or more applications on their own servers and provides (usually for a fee) access to others. Common examples of services provided this way include web-based software such as Calendar systems, Human Resources tools (timesheets, benefits, etc.), and various applications to help groups collaborate on projects. AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) A Microsoft Corporation multimedia video format. It uses waveform audio and digital video frames (bitmaps) to compress animation. Bandwidth The capacity of an electronic line, such as a communications network or computer channel, to transmit bits per second (bps). Bandwidth How much stuff you can send through a connection. Usually measured in bits-per-second (bps.) A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 57,000 bits in one second. Full-motion full-screen video would require roughly 10,000,000 bits-per-second, depending on compression. BBS -- (Bulletin Board System) A computerized meeting and announcement system that allows people to carry on discussions, upload and download files, and make announcements without the people being connected to the computer at the same time. In the early 1990's there were many thousands (millions?) of BBS's around the world, most were very small, running on a single IBM clone PC with 1 or 2 phone lines. Some were very large and the line between a BBS and a system like AOL gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn. Bitmap A representation, consisting of rows and columns of dots, of a graphics image in computer memory. The value of each dot (whether it is filled in or not) is stored in one or more bits of data. For simple monochrome images, one bit is sufficient to represent each dot, but for colors and shades of gray, each dot requires more than one bit of data. See more graphics formats Blog -- (weB LOG) A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominently. It is common for blogs to be available as RSS feeds. Blogosphere or Blogsphere The current state of all information available on blogs and/or the sub-culture of those who create and use blogs. Bookmark a way of storing your favorite sites on the Internet. Browsers like Netscape or Internet Explorer let you to categorize your bookmarks into folders. Broadband Generally refers to connections to the Internet with much greater bandwidth than you can get with a modem. There is no specific definition of the speed of a "broadband" connection but in general any Internet connection using DSL or a via Cable-TV may be considered a broadband connection. Browser A Client program (software) that is used to look at various kinds of Internet resources. CGI -- (Common Gateway Interface) 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?) talks to the web server. Any piece of software can be a CGI program if it handles input and output according to the CGI standard. cgi-bin The most common name of a directory on a web server in which CGIprograms are stored. Chat Real-time, synchronous, text-based communication via computer. Cookie Information (in this case URLs, Web addresses) created by a Web server and stored on a user's computer. This information lets Web sites the user visits to keep of a user's browsing pattterns and preferences. People can set up their browsers to accept or not accept cookies. CSS -- (Cascading Style Sheet) A standard for specifying the appearance of text and other elements. CSS was developed for use with HTML in Web pages but is also used in other situations, notably in applications built using XPFE. CSS is typically used to provide a single "library" of styles that are used over and over throughout a large number of related documents, as in a web site. A CSS file might specify that all numbered lists are to appear in italics. By changing that single specification the look of a large number of documents can be easily changed. Cyberspace Term originated by author William Gibson in his novel Neuromancer the word Cyberspace is currently used to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks. DHTML -- (Dynamic HyperText Markup Language) DHTML refers to web pages that use a combination of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to create features such as letting the user drag items around on the web page, some simple kinds of animation, and many more. DNS -- (Domain Name System) The Domain Name System is the system that translates Internet domain names into IP numbers. A "DNS Server" is a server that performs this kind of translation. Domain Name The unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general. A given machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine. For example, the domain names: listmedia.com mail.listmedia.com workshop.listmedia.com can all refer to the same machine, but each domain name can refer to no more than one machine. Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names (matisse.net in the examples above). It is also possible for a Domain Name to exist but not be connected to an actual machine. This is often done so that a group or business can have an Internet e-mail address without having to establish a real Internet site. In these cases, some real Internet machine must handle the mail on behalf of the listed Domain Name. Download Transferring data (usually a file) from a another computer to the computer you are are using. The opposite of upload. Email -- (Electronic Mail) Messages, usually text, sent from one person to another via computer. E-mail can also be sent automatically to a large number of addresses. FAQs Frequently Asked Questions. A list of questions and answers to explain products and troubleshoot problems. Fire Wall A combination of hardware and software that separates a Network into two or more parts for security purposes. Firewall The name "firewall" derives from the term for a barrier that prevents fires from spreading. A computer "firewall" is a barrier between your computer and the outside world. Just like a fire is most likely to spread through open doors in a building, your computer is most vulnerable at its ports (the doors). Without ports you could not go on the Internet or let Internet traffic enter your computer. An effective software firewall isolates your computer from the Internet using a code that sets up a blockade to inspect each packet of data, from or to your computer — to determine whether it should be allowed to pass or be blocked. Firewall software operates in various ways: Packet filters block traffic from IP addresses and/or port numbers. Proxy servers can break the connection between two networks. NATs (Network Address Translators) hides the IP addresses of client stations by presenting one IP address to the "outside" world. Stateful inspection verifies inbound and outbound traffic to be sure the destination and the source are correct. Firewall software can allow your computer to operate in stealth mode, so that its IP address is not visible. Flame Originally, "flame" meant to carry forth in a passionate manner in the spirit of honorable debate. Flames most often involved the use of flowery language and flaming well was an art form. More recently flame has come to refer to any kind of derogatory comment no matter how witless or crude. Flame War When an online discussion degenerates into a series of personal attacks against the debators, rather than discussion of their positions. A heated exchange. Flash Animation software used to develop interactive graphics for Web sites as well as desktop presentations and games (Windows and Mac) by the company Macromedia. Flash on the Web is displayed by a browser plug-in. Non-Web presentations are run by a Flash player, included on a floppy or CD-ROM. Flashcan be used to create vector-based graphics in one or more timelines that provide a sequential path for actions. FTP -- (File Transfer Protocol) A very common method of moving files between two Internet sites. FTP is a way to login to another Internet site for the purposes of retrieving and/or sending files. There are many Internet sites that have established publicly accessible repositories of material that can be obtained using FTP, by logging in using the account name "anonymous", thus these sites are called "anonymous ftp servers". FTP was invented and in wide use long before the advent of the World Wide Web and originally was always used from a text-only interface. GIF -- (Graphic Interchange Format) A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color. GIF format files of simple images are often smaller than the same file would be if stored in JPEG format, but GIF format does not store photographic images as well as JPEG. Gigabyte 1000 or 1024 Megabytes, depending on who is measuring. hit As used in reference to the World Wide Web, ?hit? means a single request from a web browser for a single item from a web server; thus in order for a web browser to display a page that contains 3 graphics, 4 ?hits? would occur at the server: 1 for the HTML page, and one for each of the 3 graphics. Home page Generally the first page retrieved when accessing a Web site. Usually a "home" page acts as the starting point for a user to access information on the site. The "home" page usually has some type of table of contents for the rest of the site information or other materials. When creating Web pages, the "home" page has the filename "index.html," which is the default name. The "index" page automatically opens up as the "home" page. Home Page (or Homepage) Several meanings. Originally, the web page that your browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the main web page for a business, organization, person or simply the main page out of a collection of web pages, e.g. "Check out so-and-so's new Home Page." Host Any computer on a network that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network. It is quite common to have one host machine provide several services, such as SMTP (email) and HTTP (web). HTML -- (HyperText Markup Language) The coding language used to create Hypertext documents for use on the World Wide Web. HTML looks a lot like old-fashioned typesetting code, where you surround a block of text with codes that indicate how it should appear. The "hyper" in Hypertext comes from the fact that in HTML you can specify that a block of text, or an image, is linked to another file on the Internet. HTML files are meant to be viewed using a "Web Browser". HTML is loosely based on a more comprehensive system for markup called SGML, and is expected to eventually be replaced by XML-based XHTML standards. HTTP -- (HyperText Transfer Protocol) The protocol for moving hypertextfiles across the Internet. Requires a HTTP client program on one end, and an HTTP server program (such as Apache) on the other end. HTTP is the most important protocol used in the World Wide Web (WWW). Hyperlink Text, images, graphics that, when clicked with a mouse (or activated by keystrokes) will connect the user to a new Web site. The link is usually obvious, such as underlined text or a "button" of some type, but not always. Hypertext Text that is non-sequential, produced by writing in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) language. This HTML coding allows the information (text, graphics, sound, video) to be accessed using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Instant Messaging (IM) a text-based computer conference over the Internet between two or more people who must be online at the same time. When you send an IM the receiver is instantly notified that she/he has a message. Internet A global network of thousands of computer networks linked by data lines and wireless systems. [Background history on the Internet -The Internet, originally the ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency network), began as a military computer network in 1969. Other government agencies and universities created internal networks based on the ARPAnet model. The catalyst for the Internet today was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Rather than have a physical communications connection from each institution to a supercomputing center, the NSF began a "chain" of connections in which institutions would be connected to their "neighbor" computing centers, which all tied into central supercomputing centers. This beginning expanded to a global network of computer networks, which allows computers all over the world to communicate with one another and share information stored at various computer "servers," either on a local computer or a computer located anywhere in the world. The Internet is not governed by any official body, but there are organizations which work to make the Internet more accessible and useful.] internet (Lower case i) Any time you connect 2 or more networks together, you have an internet Internet (Upper case I) The vast collection of inter-connected networks that are connected using the TCP/IP protocols and that evolved from the ARPANET of the late 60's and early 70's. The Internet connects tens of thousands of independent networks into a vast global internet and is probably the largest Wide Area Network in the world. IP Address (Internet Protocol) The number or name of the computer from which you send and receive information on the Internet. IP Number -- (Internet Protocol Number) Sometimes called a dotted quad. A unique number consisting of 4 parts separated by dots, e.g. 165.113.245.2 Every machine that is on the Internet has a unique IP number ISP -- (Internet Service Provider) An institution that provides access to the Internet in some form, usually for money. IT -- (Information Technology) A very general term referring to the entire field of Information Technology JAVA a computer language, developed by Sun Microsystems, that lets you encode applications, such as animated objects or computer programs, on the Internet Java is a network-friendly programming language invented by Sun Microsystems. Java is often used to build large, complex systems that involve several different computers interacting across networks, for example transaction processing systems. Java is also used to create software with graphical user interfaces such as editors, audio players, web browsers, etc. Java is also popular for creating programs that run in small electronic devicws, such as mobile telephones. Using small Java programs (called "Applets"), Web pages can include functions such as animations,calculators, and other fancy tricks. JavaScript JavaScript is a programming language that is mostly used in web pages, usually to add features that make the web page more interactive. When JavaScript is included in an HTML file it relies upon the browser to interpret the JavaScript. When JavaScript is combined with Cascading Style Sheets(CSS), and later versions of HTML (4.0 and later) the result is often called DHTML. JPEG -- (Joint Photographic Experts Group) JPEG is most commonly mentioned as a format for image files. JPEG format is preferred to the GIF format for photographic images as opposed to line art or simple logo art. Kilobyte A thousand bytes. Actually, usually 1024 (210) bytes. Listserv The most common kind of maillist, "Listserv" is a registered trademark of L-Soft international, Inc. Listservs originated on BITNET but they are now common on the Internet. Login Noun or a verb. Noun: The account name used to gain access to a computer system. Not a secret (contrast with Password). Verb: the act of connecting to a computer system by giving your credentials (usually your "username" and "password") Maillist (or Mailing List) A (usually automated) system that allows people to send e-mail to one address, whereupon their message is copied and sent to all of the other subscribers to the maillist. In this way, people who have many different kinds of e-mail access can participate in discussions together. Mashup A web page or site made by automatically combining content from other sources, usually by using material available via RSS feeds and/or REST interfaces. Megabyte Technically speaking, a million bytes. In many cases the term means 1024 kilobytes, which is a more than an even million. Meta Tag A specific kind of HTML tag that contains information not normally displayed to the user. Meta tags contan information about the page itself, hence the name ("meta" means "about this subject") Typical uses of Meta tags are to include information for search engines to help them better categorize a page. You can see the Meta tags in a page if you view the pages' source code. Mirror Generally speaking, "to mirror" is to maintain an exact copy of something. Probably the most common use of the term on the Internet refers to "mirror sites" which are web sites, or FTP sites that maintain copies of material originated at another location, usually in order to provide more widespread access to the resource. For example, one site might create a library of software, and 5 other sites might maintain mirrors of that library. Modem A device that connects your computer to the Internet, when you are not connected via a LAN (local area network, such as at work or on a campus.) Most people connect to a modem when using a home computer. The modem translates computer signals to analog signals which are sent via phone lines. The telephone "speaks" to the computer/server which provides your Internet access. Mosaic The first WWW browser that was available for the Macintosh, Windows,and UNIX all with the same interface. Mosaic really started the popularity of the Web. The source-code to Mosaic was licensed by several companies and used to create many other web browsers. Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, in Illinois, USA. The first version was released in late 1993. MPEG (Short for: Moving Picture Experts Group) MPEG-1 Multimedia The Web's integration of audio, video, graphics and text. Netiquette The etiquette on the Internet. Netizen Derived from the term citizen, referring to a citizen of the Internet,or someone who uses networked resources. The term connotes civic responsibility and participation. Netscape A WWW Browser and the name of a company. The Netscape (tm) browser was originally based on the Mosaic program developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Network Any time you connect 2 or more computers together so that they can share resources, you have a computer network. Connect 2 or more networks together and you have an internet. Newsgroup The name for discussion groups on USENET. Open Content Copyrighted information (such as this Glossary) that is made available by the copyright owner to the general public under license terms that allow reuse of the material, often with the requirement (as with this Glossary) that the re-user grant the public the same rights to the modified version that the re-user received from the copyright owner. Information that is in the Public Domain might also be considered a form of Open Content. Open Source Software Open Source Software is software for which the underlying programming code is available to the users so that they may read it, make changes to it, and build new versions of the software incorporating their changes. There are many types of Open Source Software, mainly differing in the licensing term under which (altered) copies of the source code may (or must be) redistributed. Password A code used to gain access (login) to a locked system. Good passwords contain letters and non-letters and are not simple combinations such as virtue7. A good password might be: 5%df(29) PDF -- (Portable Document Format) A file format designed to enable printing and viewing of documents with all their formatting (typefaces, images, layout, etc.) appearing the same regardless of what operating system is used, so a PDF document should look the same on Windows, Macintosh, linux, OS/2, etc. The PDF format is based on the widely used Postcript document-description language. Both PDF and Postscript were developed by the Adobe Corporation. Perl -- (Practical Extraction and Report Language) Perl is a programming language that is widely used for both very simple, small tasks and for very large complex applications. During the 1990s it became the de-facto standard for creating CGI programs. Perl is known for providing many ways to accomplish the same task, with "there's more than one way to do it" being something of a motto in the Perl community. Because it is so easy to perform simple tasks in Perl it is often used by people with little or no formal programming training, and because Perl provides many sophisticated features it is often used by professionals for creating complex data-processing software, including the "server-side" of large web sites. Perl does not provide significant support for creating programs with a graphical user interface. Permalink A "permanent link" to a particular posting in a blog. A permalink is a URI that points to a specific blog posting, rather than to the page in which the posting original occured (which may no longer contain the posting.) PHP -- (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) PHP is a programming language used almost exclusively for creating software that is part of a web site. The PHP language is designed to be intermingled with the HTML that is used to create web pages. Unlike HTML, the PHP code is read and processed by the web server software (HTML is read and processed by the web browser software.) ping To check if a server is running. From the sound that a sonar systems makes in movies, you know, when they are searching for a submarine. Plug-in A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software. Common examples are plug-ins for the Netscape browser and web server. Adobe Photoshop also uses plug-ins. podcasting or pod-casting A form of audio broadcasting using the Internet, podcasting takes its name from a combination of "iPod" and broadcasting. iPod is the immensely popular digital audio player made by Apple computer, but podcasting does not actually require the use of an iPod. Podcasting involves making one or more audio files available as "enclosures" in an RSS feed. A pod-caster creates a list of music, and/or other sound files (such as recorded poetry, or "talk radio" material) and makes that list available in the RSS 2.0 format. The list can then be obtained by other people using various podcast "retriever" software which read the feed and makes the audio files available to digital audio devices (including, but not limited to iPods) where users may then listen to them at their convenience. POP -- (Point of Presence, also Post Office Protocol) Two commonly used meanings: Point of Presence and Post Office Protocol. A Point of Presence usually means a city or location where a network can be connected to, often with dial up phone lines. So if an Internet company says they will soon have a POP in Belgrade, it means that they will soon have a local phone number in Belgrade and/or a place where leased lines can connect to their network. A second meaning, Post Office Protocol refers to a way that e-mail client software such as Eudora gets mail from a mail server. When you obtain an account from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) you almost always get a POP account with it, and it is this POP account that you tell your e-mail software to use to get your mail. Another protocol called IMAP is replacing POP for email. Posting A single message entered into a network communications system. Router A special-purpose computer (or software package) that handles the connection between 2 or more Packet-Switched networks. Routers spend all their time looking at the source and destination addresses of the packets passing through them and deciding which route to send them on. RSS -- (Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication) A commonly used protocol for syndication and sharing of content, originally developed to facilitate the syndication of news articles, now widely used to share the contents of blogs. Mashups are often made using RSS feeds. RSS is an XML-based summary of a web site, usually used for syndication and other kinds of content-sharing. There are RSS "feeds" which are sources of RSS information about web sites, and RSS "readers" which read RSS feeds and display their content to users. RSS is being overtaken by a newer, more complex protocol called Atom. Search Engine A (usually web-based) system for searching the information available on the Web. Some search engines work by automatically searching the contents of other systems and creating a database of the results. Other search engines contains only material manually approved for inclusion in a database, and some combine the two approaches. Security Certificate A chunk of information (often stored as a text file) that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection. SEO -- (Search Engine Optimization) The practice of designing web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search results from search engines. There is "good" SEO and "bad" SEO. Good SEO involves making the web page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to the page. Server A computer, or a software package, that provides a specific kind of service to client software running on other computers. The term can refer to a particular piece of software, such as a WWW server, or to the machine on which the software is running, e.g. "Our mail server is down today, that's why e-mail isn't getting out." A single server machine can (and often does) have several different server software packages running on it, thus providing many different servers to clients on the network. Sometimes server software is designed so that additional capabilities can be added to the main program by adding small programs known as servlets. Shockwave A three dimensional (3D) animation technology/format creataed by the Macromedia company. Macromedia Director producess Shockwave files, which can be viewed through a Shockwave player, a browser"plug-in" computer program or other multimedia applications that access the player. Shockwave can be used to create more sophisticated animations than the Macromedia Flash format. Shockwave uses the .dir file extension for source files and .dcr extension for Shockwave "movies." SMTP -- (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The main protocol used to send electronic mail from server to server on the Internet. SMTP is defined in RFC 821 and modified by many later RFC's. Spam (or Spamming) An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or USENET or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number of people who didn?t ask for it. The term probably comes from a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam repeated over and over. The term may also have come from someone?s low opinion of the food product with the same name, which is generally perceived as a generic content-free waste of resources. (Spam is a registered trademark of Hormel Corporation, for its processed meat product.) Spyware A somewhat vague term generally referring to software that is secretly installed on a users computer and that monitors use of the computer in some way without the users' knowledge or consent. Most spyware tries to get the user to view advertising and/or particular web pages. Some spyware also sends information about the user to another machine over the Internet. Spyware is usually installed without a users' knowledge as part of the installation of other software, especially software such as music sharing software obtained via download. SQL -- (Structured Query Language) A specialized language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will have its own slightly different version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL-capable databases support a common subset of SQL. Tag The term "tag" can be used as a noun or verb. As a noun, a tag is a basic element of the languages used to create web pages (HTML) and similar languages such as XML. Another, more recent meaning of tag is related to reader-crearted tags where blogs and other content (such as photos, music, etc.) may be "tagged" which means to assign a keyword, such as "politics" or "gardening", this enables searches for "all the blog postings in the past week that are tagged 'prenatal care'" Terabyte 1000 gigabytes. Trojan Horse A computer program is either hidden inside another program or that masquerades as something it is not in order to trick potential users into running it. For example a program that appears to be a game or image file but in reality performs some other function. The term "Trojan Horse" comes from a possibly mythical ruse of war used by the Greeks sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C. A Trojan Horse computer program may spread itself by sending copies of itself from the host computer to other computers, but unlike a virus it will (usually) not infect other programs. Unix A computer operating system (the basic software running on a computer, underneath things like word processors and spreadsheets). Unix is designed to be used by many people at the same time (it is multi-user) and has TCP/IP built-in. It is the most common operating system for servers on the Internet. Apple computers' Macintosh operating system, as of version 10 ("Mac OS X"), is based on Unix. Upload Transferring data (usually a file) from a the computer you are using to another computer. The opposite of download. URL -- (Uniform Resource Locator) The term URL is basically synonymous with URI. URI has replaced URL in technical specifications. Virus A computer program usually hidden in an existing program. Once the existing program is executed, the virus program is activated and can attach itself to other programs or files. Viruses can range from benign activities such as attaching a harmless message to performing malicious activities such as destroying all the data on a computer hard drive. Viruses are commonly distributed as e-mail attachments which activate when the attachment is opened. Virus protection software, updated regularly with the latest virus definitions, can help protect computers from viruses. Web Short for "World Wide Web." Web page A document designed for viewing in a web browser. Typically written in HTML. A web site is made of one or more web pages. Website The entire collection of web pages and other information (such as images, sound, and video files, etc.) that are made available through what appears to users as a single web server. Typically all the of pages in a web site share the same basic URL, for example the following URLs are all for pages within the same web site: http://www.baytherapy.com/ http://www.baytherapy.com/whatis/ http://www.baytherapy.com/teenagers/ The term has a somewhat informal nature since a large organization might have separate "web sites" for each division, but someone might talk informally about the organizations' "web site" when speaking of all of them. Wide World Web (WWW) A hypermedia information storage system which links computer-based resources around the world. Computer programs called Browsers enable words or icons called hyperlinks to display, text, video, graphics and sound on a computer screen. The source of the material is at a different location Wi-Fi -- (Wireless Fidelity) A popular term for a form of wireless data communication, basically Wi-Fi is "Wireless Ethernet". Wiki A wiki is a web site for which the content can be easily edited and altered from the web browser in which you are viewing it. Typically there is an "edit" button on each page and the wiki is configured to allow either anyone or only people with passwords to edit each page. The word "wiki" comes from a Hawaiian word meaning "quick." Worm A worm is a virus that does not infect other programs. It makes copies of itself, and infects additional computers (typically by making use of network connections) but does not attach itself to additional programs; however a worm might alter, install, or destroy files and programs. WWW -- (World Wide Web) World Wide Web (or simply Web for short) is a term frequently used (incorrectly) when referring to "The Internet", WWW has two major meanings: First, loosely used: the whole constellation of resources that can be accessed using Gopher, FTP, HTTP,telnet, USENET, WAIS and some other tools. XHTML -- (eXtensible HyperText Markup Language) Basically HTML expressed as valid XML. XHTML is intended to be used in the same places you would use HTML (creating web pages) but is much more strictly defined, which makes it a lot easier to create sofware that can read it, edit it, check it for errors, etc. XML -- (eXtensible Markup Language) A widely used system for defining data formats. XML provides a very rich system to define complex documents and data structures such as invoices, molecular data, news feeds, glossaries, inventory descriptions, real estate properties, etc. |