This is something that we all do all the time when working on a PC. After making a series of changes to a document we
click the Save
Icon or select the Save option to write the latest set of changes away to the
hard disk.
Scalable
hardware or
software can be expanded as required in the future. For instance a particular
application program may be set up to run for 2 concurrent users but can be scaled up for more users if the company using it need to expand in the future. Very important when making purchasing decisions.
A term specific to AOL (America
Online) that denotes the name of the user.
Generally a short
program consisting of a series of instructions written in an interpreted language such as
Perl or
Java. Scripts are often run when an
application program is started. Scripts usually provide simple instructions for
data and
browser management.
Submitting a word or phrase to a
web catalog or engine and receiving a series of
URL's containing the word or phrase.
Search engines have become an imporant method of locating
data on the web.
One of the most essential tools on the
Internet - they help you find
web sites relating to a particular subject or the E-mail address of someone you know or articles posted to a Newsgroup or even companies which have a presence on the Internet. Most of the information provided by
search engines is categorized so the search can be considerably refined before you even begin. The search engines are basically huge
databases containing millions of
records that include the
URL of a particular Web
page along with information relating to the content of the web page that is supplied in the
HTML by the author. The search engine obtains this information via a submission from the author or by the search engines doing a "crawl" using "robot crawlers" of the Internet for information. Some search engines use
Spiders to obtain information. There are a number of facilities available on the web that allow authors to submit their web pages to hundreds of web sites at once. Some search engines use a technique known as ICE to locate information on related topics. The majority of the people that use this Glossary would have located it by using a Search Engine. The most popular search engines are: Alta Vista; Excite; Hotbot; Galaxy; Infoseek; Lycos; Webcrawler; Yahoo.
Software which prevents
network transactions from being decoded, thus preserving the privacy of credit card numbers and other sensitive information. When a
URL points to a
web page stored on a secure Web
server, the URL always begins with
https ://. In Netscape, the broken key at the bottom of the screen becomes whole, a blue rule appears at the top of the screen and the
Location box becomes a
Website box when a secure server is contacted.
A secure transaction is a transaction between a
browser and a
server that both support the same security
protocol. When a
URL points to a
Web page stored on a secure
Web server, the URL always begins with
https://.
A selection option within a form. A select list allows you to select one or more items.
Basically a standard which enables a user to connect to the
Internet using a
modem & a telephone line.
A computer and
software that maintains information and applications accessed by distributed users. A
program running on an
Internet site that makes the
web pages at that site available to
browsers throughout the Internet.
Standard Generalized Mark up Language
Software that you can obtain for free. The author of the software does request a small fee to pay for registration, documentation etc
Software that allows users to interact with the
operating system. For example, a user could develop a shell
script to tell the operating system to delete all
files in a given
directory that have not been changed in the last 3 months. Different Operating Systems have there own shell script languages.
A
program from Macromedia for viewing
files created with Macromedia Director. Shockwave is now freely available as a
plug-in for the
Netscape Navigator and
Internet Explorer
web browsers. A technology developed by Macromedia, Inc, that allows the user to view Web
pages with
multimedia objects, such as audio, animation, video, and processes user actions such as
mouse clicks.
A term most commonly used in
Windows 95. It is an
Icon that points to a
file on the
hard disk, a
network or the
Internet. When the icon is double-clicked the file is executed - if the file is an
application program then the program runs, if it is a Microsoft word document then word runs & the document is opened.
Single In-line
Memory Modules
An accepted standard used extensively on the
Internet for transferring E-mail messages between computers - The standard defines exactly how the message will be sent, any controls,
format of the message etc.
Memory chips which are soldered onto plugs that slot into sockets on the
Motherboard of the PC - makes fitting memory much easier than it use to be.
SIMMs come in various speeds & sizes - 1Mb, 4Mb, 16Mb & 32Mb - with speeds of 90, 80, 70 or 60
nanoseconds (60 is faster than 90). SIMMs can either be 30-pin or 72-pin.
DIMMs,
Dual In-line Memory Modules are now available. These have 168 pins in two rows
A group of
Web Pages that collectively represent a company, or individual on the
WWW. A group of Web pages that have been developed together to present information on a specific subject(s) is also a Site (some may say a site for sore eyes) - This Glossary falls into that category.
Serial Line
Internet Protocol
Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol.
A term that us E-mail users use to describe the traditional mail or post office service. A note will take seconds to go from London to Sydney via E-mail but a number of days via Snail Mail.
Software is basically a series of instructions that causes the PC to do something. The
Operating System such as
DOS is known as Systems Software.
Application Programs such as a Word
Processor or
Spreadsheet perform the main tasks for which we use the PC i.e. a letter to Mum or managing the finances.
Digitizing voices, music, et.c. so they can be played by a computer. Popular sound
file formats include AU,
WAV, SND,
MPEG,
MIDI, AIFF.
The term source is most commonly used when talking about moving
files. The source is the
directory or
location where the files are being moved from. It is also something that appears on your keyboard if you eat hotdogs whilst working at your PC.
A
search engine which obtains its information by starting at a specified
Web Page & visiting each Web Page that has a
link to it from the current page that the spider is accessing. This
process continues as it moves it way through the
WWW.
Splash screens are nice looking
images depicting a company logo. They are normally displayed just after an
Application Program has started. Microsoft use these a lot. The clouds that are shown when
Windows 95 starts and stops are examples of Splash screens.
An
Application Program where the information is stored in a grid. The spreadsheet has Rows & Columns. A spreadsheet with 3 rows & 3 columns will have 9 "Cells" where
data can be manipulated. Typically they are used for tracking expenses, budgeting etc. The content of a Cell can be based on that of other Cells & the spreadsheet program has a number of built in functions for manipulating Cells e.g. Sum, Average etc. Example Spread sheet programs include: Microsoft Excel; Lotus 123.
A standard focused on documents. The standard concentrates on documents retaining their
format irrespective of the computer they are being used on, the
operating system & the
application program used to view them.
HTML is based on
SGML.
The simultaneous
download and display of a video or audio
file.
Technology that allows playing audio or video while it is still downloading.
Subnetwork
A
network in its own right but part of a much larger network. Networks are often divided into
subnets to improve the performance or for security reasons
A subroutine is part of a
program that performs a specific task & can be called from more than one place within the program. For instance, in a
windows program the programmer may write a subroutine to close the current window as this task is likely to be called from several different places within the program.
A
SVGA Monitor can display up to 1280 X 1024
pixels using over 16 million different colors.
Surfing the
net - the most popular activity on the World Wide
Web. Looking around the
Internet, jumping from web
page to web page just going to wherever takes your fancy at that time. Just like when you sit there with the remote control in your hand flicking through the TV channels - the Internet requires much bigger batteries though.
Super Visual
Graphics Array Video Adaptor
A special
file used by the
windows operating system to hold
data which does not fit or is not currently required in the PC's
memory. If you are running more than one
application program on your PC you normally will be using one while the other is in the
background waiting for your next instruction. Windows will make sure that the program you are running gets the memory it requires and it will move any memory space the other program has allocated to the swapfile. When you want to use the second program it will swap the information back from the swapfile into memory and move the other programs information to the swapfile. Windows creates the swapfile on the harddisk of the PC when you
login.
In a
programming language, the syntax is the set of rules by which the program code has to be constructed - the grammar of the language.
DOS file extension - text based file that contains DOS configuration commands - similar to
BAT. CONFIG.SYS is an example
A
floppy disk which contains the necessary
files for an
operating system which when processed will start up or "Boot" the PC. The floppy disk is inserted into the Floppy
disk drive & the PC switched on.