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Top Glossary
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W
W3C. Short for World Wide Web Consortium, an international consortium of companies involved with the Internet and the Web. The W3C was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the original architect of the World Wide Web. The organization's purpose is to develop open standards so that the Web evolves in a single direction rather than being splintered among competing factions. The W3C is the chief standards body for HTTP and HTML.
wait state. A short delay that occurs when a microprocessor accesses data from memory. Because the microprocessor is generally faster than the memory chips, it waits for the memory chips to "catch up" by sitting idle for the duration of one wait state each time it accesses the memory. A zero wait state processor is much faster and takes advantage of faster memory chips. The length of a wait state depends on how fast the processor is.
WAIS. An acronym that stands for Wide Area Information Server, which the Internet uses to make it easy to search for specific types of information.
wallpaper. A graphic image placed on the desktop, or background, of your GUI. If you close all windows in your GUI, you'll see the wallpaper underneath.
WAN. Wide Area Network (WAN). Two or more networks connected usually over a large geographic distance through the use of a long-distance network medium such as the telephone system, microwave towers, or satellites. Also referred to as "enterprise" or "enterprisewide" networks.
WAP. The Wireless Application Protocol is a secure specification that allows users to access information instantly via handheld wireless devices such as mobile phone, pagers, two-way radios, smartphones and communicators. WAP supports most wireless networks. These include CDPD, CDMA, GSM, PDC, PHS, TDMA, FLEX, ReFLEX, iDEN, TETRA, DECT, DataTAC, and Mobitex. WAP is supported by all operating systems. Ones specifically engineered for handheld devices include PalmOS, EPOC, Windows CE, FLEXOS, OS/9, and JavaOS. WAPs that use displays and access the Internet run what are called microbrowsers--browsers with small file sizes that can accommodate the low memory constraints of handheld devices and the low-bandwidth constraints of a wireless-handheld network. Although WAP supports HTML and XML, the WML language (an XML application) is specifically devised for small screens and one-hand navigation without a keyboard. WML is scalable from two-line text displays up through graphic screens found on items such as smart phones and communicators. WAP also supports WMLScript. It is similar to JavaScript, but makes minimal demands on memory and CPU power because it does not contain many of the unnecessary functions found in other scripting languages. Because WAP is faily new, it is not a formal standard yet. It is still an initiative that was started by Unwired Planet, Motorola, Nokia, and Ericsson.
warm boot. The process of restarting your computer by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete or an equivalent reset button. A warm boot occurs when you restart the computer without turning it off. Warm booting is much faster than cold booting, which occurs when you turn the computer off and then back on.
watch icon. An icon shaped like a tiny little watch. The watch icon, indigenous to the Macintosh computer, tells you that the computer is thinking and that you will have to wait.
WBMP. Wireless BitMap is a graphic format optimized for mobile computing devices. A WBMP image is identified using a TypeField value, which describes encoding infomration (such as pixel and palette organization, compression, and animation) and determines image characteristics according to WAP documentation. TypeField values are represented by an Image Type Identifier. Currently, there is only one type of WBMP specified; the Image Type identifier label for this is 0. 0 has the following characteristics: No Compression; One bit color (white=1, black=0); One bit deep (Monochrome). Any WAP device that supports WBMPs can only support type 0. WBMP is part of the Wireless Application Protocol, Wireless Application Environment Specification Version 1.1.
WIN.INI. The most important file if you are running Windows. This file contains commands that determine how Microsoft Windows looks and behaves on your computer. The WIN.INI file is an ASCII file, so you can edit using a text editor. If you ever lose or modify your WIN.INI file, Windows may not work properly on your computer.
window. A window is a viewport (outline through which you see things) on the screen that display data, programs, or information. A window can be moved, resized, opened, and closed, allowing you to organize the data on your computer screen. In most GUIs, you can open numerous windows at the same time and juggle information on the screen. You can switch between windows by simply clicking the window you want. However, you can work in only one window -- called the active window -- at a time.
Windows. Short for Microsoft Windows, a graphical user interface for DOS computers. Microsoft Windows provides a common way of using programs, making them easier to learn. Plus, Windows manages the way your PC works and takes care of common chores, such as working with the printer and disk drive.
Windows for Workgroups. A special version of Microsoft windows designed for a local area network. With the right cables and hardware, you can use Windows for Workgroups to connect several computers together for exchanging electronic mail, sharing printers and modems. Often abbreviated as WFWG.
Windows NT. The portable, secure, 32-bit, preemptive-multitasking member of the Microsoft Windows operating system family.
Windows NT server provides centralized management and security, advanced fault tolerance, and additional connectivity.
Windows NT Workstation provides operating system and networking functionality for computers without centralized management.
WINS. Windows Internet Name Service (WINS). A name resolution service that resolves Windows networking computer names to IP addresses in a routed environment. A WINS server handles name registrations, queries, and releases.
wireless. Wireless is a term used to describe telecommunications in which electromagnetic waves (rather than some form of wire) carry the signal over part or all of the communication path. Some monitoring devices, such as intrusion alarms, employ acoustic waves at frequencies above the range of human hearing; these are also sometimes classified as wireless.Wireless technology is rapidly evolving, and is playing an increasing role in the lives of people throughout the world. In addition, ever-larger numbers of people are relying on the technology directly or indirectly. (It has been suggested that wireless is overused in some situations, creating a social nuisance.) More specialized and exotic examples of wireless communications and control include:
Wireless can be divided into:
WLAN. Acronym for wireless local-area network. Also referred to as LAWN. A type of local-area network that users high-frrequency radio waves rather than wires to communicate between nodes.
Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS). Short for Wireless Transport
Layer Security. WTLS is the security layer of the WAP, providing privacy,
data integrity and authentication for WAP services. WTLS, designed specifically
for the wireless environment, is needed because the client and the server
must be authenticated in order for wireless transactions to remain secure
and because the connection needs to be encrypted. For example, a user
making a transaction with a bank over a wireless device needs to know
that the connection is secure and private and not subject to a security
breach during transfer (sometimes referred to as a man-in-the-middle attack).WTLS
is needed because mobile networks do not provide complete end-to-end security.
WTLS is based on the widely used
TLS v1.0 security layer used in Internet. Because of the nature of wireless
transmissions, modifications were made to the TLS v1.0 in order to accommodate
for wireless' low bandwidth, datagram connection, limited processing power
and memory capacity, and cryptography exporting restrictions.
WML. Wireless Markup Language is an XML language used to specify content and user interface for WAP devices; the WAP forum provides a DTD for WML. WML is supported by almost every mobile phone browser around the world. WML pages are requested and served in the same way as HDML pages. For Web servers to serve WML pages, they must contain the text/vnd.wap.wml mime type.
World Wide Web (WWW or Web). The Internet Service providing information as a series of pages connected together by hypertext links and incorporating both text and graphics.
write error. An error that occurs when you try to save data to a disk. Write errors can occur because of glitches on the disk surface, not enough space on the disk, or attempts to save to a write-protected disk.
write protect. To modify a disk or file so that it is unable to edit or erase its data. You can write-protect a disk by activating the write-protect tab.
WTLS. See Wireless Transport Layer Security.
WYSIWYG. Acronym for What You See Is What You Get. WYSIWYG describes the phenomenon of seeing on the computer screen exactly what you will see on the page when you print your document. There are degrees of WYSIWYG in computerdom, but most people agree that the Macintosh and Windows environments offer true WYSIWYG. In fact WYSIWYG is so common now that the term is quickly falling out of common usage.
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X
X.25.A popular standard for packet-switching networks. The X.25 standard was approved by the CCITT (now the ITU) in 1976. It defines layers 1, 2, and 3 in the OSI Reference Model.
X.400. An ISO and ITU standard for addressing and transporting e-mail messages. It conforms to layer 7 of the OSI model and supports several types of transport mechanisms, including Ethernet, X.25, TCP/IP, and dial-up lines.
X.500. An ISO and ITU standard that defines how global directories should be structured. X.500 directories are hierarchical with different levels for each category of information, such as country, state, and city. X.500 supports X.400 systems.
XML. Short for Extensible Markup Language, a specification developed by the W3C. XML is a pared-down version of SGML, designed specifically for Web documents. It allows designers to create their own customized tags, enabling the definition, transmission, validation, and interpretation of data between applications and between organizations. Whether XML evenutally supplants HTML as the standard Web formatting specification depends a lot on whether it is supported by future Web browsers. Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 handles XML, but renders it as CSS and Mozilla (Netscape) is still in experimenting with XML support.
Xmodem. A protocol for transferring files between computers (often across phone lines) and catching errors that occur during transfer. This ensures that the file sent is identical to the file received. XMODEM was actually the name of a program that included the XMODEM file transfer protocol. Today, it refers to the way the file is sent. Other transfer protocols, such as YMODEM and ZMODEM, improve on the XMODEM idea by allowing faster data transmission through larger packets of data and the capability to continue transmitting data when the checksum values don't match.
XON/XOFF. Signals for stopping and starting the flow of data during transmission between computers. XON/XOFF lets the receiving computer stop the flow of information so that it may process the information as it comes on. The XON characters actually Control-S, produced by pressing the Ctrl-S key combination. That stops data from being sent and also allows you to catch up and read the screen. The XOFF character is Ctrl-Q. Only the Ctrl-Q character gets things moving after being frozen by a Ctrl-S.
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Y
Ymodem. A transfer protocol based on the XMODEM standard. YMODEM allows faster data transmission.
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Z
zap. To zap a file is to remove it permanently from the disk. Unlike deleting a file, zapping a file removes it without possibility of being undeleted.
ZIP. A suffix applied to files that have been compressed with the PKZIP utility. A ZIP files may be anywhere from five percent to 95 percent smaller than the original file -- or the original group of files, if more than one was compressed at a time. Compressing files like this is useful for transferring them over a modem or for saving disk space.
Zmodem. Similar to YMODEM but still more efficient. ZMODEM is able to achieve up to 95% efficiency on transfers. (This is compared to less than 80% for XMODEM and Kermit.) Can recover from fatal errors, such as losing the connection in mid-transfer, picking up at that point when you call back. Allows streaming transfer.
zones. Groups of computers within an AppleTalk network.
Zterm. ZTerm is a shareware terminal emulation program for Mac OS. It can be used to make asynchronous modem connections to terminal servers and BBSes and can emulate VT100, VT220 and PC ANSI-BBS devices. Unlike PPP or SLIP dialers, ZTerm does not require a high-speed modem and it will work on any computer running Mac OS 6 or higher. It provides excellent support for a number of transfer protocols, including ZModem (for which ZTerm derived its name), XModem, YModem and Kermit.
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