A/B Testing

Creating two versions of creative content (eg: advert, an email, an image, a landing page) to test against each other in a campaign to see which one your audience responds better to.

AAA

Authentication, Authorization and Accounting, a system in IP-based networking to control what computer resources user have access to and to keep track of the activity of users over a network.

• Authentication is the process of identifying an individual, usually based on a username and password. Authentication is based on the idea that each individual user will have unique information that sets him or her apart from other users.
• Authorization is the process of granting or denying a user access to network resources once the user has been authenticated through the username and password. The amount of information and the amount of services the user has access to depend on the user's authorization level.
• Accounting is the process of keeping track of a user's activity while accessing the network resources, including the amount of time spent in the network, the services accessed while there and the amount of data transferred during the session. Accounting data is used for trend analysis, capacity planning, billing, auditing and cost allocation.

AAA services often require a server that is dedicated to providing the three services. RADIUS is an example of an AAA service.

AARP

AppleTalk Address Resolution Protocol, is a way to map between the physical hardware addresses of computers, such as those known to an Ethernet or Token Ring local area network, and their temporarily assigned AppleTalk network addresses.

AAUI

Apple Attachment Unit Interface, is the 14- or 15-PIN port or connection interface on earlier models of Macintosh computers that allowed it to be connected by a short interface cable to an Ethernet cable.

ABEND

(1) abnormal end of task. It refers to software crashes or lossage. Derives from an error message on the IBM 360.

(2) Absent By Enforced Net Deprivation. Sent in e-mail subject lines warning friends and others of forced loss of Internet access (due to moving, network outages, or illness).

Above the fold

The part of the page you can see without scrolling down or over. The exact amount of space will vary by viewer because of screen settings. You often pay a premium for advertisement placements above the fold, which will add to the costs of internet marketing services but may also add to results.

ACAP

Application Configuration Access Protocol, an e-mail protocol being developed by the IETF to complement IMAP4. ACAP supports related e-mail services such as subscribing to BBS, and organising and searching mailboxes and address books. ACAP was previously known as IMSP (Interactive Mail Support Protocol).

Accelerator

A financial backer who helps speed up the process, development and growth of an internet start-up.

Access Log

A list of data concerning visits made to a Website which can be analysed and which can provide the owners of the site with information about them.

ACD

Automatic Call Distributor, a telephone facility that handles incoming calls and manages them based on a database of handling instructions.

ACL

Access Control List, a set of data that informs a computer's operating system which permissions, or access rights, that each user or group has to a specific system object, such as a directory or file. Each object has a unique security attribute that identifies which users have access to it, and the ACL is a list of each object and user access privileges such as read, write or execute.

Active Matrix Display

A type of flat-panel display in which the screen is refreshed more frequently than in conventional passive-matrix displays. The most common type of active-matrix display is based on a technology known as TFT. The two terms, active matrix and TFT, are often used interchangeably.

ActiveX

A loosely defined set of technologies developed by Microsoft. ActiveX is an outgrowth of two other Microsoft technologies called OLE and COM. As a moniker, ActiveX can be very confusing because it applies to a whole set of COM-based technologies. Most people, however, think only of ActiveX controls, which represent a specific way of implementing ActiveX technologies.

ACTS

Automated Computer Time Service.

ADB

Apple Desktop Bus, a type of communications pathway built into all pre-G4 versions of the Apple Macintosh computer since the SE (except the iMac and the ibook). It is used to connect low-speed input devices such as the keyboard and mouse. ADB ports are designated with the icon. A single ADB port can support as many as 16 simultaneous input devices.

ADSL

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, is a new technology that allows more data to be sent over existing telephone lines POTS It supports from 1.5 to 9 Mbps receiving data and 16 to 640 Kbps sending. It requires a special ADSL modem.

ADSP

AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol, is a session-level protocol that provides symmetric, connection-oriented, full-duplex communication between two sockets on the Appletalk internet.

Adware

Software that is distributed free of charge, but includes advertisement banners to defray development and distribution expenses.

AEP

AppleTalk Echo Protocol, provides an echo service to AppleTalk hosts. It can specify up to 585 bytes of data for an echo transaction.

AES

Advanced Encryption Standard.

AFIS

Automated Fingerprint Identification System, is a biometric identification methodology that uses digital imaging technology to obtain, store, and analyse fingerprint data.

Aggregate Data

Data that details how a group of consumers interacts with your marketing efforts or websites.

AGI

Artificial General Intelligence is the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can.

AGP

Accelerated Graphics Port, is an interface specification developed by Intel.  SIZE="2">AGP is based on PCI, but is designed especially for the throughput demands of 3-D graphics. Rather than using the PCI bus for graphics data, AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel so that the graphics controller can directly access main memory. The AGP channel is 32 bits wide and runs at 66MHz. This translates into a total bandwidth of 266MBps, as opposed to the PCI bandwidth of 133MBps. AGP also supports two optional faster modes, with throughputs of 533MBps and 1.07GBps. In addition, AGP allows 3-D textures to be stored in main memory rather than video memory.

AI

Artificial Intelligence.

AIFF

Audio Interchange File Format. An Apple Mac sound file format.

Airdrop

AirDrop is a proprietary wireless ad hoc service in Apple's iOS and macOS operating systems, which can transfer files among supported Macintosh computers and iOS devices by means of close-range wireless communication.

AJAX

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX is a technique for creating fast and dynamic web pages. AJAX allows web pages to be updated asynchronously by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes.

ALCF

Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, is a national scientific user facility that provides supercomputing resources and expertise to the scientific and engineering community to accelerate the pace of discovery and innovation in a broad range of disciplines.

ALGOL

ALGOrithmic Language, is one of several high level languages designed specifically for programming scientific computations.

Algorithm

In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is a finite sequence of well-defined, computer-implementable instructions, typically to solve a class of problems or to perform a computation.

Altair

The world's first personal computer to attract a substantial number of users.  The first Altairs shipped without an operating system with an Intel 8080 processor (the first 8-bit chip) on the CPU card, 256 bytes of memory, and toggle and switch LED panels on the front. In general, the buyer didn't know how the computer might be used or what it might be able to do (simple games and mathematical problems, as it turned out). There was no keyboard or application software: data was input by manipulating switches on the front for each bit.

AM

Additive Manufacturing, is the industrial production name for 3D printing, a computer controlled process that creates three dimensional objects by depositing materials, usually in layers.

AMIS

Audio Messaging Interchange Specification, is a standard used in voice and call processing. It enables the transmission of voicemail messages between voicemail systems of different vendors. Prior to the Audio Messaging Interchange Specification, devices made by different manufacturers could not communicate with each other.

AMP

Accelerated Mobile Pages, are essentially stripped down HTML copies of existing webpage content that offer faster load times than standard HTML5 documents.

Anchor

(1) In desktop publishing, to fix a graphical object so that its position relative to some other object remains the same during repagination. Frequently, for example, you may want to anchor a picture next to a piece of text so that they always appear together.

(2) A component of a hyperlink. Properly formatted hyperlinks are a source anchor which leads to a destination anchor.

Android

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

Annie

Web page that has not been updated for a long time.

Angel

A wealthy businessman who invests in start-up companies.

ANSI

American National Standards Institute, was founded in 1918. It is a voluntary organisation with over 1300 members that creates standards for the computer industry.

AOT Compilation

In computer science, ahead-of-time compilation is the act of compiling a higher-level programming language into a lower-level language before execution of a program, usually at build-time, to reduce the amount of work needed to be performed at run time.

AP

Access Point. A hardware device or a computer's software that acts as a communication hub for users of a wireless device to connect to a wired LAN. APs are important for providing heightened wireless security and for extending the physical range of service a wireless user has access to.

API

Application Program Interface. Enables programmers to write applications that can interact with other applications by providing all the necessary building blocks.

APIPA

Automatic Private IP Addressing. Part of Windows-based Operating Systems that enables a computer to assign itself an IP address when a DHCP server is not connactable to to this.

APL

(1) A Programming Language.
(2) Address Programming Language.

APNIC

Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, one of three non-profit organisations that register and administer IP addresses. APNIC serves the Asia Pacific region, which consists of 62 economies.

APPC

Advanced Program-to-Program Communications. Also known as LU 6.2 and based on IBM's SNA. APPC is a communication protocol that transaction programs in a distributed computing environment can use to talk to each other. Using APPC, interconnected systems can communicate and share the processing of programs. It consists of two interfaces: programming and data-exchange. The programming interface replies to requests from programs requiring communication; the data-exchange interface establishes sessions between programs. APPC is an open standard and is supported on most platforms.

APPN

Advanced Peer-to-Peer Network.

Appleshare

An Apple Computer communications protocol, needed for sharing and exchanging files on a network with Apple computers and printers.

Applet

A program designed to be executed from within another application. Unlike an application, applets cannot be executed directly from the operating system. With the growing popularity of OLE, applets are becoming more prevalent. A well-designed applet can be invoked from many different applications. Web browsers, which are often equipped with Java virtual machines, can interpret applets from Web servers. Because applets are small in files size, cross-platform compatible, and highly secure (can't be used to access users' hard drives), they are ideal for small Internet applications accessible from a browser.

Appletalk

AppleTalk is a set of local area network communication protocols originally created for Apple computers.

AR

Augmented Reality, is an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information.

Archangel

An extremely wealthy businessman who invests in start-ups.

Archie

An Archie site is an index for locating software and documents stored on ftp sites. Users can scan the contents of countless FTP sites.

ARIN

American Registry for Internet Numbers. ARIN, founded in 1997, is a non-profit organization that registers and administers IP numbers for North and South America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. ARIN is one of three Internet registries.

ARP

Address Resolution Protocol. This is a protocol able to convert an IP address into an Ethernet address.  It is possible to find a host's Ethernet address by broadcasting an ARP packet containing that host's Internet address.  This propts the return of the Ethernet address.

ARPANet

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, was the precursor to the Internet. Started in 1969, funded by the Pentagon. It finally closed in 1990.

Array

Array or Array Data Structure, in computer science, is a data structure consisting of a collection of elements, each identified by at least one array index or key. An array is stored such that the position of each element can be computed from its index tuple by a mathematical formula.

ARU

Automatic Release Update.

ASA

Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate, is a thermoplastic that combines mechanical strength, UV resistance and water resistance.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127.

ASP

1. Active Server Pages. Microsoft's system for creating dynamic web pages, i.e. pages where the content is generated on request, such as from a database query.

2. Application Service Provision. A new system which leases applications (such as word processors and spreadsheets) to the user over the internet on a usage basis rather than requiring the user to buy the package outright.

ASPI

Advanced SCSI Programming Interface, an interface specification developed by Adaptec, Inc. for sending commands to a SCSI host adapter. ASPI has become a de facto standard that enables programmers to develop applications and drivers that work with all ASPI-compatible SCSI adapters.

Assembler

An assembler is a type of computer program that interprets software programs written in assembly language into machine language, code and instructions that can be executed by a computer.

Assembly Language

An assembly language is a low-level programming language for microprocessors and other programmable devices. It is not just a single language, but rather a group of languages. Also known as assembly code.

ATA

Advanced Technology Attachment, a disk drive implementation that integrates the controller on the disk drive itself. There are several versions of ATA, all developed by the Small Form Factor (SFF) Committee:

• ATA: Known also as IDE, supports one or two hard drives, a 16-bit interface and PIO modes 0, 1 and 2.
• ATA-2: Supports faster PIO modes (3 and 4) and multiword DMA modes (1 and 2). Also supports LBA and block transfers. ATA-2 is marketed as Fast ATA and EIDE.
• ATA-3: Minor revision to ATA-2.
• Ultra-ATA: Also called Ultra-DMA, ATA-33, and DMA-33, supports multiword DMA mode 3 running at 33 MBps.
• ATA/66: A new version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that will double ATA's throughput to 66 MBps.

ATAPI

ATtachment PAcket Interface. An upgrade to EIDE which allows the hard disk controller to control CD drives as well. Almost all CD drives are controlled this way.

AtoM

Any Transport Over MPLS. A technology developed by Cisco for transporting Layer 2 packets over an IP/MPLS | backbone. The technology is designed to let ISPs combine multiple disparate data networks -- such as Ethernet, ATM, Frame Relay, and Serial/PPP networks -- onto a single MPLS-based backbone to save operational costs.

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode, is a network technology based on transferring data in packets of a fixed size. The packets used are relatively small compared to units of older technology. This enables ATM equipment to transmit video, audio, and computer data over the same network. Current implementations of ATM support data transfer of 25 to 622 Mbps.

AUI

Attachment Unit Interface, the portion of the Ethernet standard that specifies how a cable is to be connected to an Ethernet card. AUI specifies a coaxial cable connected to a transceiver that plugs into a 15-pin socket on the network interface card (NIC).

AUP

Acceptable Use Policy. Also known as TOS (Terms of Service). A contract specifying what a subscriber can and cannot do while using an ISP's service. Contains things like liability disclaimers, lists of actions or behavior that will result in the termination of a customers account, definition of terms such as "unlimited use," billing policies, SPAM clauses, etc.

Authentication

The process of identifying an individual, usually based on a username and password. In security systems, authentication is distinct from authorisation , which is the process of giving individuals access to system objects based on their identity. Authentication merely ensures that the individual is who he or she claims to be, but says nothing about the access rights of the individual.

Avatar

1. A graphical icon that represents a real person in a cyberspace system. When you enter the system, you can choose from a number of fanciful avatars. Sophisticated 3D avatars even change shape depending on what they are doing (e.g., walking, sitting, etc.).
2. A common name for the superuser account on UNIX systems. The other common name is root.

AVI

Audio Video Interleave, the file format for Microsoft's Video for Windows standard.

AWK

An interpreted programming language that is included in most versions of UNIX. The language is particularly designed for filtering and manipulating textual data. In this respect, it is similar to Perl, though Perl is more powerful.