The best way to find definitions and discussions of most any term is to type in define "term" in Google --- http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
For example, suppose you want the definition of a cantango:

· Bob Jensen's dictionary bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob3.htm#Dictionaries

· The easiest way to find definitions is to go to Google Define --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#define
Simply go to Google at http://www.google.com/ or http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
In the search box type define and insert the phrase you want defined in quotations.
For example, suppose you want to define “Grid Computing”
Simply type in define “Grid Computing” in the search box and hit the search button

· Another way to possibly find useful definitions is Wikipedia --- http://www.wikipedia.org/

· File Extension Listings
Filename Extensions --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_extensions
Learn more about file extensions (those three letters at the end of computer file names) --- http://www.filezed.com/

http://www.dotwhat.net/

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/fileextensionsm.asp

http://www.file-extensions.org/

http://www.jerryjm.host.sk/ext/

http://www.icdatamaster.com/d.html

http://filext.com/

·                How Web Pages Work --- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-page3.htm

·                How Internet Infrastructure Works --- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet-infrastructure.htm

·                How Computer Things Work (including buying guides) --- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/

Personal technology reviews by Walter Mossberg --- http://ptech.wsj.com/

· Click Here to view (in a new window) Bob Jensen's Glossary and Transcriptions of Experts Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities (SFAS 133 and IAS 39)

· A listing of Other Technology and Networking Glossaries

· Acronym Search --- http://www.acronymsearch.com/

· Yahoo's links to Acronyms and Abbreviations --- http://dir.yahoo.com/Reference/Acronyms_and_Abbreviations/

· www.computer-acronyms.com
This Web site offers visitors short definitions for technical terminology such as, for example, cable modem. Also users can find brief explanations of acronyms for high-speed Internet concepts such as DSL—digital subscriber line.

· A long listing of accounting, finance and business glossaries

"What's the Best Q&A Site?" by Wade Roush, MIT's Technology Review, December 22, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/17932/

Magellan Metasearch --- http://sourceforge.net/projects/magellan2/

Google is a great search engine, but it's also more than that. Google has tons of hidden features, some of which are quite fun and most of which are extremely useful— if you know about them. How do you discover all these hidden features within the Google site?
See http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=675528&rl=1

Google Is a Calculator
Google Knows Mathematical Constants
Google Converts Units of Measure
Google Is a Dictionary
Google Is a Glossary
Google Lists All the Facts
Google Displays Weather Reports
Google Knows Current Airport Conditions
Google Tracks Flight Status
Google Tracks Packages
Google Is a Giant Phone Directory
Google Knows Area Codes
Google Has Movie Information
Google Loves Music
Google Knows the Answer to the Ultimate Question
Google Advanced Search
Language Tools --- http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Web Images Video News Maps Desktop more --- http://www.google.com/
Books, Froogle, Groups, Scholar even more --- Click on "More" at http://www.google.com/
Google Maps --- http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl&q=

· October 8, 2005 message from Per Christensson

Here is a good glossary to add to your site at: www.trinity.edu/~rjensen/245glosf.htm

The Sharpened Computer Glossary http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/

Also, FileInfo.net is a great file extensions reference to consider adding as well. http://www.fileinfo.net/

Hope you find this helpful!

Thanks, -
Per Christensson

· e-Learning Glossary compiled by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson --- http://www.learningcircuits.org/glossary.html

· Bob Jensen's threads on assurance services and security --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/assurance.htm

· Personality theories glossary --- http://college.hmco.com/psychology/engler/personality_theories/6e/students/glossary.html

· The Glossarist --- http://www.glossarist.com/
My minor disappointment is that under the category "Business" there is no sub-category for accounting. My major disappointment is that The Glossarist misses many of our most important Business glossaries. But credit must be given where credit is due. The Glossarist links us to thousands of excellent glossaries.

Links to Nearly 5,000 Glossaries

o Arts & Culture

o Business

o Careers & Employment

o Computers & Internet

o Economy & Finance

o Education

o Entertainment

o Family & Relationships

o Government, Politics & Military

o Health, Medicine & Fitness

o Humanities & Social Sciences

o Media

o Science

o Sports & Recreation

o Technology

o Transport

o World, Regions, Countries & Travel

· Also see Glossaries at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob3.htm

· Do you ever search for the spelling of an English word that you just cannot find in an English language dictionary? Try http://www.mathcs.carleton.edu/faculty/jondich/CSTI/words.txt

· Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --- http://plato.stanford.edu/

· An enormous listing of online glossaries in English, French, and Italian

· LibrarySpot: Your gateway to knowledge --- http://www.libraryspot.com/
Many links to free encyclopedias, dictionaries, statistics, and much more

Real humans will also help you find what your looking for at Ask an Expert http://www.libraryspot.com/askanexpert.htm

December 30, 2006 message from TranslationDirectory.com mailto:%5bonoshko@mail.uar.net]

Dear Robert,

We are sorry we are coming back to you so late - please forgive us the delay.

This is to let you know we have published your glossary at

www.TranslationDirectory.com/glossaries/glossary017.htm

Category: www.TranslationDirectory.com/glossaries.htm

Please verify if everything is fine for you.

If you have other glossaries, please don't hesitate to submit them to us.

Have a prosperous Year of 2007!

Sincerely,

Serhiy Onoshko
CEO

The online version at Jensen’s Website is shown below.

Click on a Navigation Pointer Below for Jensen's Technology Glossary

Click Here For Terms Commencing With Numbers

GLOSSARY TERMS COMMENCING WITH LETTERS

( Click on Any Letter Below)

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Numbered First Letter Terms

Click on a term or phrase below:

2-bit video adapter / 2-D / 3-D / 3DO / 4-bit computer / 4-bit video adapter / 4GL Database Languages /16:9 TV / 24-bit video adapter / 32-bit computer

Click here to view (in a new window) Bob Jensen's Listing of Other Technology and Networking Glossaries

The easiest way to find definitions is to go to Google Define --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/searchh.htm#define
Simply go to Google at http://www.google.com/ or http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en
In the search box type define and insert the phrase you want defined in quotations.
For example, suppose you want to define “Grid Computing”
Simply type in define “Grid Computing” in the search box and hit the search button

2-bit video adapter= (See Video adapter)

2-D= Two dimensional graphics images and animated images. Software options for 2-D scanning and authoring are reviewed in the NewMedia 1995 Tool Guide, pp. 33-43. (See also Paintbrush software)

3-D= Three dimensional graphics images and animated images. Images in 3-D, especially 3-D photographs, are sometimes called "holograms." Biedney (1994) provides a technical discussion and a comparison of alternative software options for rendering 3-D images on desktop computers. Software options for 3-D rendering on the web are reviewed in the NewMedia, May 5 1998, pp. 52-64. The NewMedia web site is at http://www.newmedia.com/ Those authoring packages rated as "Awesome" include Live Picture Reality Studio at http://www.livepicture.com/ (800-724-7900) and Platinum Technology VRCreator at http://www.platinum.com/ (800-442-6861). There are many other options rated as "Thumbs Up" or "Does the Job." (See also Rendering)

3DO= (See CD-3DO)

4-bit computer= (See Bus)

4-bit video adapter= (See Video adapter)

4GL Database Languages = Fourth Generation Languages for databases. The first three generations were developed fairly quickly, but these were painfully slow and complex for certain kinds of tasks such as report generation and database queries. Many of the 4GLs are: database query languages (e.g. SQL; Focus, Metafont, PostScript, RPG-II, S, IDL-PV/WAVE, Gauss, Mathematica and data-stream languages such as AVS, APE, Iris Explorer.) See GainMomentum and Relational database management.

16:9 TV= (See Wide-screen TV)

24-bit video adapter= (See Video adapter)

32-bit computer= (See Bus)

Return to Top of Document

A-Terms

Click on a term or phrase below:

AB roll editing / AB style switches / ABKY / Accelerated/Advanced Graphics Port / Accelerator board / Account boot disk / Acrobat / Active video / ActiveX / ADAM / ADC / ADO and RDS /ADPCM / AERO / Agent / AGP / AIF / AIX / Alpha processor / ALT / America Online / Amiga / Amiga DOS / AMPS /Analog / Anchor / Anchor color / ALN / ANet / Animation / Annotations / ANSI / Anti-Blur / API / Apple AV / Apple Corporation / Apple QuickTime / Archie / ARPANet / Arrays / Artificial Intelligence (AI) / ASCII / Ask Jeeves / ASP (two meanings) /Aspect ratio / Assessment / Asynchronous / Asynchronous connection / Asynchronous Learning Networks/ AT / ATG / ATM / AU / AU sounds / Audio / Audio board / Audio card / Audio Conversion to Text / Audio on the Internet / Audio streaming / Authenticated Payment Program / Authoring / Authoring software / Authorware / Autodesk / A/V / AV / Avatar / AVI

Click here to view (in a new window) Bob Jensen's Listing of Other Technology and Networking Glossaries

AB roll editing= The transfer of portions of two video sources into one master videotape. For example, one source may be a VCR and the other source a video camera. (See also Video)

AB style switches = analog switchers that are designed to be used in applications whenever multiple computer sources must be connected to a single display device such as a monitor, projector, or LCD panel. For example, multiple VGA or SVGA PCs may be connected to a single data projector or PCs and Macs may be connected to a single data projector. Extron carries an extensive line of AB style switches at http://www.extron.com/prodline.htm. See also Projection.

ABKY= The Atkinson, Banker, Kaplan, and Young (1994) textbook entitled Management Accounting which is noteworthy in this glossary as being the first accounting text accompanied by an Internet bulletin board. Prentice-Hall was the first publishing company, to our knowledge, to offer an interactive two-way network dialog between adopters of selected textbooks and the authors of those books, including a bulletin board of latest readings related to the text, abstracts of related literature, and classroom aids. The ABKY network was the first of the Prentice-Hall offerings to adopters and is available on listserver@watarts.uwaterloo.ca. (See also Internet and Networks)

Accelerated/Advanced Graphics Port = A bus specification by that gives 3D graphics cards faster access to main memory than the usual PCI bus. AGP allows scattered data in system memory to be read in bursts. AGP reduces the overall cost by using existing system memory.

Accelerator board= A hardware electronic board (containing a microprocessor) that can be added to some computers in order to speed up the processing in slow computers. The speed gains are confined to internal calculating and sorting such that no apparent gains are obtained for file management and other busing activities. (See also CPU, Board, and Bus)

Account boot disk= A disk used to load DOS into the computer when it is turned on.

Acrobat= (See PDF)

Active video= A video AV standard and open-video architecture that Microsoft Corporation hopes will become the popular standard to replace the Video for Windows (.avi file extension) and Quicktime (.mov file extension) video architecture. Active video attempts to overcome common complaints with its Video for Windows (e.g., limited throughput, poor A/V synchronization, and hardware/software incompatibilities. Also, Active Video will have software MPEG decoding and will cross platforms with Windows, Windows 2000, and Power Macintosh. It will also have an Active Movie filter to play on the Internet via Microsoft's Explorer browser. Whereas Video for Windows was losing out to Apple's Quicktime in popularity, Microsoft's Active Video makes it a closer race between Apple and Microsoft for dominance in the setting of video standards. (See also Video and MPEG)

ActiveX = utilities from Microsoft Corporation that combine older Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) and Component Object Model (COM) utilities. AcitiveX is usually coded in Visual Basic and is quite confusing since it is an outgrowth of a complex set of OLE and COM technologies. Various ActiveX applications can be downloaded from http://www.download.com/PC/Activex/0,271,0-0,00.html. One of the most widespread applications is to give interactive controls (e.g., ask questions, provide answers, perform computations, push buttons, etc.) to users of Internet Explorer on the web. Therein lies a huge risk as well when computers also have Windows Scripting Host (WSH) utilities using ActiveX. WSH files have a file extension whs and are similar to PIF files in older 16-bit applications. Prior to WSH applications, users could browse the web and use email without any worries about virus infections as long as security warnings were heeded about file downloads that run in Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. That is no longer the case if WSH utilities are installed. To avoid such risks, users can either rely upon Netscape products for email and web browsing since Netscape products use Java rather than ActiveX software. If users prefer Microsoft Internet Explorer for web browsing and Microsoft Outlook for email, then they may want to consider adding security barriers to WSH risks. In Internet Explorer you can click on menu choices (View, Internet Options, Security, Custom, Settings) and choose the option to disable "ActiveX Controls Not Marked as Safe." Repeat the same procedure for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. You may also want to consider disabling WSH, although you thereby lose the applications relying on WSH utilities. For virus updates and news, two good web sites are Network Associates at http://www.nai.com/vinfo/ and Mcafee at http://www.mcafee.com/ . (Also see Visual Basic and CORBA ) For more information on the use of ActiveX in distributed network computing, see Database, ADO, and RDS.

ADAM= Animated Dissection of Anatomy for Medicine project that resulted in high quality computer-aided learning modules for schools of medicine. The "inside story" of A.D.A.M. is briefly reviewed in PC World, November 1994, p. 96. See A.D.A.M. Software, Inc. at http://www.adam.com/ for more details.

ADC= Analog to Digital Converter that converts analog sound to binary code form (digital information). (See also DAC, Modem and Video)

ADO = (See Database.)

ADPCM= Adaptive Pulse Code Modulation of audio waveform sampling that records the difference between samples is recorded rather than the actual values. This increases fidelity with lower resolution than conventional PCM. (See also Audio and PCM)

AERO=

"Before Going to Buy High-Tech Devices, Learn the New Terms," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2006; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/personal_technology.html

Aero: This is the graphical user interface that's a key part of Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system, due out around Jan. 30. If you want to get the full benefit of Vista, make sure any Windows PC you buy this season is capable of running Aero. Many are not.

Agent= Agents are search tools that automatically seek out relevant online information based on your specifications. Agents are also called intelligent agents, personal agents, knowbots or droids.

AIF= One format of Macintosh audio (sound) files. (See also Audio)

AIX= An IBM version of the Unix operating system. It will run on PCs with 386 or higher chips and on workstations and mainframes. (See also Unix)

ALN = (See Asynchronous Learning Networks)

Alpha processor= The ultimate top-of-the line processor for PCs that uses DEC's 21064 chip. The "Alpha-based" systems such as the DECpc from Digital Equipment Corporation claims it is the fastest system available for Windows 2000.

ALT= Software ALTernatives to authoring systems that have full CMS utilities. In other words, professors who do not need full CMS features may opt for alternative authoring packages such as hypertext or hypermedia packages that do not have full CMS features. Various ALT options are compared in Chapter 3. (See also CMS)

America Online= The commercial AOL network (800-827-6364) that "remains the hottest, easiest-to-use and most interesting of the services" according to Mossberg (1994a). AOL offers Time Magazine, the Chigago Tribune, and other news and television network options. New services to educators online include an American Federation of Teachers online doctoral program from the Electronic University Network and the Forum on Technology in Education and Training (FORUM-TET). With the May 11, 1994 announcement of a merger of AOL and Redgate Communications, AOL will take an early lead over competitors in multimedia and GUI graphics networking. (See also GUI, Networks, CompuServe, Internet, eWorld, Interchange, and Prodigy)

Amiga= A video computing hardware/software desktop workstation formerly manufactured and marketed by Commodore International based on Motorola microprocessors. Amiga workstations became a widely popular option in conjunction with NewTek's Video Toaster software for home and office videotape productions. Amiga developed its own operating system called Amiga DOS. A major drawback is that as a computer it does not communicate (i.e., its files are not readable) on more popular Apple, PC, and Unix operating systems. For example, it can neither read MS-DOS files into its operating system nor write out MS-DOS files. It is far less of a competitor for digital computers and networking than for analog video computers such as Mac Video (see Birkmaier (1993) and Torres 1993). The new Amiga workstations became aggressive low-priced competitors to Silicon Graphics and Sun workstations for 3D animation rendering for broadcast quality video. The future of the Amiga is clouded by the 1994 declaration of bankruptcy and subsequent liquidation of the former Commodore International Corporation. At this juncture it is uncertain whether another manufacturer will take over all Amiga technologies and patents. NewTek Inc. (800-847-6111) now sells workstations for its Video Toaster software formerly used in Amiga computers. The Amiga and NewTek workstations compete with Apple AV and SGI competitors, but these options should not be confused with the more extensive concepts of network video servers. (See also Video server, CD32, Apple AV, SGI, and Mac)

Hello Bob, I stumbled across your listing of computer and techincal terms and was very pleased to have found it! It looks very complete. I wanted to mention an error I found. In the text on the Amiga, you mention it could not read or write MS-Dos disks. This is not correct. The Amiga OS supported multiple disk types, excluding Macintosh due to the fact that those disks were not constant velocity format. MS-Dos 720k - 1.44k were supported provided the person had a HD drive for the 1.44 capability.

Thanks for the great work again!

Aaron R>
Aaron & Terri [antfarm@wans.net ]

You can read the following at http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/21418.html

A combination of fierce loyalty and anti-Microsoft sentiment that would make Linux and Mac users blush has Amiga users clinging to their aging computers. The prospect of new hardware is almost too much for the dedicated outcasts to handle. They stick with the platform because it's stable, fast, and has an elegant OS that could multitask in only 512KB of memory fifteen years ago, back when Microsoft still thought DOS was the way to go.

No new hardware has been made for the Amiga since Commodore went under in 1993, with the exception of some third-party peripherals.

"And [now] there's tremendous hatred for Microsoft," said Harv Laser, founder of the AmigaZone, the oldest Amiga fan site online, with roots dating back to the mid-1980s. "A lot of people, myself included, don't want to give Bill Gates one penny."

So when a mysterious German computer company materialized last week announcing new computers based on the long-abandoned Amiga technology, there was much jubilation, along with some skepticism, on Amiga enthusiast sites.

Amiga DOS= (See Amiga)

AMPS = (See Wireless Glossary of Terms)

Analog= (See Video)

Anchor= Synonymous with hyperlinks, anchor refers to non-linear links among documents. Or more simply put, it's the word or phrase that can be selected to connect to another page resource.

Anchor color= The color on a browser screen that represents the anchor tag (navigation item) colors. The reason so many are blue is that blue is often the default color in browser software. This color can be changed to any combination of red, green and blue. The ability to change these colors at the reader level complicates choice of color at the authoring level.

ANet= The International Accounting Network, Southern Cross University, New South Wales, Australia and Bond University, Queensland, Australia. The email address is ANet@scu.edu.au. A description of services is contained in the CETA Newsletter, June, 1994. Mailing lists are also available on ANet, including CDI-ACC-AUDIT in the United Kingdom and AC-CHANGE from Maricopa College in Arizona. (See also International Internet Association, PIC-AECM, and RAW)

Animation= Time-phased moving graphic images that give the impression of motion such as in motion picture cartoons or videographic movements of objects about the screen. Several frames show a progression of movement, and thereby simulate movement. The best-buy in animation software is Autodesk 3D Studio according to PC Computing, December 1994, p. 204. (See also 3-D, flc/fli, Morphing, and Video)

Annotations= Personal notes you can attach to the documents you have saved in your Web browser. The notes are available to you whenever the document is viewed.

ANSI= The American National Standards Institute sets basic standards like ASCII characters and acts as the United States' delegate to the ISO. Standards can be ordered from ANSI by writing to the ANSI Sales Department, 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018. (See also ASCII, ISO 9000, and Rich-text format)

Anti-Blur=

"Before Going to Buy High-Tech Devices, Learn the New Terms," by Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2006; Page B1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/personal_technology.html

Anti-Blur: Also known as antishake or image stabilization, this is a crucial feature of digital cameras today. Because few cameras have optical viewfinders, users tend to hold them at arm's length to frame the shot on the LCD screen. This increases the likelihood of shaking the camera. An anti-blur feature can correct that. The best anti-blur technology is optical. Digital versions are less effective.

API= Application Program Interface by which an application program accesses operating system.An API can also provide an interface between a high level language and lower level utilities and services which were written without consideration for the calling conventions supported by compiled languages. Netscape Corporation and Microsoft both provide APIs called NSAPI and ISAPI that essentially extend their web servers, and it provides developers a way to put application code actually within the web server. This means that you don’t have to start up a separate process each time one of these applications is called. And, since that application is always running, it can maintain connections to the database.

Apple AV= A line of computers that was popular for low-cost analog video computing due to built video capture hardware on the motherboard, a DAV connector, and a scan converter for analog video output to television sets and videotape recorders. The Power Macs have replaced the Apple AVs. (See also Video server, Dry camera, SGI, Mac, PowerPC, Mozart, Copeland, Gershwin, and Amiga)

Apple Corporation = (See Mac.)

Apple QuickTime= (See QuickTime)

Archie= Derived from the word archive, Archie is a Net-based service that allows you to locate files that can be downloaded via FTP.

ARPANet= The Advanced Research Projects AgencyNetwork formed in 1969 to connect the Department of Defense (DOD) with institutions conducting major defense contract research. The network linked super computers in major research universities with the DOD. This is credited with being the first academic computer network and is considered the "mother" of the Internet. In the 1980s, ARPANet split into two networks called ARPANet and MILNet (for unclassified military research). An interconnection with the DOD Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) led to a set of networks called DARPA Internet that later became referred to as just the Internet. (See also Internet)

Arrays= (See Jukeboxes)

Artificial Intelligence (AI)= Is a branch (usually called AI/Expert Systems) of computer science, mathematics, psychology, and systems engineering that attempts to make computer "decision making" more like human decision making and to aid or replace human decision makers with machines. Expert systems attempt to utilize the skills, knowledge, and decision evaluation processes of human experts. For example, computers now aid physicians in diagnosing diseases and computer-guided laser rockets virtually replace human guidance decisions. AI failed to live up to its early expectations when it was believed that AI computers would never fail to win at chess and language translators would soon be put out of work by computers. However, applications of AI have been taking place and computers can now play very good chess to a point where they occasionally beat even the grand masters.

ASCII= American Standard Code for Information Interchange computer character set (text and symbols) that enables transfer of text and data between different computing systems. This international standard provides only very plain text without options for font modifications. For example, files from word processors such as Microsoft Word, Word Perfect, and Word Star often cannot be imported to hypertext or hypermedia software without conversion to ASCII code (most word processors will change files to ASCII "text" files). The downside is that nearly all formatting and font variations are lost in ASCII conversions such that imported ASCII text may have to be re-formatted line by line and altered for font preferences. Very few software alternatives have "filters" that import word processor files directly without having to convert to ASCII codes, although many are now adding rich-text format (RTF) utilities. In hypertext authoring, choice of a hypertext software option should include a question concerning whether "filters" are available for avoidance of ASCII text conversions. (See alsoANSI, Internet Messaging, and Rich-text format)

Ask Jeeves = (See Search engine.)

ASP = has at least two meanings.

Application Service Provider that provides individuals or enterprises access over the Internet to applications and related services. This service is s sometimes referred to as "apps-on-tap." Early applications include:

Remote access serving for the users of an enterprise
An off-premises local area network to which mobile users can be connected, with a common file server
Specialized applications that would be expensive to install and maintain within your own company or on your own computer

Hewlett-Packard, SAP, and Qwest have formed one of the first major alliances for providing ASP services.

Active Server Pages. ASP script extensions contain either Visual Basic or Jscript code. When a browser requests an ASP page, the Web server generates a page with HTML code and sends it back to the browser. So ASP pages are similar to CGI scripts, but they enable Visual Basic programmers to work with familiar tools. This is a page that performs customized "applications" services. A great example is NetLedger.com where individuals or complete business firms can access accounting software that allows all accounting to be maintained in NetLedger's online files. Business transactions (such as billings and collections) can even be managed by the applications server. See http://www.netledger.com/

Other examples are given at http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2615695,00.html

For now, however, the latest twist on the ASP trend—what Outtask and some analysts are calling the BSP, or business service provider, model—remains immature. The range of business process services being offered in conjunction with hosted applications is narrow, mostly limited to functions such as travel, PC support and payroll. And, while some hosting providers such as Alexandria-based Outtask have begun building mixed portfolios of managed application and business process services from scratch and selling them directly to their customers, many established ASPs are adding the BSP tag to their résumés by forming alliances with the BPO divisions of major consulting and systems integration companies or with leaders in specific areas of outsourcing, such as Automatic Data Processing Inc. for payroll services. Many of those relationships, however, are new. Often, the hosted applications from one vendor and the business services from another are not truly integrated. So the user is often left negotiating and dealing with more than one provider.

Aspect ratio= The ratio of the horizontal to vertical size of the screen. Some monitors display rectangular pixels which can make the picture or image appear stretched. Software that allows images to be resized and changed with respect to aspect ratios greatly facilitates authoring. Otherwise, images have to be transported to other software for such changes and then transported back in a cumbersome process that makes authors grateful when aspect ratios and image sizes can be modified without such difficulties. Macromedia Director is one of the very few hypermedia authoring systems that has a utility for changing the scale and aspect ratios of imported bitmap pictures as well as rotating and inverting such pictures.

Assessment= The evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of technology on attitudes and performance. Tidd (1995) discusses various assessment scales such as the Computer Attitude Scale, the Computer Anxiety Rating Scale, and the Computer Self-Efficacy Scale. Assessment is very difficult because no matter how good the findings are in an empirical study, the relevance of those findings quickly falls away due to constantly emerging technologies that are significantly better than older technologies used in the study.

Asynchronous= A method of communication that places data in discrete blocks that are surrounded by framing bits. These bits show the beginning and ending of a block of data.

Asynchronous connection= The type of connection a modem makes over a phone line, this connection is not synchronized by a mutual timing signal or clock.

Asynchronous Learning Networks= ALN networks of education and training modules or courses where students learn in self-paced online pedagogy in contrast to synchronized presentations in traditional classrooms or electronic classrooms. Synchronous education in a scheduled sequence of classes will face serious new competition of asynchronous education distributed on networks where students learn and communicate most any day and most any time of day and study at their own paces. An example is the new online Western Governors University at http://www.westgov.org/smart/vu/vu.html. Ideally, faculty or other expert help is available online to both help students and evaluate student work and ideas. In addition, asynchronous courses may schedule synchronous virtual online meetings of subsets of students or entire classes of students. Networked courses may thus be synchronous and asynchronous, although the technical learning components are largely asynchronous. Bob Jensen has a paper on ALN at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/255wp.htm that reviews, among other things, the experiments conducted on millions of dollars in Sloan Foundation grants for ALN development. See also Hypermedia and Hypertext.

AT= (See PC)

ATG= (See Video server)

ATM= Automatic Teller Machines for banks and Asynchronous Transfer Mode switching in networks. The high speed ATM networks allow transmission of video, audio, and data over local and world-wide networks. (See also Broadband, Networks, and Sonet)

AU= The file extension for UNIX audio (sound) files. (See also Audio)

AU sounds= This is an audio format developed for Sun workstations and often used to distribute sound clips via the Web.

Audio= Voice, music, and other sounds recorded and stored in analog or digital form. The term RealAudio refers to a helper-app (plug-in) that allows WWW users to hear audio files in real time. Options for creating and playing digital audio Java applets are reviewed in deCarmo (1996). Options for converting written text into audio are given in Text reading. (See also Sound board, AU, AIF, Board, Hertz, Java, MIDI, Speech recognition, Text reading, Video/audio networking, and Wave file)

Recording what you hear: More MP3 and audio-file tools than you can shake a memory stick at!

Fred Langa, "Converting Audio Files? Let 'Er Rip!," Information Week, July 25, 2005 --- http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=166401664

With all that as lead in, here, then, are the suggestions from your fellow readers for the best tools for converting, ripping, and burning audio, extracted from over a megabyte of original text mail files:


Audacity Acoustica MP3 CD Burner Adaptec CD Creator Ashampoo Audio Catalyst Audiograbber Burn Quick Burn4Free BurnAtOnce Burrrn Cakewalk Pyro CD Burner Pro CD Burner XP Pro CD'n'Go CD Extreme	CD to MP3 Freeware CDex Cheetah Burner Creative OEM Software DeepBurner Disc Master dMC/dBPowerAMP Easy CD-DA Extractor Exact Audio Copy Express Burn Feurio Free Rip HotBurn HT Fireman iTunes	J. River Media Center JetAudio K3b Musicmatch Nero PlexTools Real Audio RecordNow QuickBurn Quintessential Roxio Shorten Files Winamp Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player
Fred, I have several ideas about freeware to burn MP3s and a possible solution to Ken's problems in burning CDs. I use Nero for most of my CD and DVD burning so I do not have a lot of experience with other freeware, but here are two I have used. First, Windows Media Player Version 10 can burn CDs from MP3 files. It can also rip music in MP3 format if you change the rip setting from its usual WMA setting. Look under Tools, Options, and then go to the Rip Music tab. Here is a link to the download. Also, Musicmatch Jukebox has a free version in addition to its paid version. It can also burn and rip MP3 files. Here is the link to the free download. In the past, I have had somewhat the same problem Ken appears to be having when burning a CD. At the very end of a burn (usually 99% complete) I would receive an error saying the burn could not complete. After some research, I found that having autoplay on might cause the PC to read the almost complete CD and try to run it JUST BEFORE it was complete. Turning off autoplay solved that problem. Most CD recording software now does this automatically during the burn process so you can leave autoplay turned on. I am not sure if this would solve Ken's problem, but it appears that he is having the same problem with every CD-burning software he tries so it might just be worth checking.
-- Clay Teague

Bob Jensen's threads on MP3 coding and decoding are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#MP3

Bob Jensen's threads on audio on the Internet are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm#WebAudio

Older lternatives for creating MP3 audio files are given at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book99q4.htm#MP3

The Web is Alive With the Sound of MP3," Newsweek, February 22, 1999, Page 16.

http://www.mp3.com/ (hours of free downloads, including the New York Times MP3s.)

http://www.audiogalaxy.com/ (lots of samples and free downloads.)

Go to the Frequently Asked Questions at http://www.mp3.com/ . MP3 is a file format which stores audio files on a computer in such a way that the file size is relatively small, but the song sounds near perfect. You can identify MP3 files because they will end in MP3. Typically 1 MB is equal to one minute of music or several minutes for spoken work/audiobooks. This is about a 90% reduction in hard drive space and bandwidth vis-a-vis uncompressed high quality wav files, but the actual savings depends upon the recording quality of your wav files. If you think about a CD-ROM holding 650 Mb, this translates to over 11 hours of high quality audio in MP3 format. More importantly, MP3 audio does not require as much Internet bandwidth as previous audio alternatives.

Also see Web streaming

Audio board= (See Sound board)

Audio card= (See Sound board)

Audio Conversion to Text = (See Text reading)

Audio on the Internet= (See Internet audio and video)

Audio streaming= (See Web streaming)

Authenticated Payment Program=

From http://international.visa.com/fb/paytech/secure/main.jsp
Visa has begun the global rollout of the Authenticated Payment Program. The Program, based on commercial incentives, will vastly improve the payment service for e-merchants, consumers and Visa Members by enhancing convenience, acceptance and security. Consumers will know that they can shop safely and conveniently while preventing fraud on their card, and merchants will know they are dealing with a legitimate cardholder anywhere in the world. The newest authentication technology, 3-D Secure™, forms the basis for global interoperability of Authenticated Payments.

Authoring= Developing (writing of text, recording of audio, importing of video, inserting graphics, etc.) hypertext and hypermedia learning, entertainment, and reference materials. The history and trends in authoring are summarized at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm

Also see Cross-platform, Delta Project, Hypertext, CORE, Non-core, Hypermedia, Morphing, Presentation, Titles, and Rendering)

Authoring software= This term refers to software that enables the creation of multimedia or hypertext documents and presentations.

Authorware= Macromedia's hypermedia authoring system designed primarily for training and education asynchronous learning courses. Authorware was originally developed for Mac computers and is still the most sophisticated option for Mac users. There is a PC version that faces stiffer competition from high-end authoring systems listed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm. The main competitor is probably Asymetrix ToolBook in terms of full course development, course management, CD-ROM delivery, and web delivery. For links to Macromecia and applications on the web, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/links/prelim.htm. The following is quoted from Jeff Glasse in MacWeek, August 25, 1997, pp.

Despite increased competition, Macromedia Inc.'s Authorware has been the undisputed champ for developing complex multimedia programs that require a high degree of user tracking. Version 4.0 of the $1,999 (estimated street price) package offers Web delivery and external file linking, making it irresistible for certain applications.

Macromedia also sells the Authorware 4.0 Interactive Studio, a $2,999 (estimated street price) package that includes Macromedia Director 6.0, xRes 3.0 and Sound Edit 16 Version 2.0.

Authorware 4 retains its heavy use of icons in interactive design. All program elements, including graphics, logic, transitions, audio and motion, are represented by small icons in the program's flowline. Program developers create a flowline in the Design window (similar to Director's Score) and view the actual media in the Presentation window (analogous to Director's Stage).

Interactive designers either love this approach or find it cumbersome, but one thing is certain: Authorware is significantly more difficult to learn than other major development packages. One of the reasons for this, however, is that Authorware boasts greater depth than other applications, making it particularly well-suited for creating complex, branched training materials--the program's original aim. Once you've overcome the rather long learning curve, the flowline also offers much easier debugging of complex logic than is possible in Director or even in mFactory Inc.'s mTropolis.

As in previous versions, Authorware 4 lets developers release titles for Macs and Intel-standard PCs without modification. The player engine is wrapped into the final project, making it a double-clickable application on both platforms. Macromedia does not charge a distribution licensing fee.

Director movies can be played within Authorware 4 with their interactivity intact. This is especially important if you want to develop titles that include both complex animation sequences, at which Director excels, and highly branched interactivity, Authorware's forte.

Writing for new audiences
Authorware 4 has been substantially retooled for Web deployment and functionality. It now supports external content controls, so a completed project can reference external media elements on a LAN, an intranet or the Internet. This lets you develop a program that can be updated without having to rebuild the entire project; simply update the media that the program references. Of course, you must manage these external files religiously, and if used in the final project, path name relationships must remain constant.

External links are managed through the aptly named External Media Browser, an essential new tool that lets you track external media efficiently and relatively painlessly.

Authorware titles can be played across the Web using Macromedia Shockwave technology. Unlike Director 6, Authorware still requires you to run a project through a separate Afterburner utility (included with the program) to "shock" it for the Web.

Version 4 adds support for a number of file formats, including GIF, JPEG and Adobe Photoshop. Images can be resized and cropped within the development environment, allowing for considerable flexibility in the process.

The program also adds a collection of Quickstart templates to help beginners create typical interactive projects.

Authorware is fully cross-platform, but there are minor differences between the two versions. Most significant is that the Mac version doesn't support Microsoft ActiveX controls, while the PC version does. This is less the fault of Macromedia than of Microsoft Corp., which has been slow to bring ActiveX technology to the Mac. Still, it's a significant issue for cross-platform developers who want to use the technology.

Despite the program's otherwise unsurpassed text-handling capabilities (including support for style sheet and RTF text import), Authorware still does not offer anti-aliased text--a serious omission. Director, which is less aimed at text-based programs, has offered this feature since Version 5.0. We hope Macromedia fixes this rather annoying problem.

While the interface is generally improved, Authorware still relies too much on dialog boxes. You often have to tunnel through several layers of them to change a single characteristic.

3-D Rendering for the Web

Software options for 3-D rendering on the web are reviewed in the NewMedia, May 5 1998, pp. 52-64. The NewMedia web site is at http://www.newmedia.com/ Those authoring packages rated as "Awesome" include Live Picture Reality Studio at http://www.livepicture.com/ (800-724-7900) and Platinum Technology VRCreator at http://www.platinum.com/ (800-442-6861). There are many other options rated as "Thumbs Up" or "Does the Job."

Conclusions
Macromedia continues to offer an environment with unparalleled power and depth for complex interactive projects. While Authorware's learning curve is significantly steeper than that of Director, mTropolis or Pitango Multimedia Ltd.'s ClickWorks, none of them offers the rich set of variables and external device controllers that Authorware boasts. Version 4's new set of Web tools makes this high-end program an even better choice.

Although Authorware lacks the powerful animation capabilities of Director, Macromedia has essentially addressed the shortcomings of both products by offering them together in the Authorware 4 Interactive Studio and allowing Director movies to be played within Authorware. The Studio provides a single development package that is essentially unsurpassed.

Macromedia Inc. of San Francisco is at (415) 252-2000 or (800) 989-3762; fax (415) 626-0554; http://www.macromedia.com/. For links to Macromecia and applications on the web, see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/links/prelim.htm.

(See Hypermedia, Hypertext, and Authoring)

Autodesk= (See Animation and flc/fli)

A/V= Audio/Video marriage of big screen television with movie-theater-like audio in homes and classrooms.

AV= (See Apple AV)

Avatar= This term refers to an interactive representation of a human in a virtual reality environment; the term was popularized by Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash."

AVI= Audio Video Interleaved digitized video files (with audio tracks) that satisfy MPC standards for Video for Windows playback. The Media Player (mplayer.exe) file that is included in Windows operating systems runs AVI files. Most PC video capture boards will convert analog video into AVI files. The AVI standard from Microsoft's Video for Windows is giving way to Microsoft's newer Active Video architecture. (See also Active video, MCI, MPC, and QuickTime)

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B-Terms

Click on a term or phrase below:

B2B and B2C / Baan / Back-end / Bandwidth / Bar codes / Baseband / Baud / BBS / BeVocal / BinHex / BIOS / Bit / BITNET / Blind / Blog / Blu-Ray DVD / BMP / Board / Bookmark / Bot / bps / Branch / Bridge / Broadband / Broadcasting / Browser / Browsers / ASP / Buffer underrun / Bulletin Board / Bus / Bus topology / Byte / Bytes

Click here to view (in a new window) Bob Jensen's Listing of Other Technology and Networking Glossaries

Baan = Baan Company is a leading provider of enterprise business software that enhances the processes common to
businesses of all sizes and industries. Baan Company's commitment to continuously reducing complexity creates flexible, easy-to-integrate products and services that allow customers to adapt quickly to a dynamic competitive environment. The web Baan site is at http://www5.baan.com/cgi-bin/bvisapi.dll . See database.

Back-end = the final stage in a process or a task not apparent to the user. A common usage is in a compiler. A compiler's back-end generates machine language and performs optimizations specific to the machine's architecture. The term can also be used in the context of Open System Interconnect (OSI) network applications. A standard for layering of protocols (protocol stack) to implement it were was developed in 1978 as a framework for international standards in heterogeneous computer network architecture. The architecture is split between seven layers (lowest to highest):

1. physical layer
2. data link layer
3. network layer
4. transport layer
5. session layer
6. presentation layer
7. application layer

Generally each layer uses the layer immediately below it and provides a service to the layer above in a "back ended" way.

In the third generation of network computing, web servers perform back-end database computing where it’s controlled and managed. But third generation computing takes advantage of the new interactive server/client interactive technology like Sun's Java andMicrosoft's Microsoft's ActiveX/CORBA. Users on the client side want to interact in various ways such as perform sensitivity (what-if) type of analyses.

Bandwidth= Capacity (range) of transmission frequencies on a network as expressed in cycles per second (hertz) or bits per second that determines the amount of data, audio, and video that can flow over the network. The higher the frequency, the higher the bandwidth. (See also Baseband, Broadband, Hertz, bps, and Information highway)

Bar codes= Alternate standards for marking products or other items for reading by laser beams. They are used extensively for locating items on videodiscs and CDs. The LaserBarCode was the original standard for CAV discs. This was extended to LaserBarCode2 for CLV discs. The Bar Code CD is an audio standard for CD discs. (See also Videodisc and CD)

Baseband= A network cable that has only one channel for carrying data signals.

Baud= A unit of speed in data transmission, or the maximum speed at which data can be sent down a channel. Baud is often equivalent to bits per second. Named after J. M. E. Baudot (died 1903). (See also bps)

BBS= Bulletin Board Systems on the Internet that provide electronic bulletin board and conferencing services. (See also CWIS and Freenets)

BeVocal = (See Speech Recognition).

BinHex= A file conversion format that converts binary files to ASCII text files.

BIOS= (See VESA)

Bit= A contraction of binary digit, a bit is the smallest unit of information that a computer can hold. Eight bits is equivalent to a byte. The speed at which bits are transmitted or bit rate is usually expressed as bits per second or bps.

BITNET= Because It's Time NETwork is an early network of academic and research professionals. Most users have shifted to e-mail gateways. (See also Internet and Networks)

Blind = (See Disabilities.)

Blog = (See Weblog)

BMP= Bitmap graphics files that are accessible through Windows Paintbrush and most other PC graphics software. (See also Compression, CGM, and JPEG)

Board= A hardware component that fits into the expansion slot of a computer unit and expands the capabilities of the computer. A board can enable the computer to communicate with an external hardware device, such as a CD-ROM. Alternate terms are card, expansion card, interface card, interface board. (See also SCSI, Sound board, Video board, and PCMCIA)

Bookmark= A user-defined place mark that enables the user to return to a particular screen or starting point after accessing related information. Bookmarks may also be used to locate sections on related topics.

bps= bits per second. This is a measure of transfer speed that is commonly used in modems. (See also Bandwidth and Baud)

Branch= Any one of the paths an application can take after it evaluates a specific condition.

Bot = a roBot that usually is a software program that can be good (administering or policing on the network) or bad (causing evil) on the network. Bots commonly are used in real audio chat lines. A WebBot are "smart objects" that can be inserted into web pages to perform tasks that otherwise would require CGI scripting or some other dynamic action programming. WebBots can help set up dynamic chat lines, time image appearances, register and confirm actions, reference annotations, perform calculations, etc. Some HTML editors can be used to create WebBots. Microsoft FrontPage, for example, can be used for:

WebBot Confirmation Field component

WebBot Include component

WebBot Scheduled Image component

WebBot Scheduled Include component

WebBot Search component

WebBot Substitution component

WebBot Table of Contents component

WebBot Timestamp component

One example of a WebBot is the people search engine at http://www.nerdworld.com/

botnets and phishing on your computer at this very moment: Forwarded by Jagdish Gangolly
Know your Enemy: Tracking Botnets: Using honeynets to learn more about Bots --- http://www.honeynet.org/papers/bots/
The Honeynet Project & Research Alliance http://www.honeynet.org/
Last Modified: 13 March 2005

Honeypots are a well known technique for discovering the tools, tactics, and motives of attackers. In this paper we look at a special kind of threat: the individuals and organizations who run botnets. A botnet is a network of compromised machines that can be remotely controlled by an attacker. Due to their immense size (tens of thousands of systems can be linked together), they pose a severe threat to the community. With the help of honeynets we can observe the people who run botnets - a task that is difficult using other techniques. Due to the wealth of data logged, it is possible to reconstruct the actions of attackers, the tools they use, and study them in detail. In this paper we take a closer look at botnets, common attack techniques, and the individuals involved.

Bridge= A device that connects different LANs so a node on one LAN can communicate with a node on another LAN.

Broadband= Network transmission capacity that greatly exceeds capacity required for voice transmission over traditional telephone cables. Broadband networks may have dedicated portions for audio, video, and data or they may allow for capacity switching. (See also Bandwidth, Information highway, Switched network, Networks, and ATM)

Broadcasting = (See webcasting.)

Browser= A type of software that allows you to navigate information databases; examples are Netscape Navigator and NCSA Mosaic.

Browsers= (See Web browsers)

BSP = (See ASP)

Buffer underrun= A common error where the data stream being fed from the CD-R's cache buffer falls behind the laser doing the writing. (See also CD-R)

Bulletin Boards = (See e-mail )

Bus= The internal pathways (data bus, address bus, and control bus) of wires connecting various parts of a computer. Common standards for buses were Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) 16-bit bus common in AT-compatible PCs, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) 32-bit buses in IBM PS/2 computers, and Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) 32-bit buses that are backward compatible with ISA adapters. An "expansion bus" is an extension of the data bus and address bus that includes slots for adapter boards. It is better than ISA and EISA for hypermedia authoring to also purchase a "local bus" system in 32-bit or higher capacity with eight or more expansion slots for multimedia options. A local bus connects the CPU with peripherals directly so as to improve performance speed. However, in recent years, the VL local buses are not as good as the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) brainchild of Intel. The term "bus" can also apply to standards for connecting electronic components other than computer components. The term CDBus or consumer electronics bus refers to a home or office automation standard such that components connected through power lines, coaxial cable, infrared connections, and telephone lines will be mutually compatible. (See also VL-Bus and Cache)

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) is the common bus used on PCs. It is a relatively slow hardware bus an is a small fraction of the speed of FireWire. The term "FireWire" is the early name given to High Performance Serial Bus.A serial bus developed by Apple Computer and Texas Instruments (IEEE 1394).The High Performance Serial Bus can connect up to 63 devices in a tree-like daisy chain configuration, and transmit data at up to 400 megabits per second.It supports plug and play and peer-to-peer communication between peripheral devices.Wintel (Intel and Microsoft) were spooked by the speed of FireWire and developed new PCs called Easy PCs that use only USB and FireWire in machines that will no longer have the familiar parallel and serial ports.

Bus topology= A physical layout of a LAN where all nodes are connected to a single cable.

Byte= The number of bits used to represent a character.

Bytes= Grouping of eight bits. While a bit can assume only two states, 0 and 1, a byte can store from 0 up to 255 different states. Most of the time a character is stored in a byte. Therefore, a byte can store up to 255 different characters. The standard ASCII character set consists of 128 characters; the additional characters generally used in PC software brings the total number of characters up to 255.

C-Terms

Return to Top of Document

Click on a term or phrase below:

Cache / CAL / Caller ID / Camcorder / Camera / CAPTURE / Capture / Card / Careers / CASE / Castanet / Casting / CAT /CAV / CBT / CD / CD Burning / CDMA / CD Phase Change Dual (PD) / CD Recording / CD32 / CD-3DO / CD-AUDIO / CDBus / CD-DVD / CD-Erasable / CDF / CD+G / CD-I / CD-Karaoke / CDMA/TDMA / CD-MM / CD-PD / CDPD / CD-Photo / CD-R / CD-R2 /CD-RW / CD-Rewritable / CD-ROM / CD-ROM Titles / CD-ROM XA / CD-RW / CD-Stand Alone / CD-Standards /CD-TV / CD-VIS / CD-WORM / CETA / CFML / CGA / CGI /CGM / Channel / Channel Casting / Channel Definition Format (CDF) / Chat Lines / Chipping / CHRP / CISC / Click Fraud / Client / Client-server / Client-server architecture / Clipboard / Clipper Chip / Clock speed / Cloud Computing / CLV / CMC /CMS / Coaxial cable / CODEC / CollabraShare / Collaboration / Collar / COM / Compact disc / Companding / Compression / Computer / Computer Based Training / CompuServe / Computer Virus / Concurrency Control / Configuration / Configure / Console / Control code / Conventional memory / Cookies / Copeland / Coprocessor / Copying / CORBA / CORE / Costless Collar / CPU / Cracker / Craplet / CRM / Cross-platform / Cryptolope / CWIS / CyberMall / Cyberspace

Click here to view (in a new window) Bob Jensen's Listing of Other Technology and Networking Glossaries

Cache= A storage area in both RAM (cache memory) and disc drives (cache controllers) that keeps frequently accessed instructions more readily accessible. (See also Bus)

CAL= The most generic of Computer Aided Learning or Computer Assisted Learning terms. CAL encompasses in-class lecture aids, learning materials for computer labs, electronic books, learning materials available on networks such as the Internet, and any other learning aids that are used with computers or related devices such as compact disc (CD) players connected to television sets. Especially see the concept of a shell. (See also Authoring, Computer Based Training, Course Management Systems, Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Networks)

Caller ID= Caller identification of the phone number of person placing a call to another number. Some states now allow telephone owners to have visual displays of the caller ID.

Camcorder= (See Video camera and Video from digital (DV) camcorders. Also see Video.)

Camera= (See Dry camera)

CAPTURE= a NetWare utility program used to redirect output from a printer port on the workstation to a network printer.

Capture= (See Screen capturing. Also see Video.)

Card= (See Board)

Careers= (See Authoring)

CASE = Computer Assisted Software Engineering tools for automating information systems design and programming. The CASE tools are listed and extensively explained at http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/Software-Engineering/toolcat.html#label60 . See also Database and MDA..

Castanet = (See Webcasting.)

Casting = (See Webcasting.)

CAT= That subset of CAL that entails Computer Aided Teaching. This subset is restricted to software designed for authoring and/or delivery of learning materials in a classroom or on line in a computer network or teleconference in which the instructor is present and using the CAT materials as an aid to his or her teaching.

CAV= Constant Angular Velocity playback in magnetic and laser discs where the disc rotates at a constant speed. Relative to CLV variable speeds, the CAV approach results in varying data retrieval times that depend upon where the read/write head is located relative to the disc spindle. Authors of CAV disc products try to locate commonly accessed files closer to spindle. In videodiscs, CAV discs hold only 30 minutes of video on each side of a 12-inch disc. However, CAV facilitates searching for individual frames. (See also CLV)

CBT= Computer-Based Training in which the computer becomes a tutor for asynchronous learning that adjusts to each student's learning pace. CBT that contains artificial intelligence for adapting training requirements and options to different aptitudes and skills of individual students is referred to in military training as Intelligent CBT (ICBT) to distinguish ICBT from traditional CBT that does not automatically adapt to skills and needs of different learners. (Also see Authoring, Computer Based Training, Computer Aided Learning, Course Management Systems, Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Networks).

CD= A "small" injection-molded optical disc containing digitized information that has been recorded with a laser device and must be read on a laser device. The term "small" generally refers to a disc that is 8 cm or 12 cm (4.72 inches) in diameter as opposed to videodiscs that typically are much larger in diameter. Also, videodiscs usually are restricted to analog inputs from videotape whereas CDs rely on inputs from computer tape or other digitized platforms. Although there are several types of CDs for audio, television, and computer playback, the CD-Audio and CD-ROM discs have overwhelming shares of the market. For example, Kim (1994) discusses why CD-ROM discs are replacing floppy discs in a "ground swell." CD-ROM discs now hold approximately 680 Mb (i.e., 680 million characters) although compression techniques make it possible to record CDs from even larger computer files. Usually CDs have slower access speeds than magnetic hard drives, but speeds are improving and playback of video is now possible on both CD-ROM and CD-I players. Although the best known CDs once were those that contain only audio recordings, there is a rapidly growing market for various types of CDs that contain computer files and/or files that can be read on special devices connected to television sets. (See also Bar codes, CAV, CLV, Photo CD, Videodisc, Minidisc, CD-Stand Alone, Nintendo/SGI Cartridges, and Laserdisc)

CD Burning= (See CD-R)

CDMA =

Question
What is CDMA technology?

From The Washington Post on February 18, 2006

A joint venture between Nokia Corp. and Sanyo Electronic Corp. means that they will now control about 20 percent of the world's market for phones using CDMA technology. What is CDMA?

A. core digital multipe alignment
B. code division multiple access
C. control digital management access
D. control density media attention

CDMA, which stands for "code division multiple access," is used in the United States by Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., as well as in Japan, India, China and South Korea. In other markets, including Europe, the Middle East and Africa, GSM, or Global System for Mobile communications, is the dominant standard.

CD Phase Change Dual (PD)= (See Phase Change Dual)

CD Recording= (See CD-R and CD-DVD)

CD32= The 32-bit multimedia CD system that plays on Amiga Computers from Commodore Corporation. These CDs are used for CD movies, games, and educational material on Amiga Computers. The future of the CD32 is clouded by the 1994 declaration of bankruptcy by Commodore Corporation. (See also Amiga)

CD-3DO= A type of compact disc designed originally to compete against CD-I and CD-MM for interactive television set entertainment and, possibly, education. A promoter named Trip Hawkins put together an impressive grouping of Hollywood movie studios and other developers of interactive videos using MPEG compression. Large companies such as Panasonic, Sanyo, and others are producing playback machines for TV sets. For an older review see NewMedia, August 1993, p. 21. For a more recent review see USA Today, May 28, 1998 where it is announced that Trip Hawkins launched a comeback after the early financial disaster of his 3DO venture. The 3DO video games lost out completely to competitors like Matsushita, Philips, Sony, and Victor who agreed upon a competing CD-Karaoke standard. Prospects once seemed high that this would emerge a winner. In 1993, 3DO stock soared in price. Time Magazine, January 3, 1994, p. 76, ranked the Panasonic CD-3DO Multiplayer as Number 1 in a listing and discussion of the top ten "best" new products of 1993. (In that same listing, the Motorola PowerPC Chip ranked Number 6 and PDA products came in at Rank 7 ahead of Mattus Ice Cream at Rank 9.) However, in 1994, sales of 3DO players have fallen far short of expectations (except in Japan) and the 3DO stock price fell from a high of over $45 per share to less than $15. Hawkins invested millions more of his own money in the company. "This maker of multimedia game players is fighting for survival" according to Newsweek on June 13, 1994, p. 40. Hawkins and his 3DO machines all but disappeared from the public. However, in May of 1998 they resurfaced 3DO unveiled 11 video games and targets to become a small and more focused video game maker. (See also Games, CD-VIS, CD-I, CD-MM, CD-R, and CD-Karaoke)

CD-AUDIO= A CD that contains only audio playback. These were invented by Philips and Sony and have become extremely popular in the music recording industry. In order for these discs to be compatible with consumer playback machines, most discs are recorded according to the CD-Digital Audio "Reebok" standard.

CDBus= (See Bus)

CD-DVD= Digital Video (or Versatile) Disc combines the best features of CD-ROM size and data storage with capacity for video storage beyond that of videodiscs. DVD is so revolutionary that in the next decade it will probably replace VHS videotapes and CD-ROMs and videodiscs.

Blu-ray set to be DVD standard after Toshiba white flag: Alas most of us will need new DVD players (probably new computers)
Sony's Blu-ray looks set to become the standard for high-definition DVDs after Toshiba signalled Monday that it may give up in a long-running format battle, to the relief of investors. Toshiba Corp. is reviewing its HD DVD business and "a complete withdrawal is one of the options it is considering," an industry source told AFP on condition of anonymity. Blu-ray and HD DVD -- which are incompatible -- can provide cinematic-quality images and multimedia features but the players come at a much steeper price than current-generation DVDs. The demise of HD DVD could spur sales of next-generation DVD players among consumers, who have been reluctant to gamble on one of the formats, analysts said, although Blu-ray was already far ahead in sales, particularly in Japan. Blu-ray can store more data than HD DVD but was initially seen as more expensive to make. Nonetheless, a growing number of Hollywood studios and retailers have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray. US giant Wal-Mart gave a decisive boost to Blu-ray last week when it said it would stop selling HD DVDs.
PhysOrg, February 18, 2008 --- http://physorg.com/news122541604.html

Jensen Comment
The question for you is whether you television sets and computers can play Blu-ray disks?
For example, Dell and HP strongly supports the move to Blu-ray, but we have to expect this is partly due to Dell and HP users who will now buy new computers.
Dell now takes orders for a Blu-ray laptop --- http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/12/12/dell_touts_blu-ray_laptop/

Neflix enthusiasts like me will have to enable their accounts to get Blue-ray DVD movies --- http://www.netflix.com/MediaSelection?lnkctr=gnHdMedia

February 19, 2008 reply from David Albrecht mailto:%5balbrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]

I'm pretty ignorant here.

(1) Will Blue Ray work with any HD TV?
(2) When standard DVDs are no longer produced, will the Blu-Ray DVDs work on the regular DVD player on my laptop?
(3) If the answer to (2) is no, then will it work to pop out my old DVD drive from my computer and purchase/install a new Blu-Ray drive, or will the lack of HD on my computer screen (machine is 15 months old) destine it to the junk heap.
(4) Is all the bother really worth it? I mean, I watch DVD movies on my laptop, and I'm not seeing HD at all. Everything seems fine. In fact, all of this is better than anything I ever had before.
(5) I pick up my DVD movies at the Walmart $5 bargain bin, and at pawn shops. How long until I can start picking up blu-ray DVDs for the same prices at the same places?
(6) Will getting HD improve my BMI?

David Albrecht
LD in Ohio

February 19, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

What pretty well sealed the deal for Sony’s Blu-Ray was when Wal-Mart adopted this standard worldwide for movie disks and players.

I don’t have all the answers to your questions David, but the two technologies are not compatible. On our computers most of us have CD drives, older-style DVD drives, or in on occasion Toshiba’s standard HD-DVD drives. The CD disks and older-style DVD data disks are cheap and will probably be around for quite a while for data file recording and reading. The HD-DVD recorders and players will go the way of Betamax when the VCR standard beat out Betamax. Original DVD drives would not play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray movie disks. However, HD-DVD players could playback older-style DVD disks that you may have recorded on your computer or purchased from vendors of data and software.

HD-DVD drives will not play Blu-Ray DVD disks that will become the new equivalent of the VCR back when we rented movies on VCR cartridges and recorded television programs on VCR recorders. Older style DVD drives that are on many computers will not play Blu-Ray or HD-DVD disks.

You can get answers from the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-Ray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD-DVD

Technical --- http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hd-dvd3.htm

The bottom line is that we will have to buy Blu-Ray drives for our television sets rather quickly. Folks who purchased archives of Betamax and HD-DVD movies will be out of luck just like those of us with boxes full of 8-Track music cartridges are out of luck. You will soon have to purchase a Blu-Ray player to watch DVD movies. You will also be buying Blu-Ray recorders to record television shows for your personal use.

Colleges will have to spend a lot of money putting Blu-Ray technology in electronic classrooms and labs. Even more costly will be getting Blu-Ray technology on faculty and staff computers. This will take time. It will be possible to replace the DVD drives without replacing the computers, but my guess is that many colleges will wait until faculty/staff members are due for new computer upgrades. In the meantime you will be able to buy blank CD and older-style DVD disks for some time at places like Staples. HD-DVD blanks will disappear much more quickly.

Bob Jensen

February 19, 2008 reply from Mac Wright mailto:%5bMac.Wright@VU.EDU.AU]

So today Toshiba has thrown in the towel. But what is next? from the time Sony threw in the Betamax towel until Video CDs was (I estimate) about 15 years. then DVDs arrived, then High speed internet, now Blue ray, In the end it is up to the market (probably on the Asian Continent and Indian Sub Continent) to decide how they will take their dose of movies, and with what new technology it will be delivered (and there are very few Wal -Mart stores out there!).

Kind regards,

Mac Wright
Co-ordinator Aviation Program
Victoria University
Melbourne Australia

February 19, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Mac,

Interestingly, Barry Rice and I had a somewhat similar debate when Barry first started the AECM. Barry argued that the CD had no future because other portable hard drives were better ways of storing data. He was correct only to a point especially with respect to overwriting files (no CD-RW at the time of this debate). Portable hard drive cartridges in those days cost about $100 and stored roughly the same amount of data as a CD. Some types of data were difficult to burn on CDs in those days. Also remember that there was no flash memory in those days such that hard drive cartridges relied on mechanical readers prone to breakdowns.

You’ve got to remember that in mid-1980s it was much more difficult to download data on the Internet and hard drive capacity on a PC was less than 1 Gb such that storage was nowhere near as cheap as it is today.

My counterpoint to Barry was that we could buy a blank CD for about $3 in those days as compared to comparable storage costing $100 on portable hard drives such as those Iomega cartridges that were subject to high failure rates relative to the less expensive CD disks. Certainly my old CD stored files are still around today whereas all my Omega cartridges and drives are kaput.

In any case, I think the Blu-Ray DVD disks will be around for at least a decade (no computing hardware technology lasts forever). Reasons include:

You don't have to pay for an expensive monthly broadband connection to rent or buy a DVD disk.
Hollywood studios are embracing Blu-Ray DVDs as the sales and rental medium of the future for users who cannot or do not want to download movies, such as the many television lovers in the world who do not use computers. Also, in the heart of Africa or the Amazon where there is no live TV reception, users with TV sets can still use DVD disks on television sets.
Even though outfits like Netflix now make it possible to download movies, this is still less popular than the tremendous disk rental service that Netfilx offers these days for playback on television sets (I love this service). Although I could download movies on my computers, I prefer to get the DVD disks that I can watch in comfort of my Lazyboy chair in front of a large-screen television set. Already Netflix has an option for renting DVD disks in the Blu-Ray format.
DVD rental and sales disks in stores appeal to browsers and impulse shoppers. I would never think of buying movie on sale at Wal-Mart unless I stumbled over a display of on-sale legendary movies in the in the aisle.

Blank DVD disks are still very cheap ways to store lots of data over a long time and less prone to failure than any other alternatives.

Bob Jensen

February 19, 2008 message from David Fordham, James Madison University mailto:%5bfordhadr@JMU.EDU]

Is it really progress?

My grad classes have some interesting takes on this stuff. Few of them know what an 8-track cartridge is, and I doubt anyone on this list remembers magnetic wire recorders (before the invention of tape) which my dad used when I was a little kid.

So what is *real* progress?

I make students question the use of the word "standard". This allows some very good discussion in graduate systems technology classes.

For instance, I take issue with the statement "the market will decide". See http://cob.jmu.edu/fordham/essay11.htm which is a part of my grad class from two years ago.

To quote from a paragraph late in that essay, "While the media pundits call this a "standard", it really isn't a consumer-level standard at all, but rather a "producer-level" standard. Calling the Blu-Ray-vs-HDDVD a standards war is like calling the "Boeing vs. Airbus" a standards war. What the consumer wants is irrelevant. A few large companies will decide which format they will use, because to the consumer, both deliver what is essentially the same product. Once several of the producers have selected one format over the other (due more to politics, payoffs, kickbacks, and the good-ol-boy system than any valid reason), the consumers will simply end up taking what they are given. Think about it. When was the last time an airline asked you which plane you prefer, an Airbus or a Boeing?

You were buying the end-product: the trip to Orlando, the video image, or whatever. As long as the end-product was delivered, the minor conveniences along the way were irrelevant. As that essay points out, failure to deliver convenience to consumers doesn't really matter anymore any way, a la big banks, phone companies, cellular providers, credit card companies, etc. In our inter-related technology, the need for compatibility overrides the market's wishes in terms of ALL the petty stuff. And since the large producers make the big decisions, ... well, you get the idea. The market isn't what decides.

That essay is the springboard for some interesting and thought-provoking discussions on accounting system design. Yes, accounting systems design. Think big.

David Fordham
James Madison University

CD-Erasable = an alternate term for CD-RW compact discs that can be erased and written over with new and/or updated computer files. For a more complete discussion see CD-DVD. The key feature of CD-RW is that these CDs will play on newer CD-ROM drives. This was not the case with older CD-Erasable discs. An older type of CD rewriting technology unveiled by Sony Corporation in 1993 that will allow for erasing and recording over CD discs that could not be played back on CD-ROM drives. Although some companies have sold rewritable CDs for some time, the playback hardware has not become a standard like CD-ROM playback drives. In 1997, however, virtually all vendors of CD recording hardware offer a CD-RW drive that will play and record discs that will play on CD-ROM drives. This technology brings the world of CDs closer to the world of videotapes and floppy discs. However, unlike floppy discs holding 1.44 Mb of data, the CDs will hold 650 Mb of data. This makes the recording and revision of multimedia files in a cheap storage medium (possibly less than one dollar) a feasible option. See CD-DVD.

CDF = (See RDF)

CD+G= Audio CD plus still-image graphics such as with Photo CD. Although these are commonly displayed on television screens, they are less interactive than CD-I, CD-VIS, CD-R, CD-Karaoke, CD-3DO, CD-MM, and CD-TV. For a more technical definition see http://www.soatusa.com/Cambda/NFProduc.htm .(See also Photo CD and CD-Karaoke)

CD-I= Compact Disc-Interactive compact disc (developed by the Philips electronics conglomerate headquartered in The Netherlands) that will play back visual as well as audio CD entertainment and learning materials in a hypermedia format on a television set. These discs require special players for CD-Karaoke that connect to a television much like a VCR machine. Players cost from $400 to $1,800, with portable players available that will fit in a briefcase. Video stores are now selling and renting CD-I movie, game, encyclopedia, travel, art, and other types of discs. Realistically, authoring workstations cost around $50,000 and higher. Typically they have a remote control device or joy stick for hypermedia controls. Philips got the market jump on CD-MM from Sony and CD-3DO from Hawkins. Various CD-I games, encyclopedias, hypermedia art books, and other consumer products are available on CD-I discs in department stores and video stores. Movies on CD-I may now be purchased or rented from video stores. Unlike many of the computer game competitors such as Data Discman and Sega, it is possible to link Mac or PC desktop computers to other hardware that allows professors to author their own learning materials on CD-I discs. To be compatible with CD-I playback machines, these discs should be recorded on the CD-ROM XA (extended Architecture) "Yellowbook" standard. OptImage (515-225-7000) has new high-end MPEG Digital Video Authoring software for CD-I and CD-XA. The Education Labels Group of Philips Media (800-945-4061 or 310-444-6613) under the direction of Bernard Luskin, a pioneer in TV education materials, works with educators to develop CD-I discs for education. With the initial market shock of CD-3DO, the future of CD-I and CD-MM is seriously in doubt, although much will hinge on the future cost of desktop authoring of CD-3DO titles. See CD for market share data. Miller and Miller (1992), and Phillips IMS (1992a,b,c). New software called CD-IT!ALL from OptImage(515-225-7000) allows Mac users to record CD-ROM discs directly from the Mac to certain types of CD-R recorders such as the Philips or Kodak recorder with an IS0 9660 option. However, to record CD-I discs the CD-IT!ALL software will not replace the Media Mogul software and the emulator hardware required between the Mac computer and the CD-R recorder. (See also CD-DVD, CD-VIS, CD-R, CD-Karaoke, CD-3DO, CD-MM, CD-TV, Games, and Photo CD)

CD-Karaoke= The video CD format that JVC and Philips initially agreed upon that eventually became the standard Video CD format agreed upon by major vendors such as Matushita, Philips, Sony, and Victor of Japan. Initially, vendors were trying to develop CDs for television sets that each had a different standard analogous to having different track gauges for different railroads. The agreed upon video standard in 1993 at last makes it possible to cross platforms in CDs for television. The announcement is reported in Videography, September 1993, p. 10. (See CD for market share data. See also CD-R, CD-I, CD-3DO, CD-MM, Games, and Photo CD)

CDMA/TDMA= Code Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access dual-mode cellular telephones that aid in the receiving of fax and computer network data on computers and PDAs. (See also Wireless Glossary of Terms, CDPD, Networks and PDA)

CD-MM= Older Sony CDs that compete with CD-VIS, CD-I, and CD-3DO discs that also play back visual as well has audio entertainment and learning materials in a hypermedia format on a television set. These will be replaced with newer players for CD-DVD. CD-MM discs required special players that connected to a television much like a VCR machine. They compete with CD-I discs but are not the same size and will not play on CD-I players. Only discs developed by Sony Corporation will run on CD-MM players. Various CD-MM games, encyclopedias, hypermedia art books, and other consumer products are available on CD-I discs in department stores and video stores. Whereas CD-I and CD-ROM discs may be recorded on CD-R blanks in home recording devices, it is less likely that CD-MM discs will ever be produced outside professional studios. Users will thus be limited by what Sony develops and promotes. In 1993, Sony agreed to a new CD-format that is more in line with other players in the market. With the initial market shock of CD-3DO, the future of CD-I and CD-MM is seriously in doubt. (See also CD-DVD, CD-3DO, CD-Karaoke, CD-VIS, and CD-I)

CD-PD= (SeeWireless Glossary of Terms and Phase Change Dual (PD))

CDPD= Cellular Digital Packet Data technology that facilitates more traffic on existing cellular networks. CDPD hardware is required for sending e-mail to PDAs. (See also Wireless Glossary of Terms and PDA)

CD-Photo= (See Photo CD)

CD-R or CD-RW= a term used for machines (drives) that will record CD laser discs that will read on standard CD-ROM drives. CD "encoding" depicts the recording (burning or transfer of files) to a CD, whereas CD "decoding" depicts the reading of those files. The term CD-Erasable in the early 1990s depicted recording of erasable CDs that could not be read only in special drives rather than CD-ROM drives. The first CD-RW drive on the market (in March 1997) is from RICOH for $595. Now CD-RW is the latest thing in erasable CDs. In times past, CD-R depicted a recordable CD blank disc also known as a CD-WORM disc. CD-R is now an obsolete term since, in 1997, CD-RW discs also known as CD-RW or CD-Rewritable discs made "read only memory" a thing of the past. Of course it is always possible to file protect and computer files in any type of storage so that they cannot be overwritten. In 1997, virtually all the manufacturers of CD-RW recording machines for CD-ROMs will offer CD-Erasable drives that will likely replace most CD-R technology up to 1997. Laser recording machines typically connect to a computer's SCSI or IDE controller. High-end desktop computers now come with CD-R or CD-RW recorders and players all in the same drive. Costs of a CD-R recorder have fallen by over 90% to less than $800. Recording CDs of any type is often referred to as "burning" or "baking." A CD recorder will not record every type of CD. Virtually all of them record CD-ROM discs and some will record CD-I discs. Rewritable versions are also available, but these will not play back on standard CD-ROM drives. CD-DVD recording requires more expensive hardware. Some record CD-Karaoke with appropriate software. Some CDs such as CD-MM and CD-3DO cannot usually be recorded on home recorders. CD-ROM and other types of CDs can be reproduced for less than $1 per disc. If you are purchasing a CD-R recorder, the high-end software and hardware for recording is reviewed in NewMedia, February 10, 1997, pp. 53-69. (See also CD-DVD, CD-Erasable, WORM, CD-I, CD-3DO, CD-MM, Phase Change Dual (PD), Games, and Photo CD)

CD-R2= (See CD-DVD)

CD-RW or CD-Rewritable= (See CD-DVD )

CD-ROM= Compact Disc-Read Only Memory compact discs. This is now an obsolete term since, in 1997, CD-RW discs also known as CD-Rewritable discs made "read only memory" a thing of the past. These 5.25 inch discs can be recorded, written over at will (unless file protected), and played back from computers connected to proper recording and/or playback drives. The CD-RW drives become like hard drives or floppy disc drives in that CD-RW discs may store files that can be executed in software packages such as word processors, spreadsheet software, ToolBook books, and HyperCard stacks. Some users want them to serve as auxiliary storage devices for computer text, audio, and video files. CD-RW drives will eventually be replaced by CD-DVD drives for DVD and DVD-RAM discs that are the same size but hold more than 20 times as much data. The problem for DVD is that CD-ROM drives exist in millions of computers and it will take time for the newer DVD hardware to take over as a standard. Presently, it is also much cheaper to record (encode) CD-RW discs using CD-R recorders costing less than $800. (See also CD-DVD and CD-ROM titles)

CD-ROM Titles= Books and games available on CD-ROM discs. Comparisons are difficult, because there are thousands in hundreds of markets. For example, see ADAM for one of the top medical and science titles that has done very well in a narrow market. The top titles in the general market according to PC Computing, December 1994, p. 206 are Microsoft Bookshelf (206-882-8080), Myst (415-382-4400), and Normandy (302-986-0444). PC World, December 1994, in a cover feature rates a larger number of titles by topic areas: One especially noteworthy CD-ROM title that has been popular in the consumer market is David Macaulay's The Way Things Work from Dorling Kindersley Publishing (800-225-3362). The number of CD-ROM titles has been nearly doubling each year for the past several years. It appears this will be the most popular electronic publishing medium for the rest of this decade. (See also ADAM)

CD-ROM XA= (See CD-ROM)

CD-RW= (See CD-ROM)

CD-Stand Alone= Reference to audio/video players that stand alone in the sense of not needing a computer. The term generally refers to set-top video boxes for network television or to CD players such as CD-3DO, CD-I, CD-MM, CD-TV, CD-VIS, etc. (See also Set-top box and CD)

CD-Standards = See http://www.soatusa.com/Cambda/NFProduc.htm

CD-TV= Commodore Dynamic-Total Vision player manufactured by Commodore Corporation to compete with CD-I, CD-MM, CD-VIS, and CD-3DO CD players for television sets. CD-TV discs are viewed in television sets from a CD-TV player or on Amiga video computers. They may not, however, be played on CD-ROM players. See CD for market share data. The market share of CD-TV is so small that its future is quite uncertain and is clouded by the 1994 declaration of bankruptcy by Commodore Corporation. (See also CD-I, CD-3DO, CD-MM, CD-VIS, Games, and Photo CD)

CD-VIS= The Memorex MD-2500 Visual Information System CD player marketed by Radio Shack that competes with CD-MM, CD-I, and CD-3DO discs that also play back visual as well has audio interactive entertainment on television sets. The Memorex MD-2500 requires no host computer to perform interactive operations from a remote control. Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia disc and some other discs are available, but the market share of CD-VIS never became great enough to attract widespread authorship of VIS discs. At present there are very few titles and interest in CD-VIS relative to CD-I and CD-3DO is waning.

CD-WORM= (See CD-R)

CETA= Center for Educational Technology in Accounting (817-565-3090) at The University of North Texas, P.O. Box 13677, College of Business Administration, The University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203-3677. CETA is no longer operational. CETA once served as a clearinghouse of information on use of technology in accounting education and research.

CFML = Cold Fusion Markup Language for creation of dynamic and interactive Web pages. Along with the usual Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) tags that determine page layout and appearance, the page creator uses CFML tags to bring in content based on the results of a database query or user input. CMFL is a proprietary language developed for use with ColdFusion, a product from Allaire. See also Database and HTML.

CGA= (See Graphics adapter)

CGI= Common Gateway Interface is one of the most popular UNIX-based programs/devices that supply interfaces between browsers and servers on the Internet. A standard for running external programs from a World-Wide Web HTTP server. CGI specifies how to pass dynamic components to the executing program as part of the HTTP request. For example, it will allow answers typed into an HTML form on the client computer to be tabulated and stored in a database on the server-side computer. Commonly, the server-side CGI program will generate some HTML which will be passed back to the client's browser. For example, it might report to the client user that the form is not filled out properly or report the invoice total of an order. CGI allows the returned HTML (or other document type) to depend in any arbitrary way on the request. The CGI program can, for example, access information in a database and format the results as HTML. CGI is not a programming language. There are various "CGI" scripting programs. Perl is a common choice for writing CGI scripts. in UNIX code. Some HTTP servers require CGI programs to reside in a special directory, often "/cgi-bin" but better servers provide ways to distinguish CGI programs so they can be kept in the same directories as the HTML files to which they are related. In order to improve performance, Netscape devised NSAPI and Microsoft developed the ISAPI standard which allow CGI-like tasks to run as part of the host server process, thus avoiding the overhead of creating a new process to handle each CGI invocation.

CGM= Computer Graphics Metafile international standard for 16-bit color graphics. CGM files cross platforms between PCs and Macs and can be generated in most graphics, paintbrush, and draw software. (See also Graphics and Cross-platform)

Channel= Transmission line that can carry the sound of a separate MIDI instrument. Each MIDI port allows up to 16 separate channels for sending or receiving data. Each channel can function as a separate instrument in an ensemble, each using its own patch and responding independently to continuous controllers. (See also MIDI).

Channel has another meaning on the World Wide Web. (See Webcasting.)

Channel Definition Format (CDF) = (see Resource Description Format (RDF))

Channel Casting/Surfing = (See Webcasting.)

Chat Lines or Chat Rooms = real time internet conversations (written or oral) that transpire in real (synchronous) time as opposed to conferencing (e.g., message board posting and topic classification." There are many sources for free chat software downloads. One such source is at http://www.chat.yahoo.com/. Comparisons with bulletin boards, email groups, chat rooms, etc. are made in the e-mail definition of this glossary. See e-mail definition, IRC, Listserv, USENet, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, webcasting, andtelephony.

Chipping (See Security)

CHRP = Common Hardware Reference Platform architecture in processors for Power PCs. This term has been replaced by "PowerPC Reference Platform" and is IBM's open system standard intended to ensure compatibility among PowerPC-based systems built by different companies.

CISC= Complex Instruction Set Computing chipsets such as the Intel family of popular 386, 486, and Pentium competitors and the Motorola 680x0 family in Mac computers. These were the most popular processors until the RISC alternatives entered the market. The future of CISC versus RISC is now up in the air. (See also Pentium, USENet, and RISC)

Click fraud

The act of purposely clicking ad listings without intending to buy from the advertiser.
www.tractionsearch.com/se-dictionary.php

In online advertising, click fraud involves sending fraudulent clicks to Cost Per Click (CPC) advertisers. The clicks can be artificially generated via automated technology methods (such as hitbots) or via manual clicking for the purpose of debiting CPC advertiser accounts or increasing CPC network partner/affiliate commission revenues. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud

Yahoo settles "click fraud" lawsuit
Yahoo Inc. will consider refunding money to thousands of advertisers dating back to January 2004 and pay $4.95 million in attorney fees to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging the Internet powerhouse has been profiting from bogus sales referrals generated through a sham known as ''click fraud.'' The agreement, given preliminary approval Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder in Los Angeles, doesn't limit Yahoo's liability -- one of several contrasts to a settlement reached in March by online search engine leader Google Inc. to resolve a class-action lawsuit over the same issue . . . Although Yahoo doesn't know how much money it will end up refunding, company officials seem confident it will be a relatively small amount. Yahoo's ad revenue totaled $9.1 billion from January 2004 through March of this year. "We want to keep our advertisers happy,'' said Yahoo lawyer Reggie Davis. ''Whatever credits are owed will be 100 percent forthcoming.''
"Update: Click Fraud Class-Action Suits at Yahoo and Google," MIT's Technology Review, July 3, 2006 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17118

Client= A computer that has access to services over a computer network. The computer providing the services is a server. Note: in an X-11 environment, the meanings of client and server are reversed. See Database.

Client-server= A corporate computing trend that is gradually replacing the old way of conducting business--large mainframe computers connected to terminals. In the new arrangement, company software applications run on a midrange computer (the server) that is connected over networks to PCs (clients). (See also Server)

Client-server architecture= An information-passing scheme that works as follows: a client program, such as Mosaic, sends a request to a server. The server takes the request, disconnects from the client and processes the request. When the request is processed, the server reconnects to the client program and the information is transferred to the client. This architecture differs from traditional Internet databases where the client connects to the server and runs the program from the remote site. Note: in an X-11 environment, the meanings of client and server are reversed.

Clipboard= A holding device that contains the most recently copied or cut text or image such that contents of the clipboard can be pasted one or more times into other parts of the document at hand or other documents. It is usually possible to cross between different software options such as between Windows programs.

Clipper Chip =

See http://www.cpsr.org/program/clipper/clipper.html

The Clipper Chip is a cryptographic device being promoted by the U.S. government. Its purported advantage is that it provides a standard for securing private voice communication. With Clipper, however, the government has the opportunity to obtain decryption keys that are held in escrow by two government agencies. Although the Clipper proposal requires legal authorization to obtain these keys, the history of illegal domestic surveillance by Federal agencies makes the existence of this "back-door" decryption channel a cause for concern.

Also see security.

Clock speed= The speed of the processor is measured with the clock frequency. The processor consistently works internally at the same clock frequency. The IBM PC has a clock frequency of 4.77 MHz (Megahertz). Compatibles sometimes use higher frequencies, but higher speeds may create compatibility problems.

Cloud Computing=--- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Computing

Check out some recent cloud computing stories on TechnologyReview.com:

Cloud Computing's Perfect Storm?: An initiative involving Intel, Yahoo, and HP will use large-scale research projects to test a new Internet-based computing infrastructure.
Lost in the Clouds: MobileMe is facing problems endemic to cloud computing.
TR10: Offline Web Applications: Adobe's Kevin Lynch believes that computing applications will become more powerful when they take advantage of the browser and the desktop.

"How Cloud Computing Is Changing the World: A major shift in the way companies obtain software and computing capacity is under way as more companies tap into Web-based applications," Business Week, August 4, 2008 ---
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc2008082_445669.htm

At first, just a handful of employees at Sanmina-SCI (SANM) began using Google Apps (GOOG) for tasks like e-mail, document creation, and appointment scheduling. Now, just six months later, almost 1,000 employees of the electronics manufacturing company go online to use Google Apps in place of the comparable Microsoft (MSFT) tools. "We have project teams working on a global basis and to help them collaborate effectively, we use Google Apps," says Manesh Patel, chief information officer of Sanmina-SCI, a company with $10.7 billion in annual revenue. In the next three years, the number of Google Apps users may rise to 10,000, or about 25% of the total, Patel estimates.

San Jose (Calif.)-based Sanmina and Google are at the forefront of a fundamental shift in the way companies obtain software and computing capacity. A host of providers including Amazon (AMZN), Salesforce.com (CRM), IBM (IBM), Oracle (ORCL), and Microsoft are helping corporate clients use the Internet to tap into everything from extra server space to software that helps manage customer relationships. Assigning these computing tasks to some remote location—rather than, say, a desktop computer, handheld machine, or a company's own servers—is referred to collectively as cloud computing (BusinessWeek, 4/24/08), and it's catching on across Corporate America.

The term "cloud computing" encompasses many areas of tech, including software as a service, a software distribution method pioneered by Salesforce.com about a decade ago. It also includes newer avenues such as hardware as a service, a way to order storage and server capacity on demand from Amazon and others. What all these cloud computing services have in common, though, is that they're all delivered over the Internet, on demand, from massive data centers.

A Sea Change in Computing Some analysts say cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing is done in corporations. Merrill Lynch (MER) estimates that within the next five years, the annual global market for cloud computing will surge to $95 billion. In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would go to the cloud in that period.

Those vendors that can adjust their product lines to meet the needs of large cloud computing providers stand to profit. Companies like IBM, Dell (DELL), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), for instance, are moving aggressively in this direction. On Aug. 1, IBM said it would spend $360 million to build a cloud computing data center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., bringing to nine its total of cloud computing centers worldwide. Dell is also targeting this market. The computer marker supplies products to some of the largest cloud computing providers and Web 2.0 companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo (YHOO). "We created a whole new business just to build custom products for those customers," Dell CEO Michael Dell says.

Continued in article

"Google's Cloud Looms Large: How might expanding Google's cloud-computing service alter the digital world?," by Kate Greene, MIT's Technology Review, December 3, 2007 --- http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/19785/?nlid=701

To know how you'll be using computers and the Internet in the coming years, it's instructive to consider the Google employee: most of his software and data--from pictures and videos, to presentations and e-mails--reside on the Web. This makes the digital stuff that's valuable to him equally accessible from his home computer, a public Internet café, or a Web-enabled phone. It also makes damage to a hard drive less important. Recently, Sam Schillace, the engineering director in charge of collaborate Web applications at Google, needed to reformat a defunct hard drive from a computer that he used for at least six hours a day. Reformatting, which completely erases all the data from a hard drive, would cause most people to panic, but it didn't bother Schillace. "There was nothing on it I cared about" that he couldn't find stored on the Web, he says.

Schillace's digital life, for the most part, exists on the Internet; he practices what is considered by many technology experts to be cloud computing. Google already lets people port some of their personal data to the Internet and use its Web-based software. Google Calendar organizes events, Picasa stores pictures, YouTube holds videos, Gmail stores e-mails, and Google Docs houses documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. But according to a Wall Street Journal story, the company is expected to do more than offer scattered puffs of cloud computing: it will launch a service next year that will let people store the contents of entire hard drives online. Google doesn't acknowledge the existence of such a service. In an official statement, the company says, "Storage is an important component of making Web apps fit easily into consumers' and business users' lives ... We're always listening to our users and looking for ways to update and improve our Web applications, including storage options, but we don't have anything to announce right now." Even so, many people in the industry believe that Google will pull together its disparate cloud-computing offerings under a larger umbrella service, and people are eager to understand the consequences of such a project.

To be sure, Google isn't the only company invested in online storage and cloud computing. There are other services today that offer a significant amount of space and software in the cloud. Amazon's Simple Storage Service, for instance, offers unlimited and inexpensive online storage ($0.15 per gigabyte per month). AOL provides a service called Xdrive with a capacity of 50 gigabytes for $9.95 per month (the first five gigabytes are free). And Microsoft offers Windows Live SkyDrive, currently with a one-gigabyte free storage limit.

But Google is better positioned than most to push cloud computing into the mainstream, says Thomas Vander Wal, founder of Infocloud Solutions, a cloud-computing consultancy. First, millions of people already use Google's online services and store data on its servers through its software. Second, Vander Wal says that the culture at Google enables his team to more easily tie together the pieces of cloud computing that today might seem a little scattered. He notes that Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple are also sitting atop huge stacks of people's personal information and a number of online applications, but there are barriers within each organization that could slow down the process of integrating these pieces. "It could be," says Vander Wal, "that Google pushes the edges again where everybody else has been stuck for a while."

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's threads on Google are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Searchh.htm

CLV= Constant Linear Velocity playback in magnetic and laser discs where the disc rotates at varying speeds. Relative to CAV constant speeds, the CAV approach results in constant data retrieval times that do not depend upon where the read/write head is located relative to the disc spindle. CLV videodiscs hold up to 60 minutes of video per side of a 12-inch disc. However, CLV discs cannot be searched for individual frames as effectively as CAV discs. (See also CAV)

CMC = Cmputer Mediated Communication, a very broad term that encompasses chat lines, virtual communities, and other forms of communication. See IRC, Collaboration, and Virtual. See also Groupware.

CMS= That subset of CAL that entails Course Management Systems. This software is defined by the "core" attributes listed in Chapter 3. Chief among these attributes are utilities that allow instructors to keep student records, call up examination templates and questions, administer examinations, track student learning in course modules, and randomly access lecture and case materials. CMS software options compared in Chapter 3 are Quest, TourGuide, LessonBuilder, Tencore, Course Builder, HyperGraphics, Authorware, and Peak. Present CMS leaders are Quest for Windows and DOS and Macromedia Authorware for Mac operating systems. It is common to build custom CMS features into hypertext/hypermedia developments. For example, the Arizona State University accounting lab simulation package marketed by McGraw-Hill has core CMS attributes that were scripted into that package by the author even though ToolBook is not a full-featured CMS package. McGraw-Hill can sell the package without paying a royalty fee since ToolBook has no runtime usage fee. There are some CMS packages such as Quest, LessonBuilder, CourseBuilder, and Peak that have no runtime/royalty fees. But CMS options have drawbacks in spite of their utilities for educators. Except for Quest and Tencore, the other CMS packages do not have full-featured scripting options of such major hypermedia competitors as Multimedia ToolBook, Apple Media Kit, HyperWriter, Icon Author, etc. CMS options do not cross platforms to run on multiple platforms as well as hypermedia GainMomentum, ScriptX and Icon Author. Especially see the concept of a shell. (See also Runtime, Hypertext and Hypermedia)

Coaxial cable= A cable consisting of a single metal wire surrounded by insulation, which is itself surrounded by a braided or foil outer conductor.

CODEC = hardware and software for compressing and decompressing larve volumes of data. The term generally applies to large multimedia files.

CollabraShare = collaboration groupware from Netscape Corporation. Netscape Collabra provides enterprise group discussions based on Internet standards, letting the groups share and track information efficiently. Collabra makes it easy to share information and create a knowledge base that people can access at any time. You can eliminate unnecessary meetings and save valuable time by discussing important issues in a public or private discussion forum. Netscape Collabra extends open Internet standards to create a powerful collaboration tool for the corporation, and it seamlessly integrates with Netscape Collabra Server. See http://home.netscape.com/comprod/products/communicator/faq.html#collabra. See also Groupware, Lotus Notes, and Collaboration.

Collaboration = a joint effort that network technology has facilitated with email, FTP, and more advanced means of sharing ideas, documents, and data. Writing has become more of a collaborative effort since the dawn of the WWW. The WWW takes authors beyond the telephone by enabling them to speak to one another (audio), see one another (videoconferencing), and visualize documents and data. Software alternatives for collaborative authoring are reviewed at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/245soft1.htm . See also CMC, CollabraShare, IRC, Videoconferencing, Groupware, and Virtual.

Collar = a derivative instruments investing term where an investor puts a "collar" around investment risk, usually by selling a put option (an option to purchase) and purchasing a call option (an option to sell) around an investment. Amgen and Oracle sold put warrants on their own common stock and then used the proceeds to purchase calls on the same stock. This process is called a "costless collar" and is used to express a bullish view of the stock by management.

Compact disc= (See CD)

Companding= (See dbx)

Compression= Has several meanings. In one context, it refers to algorithms for shrinking the storage space required for files stored on discs. In those instances, nothing is usually sacrificed in the compression, although files may have to be decompressed before they can be utilized later on. In another context, compression refers to the storage of graphics or video files in such a way that they can be stored and/or processed more efficiently on computers. In the latter case, something (e.g., color depth, resolution, image sharpness, etc.) is usually lost in the process. (See also GIF, JPEG, Indeo, and MPEG)

Computer= An electronic system that can store and process information under program control.

Computer Based Training = (See CBT )

CompuServe= A commercial network that has some of the "richest offerings available, but it has been the slowest to change and can be much costlier than the other two services, especially if you make heavy use of some of its best features" according to Mossberg (1994a). It has a wide choice of bulletin boards, U.S. News and World Reports magazine, and Navigator to the Internet. News services are relatively cheap, but modem line costs are somewhat expensive. (See also Networks, Internet, SLIP, America Online, eWorld, Interchange, and Prodigy)

Computer Virus = (See Virus)

Concurrency Control= Concurrency control deals with the issues involved with allowing multiple people simultaneous access to shared entities, be they objects, data records, or some other representation. It is very important to have a recovery system such that if bad data is entered in a shared environment the databases can be recovered. It is important understand transactions, which are collections of actions that potentially modify records. More than one record may be involved, especially in double entry bookkeeping. An example of a transaction is a transfer of funds between two bank accounts. Concurrency controls are related to transactions controls, but they are not the same since transactions controls apply to single-person as well as multiple-person access. Transactions controls are intended to assure that updated transactions are allowable and orderly. Transactions in relational databases are often commands in a two phase commit system. A "two phase commit" transactions control is the process by which a relational database ensures that distributed transactions are performed in an orderly manner. In this system, transactions may be terminated by either committing them or rolling them back. Also see Database.

Configuration= This is a general-purpose computer term that can refer to the way you have your computer set up. It is also used to describe the total combination of hardware components that make up a computer system and the software settings that allow various hardware components of a computer system to communicate with one another.

Configure= The act of changing software or hardware actions by changing the settings.

Console= The file server.

Control code= Special nonprinting codes that cause electronic equipment to perform specific actions.

Conventional memory= (See RAM)

Cookies= Applets that enable a web site to collect information about each user for later reference (as in finding cookies in the cookie jar). Web Browsers like Netscape Navigator set aside a small amount of space on the user's hard drive to record detected preferences. Cookies perform storage on the client side that might otherwise have to be stored in a generic-state or database server on the server side. Cookies can be used to collect information for consumer profile databases. Browsers can be set to refuse cookies.

"Erasing Cookies From a PC," by Annelena Lobb, The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2005; Page D1 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112233873147495654,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

Erasing Cookies From a PC

The Problem: Your PC is filling up with cookies, which let Web sites track your Internet-browsing habits.

The Solution: Cookies are short text files that attach to your PC when you visit Web sites. Some disappear from your computer when you exit Internet Explorer, while others remain. You'll likely want to keep some cookies on your PC -- you can't visit sites like Yahoo and Gmail without them. In other cases, they let you avoid retyping your ZIP Code or address every time you visit.

Here's how to avoid unwanted cookies: When using Internet Explorer, go to the "Tools" menu and click on "Internet Options." Select the "Privacy" tab, and click on "Advanced Settings." Check the box that lets you override automatic cookie handling. Then you can ask to be prompted whenever cookies appear -- you'll get a pop up asking whether you want to accept it. If you later wish to change your settings, click the "Edit" button under the "Privacy" tab. You can delete it from the list of managed sites.

Powerful Cookies 1.0.7
http://www.freewebs.com/powerfulcookies/

For those people who are concerned about erasing evidence of their Internet activity stored in their browser, Powerful Cookies 1.0.7 may be worth taking a look at. Visitors can use this program to delete cookies, clean index.dat files, clean the cache, remove temporary files, and erase typed URLs. This application is compatible with Windows 95 or newer.

Bob Jensen's technology bookmarks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob4.htm

Many times when you browse a website, your browser checks to see if you have any pre-defined preferences (cookie) for that server if you do it sends the cookie to the server along with the request for a web page. Sometimes cookies are used to collect items of an order as the user places things in a shopping cart and has not yet submitted the full order. A cookie allows WWW customers to fill their orders (shopping carts) and then be billed based upon the cookie payment information. Cookies retain information about a users browsing patterns at a web site. This creates all sorts of privacy risks since information obtained from cookies by vendors or any persons who put cookies on your computer might be disclosed in ways that are harmful to you. Browsers will let you refuse cookies with a set up that warns you when someone is about to deliver a cookie, but this really disrupts Web surfing and may block you from gaining access to may sites. It is probably better to accept cookies for a current session and then dispose of unwanted cookies as soon as possible so that cookie senders do not obtain repeated access to your private information. Microsoft Corporation has added the following utilities to the Internet Explorer (IE) browser according to http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/21/ms.cookies.idg/

The Internet Explorer 5.5 changes include the following:

• Notifications that Microsoft said will help users differentiate between first- and third-party cookies, plus automatic prompts that inform users anytime a third-party cookie is being offered by a Web site.

• A "delete all cookies" control button that has been added to the browser's main "Internet options" page to make it easier for users to get rid of cookies.

• New topics that have been added to Internet Explorer's help menu to better answer questions about cookies and their management.

Instruction for cookies control using Internet Explorer --- http://www.scholastic.com/cookies.htm

To accept cookies if you are using a PC running Windows...

Internet Explorer 5 1. Click Tools, and then click Internet Options.

2. Click the Security tab.

3. Click the Internet zone.

4. Select a security level other than High.

-or-

Click Custom Level, scroll to the Cookies section, and then click Enable for both cookie options.

5. Click on Apply.

6. Click on OK.

Other nations, notably in Europe, have placed more severe restrictions on the use of cookies. See http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/21/eu.spam.idg/index.html

An Innovative Cookie Jar

The big question is whether Microsoft will adapt to StealthSurfer or introduce a competitive product for Internet Explorer. My guess is no! We may have to install Netscape once again just to keep pesky cookies off the main hard drive.

"Furtive Surfers Find a Way to Keep Their Travels Secret," by Howard Millman, The New York Times, March 4, 2004 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/technology/circuits/04quie.html

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