Tech Terms

Tech Terms What’s new, what’s hot, and what you’ve got to know Michael Sauers, Internet Trainer, BCR

blog Short for weblog (pronounced “we blog”, but occasionally spelled “web log”) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging". Also: Blogger, blogoshpere

Notable Library blogs Paper Cuts http://papercuts.tscpl.org/ Ann Arbor District Library http://www.aadl.org Colorado State Publications Library http://cospl.blogspot.com/ Travels with the State Librarian http:// ksstatelibrarian.blogspot.com /

blogroll A list of blogs that a particular person reads My blogroll (via Bloglines) http://www.bloglines.com/public/travelinlibrarian/

astroturf [astroturfing] pejoratively describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behavior a blog that looks like a personal blog, but is really sponsored by a corporation.

splog Sp am B log Any blog whose creator doesn’t add any written value, the results of which are plentiful and irrelevant results in search engines. Typically all computer generated and all advertisements. The concept is to force search results and click-throughs leaving to revenue generation Sometimes also refers to comment spam.

RSS (feed) R eally S imple S yndication (or R ich S ite S ummary, or R DF S ite S ummary) a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by (amongst other things) news websites and weblogs. Content is subscribed to, retrieved by, and accessed through the use of an aggregator.

aggregator A software application, webpage or service that collects syndicated content from disparate sources and provides a consolidated view. Aggregators can be Web sites, stand-alone clients, or added to existing programs.

OPML O utline P rocessor M arkup Language An XML format for outlines. Originally developed by Radio UserLand as a native file format for an outliner application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of RSS feeds between RSS aggregators.

podcast A method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s). It became popular in late 2004, largely due to automatic downloading audio onto portable players or personal computers. The “Pod” comes from the implication that content is transferred to an iPod. However, an iPod, or any other portable device is not required to access podcasts.

#code4lib Code for libraries Conference started in 2005 The # indicates that this is an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) room There is also a blog and e-mail discussion list

CMS Content Management System A computer software system for organizing and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other content. A CMS is sometimes a web application used for managing web sites and web content, though in many cases, content management systems require special client software for editing and constructing articles.

Drupal A modular, open-source content management system which was originally written by Dries Buytaert as a bulletin board system. Today, it is used by many high-traffic websites, including The Onion, Spread Firefox, Ourmedia, KernelTrap, and the Defective by Design campaign. Both the Iowa and Idaho state libraries are currently implementing Drupal in order to facilitate the creation of Web sites for small rural libraries in their respective states.

open-source Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials – typically, their source code. Well-known open-source projects include the Linux OS, the Apache Web server, and the Firefox browser.

XHTML The reformulation of the HTML markup language to conform to the XML standard XHTML is stricter than HTML and must be “valid” which allows for more automated processing.

XML E x tensible M arkup L anguage A W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages. Languages based on XML are defined in a formal way, allowing programs to modify and validate documents in these languages without prior knowledge of their form.

Wi-Fi Wi reless Fi delity Wi-Fi was intended to be used for mobile devices and LANs, but is now often used for Internet access. It enables a person with a wireless-enabled computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) to connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The geographical region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot.

SSID S ervice S et Id entifier In Wi-Fi, a service set identifier (SSID) is a code attached to all packets on a wireless network to identify each packet as part of that network.

WiMax W orldwide I nteroperability for M icrowave Acc ess provides up to 50 km (31 miles) of linear service area range and allows users connectivity without a direct line of sight to a base station. The technology also provides shared data rates up to 70 Mbit/s, which, according to WiMAX proponents, is enough bandwidth to simultaneously support more than 60 businesses with T1-type connectivity and well over a thousand homes at 1Mbit/s DSL-level connectivity.

portable apps A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug, none of your personal data is left behind. www.portableapps.com

USB U niversal S erial B us “Universal” in the sense that it replaces parallel, serial, and SCSI ports Allows up to 127 devices to be hooked up to a single computer Devices are designed to be “hot swapped”

MySpace A social networking Web site offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos.

IM I nstant M essaging A form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet. IM boosts communication and allows easy collaboration. In contrast to e-mails or phone, the parties know whether the peer is available. People are not forced to reply immediately to incoming messages.

flickr An online social photo sharing service One a user uploads a photo then can then give the them titles, descriptions and tags arrange them into sets contribute them to multi-user pools post their’s or other’s to a blog keep a list of favorite photos leave comments and notes subscribe to photo feeds

ajax A synchronous J avaScript a nd X ML A web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

del.icio.us An online social bookmarking service Benefits bookmarks accessible from any Internet-connected computer tagging bundling subscribe via RSS feeds

Creative Commons Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. We have built upon the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach. We're a nonprofit organization. All of our tools are free.

wiki A web application that allows users to add content, but also allows anyone to edit the content. The term Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website Editing does not require knowledge of (X)HTML

Wikipedia A Web-based, multi-language, free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers and sponsored by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. It has editions in about 200 different languages and contains entries both on traditional encyclopedic topics and on almanac, gazetteer, and current events topics. Its purpose is to create and distribute a free international encyclopedia in as many languages as possible. Wikipedia contains approximately 1.6 million articles. More than 600,000 of these are in English. Wikipedia ’s volunteers enforce a policy of "neutral point of view" whereby views presented by notable persons or literature are summarized without an attempt to determine an objective truth.

PayPal An e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. It serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other corporate users, for which it charges a fee. In October 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay.

avatar An avatar (sometimes AV , av , or avvie ) is an icon or representation of a user. The term is used on MUDs, in computer role-playing games, and shared non-gaming universes such as Active Worlds, Entropia Universe, There, Second Life, and The Palace. The term has also been applied to online virtual communities, and Internet forums in particular, as a picture that a member has elected to display alongside his or her contributions in order to represent themselves. Avatars have also become popular in instant messaging, and are beginning to be seen in mobile phone communications.

Sources Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/ NetLingo.com http://www.netlingo.com/

Thanks! Michael Sauers [email_address] www.travelinlibrarian.info del.icio.us/travelinlibrarian/cal2006

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