| W2K | Microsoft Windows 2000 - See Windows 2000. |
| W3C | World Wide Web Consortium - Where it all happens, as far as defining the workings of the Web part of the Internet is concerned. The W3C sets the Web Standards. All the big names and lots of other interested groups are members of the consortium, which is very large and has many sections, working parties, etc. Their address is simply www.w3c.org. |
| WAN | Wide Area Network - A Network of geographically-dispersed computers. The Internet is a WAN, but the term is normally used to mean a large corporate network, such as the LGfL network connecting hundreds of schools in Lancashire, each of which has their own local network (LAN). WANs often use a diverse collection of methods to connect between geographical sites. Possibilities include fibre optics, leased lines, ISDN, DSL, satellite and even the Internet. |
| WAP | Wireless Access Protocol - The Network Protocol used by UK mobile phones to connect to the Web. WAP phones have a Browser that displays Web Pages at great expense to the user, specially written in "WML" at great expense to the advertiser, on the phone's tiny 1½ inch screen. Sometimes in full colour. Looks great. Really useful. Unsurprisingly, has not been the fantastic success predicted by its rather naïve proponents. |
| WaSP | The Web Standards Project - Nothing to do with insects or religion, except on the logo. In their own words, this is "a grassroots coalition ... fighting for [web] Standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any Site published on the Web." A worthy cause which RS infotech fully supports, as you will have gathered by reading this encyclopaedia. A nice feature on their site (webstandards.org) is a clever Browser compatibility test page called ACID2, where you can quickly compare how badly different browsers cope with the more difficult aspects of HTML and CSS. No prizes for guessing that Internet Explorer (both 5 and 6) is appalling. |
| WAV | Wave - A very basic file format for audio. The name comes from the fact that wav files store sound as simple numeric sequences that, if graphed, look like the sound waves. The problem with this is that the wav format does not use Compression and so is very inefficient, leading to unnecessarily huge files. Audio CDs use wav files. |
| Web | Contraction of "World Wide Web" (WWW). The Web is not synonymous with the Internet, rather it is a large and growing subsection of the Internet. It consists of millions (literally) of Web Sites (aka websites or sites), all of which are accessible to anyone equipped with a computer with a Browser and connected to the Internet. Each site can contain Links to any other in a completely unstructured fashion, hence the term "web", although in fairness to spiders it should be pointed out that many spider species create very structured webs. |
| Web Bug | Usually means a very small image embedded in a Web Page or HTML E-mail for the sole purpose of tracking the user. Web bugs are typically a single transparent pixel, so you are unlikely to notice one. When you open a bugged e-mail, for example, your E-mail Client will contact a specified Web Server in order fetch the Web bug image, and in doing so it will register the fact that the e-mail has been read and that therefore the E-mail Address is valid and active. This will increase your ranking on the lists of e-mail addresses that are traded around the world, ensuring that you receive even more junk mail. You can easily avoid e-mail Web bugs by setting your e-mail client to ignore images, or to display just "plain text" and ignore HTML formatting altogether. You may miss out on multi-coloured, sparkly signatures, gaudy backgrounds and fancy company logos, but hey, that's the price of safety. |
| WebCam | Very basic, low quality, digital video cameras that are (usually) connected to a Networked computer and set up to transmit moving pictures (and often audio) to other computers on the network. The connecting network can be the Internet, i.e. anywhere in the world. Usually the picture quality will be very poor and jerky compared to film or television. With the aid of a credit card, it is possible using Web Sites on the Internet to watch pictures from webcams in all sorts of places all over the world. Webcams are relatively cheap, and it is not difficult to set up a one-to-one video link with someone on the other side of the world for a few tens of pounds and the cost of a local phone call. However, primary schools in Lancashire that are using ISDN and would like to link to their local secondary school will find that they are prevented by the LancsNGfL Firewall ! Most modern digital cameras can operate as webcams, and will often be technically better (but more expensive) than a camera sold as a webcam, but there is no point having a high quality camera unless you have a lot of Bandwidth to transmit the picture. |
| Weblog | See "Blog". |
| WebMail | A Web Site that acts as an E-mail Client. The most well-known is Microsoft's HotMail, but most ISPs now offer a similar service alongside traditional POP3/SMTP mail services. The benefit of WebMail is that you can access your e-mail from any computer connected to the Web. The downside is that your archive of e-mails is stored on somebody else's computer (a Web Server), or not stored at all. |
| Web Page | A Web page is an electronic document, primarily consisting of human-readable text and graphics in a format that makes it publishable on the Web. Web pages are usually organised into collections called Web Sites. A basic page is very easy to make and conceptually easy enough for primary school, but a complex interactive site is a major and costly undertaking for any organisation. Web pages are usually written in a structural language called HTML or its close cousin XML, both of which are very easy to learn but hard to master. The visual styling of a Web page is an "optional extra" but as with printed media, layout and colour obviously help to make the page more attractive. Styling instructions can be included in the HTML, but professionals and the more astute amateurs use separate Style Sheets (CSS) instead. Most pages and sites are made with the help of a graphical (or "WYSIWYG") ~Web Editor~ that allows you to create and format a page using drag and drop and other easy and familiar techniques, making it unnecessary to learn how to write actual HTML and CSS. |
| Web Server | A computer that is part of the "World Wide Web" (WWW). Web Servers supply the pages of a Web Site to Browsers. Anyone with a Network and a bit of know-how can set up a local Web server for an internal Intranet, but operating a Web server on the Internet is a specialised business, and any but the largest organisations would be well-advised to leave it to specialists. Ordinary mortals use a Hosting service if they want to have a real website. |
| Web Site | (or website) A structured collection of Web Pages, usually having an introductory entrance page or index called the "Home Page" with links to the other pages or other sub-indices. Most sizable businesses have a website, many offering E-commerce as well as information and advertising. Many small businesses, non-commercial organisations and individuals also have their own site. It is very easy to create a website - many commonly-used Applications such as Microsoft Word can save their documents as Web pages - but creating a reliable, secure, compliant, useful, attractive and interactive site is a complex and difficult task. Almost all amateurs and even most professionals don't succeed in ticking all those boxes, as you will soon find if you spend much time on the Web. Unfortunately this state of affairs is self-perpetuating, and has parallels: if nobody else can get it right, why should I even try ? Our response is that if quality doesn't win, money (e.g. Microsoft) will ! |
| Website | Neologism and contraction of "Web site". Some Internet aficionados do not recognise website as a single word even though it has obviously entered the language, but then some people don't recognise "texting" as a word either. |
| Web Space | If you want to have a Web Site, you need some Web space to store your site. Web space is another name for storage space on a Web Server. Web space is provided by Web "Hosts", who are usually but not necessarily also ISPs. Lancashire schools can get some free Web space from LancsNGfL. Free Web space is also available to anyone from many suppliers on the Internet, but there is usually a non-monetary or deferred price to pay; typically this is either a "transfer fee" or compulsory advertising banners. There are advantages to paying for your Web space, including better facilities for interactive sites (see CGI, Perl, PHP) and more sensible contractual terms. |
| Web Standards | The Internet is an anarchy, rather than Huxley's totalitarian "Brave New World". There are no real laws because there is no single controlling power. However, there are some technical specifications (principally TCP/IP published by the IETF) that are followed by everyone and therefore allow it all to work. In recent years the major players, having failed to dominate individually by the usual organisational tactics of brute force, monopoly and market segmentation, have instead formed a democratic body called the "World Wide Web Consortium" (W3C). This body has the unenviable task of developing and maintaining, through consensus, the technological standards for the Web, the largest part of the Internet. The W3C has no legal powers and no armoury of sanctions, so it must succeed through consensus and merit. Reflecting its status, the W3C only publishes "Recommendations", but these are considered to be the "Web Standards". Much of the Web was created before the current main standards were published, and many Web designers, including quite a few so-called "professionals", know little and care less, with the result that at present the vast majority of Websites are not standards-based. Gradually however, the W3C and its supporters and advocates are managing to spread the word and convince people that the current Web Standards are a "good thing" and are the way forward. One of the barriers to the widespread adoption of the standards has been lack of support within popular website design Software such as Dreamweaver, and by mainstream Browsers, particularly Microsoft's Internet Explorer. This will change over the next few years, as old (pre-2000) browsers and design software are giving way to newer, better ones. The first major W3C Recommendation was HTML 4, published in 1998, designed to combine and rationalise the competing Netscape and Microsoft dialects of HTML. The terms "standards-based" and "standards-compliant" now normally refer to the 21st century standards of XHTML and CSS2 and their accompanying design philosophy, as used throughout this site. See also WaSP. |
| Wiki | Collectively, a type of Web site that allows users to create the content interactively (i.e. while using the site) using a simplified form of HTML. A wiki is usually a type of subculture forum and/or collective knowledge base. The archetypal, and biggest, wiki is the massive public collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia. |
| Windows | A generic term usually referring to recent versions of Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. The reason that Windows is called Windows is because each user Application that is in use (for example a Word Processor), runs in its own "window", a rectangular area of the screen that can be moved about and resized. The windows can, and usually do, overlap, giving the effect of layers or depth. Only one window, the "front" or "top" layer is actually in use at any one time, but the user can quickly and easily switch between any of the windows. For example a journalist could be writing an article in a word processor in one window, researching the article on the Web using a Browser in another window and creating an invoice for the work in an accounts program in a third window, all the time keeping up a conversation with a colleague using Instant Messaging in a fourth window. Of course this degree of multi-tasking could only apply to female journalists. |
| Windows 2000 | The successor to Windows NT. Although cosmetically it looks almost identical to Windows Me, under the bonnet Windows 2000 has nothing in common with the Windows 9x family, and it behaves very differently too; for instance it rarely Crashes. Windows 2000 wins our vote for the most Stable version of Windows ever (yet). |
| Windows 2003 | Windows Server 2003 is the successor to Windows 2000 Server and is very similar. There isn't explicitly a desktop version of 2003, but it clearly has the look and feel of Windows XP. In RS infotech's experience, Server 2003 is usually the best choice for controlling a school Network of Windows XP computers. |
| Windows 3.x | Windows 3.0, released in 1990, was the first really successful version of Microsoft Windows, despite the fact that it ran sluggishly on the lowly PCs in use at the time, and it Crashed at the drop of a hat. Ironically, its initial success was largely due to individual consumers, rather than businesses, even though it wasn't considered to be suitable for games. It did however make desktop computers very much more pleasant to use (the poor man's Apple Mac, but therein lies another tale), and if you knew what you were doing Windows also allowed a very much more efficient way of working than was previously possible on a PC ("multi-tasking", known to women as what women do and men don't). The idea caught on and much more stable and networkable versions followed in 1992 called Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 and Windows for Workgroups. Windows 3.x was probably THE product that established Microsoft's dominance on the desktop, later consolidated into a stranglehold with the follow-up successes of Windows 95 and the early versions of Microsoft Office. |
| Windows 95 | One of the earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. The launch of Windows 95 was the opposite of the 60s - if you can't remember it, you can't have been there, because it was one of the biggest global marketing campaigns in history. Despite the hype, and the overnight queues at PC shops rivalling Toys 'R' Us at Christmas, Windows 95 received a mixed welcome from users. It's ultimate success, the reason businesses decided to spend fortunes upgrading millions of Windows 3.x desktops, was because Windows 95 was a much better Network Client, and 1995/96/97 was when businesses were really waking up to the benefits of Networking and the Internet. The Internet aspect was lucky timing for Microsoft, rather than astute marketing. Microsoft announced in 1995 that it had decided to embrace the Internet - until then it had almost ignored it, as shown by the fact that the first version of Windows 95 did not have Internet Explorer (or any Browser) installed by Default. That came in 1996 with the release of a version called "OSR2" (or Windows 95B) which was only sold to system builders. The only plausible reason for continuing to use Windows 95 now is that your computers are so old/non-standard that it is uneconomic to upgrade to Windows 98SE or better. In most cases upgrading to 98SE only requires the purchase of a licence and more Memory. |
| Windows 98SE | Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition was a refinement of Windows 98, which was itself a refinement of Windows 95. Although Windows 98/98SE has effectively been declared "obsolete" by Microsoft, it is very much in use because it is still economically useful, especially for schools. Windows 98 is able to run a very wide (probably the widest) range of commercial Software of any desktop Operating System. A lot of software that schools have invested in is unable to run on later versions of Windows, and running multiple versions of Windows on a Network is expensive in technician time, making Windows 98SE an economically sensible option for many schools. The main downside is that Windows 98 is less stable than Windows XP, i.e. it is more erratic and Crashes more often. Unfortunately it is now becoming difficult to buy new computers that are able to run Windows 98, because many manufacturers are no longer bothering to write the necessary "drivers". |
| Windows 9x | 9x is a commonly-used shorthand to refer to the Windows family of Operating Systems that began with Windows 95 and ended with Windows Me. |
| Windows Domain | In a Network controlled by a Windows Domain Controller, the domain is the group of computers controlled by that Domain Controller. In an Active Directory network, which requires Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003, the Login domain name may look the same as a DNS domain but conceptually it is not the same. Nice bit of nomenclature Microsoft, thanks. |
| Windows Me | Microsoft Windows Millennium edition (Me), not to be confused with Windows 2000. Probably Microsoft's most hated and least successful Operating System. Windows Me was the short-lived close relative and immediate successor of Windows 98SE. It has a lot of Bugs and is generally not a good choice. Don't use it, use Windows 98SE instead. |
| Windows NT | Microsoft's first industrial-strength Operating System. Windows NT was released as version 3.1, simply because it shared the same look and feel as Windows 3.1, and few people want to buy version 1 of anything (see Bug-free). Not many people bought NT 3.1 either. NT 3.51 (the next one) was a different story - a very stable and effective product that sold well to businesses. NT version 4 (NT4), released in 1996, is still in widespread use, particularly the Server version, although it is no longer officially supported by Microsoft. That is not a problem because it is now a well-tested and refined product. Cosmetically, NT4 looks very similar to Windows 95, but under the bonnet it is completely different. NT4 Server is ideal as the Network Operating System (NOS) for small homogenous networks of 10 to 50 Windows 9x PCs such as used to be found in primary schools until fairly recently. It is reliable and relatively straightforward and cheap to install and maintain. Windows 2000 and 2003 offer more bells and whistles, but also more complexity and cost. NT's Achilles' heel is that it cannot effectively "lock down" and control Windows XP desktops in the way it can with Windows 98: cynics (and there are many) would say this is a typical ploy by Microsoft to force organisations to upgrade their perfectly-good servers. |
| Windows XP | Microsoft's current desktop Operating System. Windows XP is very similar to Windows 2000 on which it is based, but cosmetically it breaks away from the clean, clear graphics of the previous versions of Windows and uses fuzzy, pastel images with lots of curves and shading. XP comes in two flavours: Home Edition (HE) and Professional. Home Edition is, as the name implies, only any use to home users and is not suitable for Network use. This is because (unlike Windows 98) it is knobbled so that it doesn't support Windows Domains, the security mechanism used by most networks that have a Windows Server. RS infotech's experience is that XP was not as Stable as Windows 2000 Professional until very recently (post Service Pack 2), and it is still quite annoying to use. However, XP has a significant advantage for some users because it has a "Compatibility Mode" which enables it to run older (Windows 9x) software that refuses to run on Windows 2000 or NT. One good thing about XP is that its replacement isn't due until at least late 2006, probably 2007, which has been Microsoft's longest run without a completely new version (arguably because it has taken them this long to get it to work properly). |
| WINS | Windows Internet Name Service - A slight misnomer, because WINS is never found on the Internet. WINS is a service that runs on a Windows Server in a Network that uses TCP/IP and has pre-Windows 2000 Clients. Its purpose is to enable the Windows computers to find each other more easily (i.e. quickly) and to reduce the network Traffic. |
| WinZip | A popular Windows Application for creating and manipulating Zip archives. A lot of software that is made available on the Internet and in many other situations is published in Zip format, so WinZip or one of its competitors is virtually essential unless you are using Windows XP. |
| WMA | Windows Media Audio - Microsoft's proprietary compressed file format for audio. WMA is one of the more efficient formats, for example it is better than MP3 at compressing high quality audio. However, WMA is not a stable format (it keeps changing) and is not at all popular on the Internet because of licensing and royalty fees and its inclusion of "Digital Rights Management" (DRM). DRM is intended to prevent illegal copying but clearly has an ulterior marketing motive: for example as far as we know, there is no publicly available codec able to convert DRM'd WMAs into non-DRM formats such as MP3, so it would not be sensible to acquire or archive your music collection in WMA format. Overnight, Microsoft could unilaterally impose a listening fee or prevent you listening at all to any of the WMAs you thought you had bought - think on! |
| WML | Wireless Markup Language - The mobile phone equivalent of HTML. Some (a very few) HTML Web Pages have a WML cut-down version for WAP phones, and some pages are only available in WML. WML is not attracting the smart money because really it is technology for the sake of it, rather like Internet-enabled fridges (which do exist, honestly). |
| Workgroup | Simply a collection of Networked Windows computers that share the same workgroup name, which allows them to find each other's shared resources, such as shared folders, without needing a Server. The major limitation of computers that are linked together in this way is that there is no central list of Usernames, which makes it difficult to set who can do (or see) what. |
| Worm | A particularly nasty type of Virus. Cut out the middle man and go to an expert site such as www.sophos.com if you want to find out more about viruses. |
| WS03 | Microsoft Windows Server 2003 - See Windows 2003. |
| WWW | World Wide Web - or "Web" for short - All the Web Servers on the Internet. |