Authoring Interactive Media Vocabulary
Contents
Vocabulary
Internet
The Internet is not the same thing as the World Wide Web. The Internet is made up of computers connected together; it is a network of informational systems.
WWW
The World Wide Web is a type of file transfer over the Internet that has the capability to display graphics, sound, video and other media elements in addition to text. Information on the World Wide Web is transferred via HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol).
FTP
File Transfer Protocol is a standardized way of transferring files from one machine to another. An FTP client is used to transfer the data.
HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol is a standardized way of exchanging documents on the World Wide Web.
Browser
An interpreting program that translates markup and renders it visually using style information.
Server
A computer which provides services for other computers networked to it, or for those computers allowed to connect to it.
IP address
A unique number (like a phone number) used to identify a computer on a network.
Markup
a method of indicating the logical workings (the underlying structure) of a document.
SGML
a complex and well-developed international text processing standard. HTML(HyperText Markup Language) a set of directions that instructs another program (a "user agent" or "browser") to structure content.
XML
a language that is not predefined like HTML... it allows authors to develop their own tags and to provide meaning behind the structure. HTML has a set of tags developed by the W3C. With XML an author can not only defines tags, but also the relationships between them.
XHTML
An extension of HTML 4.0 that is compatible with XML.
DTD
a document type definition is a list of all the tags used within a specification and information about them like whether they are block-level or inline elements, what attributes they can take, etc.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets. A way of indicating how a document should appear visually (i.e., with font and color specifications).
Cache
holds recently accessed data to speed up subsequent access of that same data
HTML validator
a free service on the W3C site that will check HTML code and point out any parts of it that don't comply with the latest recommended specification.
Presentation
A few examples of presentation are changing font color, text alignment (left, right, centered, etc.), or the visual representation of links (i.e. underlined and blue).
Proprietary Tags
tags that are created by a company and which usually do not conform to standards. Be careful when you use these tags since many of them will not work in a competitor's browser (Internet Explorer vs. Netscape for example)
URI (Universal Resource Identifier), also known as a URL (Universal Resource Locator)
The URI is part of a system that can locate an address irregardless of where in the world it physically resides.
