Glossary

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 WAN

An acronym for Wide Area Network, WAN refers to a network that connects computers over long distances via telephone lines or satellite links. In a WAN, the computers are physically and sometimes geographically far apart.

 Web Page

A web page is a document created with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) that is part of a group of hypertext documents or resources available on the World Wide Web. Collectively, these documents and resources form what is known as a website. You can read HTML documents that reside somewhere on the Internet or on your local hard drive with a software program called a web browser. Web browsers read HTML documents and display them as formatted presentations, with any associated graphics, sound, and video, on a computer screen. Web pages can contain hypertext links to other places within the same document, to other documents at the same website, or to documents at other websites. They can also contain fill-in forms, photos, large clickable images, sounds, and videos for downloading.

 Web Ring

A web ring is a collection of subject-related websites. Web rings link sites with similar topics, allowing you to navigate from site to site.

 Webmaster

A webmaster is a person in charge of maintaining a web site. This may include writing HTML files, setting up more complex programs, and responding to e-mail. Many sites encourage you to mail comments and questions about the site's web pages to the webmaster.

 WinAmp

One of the most popular ways to sort and play MP3s. Winamp is developed by Nullsoft and can be downloaded for free here.

 WinSock

Short for Windows Sockets, WinSock describes a standard way for Windows programs to work with TCP/IP. You use WinSock if you directly connect your Windows PC to the Internet, either with a permanent connection or with a modem by using SLIP or PPP.

 WinZip

WinZip is a software compression utility for the PC. It allows you to compress or "zip" a file or a number of files into one archive file in the Zip file format. This functionality is built into Windows XP and Mac OS X.

 Windows 2000

Windows 2000 is basically a new variant of Windows NT. Windows XP is built from the same basic code. It employs the same core technologies as NT, but adds many new ones that were not previously available such as Plug-and-Play, support for USB devices, power management, DirectX 7.x, etc.

 Windows 95

A major release of the Microsoft Windows operating system released in 1995. Windows 95 represents a significant advance over its precursor, Windows 3.1. In addition to sporting a new user interface, Windows 95 also includes a number of important internal improvements. Perhaps most important, it supports 32-bit applications, which means that applications written specifically for this operating system should run much faster. And although Windows 95 can run older Windows and DOS applications, it has essentially removed DOS as the underlying platform. This has meant removal of many of the old DOS limitations, such as 640K of main memory and 8-character filenames.

 Windows 98

The first in the line of Windows 95 based operating systems, Windows 98 was released in mid-1998. Originally it was called Memphis, and then Windows 97, but Microsoft changed the name when it realized that it was going to miss its target 1997 release date. Windows 98 offered support for a number of new technologies, including FAT32, AGP, MMX, USB, DVD, and ACPI. Its most visible feature, though, is the Active Desktop, which integrates the Web browser (Internet Explorer) with the operating system.

 Windows Address Book

The Address Book is part of the Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express email programs used to sort and store email address and information of your family and friends.

 Windows Me

Windows Me is the second and last version of Windows based on the Windows 95 platform. Microsoft made improvements to Windows 98 and added new features like Video Editing, Photo Collections, System Restore and Home Networking among other features. Even with all these features added, Windows Me was considered an inferior operating system from those that came before it.

 Windows XP

Windows XP is the most recently released version of the Windows operating system. Released in 2001, it comes in two versions, Home and Professional. Windows XP is definitely the most robust and stable version of Windows to date, and includes the features of ME such as Internet, Audio/Video Editing, Photo Collections, System Restore, Networking. It also includes features such as Remote Assistance and Driver rollback.

 World Wide Web

The exact definition of the World Wide Web (popularly known as the Web) varies, depending on whom you ask. Three common descriptions are: A collection of resources (Gopher, FTP, http, telnet, Usenet, WAIS, and others) that can be accessed via a web browser. A collection of hypertext files available on web servers. A set of specifications (protocols) that allows the transmission of web pages over the Internet. You can think of the Web as a worldwide collection of text and multimedia files and other network services interconnected via a system of hypertext documents. Http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) was created in 1990, at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, as a means for sharing scientific data internationally, instantly, and inexpensively. With hypertext, a word or phrase can contain a link to other text. To achieve this, CERN developed a programming language called HTML, that allows you to easily link to other pages or network services on the Web.