Technical Jargon

HTML - The building blocks of web pages. This is the basic language that all web pages are made up of. All of the current Internet standards are embedded some way into a basic HTML page. This is a standard that was created by the W3C.

CSS - This is a formatting standard that used in conjunction with HTML allows graphics and styles to be applied to basic pages. This can be just basic borders to entire table layouts and rollover buttons.

PHP - This is a scripting language that can be used in conjunction with HTML. This is a freeware language that can be installed on to a web server. The language can store data and either print or process it for later use. Also it can be used to create website login pages and restrict access to pages with the use of cookies and MySQL databases. Using these language you can create pages that are constantly changing depedning on the user's responses, which is sometimes called dynamic webpages.

Java - This is a language designed by Sun Microsystems. The idea was for the first time, a programming language that was completely universal and would operate on any Java compliant browser. In order for Java to run the browser must have a version of Java fully installed.

JavaScript - This is a scripting language that allows features such as data storage to be added to HTML. Also JavaScript can create other such features as pop-up windows, animations, right click disables and various other features. Combining JavaScript with HTML is sometimes also referred to as Dynamic HTML.

ASP/ASP.NET - This is a scripting language similar to PHP. In fact ASP was created by Microsoft to be marketed as an add-on to Internet Information Services and allow server side scripting to be conducted in a similar vain as PHP.

SQL – This a standard for databases. For the Internet, a database server is needed. Depending on the way each server is setup, it can be a separate entity or be shared with the main web server. Currently there are two main standards, MySQL and MS SQL server.

MS SQL server is Mircosoft’s version of SQL and complies with all of the SQL standrads and also adds its own unique code.

MySQL is another freeware installation that allows this to run on a web server. PHP is considered to be the best language to be used with MySQL.

XML - This is a method of organising data like a database and can contain the data too, as in a database. This is a standard that was created by the W3C.

RSS Feeds - This uses XML to create a file that people can subscribe to. This can be used to create news feeds.

The Internet - There are several misconceptions on what the Internet actually is. The World Wide Web is commonly mistaken for what the Internet is. The Internet is the name given for the connection of several computers over the world using various standards of protocols.

World Wide Web - This is the name of all the servers using the Internet that have configured web servers and are able to display web pages.

Web Browsers - The World Wide Web can only be used by a web browser. A broswer displays web pages that reside on servers connected within the World Wide Web. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is currently the most commonly used browser around the world. Its available not only on Windows but also on Apple’s systems as well.

Web Servers - This is a server that has HTTP server software installed to allow connection to the World Wide Web side of the Internet.

Domain Names - This is the address that is used in the address bar of your web browser. A name system directs to the IP addresses of the actual servers.

Flash / Shockwave - These are both standards created by Macromedia (and owned by Adobe) for creating multimedia and Internet applications.

Shockwave was created as an offshoot of their Director application. This was designed to use Director for the Internet. There were problems though using this format as download speeds were very slow so it became a problem to use in websites.

To combat this problem, Flash was designed to be tailor made for use of the Internet. The application although similar to Director, uses a different scripting language and a radically different interface as well as a very different style for building applications and graphics. Some would say that Flash became far more flexible and versatile than Director everytime it was revised to contain more features.

FTP - This is the standard that allows files to be exchanged using an on-line server. There are many ifferent applications which use this standard, including Windows as since Internet Explorer was combined with the regular Windows Explorer, copying files to an FTP server has become even easier.

FTP was originally the most popular method of using the Internet before the World Wide Web was created and the introduction of Web Browsers.