PawPrint.net Glossary of Terms

The full name for the commonly abbreviated Blog (so common is the use of Blog that few now even know the derivation)

A generic name for various kinds of dynamic random access memory: DRAM that are synchronized with the clock speed that the microprocessor is optimized for. This tends to increase the number of instructions that the processor can perform in a given time. The speed of SDRAM is rated in MHz rather than in nanoseconds (ns). This makes it easier to compare the bus speed and the RAM chip speed. You can convert the RAM clock speed to nanoseconds by dividing the chip speed into 1 billion ns (which is on...

Abbreviated as PDL, a language for describing the layout and contents of a printed page. The best-known PDLs are Adobe PostScript and Hewlett-Packard PCL (Printer Control Language), both of which are used to control laser printers.

Both PostScript and modern versions of PCL are object-oriented, meaning that they describe a page in terms of geometrical objects such as lines, arcs, and circles.

A protocol developed to enable the transfer of files across a network. It provides a reletively insecure username and password  security but has been more recently enhanced to allow for SSL encryption to provide a secure password exchange.

To some extent the use of FTP has been superceeded by SFTP (a component of SSH) or the secure file transfer protocol.

A lens of variable focal length. For example, in an 50-500mm Zoom Lens, the focal length can be vaired between the lower limit of 50mm and the upper of 500mm. This affects the scale of the image on which the lens is focused without throwing the image out of focus.

A tree of objects with interfaces for traversing the tree and writing an XML version of it, as defined by the W3C specification.