Web Vocabulary #10

ADO - short for ActiveX Data Objects, Microsoft's newest high-level interface for data objects. ADO is designed to eventually replace Data Access Objects (DAO) and Remote Data Objects (RDO). Unlike RDO and DAO, which are designed only for accessing relational databases, ADO is more general and can be used to access all sorts of different types of data, including web pages, spreadsheets, and other types of documents.   Click here for source

DAO - short for data access objects, objects that work with the Jet database engine. DAO objects are generally created with Visual Basic. Once created, a DAO object can be accessed and manipulated by any application that can use the Jet engine. This includes all of the applications in Microsoft Office, such as MS-Word, MS-Access, and Excel.   Click here for source

Google Gears - a plug-in for web browsers which aims to make browsers a lot faster, allow them to store data on a user's machine, identify where a user is via geo-location and provide the ability to write files to the desktop.   Click here for source

Favicon - short for Favorite Icon, a customized icon that is used by Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) versions 5.0 and later. When a user bookmarks a specific Web page, that Web page loads a customized icon into the user's browser, typically a tiny version of a company or Web site's logo. The favicon is displayed next to the Web site's name in the Favorites list and can also be displayed in the Links toolbar. When a site has not created a favicon, IE will load the IE logo into the browser by default.   Click here for source

QR Codes - is like a bar code. It can be read by a mobile phone with a camera. The mobile device must have a QR reader installed on it. The QR code usually contains  a web site address and will automatically connect the mobile phone user to the address of the web site contained in the code. However up to 3 kilobytes of information can be stored in a QR code which is about 3000 text characters.   Click here for source

"New Search Tool Aims at Answering Tough Queries, but Not at Taking on Google"

The article introduces a new online search service on a market – WolframAlpha. The biggest question is whether it can beat Google or not. A creator of WolframAlpha, Stephen Wolfram says that “Despite the online chatter comparing it to Google, his service is not intended to dethrone the king of search engines.” There is a big difference between those two. Mainly, WolframAlpha does not search through Web pages, “instead it computes the answers to queries using enormous collection of data the company has amassed.” Whereas Google find information that already exists online. “When a user types in a query, WolframAlpha tries to determine the relevant area of knowledge and find the answers often performing calculations on its data.” However, “in its current state there are many queries that WolframAlpha can not answer, either because it does not understand the question or because it does not have the requisite data.” WolframAlpha is based on program Mathematica, which Mr. Wolfram had created.

I think that this new search engine has a potential where it comes to finding specific information from a specific field that has been already gathered. It would really save us a lot of time if we could find the exact answers to our questions Well, we will have the opportunity to test it next week and we’ll see how effective it is.

WolframAlpha is launching next week at www.wolframalpha.com

Click here for article source

Web Vocabulary #9

Network File System (NFS) – a network file system protocol originally developed by Sun Microsystems in 1984, allowing a user on a client computer to access files over a network as easily as if the network devices were attached to its local disks. NFS, like many other protocols, builds on the Open Network Computing Remote Procedure Call (ONC RPC) system. The Network File System is an open standard defined in RFCs, allowing anyone to implement the protocol.   Click here for source

POP – short for point of presence, an access point to the Internet. ISPs have typically multiple POPs. A point of presence is a physical location, either part of the facilities of a telecommunications provider that the ISP rents or a separate location from the telecommunications provider, that houses servers, routers, ATM switches and digital/analog call aggregators.  Click here for source

Socket –  in UNIX and some other operating systems, a software object that connects an application to a network protocol. In UNIX, for example, a program can send and receive TCP/IP messages by opening a socket and reading and writing data to and from the socket. This simplifies program development because the programmer need only worry about manipulating the socket and can rely on the operating system to actually transport messages across the network correctly. Note that a socket in this sense is completely soft - it's a software object, not a physical component.  Click here for source

Real Time Web – a phrase used by some people to distinguish sites which publish content on a frequent basis from those web sites that publish less frequently. News web sites and active blogs are usually classed as part of the real time web where as a regular company web site is not.

What separates and helps define the real time web from the ordinary web is the speed at which their content is indexed by search engines such as Google.

Sites which are classed as part of the real time web are indexed very frequently (e.g. hourly) where as other sites may only be indexed every two weeks.  Click here for source

Slip - short for Serial Line Internet Protocol, a protocol for connection to the Internet via a dial-up connection. Developed in the 80s when modem communications typically were limited to 2400 bps, it was designed for simple communication over serial lines. SLIP can be used on RS-232 serial ports and supports asynchronous links.

A more common protocol is PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) because it is faster and more reliable and supports functions that SLIP does not, such as error detection, dynamic assignment of IP addresses and data compression.

In general, Internet service providers offer only one protocol although some support both protocols.  Click here for source

"Losing Popularity Contest, MySpace Tries a Makeover"

The article is about the “fight” between two big social portals – MySpace and Facebook. It says that Facebook popularity is growing while the number of MySpace users is decreasing. The author of the article also notices that MySpace “draws disproportionate numbers of teenagers, twentysomethings and people whose household income is less than $25,000 a year.” For this reason higher-end advertisers are more attracted by the other social sites like Facebook where “audience tends to be more affluent.” This is true that MySpace has been criticized for its clunky and sometimes raunchy appearance. However, important is to distinguish one site from the other by its purposes. David Bank, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets says that “MySpace is where you go to express yourself, while Facebook has been a place where you go for two-directional conversation.”

Click here for article source

Web Vocabulary #8

Webmaster – an individual who manages a Web site. Depending on the size of the site, the Webmaster might be responsible for any of the following:

- Making sure that the Web server hardware and software is running properly

- Designing the Web site

- Creating and updating Web pages

- Replying to user feedback

- Creating CGI scripts

- Monitoring traffic through the site

The exponential growth of the World Wide Web has created an unprecedented demand for Webmasters.  Click here for source

WAIS – short for Wide Area Information Server, and pronounced ways, a program for finding documents on the Internet. WAIS is rather primitive in its search capabilities.  Click here for source

Utility Computing – in a utility model, resources such as storage, bandwidth and computer processing time are charged for based upon how much you actually use over a given time period. This differs from more traditional models of web hosting where the web site owner purchases or leases a single server or space on a shared server irrespective and is charged a fixed fee.  Click here for source

Adobe AIR – The Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is an interesting development that enables web designers and developers to use the technologies used to build web sites - HTML, Javascript, Flash - to build applications that are used on the desktop.

The types of applications being built with AIR are those that integrate closely with websites. Some are used to follow and analyse information published by web sites while others are used to updates web sites and blogs.

Because they run on the the desktop and not in a web browser they can offer more features and access and save files on the local hard drive or network. AIR also has built in database for storage and synchronisation so you can work offline and then synchsronise the information to your website at a later date.

At present AIR runs on Windows and Mac OS X. A version for Linux is available to developers and a version for mobile devices is in development.  Click here for source

Content Delivery Network (CDN) – a specialist network of computers optimized to deliver web sites, pictures, videos and software downloads to people visiting a web site in the quickest, most efficient way possible. Computers in the network work together to share the load of delivering these files and to enable companies to deal with large peaks in demand. CDN providers include companies such as Akimai, Coral CDN and Limelight Networks.

When delivering a web page from a web server to a user's machine, distance is a factor. The distance from a user's machine to the actual location where the files are hosted does have an impact on download speeds. Use of a CDN can reduce download delays by detecting country the user is located in and using files from the geographically nearest web server.  Click here for source