Has your IT department stopped making sense? Are you having trouble communicating with your graphic designer? From computer aided design to rapid developments in hard core technology, keeping up with the computer industry is a full time job!

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Active Server Pages (ASP)
According to the Web Developer's Virtual Library, "Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) technology provides a framework for building dynamic HTML pages which enable Internet and Intranet applications to be interactive. ASP's are implemented using server side scripting that can be performed in any language such as Visual Basic, Microsoft's JScript, Java or C. ASP allows interaction with ODBC compliant databases on the web server, such as; Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, or Sybase. ActiveX controls can optionally be used to encapsulate functions on the client computer that interact with ASP on the server." For more information from WDVL on this subject, visit http://www.stars.com/Software/Tools/ASP.html

AIFF
A sound file format than can include both sampled sound and MIDI data. AIFF sounds can be hear and/or imported into many different kinds of multimedia authoring applications for the Macintosh and by some applications running on the PC.

Anti-aliasing
The process by which a computer application, namely an image editing program, can smooth out the edges around a graphic to eliminate the "jaggies" which can appear in digitized images. The smoothing which occurs is a blending process between the foreground color of the graphic and the background color around the graphic. When done poorly, graphics will look muddy around the edges or have a halo effect. To avoid this, designers should build computer graphics against the same background color against which the graphic will sit at its final destination.

Applet
Most commonly used to refer to a small Java application that downloads with a web page and runs on the client computer. For more information on using and creating Java applets visit the website, http://www.java.sun.com/

Aspect Ratio
The resolution of the display screen expressed in relative width and height values. For instance, the aspect ratio of most computer monitors is 4:3 resulting in user resolution options of 640x480, 800x600, etc.

Asset
A content element used in a multimedia program such as a text, graphic, animation, sound, or video file.

Bandwidth
The amount of information or data that can be transferred over a network connection in a given period of time. Bandwidth is typically measured in bits per second (bps), kilobits per second (kbps), or megabits per second (mps).

Beta Test
The final testing of a software product before its official release to the public. When a product is said to be the "beta version" it is the version made available for testing purposes.

Bitmap
Term commonly used to refer to a pixel based graphic versus a vector based graphic. Most graphics on the web are bitmap files in terms of the file structure.

Broadband
Broadband transmission is often in the range of 1 megahertz or more, and it can accommodate multiple channels. ISDN is considered a broadband medium. Cable television utilizes broadband techniques to send multiple channels over a single cable.

Broadcast Quality
A general term to describe the quality level that television stations will transmit, adhering to the NTSC format in the U.S. Web and desktop video are not broadcast quality because our current bandwidth or data transfer rates won't support it.

Browser
Software that allows a user to browse through information on a server. It commonly refers to Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, two popular applications used to view and navigate the World Wide Web and other Internet resources.

Button
A graphical component of an interface that represents some kind of embedded function, most often navigational in nature. When clicked, buttons can link the user to some other location in the program.

Cable Modem
A hardware device that enables a user to connect a computer to an existing coaxial cable provided by a cable TV network and access digital services, i.e. creating an Internet connection.

Cache
Temporary block of computer memory that is allocated for frequent or rapid data access. For instance, browsers cache website files when downloaded so site download time is significantly faster upon return to the site because many, if not all, of the files were initially cached on the user's computer.

CGI
An acronym for Common Gateway Interface, a standard used by programmers to allow their programs to interact with web users. CGI scripts can be written in many computer languages but Perl and C are the most common..

CLUT
An acronym for Color Look Up Table, a list of colors and their associated index numbers used to render 8-bit images.

CMYK
Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black. The four ink colors used in process printing. This color mode is not appropriate for web or screen graphics which are based on values of light. RGB is color mode for graphics intended for the screen.

Component Video
A video signal where the chrominance (color) and the luminance (brightness) components have been recorded separately. The result is a better picture quality.

Composite Video
A video signal in which all the information about color, brightness, line, field, sync, and blanking are mixed together.

Compression
The conversion of digital data into a more compact form by using complicated algorithms. All multimedia files for the web must be compressed so they are small enough to be downloaded.

Context Sensitive
Depending on a user's actions, a context-sensitive program responds with help or prompts that are specifically related to activities in which the user is engaged. For instance, in Windows applications, the user can right mouse-click and the window of option which appears depends on where and what was clicked.

Cookies
Small files that are downloaded to your computer when you browse certain web pages. Cookies hold information that can be retrieved by other web pages on the site. Some cookies are programmed with an expiration date so that they are automatically deleted after a period of time.

Cross Platform
The capacity of software to run on different operating systems and hardware.

CSS
Cascading Style Sheets; an addition to HTML for controlling presentation of a document, including color, typography, alignment of text and images,etc. As a coding specification, CSS is only recognized by 4.0 browsers and higher.

CSS-P
CSS with positioning. Refers to a proposal for adding positioning capabilities with style sheets. The CSS-P proposal has since been rolled into the CSS2 Specification. CSS-P, or CSS2, makes up a fundamental element of Dynamic HTML.

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