Class Glossary

A

Application: Personal: A program that performs a certain task.; Formal: A complete, self-contained program that performs a specific function directly for the user.; Source: Computer Dictionary Online. (2010). Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>
ASCII: Personal: American Standard Code for Information Interchange.; Formal: American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A code in which each alphanumeric character is represented as a number from 0 to 127, translated into a 7-bit binary code for the computer. Most microcomputers and printers use ASCII, and because of this, text-only files can be transferred easily between different kinds of computers. ASCII code also includes characters to indicate backspace, carriage return, etc., but does not include accents and special letters not used in English. Extended ASCII has additional characters (128-255).; Source: Computer User (1994).Search Term Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computeruser.com/dictionary/>
Attribute: Personal: A characteristic that describes how the content appears.; Formal: A characteristic that determines how a file or other item can be used or displayed.; Source: Advanced Knack (2002).Glossary- A. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.aknack.com/CG-A.html>

B

Breadcrumbs: Personal: A trail of formerly viewed webpages of the same website.; Formal: Links displayed across the top of a web page listing the most recently visited pages so the reader can quickly jump back to one.; Source: Ask.com. (1996).Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/breadcrumbs>
Browser: Personal: Web client, and application that renders information from a web server.; Formal: A program which allows a person to read hypertext. The browser gives some means of viewing the contents of nodes (or "pages") and of navigating from one node to another.; Source: FOLDOC. (2010).Free Online Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>

C

Container: Personal: A container has a start and end tags that holds content.; Formal: A class whose instances are collections of other objects. Examples include stacks, queues, lists and arrays.; Source: Computer Hope (1998).Jargon. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computerhope.com/jargon.htm>
CSS: Personal: Cascading style sheet used to describe format.; Formal: An extension to HTML to allow styles, e.g. colour, font, size to be specified for certain elements of a hypertext document. Style information can be included in-line in the HTML file or in a separate CSS file (which can then be easily shared by multiple HTML files). Multiple levels of CSS can be used to allow selective overriding of styles.; Source: FOLDOC. (2010).Free Online Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>
Cursor: Personal: A sign that appear where the mouse is located on the screen.; Formal: The movable symbol on a computer screen that shows where the user is working, whether typing in text, drawing lines, or moving design elements around. The cursor can be moved with the arrow keys or a mouse. It usually appears in text programs as a blinking dash or rectangle, or an arrow. In graphics programs the cursor is often called a pointer, and can take many different shapes such as a brush, pencil, or hand.; Source: Computer User (1994).Search Term Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computeruser.com/dictionary/>

D

Data Communication: Communications network that connect the communication circuit between the data source and destination.; Source: TechTerms.com. (2005) Data Communication, Retrieved 2010- 09-29 from http://foldoc.org/data+communication
Default: Personal: Automatic settings.; Formal: The current setting or action taken by hardware or software if the user has not specified otherwise. Application programs have numerous defaults that determine everything from the font size that should be used to the folder a file is saved in. A default also implies that the setting or action can be changed.; Source: Your Dictionary.com (1981).Computer Dictionary. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://computer.yourdictionary.com/m>
Directory: Personal: A logical collection of files stored in a single name.; Formal: A node in a hierarchical file system which contains zero or more other nodes - generally, files or other directories.; Source: Computer Dictionary Online. (2010) Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://foldoc.org/>

E

Empty element: Personal: An element that does not describe content.; Formal: An empty complex element that cannot have contents, only attributes.; Source: w3schools. (1999).XSD Empty Elements. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.w3schools.com/Schema/schema_complex_empty.asp>
Elements: Personal: The pieces of a program.; Formal: A single part of a larger group. For example, in computer programming an array can contain several different elements that can be stored and called upon individually.; Source: Computer Hope (1998).Jargon. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computerhope.com/jargon.htm>

F

File: Personal: A logical collection of information stored in one name.; Formal: Blocks of information in the form of bytes, stored together on a computer or external digital storage medium, and named. A file may be a program, a document, a database, or some other collection of bytes.; Source: Computer User (1994).Search Term Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computeruser.com/dictionary/>
FTP: Personal: A way of transfering files.; Formal: File Transfer Protocol. One of the most common methods for sending files between two computers.; Source: w3schools. (1999).Glossary.Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.w3schools.com/site/site_glossary.asp>

H

Hanging ident: Personal: When line, with the exception of the first, is indented.; Formal: Style of paragraph composing in which the first line of a text is aligned with the left-margin, and all other lines are indented (moved toward right) by an equal amount of space. Used rarely, except in displaying lists of data. Also called out-denting.; Source: Business Dictionary. (2010).Search for a Term. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/hanging-indent.html>
Hierarchical file structure: Personal: A root directory containing 0 or more directories; in turn, each subdirectory contains 0 or more subdirectories.; Formal: A structure of files made up of different levels. The higher levels have control or precedence over the lower levels. Hierarchical structures are a one-to-many relationship; each item having one or more items below it.; Source: Your Dictionary.com (1981).Computer Dictionary. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://computer.yourdictionary.com/m>
HTML: Personal: Hypertext markup language used to describe content.; Formal: Hypertext markup language is a hypertext document format used on the World-Wide Web. HTML is built on top of Standard generalized markup language. “Tags” are embedded in the text.; Source: FOLDOC. (2010).Free Online Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>
Hypertext: Personal: A type of text that a computer is able to render.; Formal: Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the underlying concept defining the structure of the World Wide Web, making it an easy-to-use and flexible format to share information over the Internet.; Source: Wikipedia. (2001).Hypertext. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext>

I

Index.html: Personal: An HTML file that produces the homepage on a webpage.; Formal: When an HTTP client requests a URL that points to a directory structure instead of an actual Web page within the directory, the Web server will generally serve a general page, which is often referred to as a main or "index" page. index.html is the traditional filename for such a page.; Source: Wikipedia. (2001). Webserver directory index. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index.html>
In-line element: Formal: Inline elements are elements that can be used together with character data to form lines of paragraph blocks.; Source: FYI Center. (2004). XHTML 1.0 Tutorials - Understanding In-line Elements and Tags. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://dev.fyicenter.com/faq/xhtml/xhtml_inline_elements_and_tags.php>

L

Launch: Personal: To load a program and start it.; Formal: To initiate a program.; Source: Computer Dictionary Online. (2010). Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>
Logical: Formal: Referring to something that does not exist, but has the appearance or effect of physical presence. In the context of telecommunications, a logical circuit, for example, does not have a physical presence in the sense that it is not tangible. Rather, it is defined as some amount of bandwidth provided over a physical, i.e., tangible, circuit that may support many logical circuits.; Source: Your Dictionary.com (1981). Computer Dictionary. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://computer.yourdictionary.com/m>

M

Modifier Keys: Personal: A keyboard key that changed the functions of another key.; Formal: A key on a keyboard that only has a meaning when combined with another key. Examples of modifier keys include the Shift, Control, and Alt keys.; Source: Webopedia (2010).Modifer Key. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/modifier_key.html>

N

Network: Personal: A series of connected comupter systems; Formal: Hardware and software data communication systems.; Source: Computer Dictionary Online. (2010). Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>

O

Open source software: Formal: Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software.; Source: Wikipedia. (2001). Open-source software. Retrieved 2010-10-01 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software>
Operating system: Personal: A set of programs which enables a computer to perform its basic tasks; reading and writing files, communicating with peripherals and launching programs.; Formal: An operating system is software, consisting of programs and data, that runs on computers and manages the computer hardware and provides common services for efficient execution of various application software.; Source: Wikipedia. (2001). Operating System. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system>

P

Paradigm: Personal: A way of thinking.; Formal: A set of forms all of which contain a particular element, esp. the set of all inflected forms based on a single stem or theme.; Source: Merriam-Webster. (1964). Dictionary. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/>
Plain text file: Personal: A type of file without formatting.; Formal: Plain text files have no formatting. There is no bold, italics, drop caps, or other fancy layouts. Plain text files are very portable. You can save almost any document as a plain text file and import it into other applications - even cross-platform from PC to Mac.; Source: Ask.com. (1996). Desktop Publishing. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/placetext/a/plaintext.htm>
Physical: Personal: Anything that is real and/or can be sensed.; Formal: Something that exists in the reality of the material world, rather than in logic, as an idea or notion. Something physical is tangible and can be seen and touched.; Source: Computer Dictionary Online. (2010). Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>
Protocol: Personal: An agreed method for data communication.; Formal: Rules or procedures that control how data is transmitted between computers.; Source: Advanced Knack (2002).Glossary- P. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.aknack.com/computer-glossary/CG-P.html>

R

Render: Personal: To read a source code.; Formal: To convert any coded content to the required format for display or printing. Although the term is typically used to refer to images, it may refer to any data. For example, an HTML page, which contains text and graphics, is said to be "rendered" when it is displayed.; Source: Computer Dictionary Online. (2010). Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>
Root directory: Personal: The topmost directory in a hierachial file.; Formal: In computer file systems, the root directory is the first or top-most directory in a hierarchy. It can be likened to the root of a tree. It's the starting point where all branches originate.; Source: Wikipedia. (2001). Root directory. Retrieved 2010-09-29 from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_directory>

S

Source code: Personal: The way a program is written.; Formal: The form in which a computer program is written by the programmer. Source code is written in some formal programming language which can be compiled automatically into object code or machine code or executed by an interpreter.; Source: FOLDOC. (2010).Free Online Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>

T

Tags: Personal: A phrase that allows a person to organize files.; Formal: Tags are keywords or category labels. Tags help you find files which have something in common.; Source: Twitter Inc. (2010). Twitter. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://twitter.com/>
Text editor: Personal: A program that composes files.; Formal: A utility program for creating and modifying text files. This differs from a word processor.; Source: FOLDOC. (2010).Free Online Dictionary of Computing. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computer-dictionary-online.org/>

W

Web client: Personal: A program that reads web pages.; Formal: A software program used to access web pages. Sometimes the same as a Web Browser, but often used as a broader term.; Source: w3schools. (1999). XSD Empty Elements. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.w3schools.com/Schema/schema_complex_empty.asp>
Web page: Personal: A page on the World Wide Web.; Formal: Document that is accessible through the Internet or through another type of network using a browser. Web pages are commonly accessed by entering a URL addresses and are capable of containing text, graphics, and hyperlinks to other web pages and files.; Source: Computer Hope (1998). Jargon. Retrieved 2010-09-28 from <http://www.computerhope.com/jargon.htm>

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Background seen on this section of the website comes from Free Wallpapers. Taken: 2010-10-01