Glossary / FAQ
Affiliate Code — the code given to an affiliate by an affiliate sponsor to uniquely identify the affiliate. When a sale is made, the affiliate code tells the sponsor where the sale originated.
Affiliate Program — An advertising arrangement by which an affiliate sponsor puts advertising on an external website, and pays the owner (affiliate) of the site based on sales of the product or service advertised.
Affiliate Sponsor – a firm that advertises on an external website, but only pays a commission based on actual sales.
Applet — A sort of “mini program” that runs within a web page, or some other larger application.
Beta — Software manufacturers often release packages, suites, games, or other software to a limited number of early adopters in order to get feedback and to identify bugs before releasing to the general public.
Boot — Also called “booting up.” This is simply starting a computer, and all the processes that get loaded into RAM during the procedure.
Comment System — A piece of programming — usually in the form of a plugin — that attaches to a website, a blog, or any form of CMS and allows for visitors, contributors, and users to leave comments.
Content Management System — Abbr: CMS. A system, plugin, or website that separates the design, participation, and content in a way that makes it easier for the creator to present material to his or her audience.
CSS — Cascading Style sheet. CSS files are global files that control the look and feel of an entire website. The beauty of CSS is that it sets parameters one time, rather than forcing the author to set parameters every single time a new element or page is created. For instance, if you have created a blog, you can tell the CSS file that you want the text to be a certain way all the time, and you don’t have to declare it over and over every time you create a new article. Then, if you do want to change your text for a certain article, you can do it once, and it will override your CSS file just for that instance. The CSS file basically allows you to declare your rules once, and forget them. Well, almost forget about them. Nothing is that easy, unfortunately.
Early Adopter — A technology user who adopts new innovations and advances far more quickly than the average person. Developers, software engineers, and systems analysts (among man other groups) are considered early adopters.
Earnings Per Click — Abbr: EPC. The average amount paid in commission by an affiliate sponsor to an advertiser per click. Calculated as the Amount paid, divided by the number of clicks.
Gigabyte — Abbr: GB. One-billion bytes.
Hyperlink — Also known simply as a “link.” This is the (normally) highlighted text on a web page linking to another page.
JavaScript — Perhaps the most popular scripting language on the internet, JavaScript is used to create applets within web pages.
Megabyte — Abbr: MB. One-million bytes.
Page Rank — Abbr: PR. This is your rank on the search engine results page (SERP). In other words, if someone does a search, and your site comes up in that search, your page rank is your rank on that page (first, second, third, et cetera).
RAM — Random Access Memory. This is the memory your computer uses when it is running programs. The more RAM your computer has, the faster programs will run.
RSS Feed — RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” and despite what you might think, it is actually very easy to use. Simply click on the RSS icon or link. That will bring up a new window or tab. All you have to do is highlight the URL (the URL is the line in the bar of your browser that starts with “http://www…”), copy it, and paste it into the “Add feed” area in your RSS reader. There are many, many RSS readers out there, including Google Reader, Netvibes.com, and Bloglines. If you want to create a page that contains all your RSS feeds, all you have to do is sign up online (Google Reader for example) or configure the appropriate application (Outlook, Mac Mail, Thunderbird, et cetera). For more information, you can easily search Google, and it will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about RSS feeds!
Search Engine Optimization – Abbr: SEO. The art and science of maximizing the exposure of one’s site on search engines. Less science, more art.
Search Engine Results Page — Abbr: SERP. This is the page on which you appear in any given search engine. In other words, if someone does a search for something, and your page comes up in that search, the SERP is the number of the page on which you appear.
Slug — A browser friendly string of text that points to a not-so-browser-friendly string of text. For instance, an article’s title may “Inflation Seen Just Around the Corner,” which a URL can’t use. Instead, a slug is created — something like inflation-seen-just-around-the-corner — which refers back to the article. It would look something like this: http://www.bottomviolation.com/inflation-seen-just-around-the-corner.
Terabyte — Abbr: TB. One-trillion bytes.
URL — Universal Resource Link. This is the path you type into your web browser that starts with “http://” For instance, http://www.MyTechTool.com is a URL.
Virtualization — Virtualization suites allow one computer two run two or more different operating systems — like Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.
Volume – Any hard drive or backup drive — whether physical or virtual.
