TERMINOLOGY

Internet: The global information system, a worldwide collection of interconnected networks (i.e. a network of networks) supporting communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and providing high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure. The Internet supports the World Wide Web, Usenet, Email, Gopher and other communication and file exchange entities.

World Wide Web: A network of information resources (i.e. Web servers and Web documents). The Web relies on three mechanisms to make these resources readily available to the widest possible audience:

• A uniform naming scheme for locating resources on the Web (e.g. URL's).
• Protocols, for access to named resources over the Web (e.g. HTTP, FTP).
• Hypertext, for easy navigation among resources (e.g. HTML, XHTML).

Brief History: In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, working at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), developed HTML as a means to manage and share textual information among computers. HTML was formalized in 1992. In 1994 the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded to set standards. The subsequent development of web browsers capable of displaying graphics and other media led to the explosion of the Web.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): Address of resource on the web. Every resource available on the Web — HTML document, image, video clip, program, etc. — has an address that may be encoded by a Uniform Resource Locator (e.g. http://www.hostname/filename). URL's typically consist of three pieces:

• The naming scheme (protocol) of the mechanism used to access the resource (e.g. http://).
• The name of the machine (domain name) hosting the resource (e.g. www.clatsopdesign.com).
• The name of the resource itself, given as a pathname (e.g. cs125/index.html).

Hypertext/Hypermedia: Cross-linked documents. Enables nonlinear organization of information.

Web page: Structured document containing text, images, video, audio, programs, cross-references, links to other web documents. Web pages are typically written in HTML.

Web site: Location containing web pages, documents and other resources.

Browser: Application that displays HTML documents (e.g. Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari). It interprets HTML commands to format documents for display.

Web Server: A program that handles requests for information from browsers. It allows HTML documents to be linked across a network. Browsers (clients) and servers communicate using a network protocol (e.g. HTTP, FTP, SMTP).

Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML): Specification of international standards for describing markup languages. HTML is an SGML application. Open HTML standards are developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

HyperText Markup Language (HTML): Hypermedia document description language. The publishing language of the Web. A universal language potentially understood by all computers used to publish documents on the web. HTML consists of elements or tags (e.g. <H1> and </H1>) that indicate how information is displayed in a browser. HTML gives authors the means to:

• Publish online documents with headings, text, tables, lists, photos, etc.
• Retrieve online information via hypertext links, at the click of a button.
• Design forms for conducting transactions with remote services, for use in searching for information, making reservations, ordering products, etc.
• Include spreadsheets, video clips, sound clips, and other applications directly in their documents.

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES

Dynamic HTML (DHTML): The interaction of several technologies, including HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript, to create web pages that are dynamic, i.e. pages with elements that change. DHTML encompasses text that changes color when the mouse moves over it, animations flying on and off the screen and sites that act like operating systems.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): A formatting language that provides flexible layout and presentation control for web documents. Style sheets give both authors and users control over the presentation of documents (e.g. font information, alignment, colors, positioning). Style information can be specified in a single centralized file that controls the entire web site.

JavaScript: A simple interpreted programming language used for web programming. Scripts are interpreted programs that add interactivity to web documents. Through scripts, authors may create dynamic Web pages (e.g. "smart forms" that react as users fill them out, highly interactive pages, dynamic objects) and use HTML as a means to build networked applications. JavaScript is the most popular scripting language. VBScript is another.

eXtensible Markup Language(XML): A markup language that specifies how to put structured data in a text file. Similar to HTML, XML makes use of tags (words bracketed by '<' and '>') and attributes (of the form name="value"), but while HTML specifies what each tag & attribute means (and often how the text between them will look in a browser), XML uses the tags only to delimit pieces of data, and leaves the interpretation of the data completely to the application that reads it. XML gives the ability to define new tags and attributes.

eXtensible HyperText Markup Language(XHTML): The next generation of markup language that uses the vocabulary of HTML and the syntax of XML. It combines the functionality and widespread acceptance of HTML with the consistency and flexibility of XML.

Portable Document Format (PDF): A cross-platform format popular on the web, often used for manuals or documents that are intended for printing. PDF files can be created from many programs by printing or exporting. PDF documents can be viewed on any machine with Acrobat Reader. PDF files preserve layout, typography, graphics and can contain hyperlinks.

pdf doc