1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<!-- Thanks for reading the source of this document. Hope you enjoy -->
<!-- what you find here. Please let me know if you find any errors. -->
<HEAD>
<TITLE>The WDG's glossary of terms</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="An overview of technical terms used on this site and on the World Wide Web.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="Glossary, Terms, dictionary">
<META NAME="generator" CONTENT="Orb v1.3 for OS/2">
<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Arnoud Engelfriet">
<LINK REV="made" HREF="mailto:galactus@htmlhelp.com" TITLE="WDG Glossary feedback">
<BASE HREF="./glossary.html">
</HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#800080"
ALINK="#000080">
<H2><IMG SRC="../icon/wdglogo.gif" WIDTH=250 HEIGHT=74 ALT="The Web Design
Group presents:"></H2>
<H1 ALIGN=CENTER>The WDG's glossary of terms</H1>
<HR WIDTH="75%" SIZE=3>
<DL>
<DT><A NAME="absurl">Absolute URL</A>
<DD>An absolute URL is an URL which completely and unambiguously defines
the location of a document or resource. It can be used out of context,
but it will still point to the same file. If the meaning of the URL would
change if it were taken out of context, it is called a <A
HREF="#relurl">relative URL</A>.
<DT><A NAME="attribute">Attribute</A>
<DD>An attribute goes with a <A HREF="#tag">tag</A> to provide some
extra information, or to modify the meaning slightly. An attribute can
have a value, but this is not necessary. The value should
be put inside double quotes if it contains anything more than letters,
digits, periods and hyphens.
<DT><A NAME="backbone">Backbone</A></dt>
<DD>A major connection within the network of computers that make up the
Internet.
<DT><A NAME="bandwidth">Bandwidth</A>
<DD>A very diminishing natural resource... bandwidth is a measure of the
amount of data passing through a network at a given time. Things like huge
images on web pages and needless questions posted to Usenet newsgroups waste
bandwidth which could be better utilized for transferring information.
<DT><A NAME="bit">Bit</A>
<DD>A single piece of data. A bit has a numerical value of either "1" or
"0".
<DT><A NAME="blocklevel">Block-level element</A>
<DD>A block-level element is a <A HREF="#tag">tag</A> which is used to
group a large section of text together to assign it a particular meaning,
or to group a number of other elements together to form a unity.
Block-level elements make up the document's structure.
<DT><A NAME="browser">Browser</A>
<DD>Software that allows you, the client, to view World Wide Web
resources.
<DT><A NAME="byte">Byte</A>
<DD>A chunk of data made up of 8 bits.
<DT><A NAME="characterlevel">Character-level element</A>
<DD>A character-level element is used inside a
<A HREF="#blocklevel">block-level element</A> to mark up a bit of text
in a particular way. It should not be used outside block-level elements.
<DT><A NAME="container">Container element</A>
<DD>A container element is an HTML <A HREF="#element">element</A> which
has an opening and closing <A HREF="#tag">tag</A>, so it can contain
data.
<DT><A NAME="cyberspace">CyberSpace</A>
<DD>A nickname for the collective systems known as the Internet.
<DT><A NAME="dtd">Document type definition (DTD)</A>
<DD>An SGML document, which formally defines the relationship between
elements, what attributes each entity has and which values these
attributes may take. Used by validators and checkers to make sure your
documents adhere to the standard.
<DT><A NAME="dns">Domain Name</A>
<DD>A unique identifier which assigns a name to a specific IP address.
Since IP addresses are merely strings of numbers, the Domain Name system was
developed to facilitate ease of recognition and recall of site addresses.
<DT><A NAME="element">Element</A>
<DD>An element, often referred to as <EM>tag</EM>, is what HTML is
constructed with. It has a name, perhaps one or more
<A HREF="#attribute">attributes</A> and can be a <A
HREF="#container">container</A> or <A HREF="#empty">empty</A>.
<DT><A NAME="empty">Empty tag</A>
<DD>A starting <A HREF="#tag">tag</A> which does not have an ending tag.
Because it doesn't end, it cannot enclose anything so it's always empty.
Note that a tag that <EM>does</EM> have a closing tag, but does not
contain anything is also empty, but such an empty tag may be ignored
by a browser.
<DT><A NAME="entity">Entity</A>
<DD>A special sequence of characters, representing another character.
An entity starts with "&", ends with ";" and should contain the
name or the number of the entity. If you use a number, put "#" in front
of it. Check the <A HREF="/reference/charset/">section on the HTML character
set</A> for a list of entities and their numbers.
<DT><A NAME="extension">Extension</A>
<DD>A <A HREF="#tag">tag</A> or <A HREF="#attribute">attribute</A>
introduced by a browser which is not part
of the current HTML specification, and usually only supported by that
browser. Other browsers should just ignore it.
<DT><A NAME="faq">FAQ</A>
<DD>A list with Frequently Asked Questions and their answers. Usually
accompanies a Web site or Usenet newsgroup to provide an introduction
to the site or group, so you can easily locate necessary information
while the regular users don't have to answer the same questions over
and over again.
<DT><A NAME="ftp">FTP</A>
<DD>File Transfer Protocol is a method to transfer files from one location
to another, either on local disks or via the Internet.
<DT><A NAME="finger">Finger</A>
<DD>A protocol with which you can get information about a user on the
Internet. It is generally only available for UNIX systems, although
there are also clients for Macintosh and Windows.
<DT><A NAME="homepage">Homepage</A>
<DD>The central document on a World Wide Web site. This document usually
directs clients to the information that can be found within the site.<BR>
Also: the personal page for a person on the Internet, which contains
information about him or her.
<DT><A NAME="html">HTML</A>
<DD>Hyper Text Markup Language is the language of the World Wide Web. HTML
is used to write documents on the World Wide Web, and to "glue" other
resources together.
<DT><A NAME="http">HTTP</A>
<DD>Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, a protocol to transfer files similar to
<A HREF="#ftp">FTP</A>, but with a built-in identification of the types
of the file (the <A HREF="#mime">MIME</A> type). Primarily used to
transfer <A HREF="#html">HTML</A> documents.
<DT><A NAME="hypertext">Hypertext</A>
<DD>A document that contains highlighted areas which when selected
automatically transfer the client to a different location within the original
document, or another document, image, movie or other resource.
<DT><A NAME="ip">IP</A>
<DD>Internet Protocol, the most basic protocol to communicate on
the Internet. An IP <EM>number</EM> is a numerical address consisting of
four numbers seperated by periods. Each IP address uniquely identifies
a certain computer on the Internet. The <A HREF="#dns">domain name</A> is
used to make using them easier.
<DT><A NAME="isp">ISP</A>
<DD>Internet Service Providers provide access to the services offered
by the Internet.
<DT><A NAME="newsgroups">Newsgroup</A>
<DD>Usenet Newsgroups, as they're formally called, started out separately
from the Internet. Right now, most people read newsgroups via the Internet,
although it is also popular in the BBS world. A newsgroup is devoted to
a specific topic, which can usually be guessed by its name. They are
generally unmoderated, and everyone is free to contribute.
<DT><A NAME="relurl">Relative URL</A>
<DD>An URL which is not complete, and must be expanded to an <A
HREF="#absurl">absolute URL</A> before it can be used. The mechanism
behind this expansion is discussed in more detail in my article on
<A HREF="http://www.stack.nl/%7Egalactus/html/urls.html">using relative URLs</A>.
<DT><A NAME="resolution">Resolution</A>
<DD>A width x height measurement of computer monitor display capabilities
in pixels. Some different types of displays are VGA or SVGA and different
standard resolutions are 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768.
<DT><A NAME="search">Search Engine</A>
<DD>A system dedicated to the search and retrieval of information for the
purpose of cataloging the results. Usually based on an index of several
HTML documents, so you can easily locate the document(s) you are
looking for.
<DT><A NAME="server">Server</A>
<DD>A computer system which can be accessed from remote systems for the
purpose of exchanging data.
<DT><A NAME="t1">T-1</A>
<DD>A type of network connection which allows for data transfer rates up to
1.5 mega-bits per second.
<DT><A NAME="t3">T-3</A>
<DD>A type of network connection which allows for data transfer rates up to
45 mega-bits per second.
<DT><A NAME="tag">Tag</A>
<DD>This is the popular name for an HTML <A HREF="#element">element</A>,
although there is a slight theoretical difference. Basically, a tag
is an element in action. It starts with "<" and ends with ">".
It can have <A
HREF="#attribute">attributes</A>, but this is not necessary. The end
of the element is signaled with the tag without its attributes, and with
"/" as the first character. For example, the ending tag for <<A HREF="/reference/wilbur/font/b.html">B</A>> is
</B>.
<DT><A NAME="textlevel">Text-level element</A>
<DD>See <A HREF="#characterlevel">character-level element</A>.
<DT><A NAME="url">URL</A>
<DD>An Uniform Resource Locator is the standard way to express the
location of a resource on the Internet. It is used most extensively
on the Web. When you want to embed an URL in a document which does
not support this directly, use the <URL:> convention. For
example: <URL:http://www.htmlhelp.com/>.
<DT><A NAME="usenet">Usenet</A>
<DD>The collection of <A HREF="#newsgroups">newsgroups</A>.
<DT><A NAME="validator">Validator</A>
<DD>A program or script which is used to check the validity of HTML
markup, or to detect bad or deprecated elements. A validator helps
to ensure that the document can be read and used by all browsers and
<A HREF="#search">search engines</A>.
<DT><A NAME="vserver">Virtual Server</A>
<DD>To assign multiple <A HREf="#dns">domain names</A> to one computer,
it runs several virtual servers. This way, different domain names can
be used without having to hook up a new computer for each of them.
</DL>
<hr width="75%" size=3>
<p align=center>
<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/">Home</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/wwwboard/">Questions</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/about/">Members</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/award/">WDG Award</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/">Reference</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/links/">Links</A>
</p>
<p align=center><A HREF="../copyright.html">Copyright ©</a> 1996-97 <a
href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/"><img src="../icon/wdglogo-small.gif"
width=105 height=40 align=middle alt="Web Design Group." border=0></a>
All rights reserved.</p>
<!-- Copyright (C) 1996-97 Web Design Group. All rights reserved. -->
</body>
</html>
|
