.GIF
Graphic Interchange File format created by CompuServe. A .GIF file can contain at most 256 unique colors and the compression is not as great as .JPG. The latest version of this format includes many extensions, such as the ability to have a Web browser’s background show through parts of the image (“transparency”), and animation. According to official documentation, the proper pronunciation is “jiff”.

.hqx
File converted from extended characters to a standard ASCII format that can be understood by most computers. Commonly used on the Macintosh platform. See also: .sit

.JPG
Graphics file format created by the Joint Photographers Expert Group. To conserve disk space and transfer time, a JPEG image can be compressed to varying degrees using a “lossy” method (meaning the resulting image is not of the same quality as the original.)

.MOV
File in Quicktime format. Developed by Apple Computer for viewing moving images. See also: .MPG

.MPG
File created in the Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) format. This format is related to .JPG. See also: .JPG, .MPG

.PDF
Portable Document Format. Adobe Acrobat’s format for complex documents, which allows you to create one file which can be viewed on a variety of different computers (even without a web browser) by simply “printing” in a special way.

.QT
See .MOV

.sit
File compressed in the StuffIt format commonly used on Macintosh computers. See also: .hqx

.WAV
File containing an audio sound in Microsoft format. Most commonly used on Windows-based PCs. See also: .AU, RealPlayer

.ZIP
File compressed in the ZIP format commonly used on PCs.

absolute URL
A URL which includes the name of a server, as well as the full path to a document. For instance, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/. See also: relative URL, URL

anonymous FTP
An FTP commection established using the username “anonymous” and the email address of the person making the request as the password. This is the type of connection established by a Web browser by default. See also: FTP

bps
Bits per second. A measure of the speed at which modems and other forms of communication hardware talk to each other.

C, C++
Two flavors of a very popular and flexible programming language.

CGI
The Common Gateway Interface specification, which governs how browsers can request services from Web servers; a format and syntax for passing information via HTML forms and queries. See also: Perl

chat
A service available on computer bulletin boards, on-line services and the Internet that lets users type messages to each other. The messages appear almost instantly on the screens of others participating in the chat session.

DNS
Domain Name Server. A database of Internet names and addresses which translates the names to the official Internet Protocol numbers and vice-versa.

finger
A Unix command that retrieves user information remotely.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol allows the transfer of files from one computer to another. It can be invoked from a commandline using the “ftp” command, or from a Web browser using a URL beginning with the ftp: media type.
See also: anonymous FTP

Gopher
A menu-oriented tool used to locate online resources, Gopher was the precursor to the World Wide Web. Many locations, including MHC, no longer support Gopher.

Home Page
This is the first or main page that a particular site or person has. It allows access to the main areas of the particular subject or topic.

HTML
An acronym for HyperText Markup Language, HTML is the language used to tag various parts of a Web document so browsing software will know how to display its links, text, and graphics. See also: SHTML

HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol. HTTP is used to link and transfer hypertext documents.

image map
A text file which describes what regions of a graphical image are different hypertext links. The term is often used to refer to the graphical image as well.

IMAP
Internet MAil Protocol. A system that allows a user to download email from a host computer. See also: SMTP POP

ISP
Internet Service Provider. A company which gives its subscribers access to the Internet.

Java
A programming language developed by Sun Microsystems. Its major advantage is that it is cross-platform, meaning a program only needs to be written once to run on a number of different computers. See also: JavaScript

JavaScript
A scripting language in which the code is included in the HTML document. See also: Java

JPEG
See .JPG

MPEG
See .MPG

MIME
Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extentions. The standard protocol for sending non-text files via the Internet. It is often used to send compressed files, or images by email.

Perl
A programming language geared toward handling text data. It is often used to create CGI programs for the Web. See also: CGI

POP
Post Office Protocol. A system that allows a user to download email from a host computer. See also: IMAP SMTP

PPP
Point to Point Protocol. A method of Internet connection that enables computers to use phone lines and a modem to connect to the Internet. See also: SLIP

Quicktime
See .MOV

RealPlayer
A commercial product for playing compressed audio and video via the Internet. The audio portion used to be called RealAudio. See also: .AU, .MOV, .MPG, .WAV

relative URL
A URL which refers to a document by using a shortened form of its path, relative to the document containing the URL. For instance, if the file http://www.mtholyoke.edu/marylyon/index.html is to contain a link to http://www.mtholyoke.edu/cic/index.html, it might be made using the relative URL ../cic/index.html. See also: absolute URL, URL

Search Engine
A program that helps users find information in databases of Web pages or other text files.

Shockwave
A commercial Web browser plug-in which allows you to view interactive multimedia files.

SHTML
Scripted HyperText Markup Language. This is a modified version of HTML which includes special commands for performing certain tasks. MHC’s Document Interface uses this. See also: HTML

SLIP
Serial Line Internet Protocol. A method of Internet connection that enables computers to use phone lines and a modem to connect to the Internet. SLIP is not supported at MHC. See also: PPP

SMTP
Simply Mail Transfer. A protocol for transferring email to a remote computer. See also: IMAP POP

Spam
Unsolicited email or newsgroup postings, often consisting of commercial advertising, which is sent to a large number of individuals or newsgroups. (The name is a reference to a sketch by the British comedy troupe Monty Python.)

Telnet
The program used to login from one Internet site to another. Telnet is a way of accessing a text-based environment, and is frequently used on MHC for email access via Pine.

TCP-IP
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The basic protocols programs use when communicating on the Internet.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The addressing system used in the World Wide Web and other Internet resources. The URL contains information about the method of access, the server to be accessed and the path of any file to be accessed. See also: absolute URL, relative URL

Virtual Reality
Computer Generated technology which allows the user to interact with data that gives the appearance of a 3D environment. The user can navigate around a 3D world and interact with objects in that world. See also: VRML

VRML
Virtual Reality Markup Language. The formatting language used to bring interactive 3D animations to the Web. See also: Virtual Reality

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.

Types

There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.

Personal blogs
The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. A type of personal blog is referred to as “microblogging,” which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks to capture a moment in time. Sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing or writing.

Corporate and organizational blogs
A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs. Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called club blogs, group blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.

By genre
Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs,[3][4] fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog.[5][6][7][8][9] While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.

By media type
A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog.[10] Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).

A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.

By device
Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.[11] One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person’s personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.

Origins

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists[62] and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, such as WebEx, created running conversations with “threads.” Threads are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical “corkboard.”

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers,[63] as is Jerry Pournelle.[citation needed] Dave Winer’s Scripting News is also credited with being one of the oldest and longest running weblogs.[64][65] Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person’s personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.

Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of “blogging”. Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software, or on regular web hosting services.

History of HTML

Origins
In 1980, physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who was an independent contractor at CERN, proposed and prototyped ENQUIRE, a system for CERN researchers to use and share documents. In 1989, Berners-Lee and CERN data systems engineer Robert Cailliau each submitted separate proposals for an Internet-based hypertext system providing similar functionality. The following year, they collaborated on a joint proposal, the WorldWideWeb (W3) project,[2] which was accepted by CERN. In his personal notes[3] from 1990 he lists[4], “some of the many areas in which hypertext is used”, and puts an encyclopedia first.
[edit] First specifications

The first publicly available description of HTML was a document called HTML Tags, first mentioned on the Internet by Berners-Lee in late 1991.[5][6] It describes 20 elements comprising the initial, relatively simple design of HTML. Thirteen of these elements still exist in HTML 4.[7]

HTML is a text and image formatting language used by web browsers to dynamically format web pages. Many of the text elements are found in the 1988 ISO technical report TR 9537 Techniques for using SGML, which in turn covers the features of early text formatting languages such as that used by the RUNOFF command developed in the early 1960s for the CTSS (Compatible Time-Sharing System) operating system: these formatting commands were derived from the commands used by typesetters to manually format documents. However the SGML concept of generalized markup is based on elements (nested annotated ranges with attributes) rather than merely point effects, and also the separation of structure and processing: HTML has been progressively moved in this direction with CSS.

Berners-Lee considered HTML to be an application of SGML, and it was formally defined as such by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) with the mid-1993 publication of the first proposal for an HTML specification: “Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)” Internet-Draft by Berners-Lee and Dan Connolly, which included an SGML Document Type Definition to define the grammar.[8] The draft expired after six months, but was notable for its acknowledgment of the NCSA Mosaic browser’s custom tag for embedding in-line images, reflecting the IETF’s philosophy of basing standards on successful prototypes.[9] Similarly, Dave Raggett’s competing Internet-Draft, “HTML+ (Hypertext Markup Format)”, from late 1993, suggested standardizing already-implemented features like tables and fill-out forms.[10]

After the HTML and HTML+ drafts expired in early 1994, the IETF created an HTML Working Group, which in 1995 completed “HTML 2.0″, the first HTML specification intended to be treated as a standard against which future implementations should be based.[9] Published as Request for Comments 1866, HTML 2.0 included ideas from the HTML and HTML+ drafts.[11] There was no “HTML 1.0″; the 2.0 designation was intended to distinguish the new edition from previous drafts.[12]

Further development under the auspices of the IETF was stalled by competing interests. Since 1996, the HTML specifications have been maintained, with input from commercial software vendors, by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).[13] However, in 2000, HTML also became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). The last HTML specification published by the W3C is the HTML 4.01 Recommendation, published in late 1999. Its issues and errors were last acknowledged by errata published in 2001.

Version history of the standard
HTML
HTML.svg

* HTML and HTML5
* Dynamic HTML
* XHTML
* XHTML Mobile Profile and C-HTML
* Character encodings
* Font family
* HTML editor
* HTML element
* HTML scripting
* Layout engine
* Quirks mode
* Style sheets
* Unicode and HTML
* W3C
* Web colors
* Comparison of
o document markup languages
o web browsers
o layout engines for
+ HTML
+ HTML5
+ Non-standard HTML
+ XHTML

This box: view • talk • edit

HTML version timeline

November 1995
HTML 2.0 was published as IETF RFC 1866. Supplemental RFCs added capabilities:

* November 1995: RFC 1867 (form-based file upload)
* May 1996: RFC 1942 (tables)
* August 1996: RFC 1980 (client-side image maps)
* January 1997: RFC 2070 (internationalization)

In June 2000, all of these were declared obsolete/historic by RFC 2854.

January 1997
HTML 3.2[14] was published as a W3C Recommendation. It was the first version developed and standardized exclusively by the W3C, as the IETF had closed its HTML Working Group in September 1996.[15]
HTML 3.2 dropped math formulas entirely, reconciled overlap among various proprietary extensions, and adopted most of Netscape’s visual markup tags. Netscape’s blink element and Microsoft’s marquee element were omitted due to a mutual agreement between the two companies.[13] A markup for mathematical formulas similar to that in HTML wasn’t standardized until 14 months later in MathML.

December 1997
HTML 4.0[16] was published as a W3C Recommendation. It offers three “flavors”:

* Strict, in which deprecated elements are forbidden,
* Transitional, in which deprecated elements are allowed,
* Frameset, in which mostly only frame related elements are allowed;

Initially code-named “Cougar”,[17] HTML 4.0 adopted many browser-specific element types and attributes, but at the same time sought to phase out Netscape’s visual markup features by marking them as deprecated in favor of style sheets.

April 1998
HTML 4.0[18] was reissued with minor edits without incrementing the version number.

December 1999
HTML 4.01[19] was published as a W3C Recommendation. It offers the same three flavors as HTML 4.0, and its last errata were published May 12, 2001.

May 2000
ISO/IEC 15445:2000[20] (“ISO HTML”, based on HTML 4.01 Strict) was published as an ISO/IEC international standard.

As of mid-2008, HTML 4.01 and ISO/IEC 15445:2000 are the most recent versions of HTML. Development of the parallel, XML-based language XHTML occupied the W3C’s HTML Working Group through the early and mid-2000s.

Drafts

October 1991
HTML Tags,[5] an informal CERN document listing twelve HTML tags, was first mentioned in public. November 1992.

July 1993
Hypertext Markup Language[21] was published by the IETF as an Internet-Draft (a rough proposal for a standard). It expired in January 1994.

November 1993
HTML+ was published by the IETF as an Internet-Draft and was a competing proposal to the Hypertext Markup Language draft. It expired in May 1994.

April 1995 (authored March 1995)
HTML 3.0[22] was proposed as a standard to the IETF, but the proposal expired five months later without further action. It included many of the capabilities that were in Raggett’s HTML+ proposal, such as support for tables, text flow around figures, and the display of complex mathematical formulas.[23]

A demonstration appeared in W3C’s own Arena browser. HTML 3.0 did not succeed for several reasons. The pace of browser development, as well as the number of interested parties, had outstripped the resources of the IETF.[13] Netscape continued to introduce HTML elements that specified the visual appearance of documents,[24] contrary to the goals of the newly-formed W3C, which sought to limit HTML to describing logical structure.[25] Microsoft, a newcomer at the time, played to all sides by creating its own tags, implementing Netscape’s elements for compatibility, and supporting W3C features such as Cascading Style Sheets.[13]

January 2008
HTML 5[26] was published as a Working Draft by the W3C.

Although its syntax closely resembles that of SGML, HTML 5 has abandoned any attempt to be an SGML application, and has explicitly defined its own “html” serialization, in addition to an alternative XML-based XHTML 5 serialization. [27]

XHTML versions
Main article: XHTML

XHTML is a separate language that began as a reformulation of HTML 4.01 using XML 1.0. It continues to be developed:

* XHTML 1.0,[28] published January 26, 2000 as a W3C Recommendation, later revised and republished August 1, 2002. It offers the same three flavors as HTML 4.0 and 4.01, reformulated in XML, with minor restrictions.
* XHTML 1.1,[29] published May 31, 2001 as a W3C Recommendation. It is based on XHTML 1.0 Strict, but includes minor changes, can be customized, and is reformulated using modules from Modularization of XHTML, which was published April 10, 2001 as a W3C Recommendation.
* XHTML 2.0,[30] is still a W3C Working Draft. W3C announched that the XHTML 2 group will stop work by end of 2009[31]. There will be no XHTML 2.0 standard. XHTML 2.0 is incompatible with XHTML 1.x and, therefore, would be more accurate to characterize as an XHTML-inspired new language than an update to XHTML 1.x.
* XHTML 5, which is an update to XHTML 1.x, is being defined alongside HTML 5 in the HTML 5 draft.[32]

Social Networking of course is in its infancy, at least to web site traffic generators, so what are the so far under-penetrated benefits of social networking?

•Lower Costs
It is significantly cheaper to employ online social networking strategies than to pay for advertising. When you social network, you can prescreen potential customers. You learn what your prospects like and what they don’t. That personal relationship you gain when you connect with your potential customer is more valuable than what you would get had you advertised. Advertising is impersonal: the “one size fits all” concept does not seem to work anymore.

•Credibility and Trust
Connecting with prospects on a personal level builds trust and credibility. A general rule of thumb is to offer your services, expertise or help before you ask for it. It is acceptable to promote your services when asked. If you’re not careful, your attempts could be considered spam. Instead, wait for the opportunities to present themselves instead of forcing a situation.

It’s Who You Know
When you socialize, you meet others who know others. How are you going to meet the president of a large corporation? You start by talking to his friends. You ask your associates if they know someone who is connected with him And on and on.

Social networking relationships are supposed to benefit both parties. Never take more than you give. When the opportunity presents itself, don’t be afraid to ask your contact to introduce you to a prospect. The old saying rings true: it’s not what you know; it’s who you know.
There are many reasons to employ social networking as a marketing tactic. Ensure that you have extra time to spend. While it’s true that the upfront costs are less, this method takes up a lot of time in research and building relationships.