Related Entries
The following all have something to do with your query:
W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium (usually abbreviated
W3C) is a non-profit,
advisory body that makes suggestions on the future
direction of the World Wide Web,
HTML,
CSS, and
browsers.
css
A cascading style
sheet file is used to define a
cascading style sheet for a
web page. The purpose is to
provide more control over the
fonts, colors, layout,
etc. that go into the web page than could be provided by raw
HTML. Also, since the
cascading style sheet file is separate from the HTML files, it can be
shared (or even inherited; a little outside the scope of
this document) by multiple web pages to help provide a
consistent look-and-feel across a web site. It is not yet
fully supported by all
browsers;
newer versions of all popular browsers do provide some CSS support, however.
CSS
Cascading style sheets are used in conjunction with HTML and XHTML to define the layout of web pages. While CSS is how current web pages declare how they should be displayed, it tends not to be supported well (if at all) by ancient browsers. XSL performs this same function more generally.
WebTV
A WebTV box hooks up to an ordinary television set and
displays web pages. It will not
display them as well as a dedicated computer.
dtml
A DTML file with dynamic extensions
that provide for dynamic capabilities. DTML files are
often used with Python files in
implementing dynamic web sites.
Java
A computer language designed to
be both fairly lightweight and
extremely portable. It is tightly
bound to the web as it is the primary
language for web applets. There has
also been an OS based on Java for use
on small hand-held,
embedded, and
network
computers. It is called JavaOS. Java can be either
interpreted or
compiled. For web applet
use it is almost always interpreted. While its interpreted form tends not
to be very fast, its compiled form can often rival
languages like C++ for speed. It is
important to note however that speed is not Java's
primary purpose -- raw speed is considered secondary to
portabilty and ease of use.
html & htm
A hypertext
markup language file
contains hypertext
capable of being read and interpreted by a
browser. The bulk of the world wide web is in HTML
format.
browser
A browser is a program used to
browse the web. Some common browsers
include Netscape,
MSIE
(Microsoft Internet Explorer),
Safari,
Lynx,
Mosaic, Amaya,
Arena, Chimera, Opera, Cyberdog,
HotJava, etc.
BBEdit Lite
BBEdit Lite is a free
version of the popular BBEdit
text editor. The BBEdit family
of editors is often listed among the most frequently used tools for
web page composition. It is available for Mac OS (both classic and
X) only.
See also:
http://www.bbedit.com/free/free.html
Arena
The only browser besides Amaya to properly handle math
equations in web pages, Amaya is currently only available
as source for UNIX-like systems with X in its latest
version (earlier versions can be obtained as
binaries, too).
See also:
http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/Arena/
robot
A robot (or 'bot for short) in the computer sense is a
program designed to automate some
task, often just sending messages or collecting
information. A spider is a type of robot designed to
traverse the web performing some task
(usually collecting data).
gopher
Though not as popular as FTP or
http, the gopher
protocol is implemented by many
browsers and numerous other
programs and allows the transfer of
files across networks. In some
respects it can be thought of as a hybrid between FTP and http,
although it tends not to be as good at raw file transfer
as FTP and is not as flexible as http. The collection of
documents available through gopher is often called
"gopherspace", and it should be noted that gopherspace is
older than the web. It should also be
noted that gopher is not getting as much attention as it
once did, and surfing through gopherspace is a little
like exploring a ghost town, but there is an interesting
VR interface available for it,
and some things in gopherspace still have not been copied onto the web.
Emacs
Although Emacs is one of the world's most popular text
editors, it is not just a text editor. In fact, it can do
almost anything from simple text editing to e-mail
handling to web browsing, and can do it all in almost
every world language. What's more, it supports most
OSes.
See also:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
xbm
The X
bitmap
format was designed specifically
for small icons. It is in
simple ASCII and only
supports monochrome. It is supported on many
platforms and most
browsers. It is not space
efficient, but because it is always used for small
images, this is usually not a problem. Historically it is
the original World-Wide Web
image format; the others
came along later.
Lynx
The king of
all the text-only browsers, Lynx will run on almost every
OS
and remains one of the most popular browsers
overall. While it does not display inline web graphics
onscreen, it does allow their selective download, and is
in every other way a sophisticated and modern browser.
Lynx is also extremely fast.
See also:
http://lynx.browser.org/
wav
The waveform audio file
format was originally
developed on WinTel
boxes but can now be played on many platforms. It is one of the most
popular audio formats found on the
web. It cannot be
played on as many different machines as mono
au files,
though, so for simple voice recording the au format may
be preferable.
bmp
Microsoft
bitmap
image format. This is a
fairly simple bitmap
format that can be viewed on many different
platforms
but is directly supported by very few
browsers. It is not
used too much on the web
(fortunately, as it is very inefficient) with
GIFs,
JPEGs,
PNGs, and even
X-bitmaps
being preferred as they are much more
portable. It is somewhat
similar to the pict format.
HTML
The Hypertext
Mark-up Language is the
language currently most frequently used to
express web pages (although it is rapidly being replaced by XHTML). Every
browser has the built-in ability to
understand HTML. Some browsers can additionally
understand Java and browse
FTP areas. HTML is a proper subset of SGML.
Tcl/Tk
The Tool Command
Language is a
portable
interpreted
computer language designed to
be easy to use. Tk is a GUI
toolkit for Tcl. Tcl is a fairly popular language for both integrating existing
applications and for creating
Web
applets (note
that applets written in Tcl are often called Tcklets).
Tcl/Tk is available for free for most
platforms, and
plug-ins are available to
enable many browsers
to play Tcklets.
JavaScript
JavaScript (in spite of its name) has nothing whatsoever
to do with Java (in fact, it's arguably more like Newton Script than Java). JavaScript is an
interpreted
language
built into a browser to provide
a relatively simple means of adding interactivity to
web
pages. It is only supported on a few different browsers,
and tends not to work exactly the same on different
versions. Thus its use on the
Internet is somewhat restricted
to fairly simple programs. On
intranets where there
are usually fewer browser versions in use, JavaScript has been used to
implement much more complex and impressive programs.
art
An image format
(typically called the Johnson-Grace format) with extremely aggressive
compression at the expense of
quality. This format is most frequently seen by AOL users
as AOL automatically compresses online images of other
formats (like gif or
jpeg) into
Johnson-Grace images. This is why AOL users often do not see web pages
at the same quality level as other people, often seeing blurry images
where others see clear images (and occasionally even seeing
black bars that are not really present in images).
Netscape
One of the most popular browsers in use today,
Netscape is also one of the most feature-rich and offers
the most advanced
JavaScript support of
all the browsers. Be sure to also take a peek at
Mozilla to learn
about future Netscape directions and try out upcoming
betas. Netscape will run on most OSes, including
Windows '95 /
'98,
Windows NT,
Windows 3.1, Mac OS
(both classic and X), Linux,
Solaris,
HP-UX,
IRIX, Digital UNIX,
FreeBSD,
NetBSD,
OpenBSD, OS/2, and more. It can be used for both browsing the web and gopherspace.
See also:
http://www.netscape.com/computing/download/
cookie
A cookie is a small file that a
web page on another machine writes to
your personal machine's disk to store
various bits of information. Many people strongly detest
cookies and the whole idea of them, and most
browsers allow the reception of
cookies to be disabled or at least selectively disabled, but it
should be noted that both Netscape and MSIE have silent
cookie reception enabled by default. Sites that maintain
shopping carts or remember a reader's last position have
legitimate uses for cookies. Sites without such
functionality that still spew cookies with distant (or
worse, non-existent) expiration dates should perhaps be
treated with a little caution.
png
The portable network
graphics image
format is designed to replace
the GIF. In fact, PNG is sometimes
jokingly said to really stand for "PNG's not GIF". PNG is
completely lossless
and can handle millions of colors; it is not limited to a
palette of two-hundred fifty-six like GIF. It also has
full support for transparent colors. Its only real
disadvantage is that right now not all
browsers support
it directly. It has been recommended by the
W3C, though, so odds
are pretty good that most (if not all) future versions of browsers
will provide direct inline support for PNG, and PNG
images will start to become more commonplace on the web.
x86
The x86 series of processors
includes the Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium
III, Celeron, and Athlon as well as the 786, 686, 586,
486, 386, 286, 8086, 8088, etc. It is an exceptionally
popular design (by far the most popular
CISC series) in spite of the fact
that even its fastest model is significantly slower than the
assorted RISC processors. Many
different OSes run on machines built
around x86 processors, including
MS-DOS,
Windows
3.1, Windows '95,
Windows '98,
Windows ME,
Windows NT,
Windows 2000,
Windows CE,
Windows XP,
GEOS,
Linux,
Solaris,
OpenBSD,
NetBSD,
FreeBSD,
Mac OS X,
OS/2,
BeOS,
CP/M, etc. A couple
different companies produce x86 processors, but the bulk of them are produced
by Intel. It is expected that this processor will
eventually be completely replaced by the
Merced, but the Merced
development schedule is somewhat behind. Also, it should be noted that the
Pentium III processor has stirred some controversy by
including a "fingerprint" that will enable individual
computer usage of web pages etc. to be accurately tracked.
PDA
A personal digital
assistant is a small battery-powered
computer intended to be carried around by the
user rather than left on a desk. This means
that the processor used ought to
be power-efficient as well as fast, and the
OS ought to be optimized for hand-held use.
PDAs typically have an instant-on feature (they would be
useless without it) and most are grayscale rather than
color because of battery life issues. Most have a pen
interface and come with a detachable stylus. None use
mouses. All have some ability to
exchange data with desktop
systems. In terms of raw capabilities, a PDA is more
capable than an organizer and
less capable than a laptop
(although some high-end PDAs beat out some low-end
laptops). By far the most popular PDA is the
Pilot, but other common types include
Newtons,
Psions,
Zauri,
Zoomers, and
Windows
CE hand-helds. By far the fastest current PDA is the
Newton (based around a StrongARM
RISC
processor).
Other PDAs are optimized for other tasks; few computers are as
personal as PDAs and care must be taken in their purchase.
Feneric's PDA /
Handheld Comparison Page is perhaps the most detailed
comparison of PDAs and handheld computers to be found
anywhere on the web.
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