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Glossary

The terms & jargon of Technobabble

Choose a letter...

• 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

A

animation

Animation is creating a timed sequence of images, called "frames," to give the appearance of continuous motion.

anti-aliasing

Anti-aliasing is a blending transition of colors that occurs in the pixels of an image. This action smoothes the edges of objects contained within a graphic image making them appear less jagged.

B

bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of information your Internet connection can deliver to your computer over a network.

bitmap

A bitmap is a graphic image that is stored as a computer file in a grid of dots called pixels. A bitmap is defined by specifying the color of pixels which form a picture (also known as a raster image or "raster graphic").

Typical bitmap file formats include: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PSD, TIFF and TGA.

browser

A piece of software used to view, manage, and access web pages. The browser interprets HTML tags and displays the information as a web page. The two most common browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

C

CMYK

Stands for the colors Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black. In graphic design for print output, colors are defined as a percentage of each of these four colors.

compression

Compression is a technique to make a computer file or a data stream smaller for faster transmission or to make the file smaller (in file size) so that it takes up less disk space.

CSS

CSS is the abbreviation for Cascading Style Sheet(s)—a standardized technology developed by the W3C. With Cascading Style sheets, both web designers create style rules and templates that specifies how different media elements (paragraphs, headings, hyperlinks, images etc.) appear on a web page.

D

dithering

Dithering is a method of combining an array of pixels from a 256-color palette into patterns that approximate other colors. At a distance, the human eye visualizes the pixel array as a single color. However, when viewed up-close, the same pixel array will look like various colors scattered across a grid. Also, dithering may cause gradient fills to appear as bands of color rather than a soft transition from one color to the next.

DNS

DNS stands for Domain Name Server. Domain name servers translate domain names (such as google.com) into a numeric Internet Protocol addresses (such as, 74.125.45.100).

E

export

To save a file in a different format (most often for use in a different program). For example, designers may export files from Photoshop to GIF or JPEG files to use on the web.

extensible

In Computer Science— of or relating to a programming language or a system that can be modified by changing or adding features. (e.g. XML, Extensible Markup Language.)

F

font

A font is a complete set of characters in a particular size and style of typeface.

FTP

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. With the help of an FTP program, this Internet protocol allows you to send or upload computer files from one computer to another via the Internet.

G

Google

Google Inc. (google.com) is an public corporation, best known for it's Internet search platform, e-mail, online mapping, and other data services. The Google headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California.

GIF

GIF (pronounced "gif") stands for Graphics Interchange Format. GIF images use a palette of 256 colors. This format is the most widely used graphic format on the web. GIF is a word used to describe an image in this format. Contrary to the opinion of some, the "G" in GIF is a hard G, as in the word "graphics." It is not pronounced JIF, like the peanut butter.

greyscale

A mechanism to simulate a range of tones or shades. Greyscale images have no color, only tonal quality.

H

hexadecimal

A numbering system used in computer science; consists of 16 digits including numbers 0 through 9 and letters a through f. This system has various usaes. For instance, hexadecimal numbers are used to define colors in languages such as HTML and CSS (e.g. equivalent for 'black' is: #000000).

HTML

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language; a standardized text-based (and human-readable) language for displaying documents on the web (e.g. web pages).

I

interface

Short for "user interface" or a program that controls the display for the user and that allows the user to interact with certain functionality offered by a computer program.

ISP

ISP stands for Internet Service Provider; An ISP is a company that offers its customers access to the Internet. The ISP connects to its customers using a data transmission technology appropriate for delivering Internet Protocol datagrams, such as dial-up, DSL, cable modem or dedicated high-speed interconnects.

J

Java

Java is a programming language, created by Sun Microsystems, which allows small applications to be downloaded into your computer for playback. Java can be used for such simple applications as animation to more complex applications such as a calculator.

Javascript

JavaScript is a scripting language developed by Netscape (under the name LiveScript). JavaScript is used to provide a greater level of functionality within a web page or web application.

JPEG

JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. The associated JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg) file format allows for full-color and black-and-white photographic images. JPEG images allow for more colors than GIF images and are usually smaller in size because they can be compressed using a special algorithm.

K

kerning

A graphic design term used to describe the horizontal spacing above and below the letters in a word.

kilobyte

A kilobyte is a unit of storage; a kilobyte is equal to 1,024 bytes of information.

L

LISP

LISP, which stands for LISt Processing, is a programming language sometimes used for developing AI applications.

LPI

A graphic design term; the abbreviation for Lines Per Inch.

M

modem

A modem (modulator/demodulator) is a piece of equipment (hardware) that connects computers and phone telephone lines and facilitates access to a network. Modems were the original, essential hardware for dial-up connections to the Internet.

multimedia

A form of interactive communication combining the use of text with graphics, layout, video, audio, animation, etc.

N

network

In Computer Science—a network is a system of computers interconnected by telephone wires or other means in order to share information. (Also called a net.)

newbie

A newbie (or noob) is someone who is new to technology, such as, the web, a forum or social network, or sometimes almost any activity. Occasionally, newbies are described as being "noobilicious."

O

online

When you are connected to the Internet, you are considered to be "online." It can also mean when you are connected to a certain chat group or social networking site.

opt-in

A term used in conjunction with email marketing where the recipient specifically requests the receipt of email related to a specific topic of interest.

P

PDF

PDF stands for Portable Document Format. Created by Adobe Systems, the PDF can be viewed in the standalone Adobe Reader program or through a browser plugin. Files can be downloaded via the web and viewed page by page as an electronic document. PDF files may contain text, graphics, charts, images and other media.

PHP

PHP is a contrived acronym or abbreviation for Hypertext Pre-Processor. PHP is an open-source, reflective programming language used mainly for developing server-side applications and dynamic web sites.

pixel

In digital imaging, a pixel (picture element) is the smallest piece of information in an image. Pixels are arranged in a regular 2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots, squares, or rectangles.

plugin

A plugin (formerly plug-in) is a software 'extension' that provides added functionality/capabilities to computer program. An example is: the Adobe Flash Player which "plugs in" to a browser for the purposes of displaying interactive and animated content saved in the Flash format.

PNG

PNG (often pronounced "ping") stands for 'Portable Network Graphics' format. PNG is used to display images with a lossless compression scheme. The advantages of PNG are: supports images with millions of colors and images can have a per-pixel, variable opacity, transparency setting. The disadvantages are that PNG images are: the comparatively larger in file size than other image formats on the web that support transparency (e.g. GIF). Also certain older programs do not support this format.

post

A post is a single message sent to a newsgroup, an entry on a message board or social networking site.

Q

query

A search request submitted to a database (such as a search engine) to find a particular piece of information or all records that meet the search criteria.

QuickTime

QuickTime was created by Apple Computers. It allows video, sound and music, 3D, and virtual reality content to be viewed in the standalone Quick Time Player or in a browser using the Quick Time plugin.

R

raster (graphic)

In computer graphics, a raster image (or bitmap), is a data structure, generally a rectangular grid of pixels, that defines a graphic image.

RGB

RGB stands for Red-Green-Blue. In computer graphics for output on display screens, colors are defined in terms of a combination of these three colors. For example, the RGB abbreviation for the color blue shown below is 0-0-255. RGB is in direct contrast to the CMYK color formula that is used to approximate colors for print media.

rich media

Rich media (and immersive media) is used to draw the user into an interactive experience by offering access to special content or functionality. Rich media technologies like Flash, Shockwave, streaming 3D models/animation, Real Audio/Video, certain Java applets that allow for greater interactivity, and other types of 'special' media.

S

sans-serif

Sans-serif describes a style of typeface that means "without feet." Common sans serif typefaces include Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana.

serif

Serif describes a style of typeface that has "little feet." Common serif typefaces include Times, Georgia, and Palatino.

T

thread

A thread is an original post and all the related follow-ups; a series of messages related to a topic in a discussion group, newsgroup or posting on a social networking site.

thumbnail

A small version of an image. In graphic design, a thumbnail is a small sketch of a design solution. In web design, a thumbnail is a small image which can be clicked to reveal a larger version of that image.

U

URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator; it is an address used to locate a document on the Internet. In other words, it is the address of an individual resources, such as, a web page, image or other media file .

UTF-8

UTF-8 (8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format) is a variable-length character encoding for Unicode. It is able to represent any character in the Unicode standard, yet the initial encoding of byte codes and character assignments for UTF-8 is backwards compatible with ASCII. For these reasons, it is steadily becoming the preferred encoding for e-mail, web pages, and other places where characters are stored or streamed.

V

vector (graphic)

In computer graphics, a vector graphic entails the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon(s), which are all based upon mathematical equations and used to represent objects in a graphic image file.

visualization

In computer graphics, visualization is using the computer to convert data into picture form. The most basic visualization is that of converting transaction data and summary information into charts and graphs. Visualization is also used in computer-aided design (CAD) to render 3D models that can be viewed from all angles and which can also be animated.

W

W3C

W3C stands for the World Wide Web Consortium—an international industry consortium founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee to develop standards for the Web.

WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is the abbreviation for What You See Is What You Get.

X

XHTML

XHTML stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language; it is a reformulation of HTML as XML—a standardized format with a deliberately strict syntax.

XML

XML is the abbreviation for Extensible Markup Language.

Y

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, (www.yahoo.com). The largest and most comprehensive information portal on the Web. Along with Web search, news, sports and weather, Yahoo! offers e-mail, instant messaging, travel, auctions, classified ads, discussion groups, Web hosting and numerous other services.

Z

z-index

A feature used in CSS, the z-index property sets the stack order of an element. An element with greater stack order is always in front of another element with lower stack order.