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 Web Related Terms

Reference
ISBN 1-57231-466-X
© Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary--3rd ed.

Web Images

GIF

n. 1. Acronym for Graphics Interchange Format. A graphics file format developed by CompuServe and used for transmitting raster images on the Internet. An image may contain up to 256 colors, including a transparent color. The size of the file depends on the number of colors actually used. The LZW compression method is used to reduce the file size still further. See also raster graphics. 2. A graphic stored as a file in the GIF format.

 
JPEG or JPG

n. 1. Acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group. An ISO/ITU standard for storing images in compressed form using a discrete cosine transform. JPEG trades off compression against loss; it can achieve a compression ratio of 100:1 with significant loss and possibly 20:1 with little noticeable loss. 2. A graphic stored as a file in the JPEG format.

 

ISO

n. Short for International Organization for Standardization (often incorrectly identified as an acronym for International Standards Organization), an international association of countries of which each is represented by its leading standard-setting organization--for example, ANSI (American National Standards Institute) for the United States. The ISO works to establish global standards for communications and information exchange. Primary among its accomplishments is the widely accepted ISO/OSI model, which defines standards for the interaction of computers connected by communications networks. ISO is not an acronym; rather, it is derived from the Greek word isos, which means "equal" and is the root of the prefix "iso-."

International Telecommunications Union ITU
 

n. An intergovernmental organization responsible for making recommendations and standardization regarding telephone and data communications systems for public and private telecommunication organizations. The ITU was founded in 1865 and became an agency of the United Nations in 1947. The ITU was formerly known as CCITT (Comité Consultatif International Télégraphique et Téléphonique) and changed its name to ITU in March 1993. They may be contacted at International Telecommunications Union, Information Services Department, Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland. Telephone: +41 (22) 730 5554. Fax: +41 (22) 730 5337. E-mail: helpdesk@itu.ch, teledoc@itu.arcom.ch. Acronym: ITU

Web Movies

MPEG

n. 1. Acronym for Moving Pictures Experts Group. A set of standards for audio and video compression established by the Joint ISO/IEC Technical Committee on Information Technology. The MPEG standard has different types that have been designed to work in different situations. Compare Motion JPEG. 2. A video/audio file in the MPEG format. Such files generally have the extension .mpg. See also JPEG. Compare Motion JPEG.

AVI

n. Acronym for Audio Video Interleaved. A Windows multimedia file format for sound and moving pictures that uses the Microsoft RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format) specification.

QuickTime

n. The multimedia extensions to the Apple Macintosh System 7 software, also available for Windows. QuickTime can synchronize up to 32 tracks of sounds, video images, or MIDI or other control output.


Web Sounds

WAV

n. A file format in which Windows stores sounds as waveforms. Such files have the extension .wav. Depending on the sampling frequency, on whether the sound is monaural or stereo, and on whether 8 or 16 bits are used for each sample, one minute of sound can occupy as little as 644 kilobytes or as much as 27 megabytes of storage. See also sampling (definition 2), waveform.

MIDI

n. Acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A serial interface standard that allows for the connection of music synthesizers, musical instruments, and computers. The MIDI standard is based partly on hardware and partly on a description of the way in which music and sound are encoded and communicated between MIDI devices. The information transmitted between MIDI devices is in a form called a MIDI message, which encodes aspects of sound such as pitch and volume as 8-bit bytes of digital information. MIDI devices can be used for creating, recording, and playing back music. Using MIDI, computers, synthesizers, and sequencers can communicate with each other, either keeping time or actually controlling the music created by other connected equipment. See also synthesizer.

RealAudio

n. Web software that streams prerecorded or live audio to a client, such as a Web browser, by decompressing it on the fly so that it can be played back to the Web browser user in real time.

http://www.real.com


Internet Related Terms

HTML 

n. Acronym for Hypertext Markup Language. The markup language used for documents on the World Wide Web. HTML is an application of SGML that uses tags to mark elements, such as text and graphics, in a document to indicate how Web browsers should display these elements to the user and should respond to user actions such as activation of a link by means of a key press or mouse click. HTML 2.0, defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), includes features of HTML common to all Web browsers as of 1995 and was the first version of HTML widely used on the World Wide Web. Future HTML development will be carried out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). HTML 3.2, the latest proposed standard, incorporates features widely implemented as of early 1996. Most Web browsers, notably Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, recognize HTML tags beyond those included in the present standard. See also .htm, .html, SGML, tag (definition 3), Web browser

 

W3C = World Wide Web Consortium

n. A consortium of commercial and educational institutions that oversees research and promotes standards in all areas related to the World Wide Web. Acronym: W3C.

http://www.w3.org

URL

n. Acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. An address for a resource on the Internet. URLs are used by Web browsers to locate Internet resources. A URL specifies the protocol to be used in accessing the resource (such as http: for a World Wide Web page or ftp: for an FTP site), the name of the server on which the resource resides (such as //www.whitehouse.gov), and, optionally, the path to a resource (such as an HTML document or a file on that server). See also FTP1 (definition 1), HTML, HTTP, path (definition 1), server (definition 2), virtual path (definition 1), Web browser.

TCP/IP

n. Acronym for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. A protocol developed by the Department of Defense for communications between computers. It is built into the UNIX system and has become the de facto standard for data transmission over networks, including the Internet.

HTTP

n. Acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The client/server protocol used to access information on the World Wide Web. See also URL.

Hyperlink 

n. A connection between an element in a hypertext document, such as a word, phrase, symbol, or image, and a different element in the document, another hypertext document, a file, or a script. The user activates the link by clicking on the linked element, which is usually underlined or in a color different from the rest of the document to indicate that the element is linked. Hyperlinks are indicated in a hypertext document through tags in markup languages such as SGML and HTML. These tags are generally not visible to the user. Also called hot link, hypertext link. See also anchor (definition 2), HTML, hypermedia, hypertext, URL. 

Domain name

n. An address of a network connection in the format that identifies the owner of that address in a hierarchical format: server.organization.type. For example, www.whitehouse.gov identifies the Web server at the White House, which is part of the U.S. government 


Web Publishing Related Terms

Home page 

n. 1. A document intended to serve as a starting point in a hypertext system, especially the World Wide Web. A home page is called a start page in Microsoft Internet Explorer. 2. An entry page for a set of Web pages and other files in a Web site.
 

FTP

n. 1. Acronym for File Transfer Protocol, the protocol used for copying files to and from remote computer systems on a network using TCP/IP, such as the Internet. This protocol also allows users to use FTP commands to work with files, such as listing files and directories on the remote system. See also TCP/IP. 2. A common logon ID for anonymous FTP.

WS_FTP by John A. Junod at http://www.ipswitch.com.

download

vb. 1. In communications, to transfer a copy of a file from a remote computer to the requesting computer by means of a modem or network. 2. To send a block of data, such as a PostScript file, to a dependent device, such as a PostScript printer. Compare upload.

Upload

n. 1. In communications, the process of transferring a copy of a file from a local computer to a remote computer by means of a modem or network. 2. The copy of the file that is being or has been transferred.

HTTP

n. Acronym for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The client/server protocol used to access information on the World Wide Web. See also URL.

Web Programming Related Terms

Java

n. An object-oriented programming language, developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Similar to C++, Java is smaller, more portable, and easier to use than C++ because it is more robust and it manages memory on its own. Java was also designed to be secure and platform-neutral (meaning that it can be run on any platform) through the fact that Java programs are compiled into bytecodes, which are similar to machine code and are not specific to any platform. This makes it a useful language for programming Web applications, since users access the Web from many types of computers. Currently, the most widespread use of Java is in programming small applications, or applets, for the World Wide Web. See also bytecode, Java applet, object-oriented programming.

JavaScript

n. A scripting language developed by Netscape Communications and Sun Microsystems, Inc. that is loosely related to Java. JavaScript, however, is not a true object-oriented language, and it is limited in performance compared with Java because it is not compiled. Basic online applications and functions can be added to Web pages with JavaScript, but the number and complexity of available application programming interface functions are fewer than those available with Java. JavaScript code, which is included in a Web page along with the HTML code, is generally considered easier to write than Java, especially for novice programmers. A JavaScript-compliant Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator, is necessary to run JavaScript code. See also application programming interface, HTML, scripting language. Compare Java.

ActiveX

n. A set of technologies that enables software components to interact with one another in a networked environment, regardless of the language in which the components were created. ActiveX, which was developed as a proposed standard by Microsoft in the mid 1990s and is currently administered by the Open Group, is built on Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM). Currently, ActiveX is used primarily to develop interactive content for the World Wide Web, although it can be used in desktop applications and other programs. ActiveX controls can be embedded in Web pages to produce animation and other multimedia effects, interactive objects, and sophisticated applications. See also ActiveX controls, COM. Compare applet, plug-in (definition 2). 

C++

n. An object-oriented version of the C programming language, developed by Bjarne Stroustrup in the early 1980s at Bell Laboratories and adopted by a number of vendors, including Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems. See also C, Objective-C, object-oriented programming.

Visual Basic

n. A high-level, visual-programming version of Basic. Visual Basic was developed by Microsoft for building Windows-based applications. See also Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, Visual Basic Scripting Edition, visual programming.

Perl

n. Acronym for Practical Extraction and Report Language. An interpreted language, based on C and several UNIX utilities. Perl has powerful string-handling features for extracting information from text files. Perl can assemble a string and send it to the shell as a command; hence, it is often used for system administration tasks. A program in Perl is known as a script. Perl was devised by Larry Wall at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

CGI

n. Acronym for Common Gateway Interface. The specification that defines communications between information servers (such as HTTP servers) and resources on the server's host computer, such as databases and other programs. For example, when a user submits a form through a Web browser, the HTTP server executes a program (often called a CGI script) and passes the user's input information to that program via CGI. The program then returns information to the server via CGI. Use of CGI can make a Web page much more dynamic and add interactivity for the user. See also CGI script, HTTP server. See Computer Graphics Interface.

The development of the Web Browser

NCSA

n. 1. Acronym for National Center for Supercomputing Applications. A research center located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. NCSA was founded in 1985 as a part of the National Science Foundation, specializing in scientific visualization tasks, but is best known as the home of NCSA Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, and of NCSA Telnet. See also Mosaic, NCSA Telnet.

Mosaic

n. The first popular graphical World Wide Web browser. Released on the Internet in early 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mosaic is available as freeware and shareware for Windows, Macintosh, and X Window systems. Mosaic is distinguished from other early Web browsers by its ease of use and its addition of inline images to Web documents. Also called NCSA Mosaic.

Netscape Navigator

n. The most widely used family of Web browser programs, made by Netscape Corporation. Versions of Netscape Navigator are available for the Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Macintosh platforms, and for many varieties of UNIX. Netscape Navigator, which is based on NCSA's Mosaic Web browser, was one of the first commercially available Web browsers. See also Mosaic, Web browser.
 

Internet Explorer

n. Microsoft's Web browser, introduced in October 1995. Internet Explorer is now available in Windows and Macintosh versions. Later versions provide the ability to incorporate advanced design and animation features into Web pages and recognize ActiveX controls and Java applets. See also ActiveX controls, Java applet, Web browser.
 

Reference
http://www.browserwatch.com

 

Related Computer Terms

bit

n. Short for binary digit. The smallest unit of information handled by a computer. One bit expresses a 1 or a 0 in a binary numeral, or a true or false logical condition, and is represented physically by an element such as a high or low voltage at one point in a circuit or a small spot on a disk magnetized one way or the other. A single bit conveys little information a human would consider meaningful. A group of 8 bits, however, makes up a byte, which can be used to represent many types of information, such as a letter of the alphabet, a decimal digit, or other character. See also ASCII, binary, byte. 

byte

n. Abbreviated B. Short for binary term. A unit of data, today almost always consisting of 8 bits. A byte can represent a single character, such as a letter, a digit, or a punctuation mark. Because a byte represents only a small amount of information, amounts of computer memory and storage are usually given in kilobytes (1,024 bytes), megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), or gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes). See also bit, gigabyte, kilobyte, megabyte. Compare octet, word. 

kilobyte

n. Abbreviated K, KB, or Kbyte. A data unit of 1,024 bytes. See also kilo-. 

megabyte

n. Abbreviated MB. Usually 1,048,576 bytes (220); sometimes interpreted as 1 million bytes.

terabyte

n. A measurement used for high-capacity data storage. One terabyte equals 240, or 1,099,511,627,776, bytes, although it is commonly interpreted as simply one trillion bytes. Abbreviated TB.

serial interface

n. A data transmission scheme in which data and control bits are sent sequentially over a single channel. In reference to a serial input/output connection, the term usually implies the use of an RS-232 or RS-422 interface. See also RS-232-C standard, RS-422/423/449. Compare parallel interface.

parallel interface

n. The specification of a data transmission scheme that sends multiple data and control bits simultaneously over wires connected in parallel. The most common parallel interface is the Centronics interface. See also Centronics parallel interface. Compare serial interface.

central processing unit

n. The computational and control unit of a computer. The central processing unit is the device that interprets and executes instructions. Mainframes and early minicomputers contained circuit boards full of integrated circuits that implemented the central processing unit. Single-chip central processing units, called microprocessors, made possible personal computers and workstations. Examples of single-chip central processing units are the Motorola 68000, 68020, and 68030 chips and the Intel 8080, 8086, 80286, 80386, and i486 chips. The central processing unit--or microprocessor, in the case of a microcomputer--has the ability to fetch, decode, and execute instructions and to transfer information to and from other resources over the computer's main data-transfer path, the bus. By definition, the central processing unit is the chip that functions as the "brain" of a computer. In some instances, however, the term encompasses both the processor and the computer's memory or, even more broadly, the main computer console (as opposed to peripheral equipment). See also microprocessor. Acronym: CPU. 

RAM

n. Acronym for random access memory. Semiconductor-based memory that can be read and written by the central processing unit (CPU) or other hardware devices. The storage locations can be accessed in any order. Note that the various types of ROM memory are capable of random access, but cannot be written to. The term RAM, however, is generally understood to refer to volatile memory that can be written to as well as read. Compare core, EPROM, flash memory, PROM, ROM (definition 2).

Reference
ISBN 1-57231-466-X
© Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary--3rd ed.

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Last Updated on 07/24/99
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