ADO.NET

Stands for Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects for the .NET Framework. A set of classes that expose data-access services to the .NET programmer. ADO.NET supplies a rich set of components for creating distributed, data-sharing applications. It is an integral part of the .NET Framework, providing access to relational data, XML integration, and application data.

 

ANSI

Acronym for the American National Standards Institute. The term “ANSI” as used to signify Windows code pages is a historical reference, but is nowadays a misnomer that continues to persist in the Windows community. The source of this comes from the fact that the Windows code page 1252 was originally based on an ANSI draft—which became International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Standard 8859-1. “ANSI applications” are usually a reference to non-Unicode or code page–based applications.

 

Anti-aliasing

A software technique for smoothing the jagged appearance of curved or diagonal lines caused by poor resolution on a display screen.

 

ASCII

Acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a 7-bit encoding. Although primitive, ASCII’s set of 128 characters is the one common denominator contained in most of the other standard character sets and in all Windows and OEM code pages.

 

ASP.NET

Stands for Microsoft Active Server Pages for the .NET Framework. The new generation of Active Server Pages (ASP) files written in a managed language on the Common Language Runtime (CLR) using the .NET Framework. Also known as “ASP+,” and “ASPX.”

 

ARRAY, MULTI-DIMENSIONAL

A group of data cells arranged by the dimensions of the data. For example, a spreadsheet exemplifies a two-dimensional array with the data cells arranged in rows and columns, each being a dimension. A three-dimensional array can be visualized as a cube with each dimension forming a side of the cube, including any slice parallel with that side. Higher dimensional arrays have no physical metaphor, but they organize the data in the way users think of their enterprise. Typical enterprise dimensions are time, measures, products, geographical regions, sales channels, etc.
Synonyms: Multi-dimensional Structure, Cube, Hypercube

 

ABI

Application Binary Interface: the interface by which an application program gains access to operating system and other services, designed to permit porting of compiled binary applications between systems with the same ABI.

 

ACE

Adaptive Communication Environment, a C++ Wrapper Library for communications from the University of California at Irvine.

 

Ada

A high-level computer language sponsored by the US Department of Defense. It has a multitasking mechanism, and a number of features useful for software engineering.

Adaptable User Interface

A toolkit from Oracle allowing applications to be written portably for different windowing systems. It provides one call level interface along with a resource manager and editor across a range of "standard" GUIs, including Macintosh, Windows and the X Window System.

 

AES

Application environment specification: a set of specifications from OSF for programming and user interfaces, aimed at providing a consistent application environment on different hardware platforms. It includes O/S for the operating system (user commands and program interfaces), U/E for the User Environment (Motif), and N/S for Network services.

 

AIFF

AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) A format developed by Apple for storing high-quality sampled sound and musical instrument info; also used by SGI and several professional audio packages. AIFF files are similar to Windows WAVE files in both size and quality.

 

Annealing

A technique which can be applied to any minimization or learning process based on successive update steps (either random or deterministic) where the update step length is proportional to an arbitrarily set parameter which can play the role of a temperature. Then, in analogy with the annealing of metals, the temperature is made high in the early stages of the process for faster minimization or learning, and then is reduced for greater stability.

 

AOCE

Apple Open Collaboration Environment. A set of software for e-mail, directory services etc.

 

APA

Application Portability Architecture: DEC's plan for portable applications software.

apE

A graphics package from the Ohio Supercomputer Centre. A software utility written in Microsoft Visual Basic® to aid in the design, deployment planning, and performance tuning of distributed client/server applications.

API

Application Program Interface: a term for the interface by which an application program gains access to operating system and other services, defined at source-code level.

ATIS

A Tools Integration Standard: an object-oriented interface to a set of services that allows the saving, accessing, and managing of information in a common repository. Developed by Atherton Technology and DEC, based on an extended version of the Software BackPlane, now proposed as an industry standard.

 

AtFS

Attributed File System: the basis of the Shape_VC toolkit. Cooperative work within projects is supported by a status model controlling visibility of version objects, locking, and "long transactions" for synchronizing concurrent updates. The concept of object attributes provides a basis for storing management information with versions and passing this information between individual tools. This mechanism is useful for building integrated environments from a set of unrelated tools.

ASIC

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit: an integrated circuit designed to perform a particular function by defining the interconnection of a set of basic circuit building blocks drawn from a library provided by the circuit manufacturer.

  

Top

Base character

An encoding code point that does not graphically combine with preceding characters and that is neither a control nor a format character. The Latin “a” is an example of a base character.

Bidirectional (BiDi) rendering

Refers to the script’s ability to handle text that reads both left to right and right to left. For example, in the bidirectional rendering of Arabic, the default reading direction for text is right-to-left, but for numbers, it is left-to-right. Processing a complex script must account for the difference between the logical (keystroke) order of input and the visual order of the output glyphs. In addition, processing must properly deal with caret movement and hit testing. The mapping between screen position and a character index for, say, selection of text or caret display requires knowledge of the layout algorithms.

Big-endian

A computer architecture that stores multibyte numerical values with the most significant byte values first. On systems using big endian architecture, the letter “A” (U+0041) is stored as 0x00 0x41.

Binary file

A file that has been encrypted, encoded, or compiled, as opposed to a plaintext file. The file contains characters other than standard ASCII characters. A binary file can contain any type of information that can be represented by an 8 bit byte - a possible 256 values.

BASIC

Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code: a programming language, usually interpreted, suitable for simple applications. It was developed by Kemeny & Kurtz in 1964.

 

BSD

Berkeley Source Distribution: the versions of UNIX developed and distributed by the University of California at Berkeley. Many commercial UNIX implementations such as SunOS and Dynix are derived from it.

Top

Candidate window

The window of an Input Method Editor (IME) that lists characters the user can choose to replace the text highlighted in the composition window.

Caret

The blinking line indicating the space into which you insert text. This is the character "^".

Case

Two distinct variations or forms of the same character within the same alphabet. These variants, which differ in shape and size, are called “uppercase” letters (also known as “capital” or “majuscule” letters) and “lowercase” letters (also known as “small” or “minuscule” letters).

Case-folding

Taking a string of text and converting everything into either lowercase or uppercase.

Charset

Stands for “character set.” A set of characters used in Windows. Charsets refer to the same collections of characters as those defined by Windows code pages.

 

 

Client coordinates

Relative coordinates of a window or client area as specified by the system or applications. Client coordinates ensure that an application can use consistent coordinate values while drawing in the window, regardless of the position of the window on the screen.

 

 

Clipboard

A Windows utility used as a buffer for copying and pasting text. In computing, the clipboard is a portion of memory where information that has been copied or cut from a computer application is stored.

Clusters

The sequence of characters or glyphs between points at which the Unicode representation of a string aligns with the glyph representation. For simple text, where each code point is represented by a single glyph, the cluster is the character and its glyph. For simple ligatures, where two or more code points are represented by a single glyph, the cluster is the sequence of code points and the single glyph. The most complex case is when a sequence of code points is represented by a sequence of glyphs with no internal alignment between characters and glyphs. This can occur, for example, in the case of reordering within Indic syllables.

Code page

An ordered set of characters of a given script in which a numeric index (code-point value) is associated with each character. The term is generally used in the context of code pages defined by Windows and can also be called a “character set” or “charset.”

Collation

Refers to a set of rules that determine how textual data is sorted and compared.

Combined characters or ligatures

Characters that join into one character when placed together. One example is the “ae” combination in English; it is sometimes represented by a single character. Arabic is a script that has many combining characters.

Commenting model

A way for the development team to pass along localization instructions to the localization team. This information might include whether strings can be localized or whether limitations on the string length exist, for instance, or can just consist of general comments added to the resource files.

Common controls

Within the context of Windows, a set of controlling elements (windows) that are implemented by the common control library, which is a dynamic-link library (DLL) included with the Windows operating system. Like other control windows, a common control is a child window that an application uses in conjunction with another window to perform input/output (I/O) tasks.

Common dialog boxes

Standard dialog boxes defined by Windows for operations found in numerous applications; these operations include Open, Save As, Print, Page Setup, Color Selection, Font Selection, and Find. Applications can call common dialog box API functions directly instead of having to supply a custom dialog template and dialog procedure.

Common Language Runtime (CLR)

A very important part of the .NET Framework. At the base level, it is the infrastructure that executes applications, and allows them to interact with the other parts of the .NET Framework. It also provides important capabilities in optimizing, securing, and providing many robust capabilities such as application deployment and side-by-side execution.

 

Compatibility zone

The area in Unicode repertoire from U+F900 through U+FFEF that is assigned to characters from other standards. These characters are variants of other Unicode characters.

Complex scripts

Scripts that require special handling when it comes to shaping and laying out characters in software applications. This special handling is closely related to linguistic requirements of these scripts. Complex scripts can have any combination of the following attributes: bidirectional rendering, contextual shaping, combining characters, as well as specialized word-breaking and justification rules. See Contextual analysis below, Rendering, and Uniscribe.

Component Object Model (COM)

A specification that Microsoft developed for building software components that can be assembled into programs or that add functionality to existing programs running on Microsoft Windows platforms.

Console

The Windows subsystem that runs character-based applications, as opposed to applications that have a graphical user interface (GUI).

Constant

A numeric value, typically an integer, that refers to a character value, the size of a buffer, the position of a character in a string, and so forth. It is assumed that the value does not change during the time a program is running.

 

Content recycling

Reusing content in localization. Content recycling saves time and money because the content is researched, presented, edited, reviewed, and translated only once.

 

Control Panel

A group of Windows utilities used to edit system settings, including international preferences. Control panels are part of most operating systems, but also come with peripheral devices to allow fine tuning of particular features.

 

Conversion or composition window

The window of an IME that displays text typed by the user, either just the way it is entered or after it is converted to ideographic form.

 

Cross-platform

Portable or applicable to more than one operating system. Software application or hardware device that works on more than one system platform (e.g. Unix, Windows and Macintosh). Examples of cross-platform languages are C, C++, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, Tcl, Erlang and REALbasic.

 

Cursive attachment

Used when adjacent glyphs need to be positioned in order to join them cursively. It is heavily utilized in fonts that support cursive scripts like Arabic.

 

Cyrillic script

The script traditionally used for writing various Slavic languages, including Russian. Over the past two centuries, the Cyrillic script has been extended so that some of the other non-Slavic minority languages of the former Soviet Union could be written. Cyrillic script is written in linear sequence from left to right.

 

C++

An extension to the C language developed primarily by B.Stroustrup at AT&T Bell Laboratories: it supports object-oriented programming among other enhancements.

 

C

A language developed in conjunction with the UNIX operating system at AT&T Bell Laboratories by D.Ritchie and now an ANSI standard. It has grown popular due to its simplicity, efficiency, and flexibility. C programs are often easily adapted to new environments.

 

CAiSE

Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering.

 

COOTS

Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies and Systems.

 

COSE

Common Open Software Environment. An initiative by Hewlett-Packard, Sun, IBM, Novell, Univel and SCO to move towards consistency and interopability between UNIX suppliers.

 

CPU

Central Processing Unit, usually applied to that part of a computer which carries out the arithmetic and controls the instruction flow.

Top

Device context

A Graphics Device Interface (GDI) structure that defines a set of graphics objects and their associated attributes, as well as the graphics modes that affect output. The graphics objects include a pen for line drawing, a brush for painting and filling, a bitmap for copying or scrolling parts of the screen, a palette for defining the set of available colors, a region for clipping and other operations, and a path for painting and drawing operations.

 

Dynamic-link library (DLL)

A module containing functions or resources that other programs or DLLs can utilize. DLLs cannot run by themselves; other programs have to load them. EBCDIC: Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code. These types of code pages are used on IBM and other manufacturers' mainframes.

 

DBMS

Database management system: such systems typically manage large structured sets of persistent data, offering ad hoc query facilities to many users. They are widely used in business applications: commercial examples include Ingres, Oracle, Sybase etc.

 

DDE Manager

An Oracle product that lets Windows applications that support the DDE protocol act as front end tools for Oracle. It allows applications like Excel, Word, Ami Professional, WingZ, and ToolBook to query, update, graph, and report information stored in Oracle.

 

Desktop manager

A user interface to system services, usually icon and menu based like the Macintosh Finder, enabling the user to run applications and use a filing system without directly using the command language of the operating system.

 

DVI

Device independent file format. A dvi file containing a description of the formatted document is the usual output of TeX .

Top

Element

The basic unit of information in an HTML or XML document. Elements are arranged hierarchically to define the overall document structure.

 

Enabling

Altering program code to handle input, display, and editing of bidirectional or East Asian languages, such as Arabic and Japanese, respectively.

 

Encoding

A method or system of assigning numeric values to characters (for example, ASCII, Unicode, Windows 1252).

 

Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)

An XML language used for transforming XML documents into something that can be displayed, such as HTML.

 

EC

Electronic Commerce. Managing business transactions using networking and electronic means.

 

Ethernet

A 10-megabit/second local area network developed by Xerox and now widely adopted. Hosts are connected to a coaxial cable, and transmission conflicts are avoided by backing off and re-sending later. IEEE standard 802.3 defines the hardware and transport layers of the network. Ethernet will handle about 10,000,000 bits-per-second and can be used with almost any kind of computer.

Top

Font

Any of numerous sets of graphical representations of characters that can be installed on a computer, printer, or another graphic output device.

 

FDDI

Fiber Distributed Data Interface: a new ANSI standard for a 100 megabits/second fibre optic token ring local area network. FDDI is capable of data rates of 100 Mbps over fiber optic cable (SMF and MMF). FDDI LAN standards were developed by subcommittee X3T9.5 of ANSI.

 

FORTRAN

FORmula TRANslating system: a programming language widely used for many years in scientific applications.

 

FTP

File Transfer Protocol (based on TCP/IP). Also the name of a utility program available on several operating systems which makes use of this protocol to access and transfer files on remote computers.

 

Futurebus+

A high performance bus system specified by IEEE Std.896.2

 

Functional language

A general purpose, high-level programming language based on the mathematical notion of functions. A functional program consists of a set of (possibly recursive) function definitions. Its execution consists of the evaluation of a function . Programs written in a functional language are generally compact and elegant, but tend to run slowly and consume a lot of memory.

Top

Graphics Device Interface (GDI)

In Windows, a graphics display system used by applications to display or print bitmapped text (TrueType fonts), images, and other graphic elements. The GDI, in particular, is responsible for drawing dialog boxes, buttons, and other elements.

 

Group Policy

Centralized policy-based administration that enables an administrator to control or specify registry-based policy settings, security settings, software installation, scripts to run at computer startup and operating-system shutdown, Internet Explorer maintenance, and folder redirection. Some group policy features may require the installation of Active Directory to work.

 

GEN-X

An expert system developed by General Electric.

 

GINA

Generic INteractive Application. A toolkit of useful classes and functions for authoring GUIs built on CLM, CLX and CLOS, from GMD.

 

GUI

Graphical User Interface. A GUI includes standard formats for representing text and graphics.

Top

Hardware description language

A language used for the conceptual design of integrated circuits. Examples are VHDL and Verilog.

 

hc

The compiler for the h hyperbook language.

 

HDTV

High Definition Television. The aspect ratio of HDTV pictures is 16:9 as opposed to today’s 4:3 format.

 

HTML

HyperText Markup Language. An SGML document type used to mark up hypertext in the WWW project.

HTTP

HyperText Transfer Protocol. The protocol used between client and server in the WWW project.

 

Hypermedia

Hypertext systems where the nodes can contain text, graphics, audio, video, as well as source code or other forms of data.

Top

Indexing Service

A base service of Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP that extracts content from files and constructs an indexed catalog to facilitate efficient and rapid searching. Indexing Service can extract both text and property information from files on the local host and on remote, networked hosts.

 

Input Method Manager (IMM)

The module on Windows 2000 and Windows XP that handles communication between IMEs and applications.

 

IDEA

International Data Encryption Algorithm (used by PGP). IDEA uses a 128 bit user supplied key to perform a series of nonlinear mathematical transformations on a 64 bit data block.

 

IMS

Information Management System: a DBMS from IBM.

 

INTERLINK

A commercial product comprising hardware and software for file transfer between IBM and VAX computers.

 

Internet Address

A thirty-two-bit number that uniquely identifies an Internet host. It is usually represented as four 8-bit numbers separated by dots e.g. 128.121.4.5. It consists of a network number and a host number, and can be subdivided in several ways.

 

Internet

A loosely-organized international collaboration of autonomous, interconnected networks, supporting host-to-host communication through voluntary adherence to open protocols and procedures defined by Internet Standards, typically based on the TCP/IP protocol suite.

 

IP address

An Internet address. A string of four numbers separated by periods (such as 111.22.3.444) used to represent a computer on the Internet.

Top

Java

An Object-Oriented language from Sun, now widely used in WWW browsers.

 

JPEG

A standardized image compression mechanism. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the original name of the committee that wrote the standard. JPEG is designed for compressing either full-color or gray-scale digital images of "natural", real-world scenes. It does not work so well on non-realistic images, such as cartoons or line drawings. JPEG does not handle black-and-white (1-bit-per-pixel) images, or motion picture compression. Standards for compressing those types of images are being worked on by other committees, named JBIG and MPEG.

Top

kernel

The essential part of UNIX or other operating systems, responsible for resource allocation etc. Provides basic services for the other parts of the operating system, making it possible for it to run several programs at once (multitasking), read and write files and connect to networks and peripherals.

Top

Lowercase

Denotes letters that are not capitalized. For instance, the word “nationality” is all lowercase. The notion of lowercase does not apply to East Asian and Middle Eastern scripts.

 

Linda

A portable parallel language to simplify parallel programming. Extensions to C and Fortran, available from Scientific Computing Associates, Inc.

 

Local Area Network

Usually abbreviated to LAN: a communications network which is geographically limited (typically to a 1 km. radius) allowing easy interconnection of terminals, microprocessors and computers within adjacent buildings. Ethernet and FDDI are examples of standard LANs.

 

Logic Programming

Programming in a language such as Prolog, which allows the programmer to make a series of assertions which are interpreted by an inference engine.

Top

Mirroring

System-provided support that offers a true right-to-left (RTL) look and feel to the user interface when creating localized applications for RTL languages (such as for Arabic and Hebrew versions of Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP).

 

Multilingual User Interface (MUI) Pack

A set of language-specific resources that can be added to the English version of Windows XP Professional and the .NET Server. Once installed, MUI Packs allow the UI language of the operating system to be changed to one of 33 supported languages, depending on user preference. The MUI Pack is the same as the MultiLanguage version of Windows 2000 Professional and Server, though it provides additional functionality.

 

Macintosh

A range of personal computers manufactured by Apple Computer Inc. The Macintosh was one of the first computers to use a graphical user interface. Today, Apple continues to produce many different models of Macintosh.

 

MacX

A package allowing the Macintosh to be used as an X server.

 

MASCOT

Modular Approach to Software Construction Operation and Test: a method for software design aimed at real-time embedded systems from the Royal Signals and Research Establishment, UK.

 

MCS

Meta Class System: a portable object-oriented extension of Common Lisp from GMD. It integrates the functionality of CLOS and TELOS.

 

MIDI

Musical Instrument Digital Interface. They take very few space. However, though MIDI files take up very little space, standard MIDI allows few effects.

 

MPEG

Moving Pictures Experts Group of ISO that generates standards for digital video (sequences of images in time) and audio compression. MPEG-1 is a low-resolution format currently used on the World Wide Web for short animated files. MPEG-2 is a much higher resolution format being developed for digital television and movies.

 

MS-DOS

(Microsoft Disk Operating System) An operating system developed by MicroSoft Corporation for computers using the Intel 16 and 32-bit family of processors. It was originally released with the PC in 1981 and had eight major versions before Microsoft stopped development in 2000.

Top

Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)

The Internet protocol that governs the transmission of newsgroups.

 

NFF

Neutral File Format. A minimal scene description language. NNTP is a simple ASCII text protocol, making it possible to connect to the news server using telnet if a news reader is not available.

 

NLS

Native Language System: a set of interfaces specified by X/Open for developing applications to run in different natural language environments.

 

Novell

A proprietary local area network protocol developed by Novell Netware for the interconnection of PCs over Ethernet.

 

NTP

Network Time Protocol: a protocol built on top of TCP/IP that allows local clocks to be synchronised with reference clocks on the Internet.

Top

OpenType

An extension of the TrueType font format, adding support for PostScript font data. OpenType was first announced in 1996, with significant number of OpenType fonts starting to ship in 2000-2001. Adobe completed conversion of their entire font library to OpenType around the end of 2002. As of late 2004, there are over 6,000 fonts available in OpenType format, with Adobe's library making up for about 1/3 of the total.

 

ODA

Open (formerly Office) Document Architecture: an ISO standard (8613) for describing documents. It allows text, graphics, and facsimile documents to be transferred between different systems.

 

OpenGL

An emerging graphics standard providing advanced rendering capabilities. The OpenGL graphics interface consists of several hundred functions operating on 2D and 3D objects, supporting basic techniques, such as modeling and smooth shading, and other advanced techniques.

Top

Pop directional formatting (PDF)

In HTML, PDF terminates the effects of the last explicit code (either embedding or override) and restores the bidirectional state to what it was before the last left-to-right embedding (LRE), right-to-left embedding (RLE), right-to-left override (RLO), or left-to-right override (LRO) control characters.

 

P2P

Person to Person. A range of desktop conferencing products from IBM. A method of file sharing over a network in which individual computers are linked via the Internet or a private network to share programs/files, often illegally. Users download files directly from other users' computers, rather than from a central server.

 

Pascal

A programming language designed by N.Wirth for teaching purposes, emphasising structured programming constructs, data structures and strong typing.

 

PEP

Protocol Extension Protocol. A proposed system to allow HTTP clients and servers to negotiate protocol extensions.

 

Perl

Practical Extraction and Report Language. An interpreted scripting language for scanning text files, extracting information, and printing reports. It combines features of c , sed , awk and sh.

 

PNG

Portable Network Graphics. A standard for bitmapped image files.

 

POSIX

Portable Operating System Interface for computer environments. A set of IEEE standards designed to provide application portability. IEEE1003.1 defines a UNIX-like operating system interface, 1003.2 the shell and utilities, and 1003.4 real-time extensions.

 

Prometheus

A high-level programming language designed for logic, mathematics, and artificial intelligence. It contains elements from C, Pascal, LISP and Prolog plus novel features.

 

Protocol

An agreement about how to transmit data, especially across networks. Low level protocols define the electrical and physical standards to be observed, and deal with the transmission and error detection and correction of the bit stream. High level protocols deal with the data formatting, including the form of messages, the terminal to computer dialogue, files, etc.

 

PTI

Portable Tool Interface: a standard such as PCTE, allowing interworking between different software tools via defined interfaces to the user and to the repository or object management system.

Top

Remoting

In the .NET Framework, remoting allows objects to interact with one another across application domains. The framework provides a number of services, including activation and lifetime support, as well as communication channels responsible for transporting messages to and from remote applications.

 

RAID

Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. A data storage technique.

 

RDBMS

Relational database management system.

 

RPC

Remote Procedure Call: a call to a routine that results in code being executed on a different system from the one where the request originated. An RPC system allows calling procedures and called procedures to execute on different systems without the programmer needing to explicitly code for this.

Top

Scripting engine

Component that handles character line measurement, display, caret movement, character selection, justification, shaping, and line breaking for complex scripts.

 

Shortcut key

A keyboard combination that activates a program command directly, as an alternative to activating the command through the program menus.

 

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

A protocol for sending messages from one computer to another on a network; used on the Internet to route e-mail.

 

Single-byte character set (SBCS)

A character encoding in which each character is represented by 1 byte. Single-byte character sets are mathematically limited to 256 characters.

 

Software Development Kit (SDK)

A set of tools and libraries for creating software applications for Windows operating systems.

 

SADT

Structured Analysis and Design Technique.

 

SCSI

Small Computer Systems Interface.

 

Shell Script

A program written to be interpreted by the shell of an operating system, especially UNIX.

 

Shell

The outer part of an operating system, especially UNIX, which provides the user interface, as opposed to the kernel which provides the basic services to processes. The commonest UNIX shells are the c shell (csh) and the Bourne shell (sh).

 

SQL

Structured Query Language: ISO, ANSI standard user front end to a relational database management system.

Top

Text Object Model (TOM) interfaces

A substantial set of text-manipulation interfaces. Text solutions such as Microsoft Word and rich edit controls support the TOM feature set. Since rich edit controls ship with Windows operating systems, they are the standard means of obtaining TOM functionality.

 

Transact-SQL

A method to communicate with and access data on SQL Server. Applications that communicate with SQL Server do so by sending Transact-SQL statements to the server, regardless of an application’s UI.

 

TCP/IP

A reliable connection-oriented protocol originated by DARPA for internetworking, encompassing both network and transport level protocols. While the terms TCP and IP specify two protocols, TCP/IP is often used to refer to the entire DoD protocol suite based upon these, including Telnet, FTP, UDP, and RDP.

 

Telnet

The Internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection service, running over TCP/IP. Telnet allows a user to log onto a remote host computer.

 

Think C

An extension of ANSIC for the Macintosh by Symantec Corporation, similar to C++, to support object-oriented programming techniques.

 

TSAPI

Telephony Services Application Programming Interface. A CTI standard from Novell and AT&T.

 

TRUSIX

TRUSted unIX operating system.

Top

Unicode

A worldwide character encoding that includes most of the world’s scripts; it is developed, maintained, and promoted by the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit computer industry organization. (The official Unicode Consortium Web site is http://www.unicode.org)

 

User-interface (UI) language

Language in which the operating system displays its menus, Help files, and dialog boxes. See Locale, System locale, User locale, and Input locale.

 

UNIX

Computer operating system developed by Bell Labs. Since it was written in C, it was possible to port it to run on different hardware architectures. It is now offered by many manufacturers and is the subject of an international standardisation effort. See also OSF.

 

URL

Uniform (previously Universal) Resource Locator. Legal alternatives include encrypted protocols such as HTTPS and legacy protocols such as FTP, news, gopher, etc. The part after the "//" is the server hostname ("photo.net"). The part after the next "/" is the name of the file on the remote server.

 

UUCP

The large international network of UNIX machines using the UUCP protocol to exchange news and electronic mail.

Top

Validation

The process of evaluating software at the end of the development process to ensure compliance with software requirements.

 

VM/CMS

Virtual Machine / Conversational Monitor System: an IBM operating system running on 43xx and 30xx series machines, providing efficient support for large numbers of interactive users.

 

VPN

Virtual Private Network. A computer network that appears to be a dedicated network to a particular set of users, whilst in fact using the infrastructure of public switched networks.

Top

Win32s API

A subset of the Win32 API that makes it possible to create a single binary that runs on all 32-bit versions of the Windows platform, including Windows 3.1/95/98/Me.

 

Window manager

In a window system, a program which manages windows on a screen. It is responsible for moving and resizing windows, and other practical functions.

 

Window system

Software which supports windowing. Examples are the X Window System, and proprietary systems on the Macintosh, NeXT and Sun.

 

Windowing

The ability to interact at will with several processes in a computer through reserved areas, or windows, on a VDU screen.

 

Windows

A window system and user interface software from Microsoft for MS-DOS. The Windows product group currently consists of Windows 3.1, Windows 98, and Windows NT.

 

Windows 4GL

INGRES/Windows 4GL is a graphical tool running on top of workstation native windowing systems, to help developers to build user interfaces to INGRES applications.

 

WWW

World-Wide Web: a project originated at CERN, aimed at providing hypertext-style access to information from a wide range of sources.

Top

XML

Acronym for Extensible Markup Language. An open standard for exchanging structured documents and data over the Internet that was introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in November 1996. XML is a simplified version of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).

 

X protocol

A standard used by clients (applications) and servers in the X Window System for exchanging requests for window manipulations.

 

X server

A process which controls a bitmap display device in an X Window System. It performs operations on request from client applications.

 

X terminal

An intelligent terminal which operates as an X server directly connected to Ethernet.

Top

ZOG

A high-performance hypertext system developed at Carnegie-Mellon University. ZOG consisted of frames that, subsequently, contained a title, a description, a line containing ZOG system commands, and selections (menu items) that led to other frames.