#31 - Computer Speak for Artists

Computer Speak for Artists

By Chris Maher

If you’ve been online for a while, you probably don’t notice all the strange words, abbreviations and acronyms that fill the Internet. But for those crafts people and artists that are just starting out, "Techno Speak" can be an intimidating barrier to designing and promoting a successful online gallery.

Fortunately, the net is full of resources to help folks get up to speed on what all those weird terms and acronyms mean.

The ILC Glossary of Internet Terms web site (http://www.matisse.net/files/glossary.html#I) is fun to browse, well written, and captures the feeling of the terms as well as their meanings. It’s not comprehensive, but a great starting point.

PC Webopaedia (http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/) declares itself to be the #1 online encyclopedia and search engine dedicated to computer technology. Indeed, Webopaedia is a fine search engine, with many features and links to resources. Like a popular music radio station it even has a list that tracks the top 15 terms that people are asking about. (Modem, cache, CPU, HTML, HTTP, Ethernet, router, Internet, Java, SCSI, BIOS, TCP/IP, RAM, cookie and FTP, if you were curious). It defined every term that I entered, even the short hand acronym ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing).

The Dictionary of PC Hardware and Data Communications Terms is a detailed book by Mitchell Shnier. (ISBN: 1-56592-158-5) You can visit the books web site (http://www.ora.com/reference/dictionary/) and search for any term in the dictionary. A good place to find out the difference between RAM and RAID.

For more advanced users, The New Hacker's Dictionary site has a complete jargon file at http://earthspace.net/jargon/. This is a language unto itself and certainly not required reading for your average artist.

You don’t have to be a newbie (one who is new to the online world) to bookmark these resources. Even after working online for fourteen years I scratch my head over the jargon that surrounds technologies like GbEthernet (the new super high speed networking protocol just ratified by the IEEE, that is, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers).

And IMHO (in my humble opinion) we all have to stop and think when we come across some of the stranger short hand acronyms that are used in newsgroups and on mailing lists.

I hope you find these sites helpful, as always, let me know what you think.

This page last updated: 09/02/04

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