Dictionary

Animated GIF

An image made up of several frames which the browser loops through, creating the illusion of movement. Used in countless advertising banners.

ASP (Active Server Pages)

Microsoft's programming language. As with other programming languages, it lets you build websites that are interactive or do more than just display static information.

Bookmark

A record of a website address kept in your browser so you can find it again easily. Referred to as favourites in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Browser

The software you use to view web pages. The browser fetches the information from the server, reads the HTML that the pages are made up of and shows it on your screen.

Client

There are two types of computers on the web; servers and clients. Clients are the computers that most people use. They just receive web pages; they're the ones you sit in front of, as opposed to the ones sitting in a bunker somewhere underneath London.

Cookie

A small text file sent by a server to your browser to identify you. Using cookies effectively lets websites remember who you are and what you've done in the past on that site.

Dynamic HTML (Dynamic Hypertext Mark up Language)

A combination of HTML, JavaScript and stylesheets that lets designers build websites with moving interfaces that respond to users' actions. Good in theory, but it has never lived up to its potential due to the differences in the way browsers render HTML.

Email (electronic mail)

The web is just one part of the Internet. Probably the biggest part is email. Email lets people easily send messages to people anywhere in the world. In fact, it's so easy and cheap that it's in danger of collapsing under the weight of so much spam (unsolicited advertising messages).

FireWire

Newer digital camcorders often come with FireWire connections to transfer the video to your computer at high speed. You will also need a computer with a FireWire connection to use this (e.g. any Mac from the last few years).

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format)

A compressed image format used on the web. Whereas JPEGs are often used to compress photos, GIFS are best for compressing logos or illustrations with large areas of flat colour.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

A set of rules that describes how many things on the Internet should work. When you type in the http:// at the beginning of a URL, what you are really saying is "Here's a URL, go and find this website using the HTTP rules." It's rather like having a kick-about in the park and telling everyone you're going to be playing football before you start, so people don't pick up the ball to start playing rugby and confusing everyone.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language)

A way of formatting your documents so they can be read by web browsers. It also lets you include images, links and other things on your web pages; gives you a way to build forms to collect information from users; pretty much everything you'd want to do in fact!

Icon

A small image that is sometimes used on web pages to represent a button, or a special section.

ISP (Internet Service Provider)

ISP is short for Internet Service Provider. ISPs connect you to the Internet when you dial up from your computer at home. Your ISP maintains a link into the Internet from there which enables you to access webpages and send emails.

Java

Amongst other things, Java lets you run small programs within your web browser. It does much more besides...

JavaScript

JavaScript is a simple programming language that you can include in web pages to effect the way that page is displayed, or control the browser. It differs from other programming languages in that it can't control what happens on the server. So although it is easy to use, it has limited power.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

A popular image format on the web. As with GIF, it compresses files so they take up a fraction of the space they would otherwise so they can be downloaded faster. It is particularly good at compressing photographic images

Mark-up

Mark-up is the extra stuff you add to your web pages to describe their structure and to format your pages. HTML is a kind of mark-up and it is usually noticeable because it is wrapped in < and > symbols.

Plug-in

A piece of software that you can add on to your web browser to add extra functionality. Common plug-ins include Flash (so you can see Flash movies), QuickTime (lets you view video and other media) and RealPlayer (again, displays video, and also plays streaming music). If you include these kinds of files on your site and users don't have the right plug-in, they won't be able to see your content. Fortunately, plug-ins are usually free and quick to download.

Render

When your browser receives an HTML file from the server, it reads it line by line, looks on the web server for any images or other files that have been referenced in the HTML, decides where everything should go on the page and what it should all look like, and then shows the result in the browser window. This is called rendering. Problems can arise because different browsers make these decisions in different ways, so the same page can often end up looking different in each. If your HTML isn't well written, the browser may not be able to render the page at all.

Screen reader

A program used by people with a visual impairment to read the contents of a computer screen. Web pages should be designed so that they make sense when being used via a screen reader.

Search engine

There are so many pages on the web that we often need help finding what we're looking for. Search engines scour the web and keep an index of all the web pages they can find. You can type certain words in to a search engine and it will look in its index for pages that are relevant to those words.

Server

A computer that holds web pages, images, databases and all other things that make up the web. The address (URL) of a website is actually the address of the server where the pages are stored. Servers are often kept in racks in secure locations like old nuclear bunkers or air-conditioned 'server farms'.

Site map

A diagram of a website showing where all the pages are, and how they link together. Sometimes people put sitemaps on the actual website to help users find what they're looking for.

Streaming

Audio and video files take up a lot of space and take a long time to transfer from one computer to another, for example, from a web server to your browser. With streaming audio or video, rather than waiting for the file to arrive, your browser (or plug-in) starts to play the file whilst it is still downloading, making the whole experience a lot easier.

Style sheet

The easiest way to control the way your pages look. A stylesheet is usually a separate file to which your web pages link.

Splash screen

Invariably pointless and misguided pages at the front of websites which are intended to make your website look cool, but just end up annoying users.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

Basically, the equivalent of an address or phone number for anything on the Internet. Every file in your site will have a URL, although most people would only be interested in the URL for the homepage.

User

The word used to describe anyone who might use your website. Users are the people who the website is for and they should be at the forefront of your mind when developing your site.

Validation

HTML has to be written according to certain rules, otherwise it won't work properly. If your mark-up follows these rules, it is said to be valid. If not, it is invalid. There are many tools available to help you test the validity of your code.

WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative)

These are the guidelines established in 1998 to highlight and improve the difficulties experienced by many web users on a day-to-day basis. Many of the initiatives are simple to implement and can make all the difference to many users. See http://www.w3.org/WAI/

Web page

A HTML file stored on a web server that is displayed in a web browser.

Webmaster

The person who created, maintains, or is in some way responsible for the site. Web masters live underground in concrete bunkers.

WWW (World Wide Web)

The web is just the name given to all the files and web pages stored on servers around the world and the connections between them. The web is part of the Internet, which also includes email, FTP and other ways of sharing information.

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

As the organisation that sets standards for web technologies, the W3C is supposed to make sure that everything works. And against all the odds, most of the time, it does. See http://www.w3.org/