Glossary

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Above the Fold: The part of a webpage that is visible in the web browser window when the page first loads is described as being ‘above-the-fold.’

Accessibility: Web accessibility is about enabling equal access to online content and services for all people, including those with visual and mobility impairment.

Address Bar: The address bar is the input field at the top of the browser window that displays the location (URL) of the current webpage. The address bar can also be used to enter a new webpage location.

Animated GIF: A single graphic file that contains a series of images which are displayed sequentially to give the illusion of movement or change over time.

ASP
Active Server Pages (ASP) is Microsoft's server-side technology for dynamically-generated web pages that is marketed as an adjunct to Internet Information Server (IIS). The market share of ASP is in decline, with the free open source alternative PHP overtaking it in the server-side scripting market. Programming ASP websites is made easier by various built-in objects, such as a cookie-based session object that maintains variables from page to page.

Apache web server
Apache has been the most popular web server on the Internet since April of 1996. The July 2003 Netcraft Web Server Survey found that 63% of the web sites on the Internet are using Apache, thus making it more widely used than all other web servers combined. Apache HTTP Server is an open source HTTP web server for Unix platforms (BSD, GNU/Linux, and UNIX systems), Microsoft Windows, and other platforms. The Apache HTTP Server is developed and maintained by an open community of developers under the auspices of the Apache Software Foundation.

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Bandwidth: The amount of data or information that can be transmitted through your Internet connection.

Browser: A software application used to display Web pages. Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are most commonly used.

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Commerce
Commerce is the exchange of something of value between two entities. That "something" may be goods, services, information, money, or anything else the two entities consider to have value. In terms of the World Wide Web, commerce is achieved electronically, in a process called e-commerce.

Content
"Content" refers to the text, images, product information, etc., that a website contains.

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a language that is used to describe the stylistic presentation of a structured document written in HTML, XHTML, or XML. The CSS specification is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). CSS is predominantly used by web page authors to define colors, fonts, layout, and other document characteristics.

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Database: A database is an information set organized for flexible searching and utilization. From a website point of view, it can function as the engine for a dynamic site. Small websites can be powered by something as basic as Microsoft's Access database, medium-sized websites are usually powered by the open source MySQL, and enterprise-scale businesses usually run on Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server databases.

Directory: A term describing the hierarchical structure used to organize files or folders. The first directory in any file is labeled root directory. You may be familiar with the Windows back slash (/) which is the symbol for root directory.

Domain Name: Domain names identify Web pages. In this example of a web address, eyelandcreations.com is the domain name: http://www.eyelandcreations.com/index.html
Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs within, such as:

• .gov - Government agencies
• .mil - Military
• .edu - Educational Institutions
• .com - Commercial Business

A web address, also called a URL, is actually a sequence of numbers called IP Addresses. Your web server translates these numbers into your domain using a Domain Name System (DNS) server.

Dynamic: Dynamic has two meanings in web design. A dynamic website is one that is built around a database. The database serves website content dynamically as it is requested, instead of being hard coded into the HTML that describes the web page. Dynamic HTML or DHTML is a technique of creating interactive web sites by using a combination of the static markup language HTML, a client-side scripting language (such as JavaScript) and the style definition language Cascading Style Sheets.

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E-Commerce (electronic commerce): Electronic commerce, or E-commerce, is the buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over computer networks. It is an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. E-commerce is the conduct of business commercial communications and management through electronic methods, such as electronic data interchange and automated data collection systems. Electronic commerce may also involve the electronic transfer of information between businesses.

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Firefox: A web browser alternative to Micorsoft's Internet Explorer.

Flash: Macromedia Flash is a vector graphics based graphics animation program. The resulting files, sometimes called "flash files", may be included in a web page to view in a web browser, or they may be played on a standalone player. Flash can be used to create anything from simple animations to fully-featured applications.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol, most commonly used to download or upload files to a server.

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GIF: Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmapped graphics file format used on the Web. The color space is limited to 256 colors and therefore GIF format is best used by solid colored graphics and some illustrations but is not recommended for photographs.

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HTML: HyperText Markup Language, used to create documents on the World Wide Web. It defines the structure and layout of the document using tags and attributes.

Hyperlink: A hyperlink, or simply a link, is a reference in a hypertext document to another document or other resource.

Hypertext
In computing, a hypertext system is one for displaying information that contains references (called hyperlinks) to other information on the system, and for easily publishing, updating and searching for the information.

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Internet: A global network of computers.

Internet Explorer: Microsoft's web browser.

Intranet: An intranet is an access restricted network used internally in an organization.

IP Address: A 32-bit numeric address used by a computer or device to route messages. For example, a web server uses the IP Address 17.254.3.183 to find the domain name apple.com. A TCP/IP network also uses IP Addresses to identify computers and other devices on a network.

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Java: A high level, object-oriented language originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Small Java applications are called Java applets and can be downloaded from a Web server and run on your computer by a Java-compatible Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

JavaScript: An open source scripting language originally developed by Netscape that interacts with HTML allowing for a variety of dynamic web page designs.

JPEG: Joint Photographic Experts Group or JPEG is a lossy compression format used by images on the Web. JPEG format is generally used for photographs.

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Microsoft SQL: Microsoft SQL Server is a database management system produced by Microsoft. It supports a dialect of SQL, the most common database language. It is commonly used by governments and businesses for small databases, and competes with other SQL databases such as MySQL for this market segment.

Modem: Short for modulator-demodulator, a modem is a device used by a computer to transmit and carry data over a phone or cable line.

Multimedia: The ability of a computer to display text, graphics, video, animation and sound in an integrated manner.

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PayPal: PayPal is an Internet business which allows the transfer of money between email users, avoiding traditional paper methods like checks and money orders. PayPal has become the most widely used service of its kind.

PDF: The Portable Document Format was developed by Adobe. These files make it possible to capture the formatting information from any desktop publishing or word processing program and send the file to another computer or printer with all formatting intact – even if the recipient does not have the program or fonts the creator used. To view a file in PDF format, you do need the free Adobe Reader software.

PHP: PHP (originally "Personal Home Page Tools", but now a recursive acronym for "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor") is a widely used open-source programming language used primarily for server-side applications, to develop dynamic web content.

PNG (pronounced ping) is a bitmap image format. PNG files support full alpha transparency, making them perfect for web applications.

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Search Engine: A program which searches documents and Web Sites for specified keywords and then returns all matches found.

Shopping Cart: An electronic shopping cart is software which allows customers shopping on a website to place product orders for multiple products from a website. The software automatically calculates and totals orders for customers and indicates the total price including post and packing. The shopping cart software must be installed on the web server which hosts the site, or on a secure server that accepts sensitive ordering information.

SQL: Structured Query Language, or SQL, is a declarative programming language for use in quasi-relational databases. As the name implies, SQL is designed for a specific, limited purpose -- querying data contained in a relational database.

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Upload: another way of describing the transfer of local files (files stored on your computer) to a server connected to the Internet. The process is sometimes referred to as "publishing" and it usually involves utilizing the File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

URL: Uniform Resource Locator, also known as a web address.

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Web Server: A web server is a computer (or specialized software running on a computer) responsible for serving web pages to a client (usually a web browser) when a user requests a page. The browser sends a request to the web server, which responds.

Web Site: A collection of documents and files displayed on the Web.

World Wide Web: A system of Internet servers that support HTML documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files.

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XHTML: Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), or simply XTML, is a markup language that has the same expressive possibilites as HTML, but conforms to the XML standard which is more strict.

XML: XML is a semantic computer language, it identifies information ‘types’ and through an XML schema, information relationships.

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