Jargon Buster

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium is a web industry co-operative that publishes web content accessibility guidelines to make web content accessible to people with disabilities

WAN

Wide Area Network is a group of networks, or more properly Local Area Network (LANs), connected together

WAP

Wireless Application Protocol enables access to advanced digital communications and internet over a mobile phone network

Web

Also known as the world wide web or WWW. The web is a collection of online documents housed on server computers around the world, and forms the most visible and easily accessible part of the internet. These are accessed via a web browser. Web pages typically feature text, graphics and photographs, and often video and audio clips. Each page or site has its own distinctive URL or 'address'. This is usually prefixed by the letters www, standing for world wide web.

Web browser

A software program developed for navigating the internet, particularly the world wide web. The two most common browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator typing in its address.

Web Server

is a program that serves files in order to form web pages. Every computer on the Internet that hosts a web site must have a web server

Web space

An area of disk space on an internet server. This may be on your own machine or rented from an Internet Service Provider. This space can then be used to store web pages for display on the internet.

Web-authoring program

A piece of software designed to make it easier to create a web page or site. Often with sophisticated functions built in, such programs create the HTML code automatically and allow you to concentrate on the design of the site. Examples include Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Webcam

A video camera designed to connect to your PC. It can be used to record video clips which you can send by email, or to transmit images directly over the internet for video-conferencing.

Webcast

is using the Internet to broadcast live or delayed audio and/or video transmissions, much like traditional television and radio broadcasts. Users typically must have the appropriate multimedia application in order to view a Webcast

Webpage

a single page accessible on the internet

Webring

A loose collective of websites run by enthusiasts that focus on a particular subject and link to each other.

Website

is a collection of web files accessible on the internet

Wildcard

A character that can be subsituted for one or more characters in a web search, much like the blank tile in Scrabble.

Wizard

An automated online 'assistant' designed to guide you, step-by-step, through a potentially complex process such as faxing, creating a template or changing software options.

WordPad

A basic word-processing program included with Windows. It has few sophisticated features but can be used for simple documents without problems. To find it, click on Start/Accessories/WordPad.

Workbook

A spreadsheet file. In spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel and Lotus 1-2-3, each workbook by default contains several different worksheets or pages of data. It is possible to link the figures on one sheet to those on another, allowing very complex calculations.

Workgroup

A team of people who work together on a task. All of the members of the team use computers connected to a network, which allows them to share files, schedule meetings and send emails between their PCs.

Worksheet

A single page of data within a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3. Worksheets can be combined into a workbook, allowing each sheet to access, and make calculations using, the figures on another worksheet.

WSDL

The Web Services Description Language (WSDL) is an XML format published for describing Web services. Version V 1.1 has not been endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), however it has released a draft for version 2.0 on May 11, 2005, that will be a W3C recommendation, and thus endorsed by the W3C.

It is commonly abbreviated as WSDL in technical literature and is usually pronounced wiz-dell.

WSDL describes the public interface to the web service. This is an XML-based service description on how to communicate using the web service; namely, the protocol bindings and message formats required to interact with the web services listed in its directory. The supported operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format.

WSDL is often used in combination with SOAP and XML Schema to provide web services over the internet. A client program connecting to a web service can read the WSDL to determine what functions are available on the server. Any special datatypes used are embedded in the WSDL file in the form of XML Schema. The client can then use SOAP to actually call one of the functions listed in the WSDL.

WWW

World Wide Web is all the recourses and users on the internet

WYSIWYG

What You See Is What You Get