What are/ is a?

Server
A server is a computer programme that is used to provide services to other computer programmes and person using them in the same or other computers. The actual computer that runs a server programme can also be referred to as a server. Using a server means that services can be supplied centrally, otherwise machines that are on a network of the same status that have no dedicated server and services are supplied via peer to peer.

Browser
Web browsers are software applications that allow the user to interact and display text, videos, music, games, and other information typically located on a web page on the World Wide Web or a local network area. Because many sites have hyperlinks to images and text that are the same a user can quickly and easily access information provided on web pages by traversing these links.

Flash
Flash is a popular method for adding animations and interaction to web pages in the form of games, animations and customisation of backgrounds etc. Flash is used to integrate video onto web pages to develop internet applications. It is commonly used across the internet to create advertisements. Flash is able to support video and audio streaming and uses vector and raster graphics.

ASP
Action Server Pages is a server-side script engine that is used to dynamically generate web pages. It has become a free component of Windows server. ASP’s work via various built-in objects. These objects correspond to groups of frequently used functions that are useful for creating dynamic web pages.

PHP
PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. It has evolved to include a command line interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications. PHP runs on a web server and takes it own code as its input to create web pages.

CGI
A common gateway interface is a standard for interfacing external applications with information servers such as HTTP. CGI programmes are executed in real time which allows it to output dynamic information.

URL
To specify where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it a Uniform Resource Locator is used. A resource can be something as simple as a file or directory, or it can be a reference to a more complicated object such as a query to a database or to a search engine.

CSS
Cascading style sheets is a simple way to add fonts, colours, spacing to web documents. It is used to describe the presentation of a document written in a mark-up language. It is commonly used to style web pages written in HTML. It is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content from document presentation which can result in improved content accessibility and can provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation styles.

DHTML
DHTML stands for Dynamic HTML. DHTML is not a language or a web standard. DHTML is a term used to describe the technologies used to make web pages dynamic and interactive. Dynamic HTML describes the combination of HTML, style sheets and scripts that allows documents to be animated. DHTML allows scripting languages to change variables in a web page’s definition language. This affects the look and function of the HTML page content.

Shockwave
Shockwave is a multimedia player that allows Adobe Director Applications to be published on the internet. In turn these can be viewed in a web browser by anyone who has the Shockwave plug-in installed into their computer. Shockwave is often used in game development where a rich graphical environment is required.

W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium develops technologies that allow the web to be used to its full potential. The W3C is an industry consortium that seeks to promote higher standard of evolution of the web. All products created by the W3C are free and is funded by industrial members.

Plug-in
A plug-in is a computer programme that interacts with a host application to provide a function. Plug-ins are supported by applications to reduce the size of applications as well as allow third party developers to create capabilities to extend an application. Examples of plug-ins include Rockbox- a firmware for digital audio players to play games and use a text editor, and graphics software such as Adobe Photoshop to support file formats and process images.