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Glossary

Cookie: A small data file that is sent from a web site to a user's browser, where it is stored and sent back to the originating web site during subsequent visits.

Document Object Model (DOM): A W3C standard which allows a programming language to access and manipulate the components of a web page. Often used with JavaScript.

Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML): A reformulation of the properties of HTML in XML. XHTML is gradually replacing HTML; new web pages should be developed in XHTML.

Extensible Markup Language (XML): A simple and flexible dialect of SGML, suitable for use on the World-Wide Web.

Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL): An XML-based language for expressing stylesheets.

JavaScript: A scripting language designed to run in a web browser. Allows web pages to be changed dynamically.

Markup: In computerised document preparation, a method of adding information to the text indicating the logical components of a document, or instructions for layout of the text on the page or other information which can be interpreted by some automatic system.

Persistent Cookie: A cookie that is saved with a user's browser settings for a fixed period of time (sometimes indefinitely.) Can be used to store a user's login information or prefered settings for a particular web site, but also to track users across multiple web sites, e.g., to create profiles for marketing purposes. Most privacy advocates are highly critical of this last use of persistent cookies. (UpstateConsultants.com never uses cookies in this way.)

Portable Document Format (PDF): A proprietary file format by Adobe Systems Inc. that is widely used for printable text documents.

Rich Text Format (RTF): A file format for text documents that presents an application-independent method of encoding formatted text and graphics.

Session: In the context of the World-Wide Web, a series of subsequent interactions between a user (using a web browser) and a web server. After the initial interaction, a unique identifier is assigned to a user, so that a personalized experience can be provided during subsequent interactions within the same sessions. The identifier can be stored in a session cookie or embedded in the URL.

Session Cookie: A cookie that is automatically deleted when a user closes his or her web browser. Is used primarily to provide a personalized user experience during a single session, e.g., electronic shopping carts. Session cookies generally do not present a threat to a user's privacy.

Standardized General Markup Language (SGML): A generic markup language for representing documents. SGML is an international standard that describes the relationship between a document's content and its structure.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL): In the context of the World-Wide Web, a web "address", containing both the name (or numeric identifier) or a web server, as well as an identifier specifying what information is requested from that server.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): The consortium that specifies web standards. [W3C website]

XSL Formatting Objects (XSL-FO, also XSL:FO): A part of XSL that specifies an XML vocabulary for formatting semantics. Used to transform XML documents into PDF or RTF, e.g.

XSL Transformations (XSLT): An XML-based language for transforming XML documents. Used to transform XML documents into HTML or other XML documents, e.g.

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