What is the Semantic Web?
Internet
Semantic means the meaning of. It has to do with what things mean. So the semantic of something is the meaning of that thing.
To human eyes the meaning of a link on the web might be self explanatory. It might be obvious that that a link to “What is The Big Web FAQ?” is going to take you to a definition of this site.
To a computer however, it is just a bunch of letters in the same way that Chinese is just a bunch of symbols to an Englishman.
The Semantic Web is where relationships such as links, are defined in a way that a computer can understand. In the previous example the simple word “definition” would tell a computer that the link takes us to a definition of what this website is about.
More than just links, the Semantic Web describes the relationships between things such as time, weight, distance, definition, popularity. Anything really.
What is a Web Bot?
Internet
A Web Bot or Web Robot is a bit of software that indexes websites for search engines such as Google or Bing. They read a page indexing it’s content. They then follow links form that page and index any other pages they can find.
Once a page has been “crawled” it is then made available on the search engine.
Also known as Web crawlers or Web spiders.
What is an E-book?
Software
E-book is short for electronic book. They are also called ebooks and digital books.
They are simply electronic versions of real books which use devices such as a PC, mobile phone and e-book readers (e-readers) to read them.
E-books come in many file formats but many use HTML as the language used to describe the document.
There is no definitive E-book format which can cause problems if you ever change e-reader.
What types of images are used on the web?
Design
Due to the limitations on files sizes used on the web thanks to downloading speeds, images need to be highly compressed to make them as small (in file size) as possible. A raw, uncompressed photo for example can be many megabytes in size, but when converted to a JPEG, be only kilobytes with little noticeable difference to the eye. For this reason only highly compressed image formats are used on the web.
Some image formats are static. Others can be animated. In the case of Flash and Silverlight, they can even have sound and video. The line between and image and movie is somewhat blurred when it comes to rich media formats such as Flash and Silverlight.
There are two types of image used on the web.
The common bitmaps are:
The common vector types are:
- SVG
- Flash
- Silverlight
What is a GIF file?
Design
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format.
GIF files or GIFs are an image file format commonly used on the internet. They are bitmap graphics and better suited to images with blocky colour and simple shapes and sharp edges, whereas a JPG bitmap graphic would be better suited photography and subtle shading.
They are also restricted to a palette of only 256 colours but do have other advantages over the JPG alternative which are lossless compression and animation.
When a GIF is compressed it does not lose any quality. This leads to less compression than a JPG can achieve.
In general GIF animations are short and simple due to the large file size but they are still very popular even with modern video alternatives. They do not store any sound data so GIF animations are always silent.
What is a Bitmap Graphic?
Design
Bitmap graphics, or just bitmaps, are image files that are built up using rows upon rows of coloured dots. They are also known as raster graphics.
These dots are called pixels. They are the bits in bitmap.
Common file formats for bitmaps are JPEG, GIF and PNG. These are all bitmaps but use alternative methods for compressing the data.
The alternative to bitmap graphics are vector graphics which use shapes rather than dots to define an image. Using bitmaps you can get a much more realistic image than a vector graphic, with all the shading and colour variations you would get in a photo. The downside however is that the image can’t be resized without losing quality. If you shrink it, it loses dots and loses that data forever. If you enlarge it, it just looks pixilated (each dot becomes a larger square).
When you take a photo using your digital camera, the data is stored in a long row of dots. These are the dots you then see on the screen as an overall image.
What is a Vector Graphic?
Design
A vector graphic is an image type that uses shapes to produce an overall image. Such files are built up using simple, coloured shapes/geometry to create an image.
Since they are based on mathematical formula they can be resized at will without the loss of quality seen with bitmap graphics.
SVG files are vector graphics. Flash and also Silverlight also use vector graphics.
What is an SVG file?
Design
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files are a type of vector graphics image file. They use the XML format to define shapes and colours.
As a vector graphic it is a scalable (set to any size) alternative to JPEG, GIF and PNG bitmap formats.
SVG images can be both, static or animated and are seen as an open standard alternative to Flash (Adobe) and Silverlight (Microsoft).
The format has been held back by the web browser Internet Explorer not supporting the file format until version 9.
What are Hostnames?
Internet
Hostnames are Domain Names with at least one IP address. For example www.bigwebfaqcom and bigwebfaq.com are hostnames as they refer to the IP address of this website.
com on the other hand is not a Hostname.
What is a Subdomain?
Internet
In a domain name, a Subdomain is anything that comes before the TLD (Top Level Domain).
For example in www.bigwebfaq.com both www and bigwebfaq are subdomains although the right most subdomain is normally referred to as the Second Level Domain Name.
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