The route to all of your files. Think of it as the directions to your Barbie Girl MP3.
The Unified Resource Identifier is the way your browser finds resources or websites on the Internet. It's a bit like Lolcats' postcode.
The Apache HTTP Server Project is the the open source server software that delivers most of the web. It's the Internet's sorting office. Glamourous.
One of the basic data structures used in computer programming. An array is an indexed collection of data. They are used to store big or small, simple or complex data. They're not too picky.
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a standard code used to represent characters. Not characters like Groucho Marx, more like punctuation marks, and letters, numbers, symbols...
A format for publishing news content to be read by aggregator programs. Like a 21st century printing press except the news is written by people wearing snuggies and duvets instead of suits.
An overrated 3D movie, and a way of representing your digital self as a graphic.
These are tiny chunks of data that carry information. It's like the genes of programming.
Short for web log. It's a bit like a Captain's log, but with less stardates. We wish.
The act of wearing a snuggie in the dark whilst inflicting your opinion on unsuspecting Internet Explorers.
A clumsy portmanteau meaning a virtual, blog related realm with a snuggi/duvet covered population.
A “faux” web bookmark with an embedded script that performs a certain action. Sneaky, sneaky bookmarklet.
An assignment of a true or false value, these are used to create if statements. It's the basis for modern computer logic. We love you Mr Boole!
A Common Gateway Interface is a means of executing server side scripts to generate dynamic content. Not to be confused with Computer Generated Images, responsible for the overrated film Avatar.
A method used to display special characters for use in HTML. If expressing yourself like a 12 year old girl is your thing there are hearts and stars galore.
A Character Set makes up the symbols used when using coding to represent meaningful language. It's a great way to swear without having to pay the jar. Twåt!
A contraction of “change mode”, chmod is a Unix/Linux shell used to change file permissions. As you can imagine, it's scintillating stuff.
Classes are groupings of object oriented programming languages. If we were to personify classes and use a contemporary analogy, you could say that emos, chavs, yummy mummies and yuppies are all classes of people. Though there are individual distinctions, there are overriding styles which envelope each class.
Content Management System, does what it says on the tin; it's a system for managing content. Simples
Comments allow users to respond to content posts. This is usually where some know-it-all will tear your post to shreds with a single quote or link.
Content consists of text, images, videos or other information you share in a post or on a website. If your website's structure is the frame, the content is the artwork.
An administrative tool for configuring website accounts provided by most web hosting companies. Generous.
Cascading Style Sheets is a styling language for designing format and layout of a website. That makes us tri-lingual. We speak Klingon too. Gar-dacchk!
A database is used to store information in an organised way. Think of the opposite of your brain.
A person (usually with glasses and a collection of Star Wars figurines “NO! Don't take them out of the box!) who builds, alters or maintains software products.
DIV elements show a section of text in HTML. We love putting a few DIVs on our websites.
Document Object Model is an interface that lets programmers access HTML and XML to control the content and structure of documents. It's also one half of classic comedy duo Dick and Dom.
Feeds allow “Feed readers” to access a site to check for new content, this can then be published to another site. Feeds are to the feed reader what curtain twitcher is to the gossip.
File Transfer Protocol is a client-server protocol for transferring files. If it weren't for FTP, we probably wouldn't have to watch that annoying “you wouldn't steal your dying grandmother's pearls, don't download movies!” film on every DVD.
A hack is a bit of code that changes the functionality of a software product.
Hacking is the process of writing code for, or contributing code to, a piece of software. It also refers to the manner in which some of the poorer Premier League football teams win football matches.
A hosting provider provides the infrastructure for making information accessible via the web. They provide hosting for websites. The clue's in the name.
A .htaccess file is a granular configuration file for the Apache web server software, used to set or alter the server's configuration settings for the directory in which it is present, and/or its child directories.
Hypertext Markup Language is the standard language used to build all websites. It is often used alongside CSS and/or JavaScript. Four languages and counting, aren't we clever?
An IP address is a unique number assigned to a computer or Internet-capable information appliance, such as a network printer, to let it communicate with other devices using Internet Protocol.
ISAPI (Internet Server Application Programming Interface) is a set of programming standards that allow programmers to easily develop efficient Web-based applications.
JavaScript is a client-side programming or scripting language. It's used to create interactive and dynamic effects on a web page, as well as to handle and manipulate form data. It's a showy little so and so, and we love it.
mod_rewrite is an extension module of the Apache web server software which allows for "rewriting" of URLs on-the-fly.
MySQL is an open source SQL (Structured Query Language) database implementation.
A news aggregator or news (feed) reader is a computer program which tracks RSS, RDF, or Atom information feeds. Imagine that news used to be a once-a-day thing. So last century.
Open source is programming code that can be shared, modified and distributed by anyone. Anyone who understands programming code that is...
Practical Extraction and Report Language is a very popular and powerful scripting language used for web applications, although it's being replaced by PHP in the mainstream. Insert sinking/pearl pun here.
A permalink is a URL at which an article will permanently reside, even after it's left the first place it was posted. It prevents link rot and is yet another annoying example of portmanteau.
Permissions are security settings restricting or allowing users to perform certain functions. These permissions are a lot more difficult to bypass than the ones your parents gave you as a teenager.
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is a scripting language used to develop dynamic web pages. We love it.
PHPMyAdmin is a popular web-based interface for administering MySQL databases.
In general computer terms, "ping" is a common utility used in a TCP/IP environment to determine if a given IP Address exists or is reachable. Sadly it has no relation to Atari legend Pong.
These are found in a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and used by web pages to work out the dynamic data it displays.
A variable passed through the query string.
Resource Description Framework is a language used to describe the locations of resources on the web.
Recordset describes a group of results returned from a database query. It's nothing to do with your Dad's vinyl collection.
A relative path describes the location of a file from the current directory.
A relative URI describes the location of a file from the current URI.
Web Robots are programs which “crawl” the web automatically. They gather information for search engines and other purposes. One step away from R2D2? We like to think so.
Really Simple Syndication is a format for simultaneously publishing content on a number of sites.
A shell is a program that interacts directly with an operating system. It's the middle-man between you and your PC's innermost workings.
Invented by an entrepreneurial web denizen back before blockers were built in to all email, browser and anti-virus software, spam is renowned for it's intrepid approaches and relentless annoyance.
Secure Shell is a communication protocol allowing remote computers to be connected with over TCP/IP.
Secure Sockets Layer is the predecessor to Transport Layer Security. It allows for secure communications over the Internet and other networks.
Task based, or task oriented documentation is writing that takes you through a process step-by-step; it is succinct, lacks jargon, is easily understood, and structured entirely around performing specific tasks. We're still looking for it.
A scheme of classification.
Telnet is a communications protocol used to make a connection with another computer.
A text editor is a program which edits files in plain text format. Programs like Word add formatting which is additional to plain text.
The preferred character encoding system.
Unix, or UNIX, is a computer operating system developed at AT&T's Bell Laboratories in 1969. Now you know what programmers were doing while everyone else was at Woodstock.
Unix Time, or a timestamp, is a method of tracking time on a computer and in many file formats. This was written at 1285755371. Thank goodness the talking clock doesn't run on Unix Time.
A web server is a computer containing software for operations with HTML web pages.
XHTML, or Extensible HyperText Markup Language, is the follow up to HTML as the W3C standard language for creating web pages.
Extensible Markup Language, is written in Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and enables original definition of a markup language.
Extensible Markup Language-Remote Procedure Call allows a developer to send an XML request to an external application.
