Starr Sites - Glossary of Internet Terms

Glossary of Terms

This Glossary contains terms and abbreviations related to this web site in addition to some general Web-related terms. For a more comprehensive list see whatis.com.

Animated GIF: A moving GIF image on a Web page, created by combining several images into a single GIF file. An animated GIF can loop endlessly or it can display a few images and then stop the animation. Here's an exacmple:
Blog (or Weblog): A personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for the general public.
Browser: A World Wide Web program which retrieves Web pages for display on a computer screen. Popular browsers include Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Dither: To approximate a color that is not part of the current palette by combining pixels of different colors close to each other. Viewed from a distance, it gives the effect of the desired color, but viewed closely, the dots are visible. Dithering can be avoided by selecting non-dithering colors that are compatible with different browsers.
Domain Name: The unique name that identifies an Internet site. On the Web, the domain name is the part of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that tells a domain name server where to forward a request for a Web page. For example, the domain name of this web site is starrsites.com.
E-mail: Electronic mail, which enables people with different computers and operating systems to communicate with each other via the Internet.
GIF: Graphical Interchange Format, a bitmap graphical format, originally developed for CompuServe and widely used in WWW pages. It is especially appropriate for logos, line drawings, and other images with solid colors and distinct borders between colors.
Home Page (or Homepage): Originally, the web page that a browser is set to use when it starts up. The more common meaning refers to the top level document of a set of web pages.
Host: A network computer that is a repository for services available to other computers on the network.
HTML: HyperText Markup Language, the coding language used to create hypertext documents for the World Wide Web. In HTML, a block of text can be surrounded with tags that indicate how it should appear (for example, in bold face or italics). Also, in HTML a word, a block of text, or an image can be linked to another file on the Web. HTML files are viewed with a World Wide Web browser.
HTML validator: Service which checks HTML documents for compliance with HTML standards.
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol, the set of rules for exchanging text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files on the World Wide Web.
Hyperlink: A link in a document to information within that document or another document. These links are usually represented by highlighted words or images. When a reader selects a hyperlink, the computer display switches to the document or portion of the document referenced by the hyperlink.
Hypermedia or Hypertext: Richly formatted documents containing a variety of information types, such as text, images, video, and audio. These documents generally contain hyperlinks.
Internet: A vast global computer network of networks connecting government, academic and business institutions.
InterNIC: Internet Networked Information Center, the organization responsible for registering and maintaining domain names on the World Wide Web.
JPEG: Joint Photographic Expert Group, a graphical format widely used in WWW pages. JPEG is a compressed format which can result in significantly reduced file sizes for photographs and other images with continuous color changes.
Link: An active connection to another web page, location in a web page, file, or other Internet resource. Selecting the link takes you to the new location.
MIDI: Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
Network: A connection of two or more computers so that they can share resources.
Pop-up Window: See definition and discussion in Motive Web Design Glossary.
Search Engines: Web services which help search through Internet addresses for user-defined terms or topics in which you are interested.
Server: A computer that holds the files for one or more sites.
Thumbnail: A small version of an image, normally linked to a larger version.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator -- The standard way to address a source of information on the Internet. For example,
http://www.starrsites.com/ points to the Starr Sites home page, and
http://www.starrsites.com/glossary.htm addresses the Starr Sites glossary page.
Validator: See HTML validator.
Web: See WWW.
Web site or website: A collection of Web pages on a particular subject, including a beginning file called a home page. Other pages on the site can be reached, directly or indirectly, from the home page.
WWW or the Web: World Wide Web, a distributed hypertext-based information system on the Internet, which provides users an easy way to access global information consisting of a mixture of text, graphics, sound files, and video clips.

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