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Common ICT terms and their meanings: A ADSL - Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line - A form of data communication over standard copper telephone wires between a local telephone subscriber and the telephone exchange, whereby the capacity of the line is increased in bandwidth to enable the carriage of both voice and data simultaneously. The asymmetry of the circuit provides greater down load capacity than up load.
B Blog - A contraction of the term "web log" and is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on particular subjects. Whilst others function as more personal online diaries.
C Closed Source Software – Otherwise known as Proprietary Software - The terms “Closed Source” and "Proprietary Software" are often used to mean computer software which is neither Free nor Open Source. It is terminology for forms of software licensing that is not fully standardized and can be controversial. A literal meaning of "Closed or Proprietary" in relation to software, is that it has a copyright owner who can exercise control over what users can do with their software. This type of software is distributed in a compiled ‘runtime’ form and does not include the source code, making changes impossible. In addition, use of the software carries licensing to the number of users and the content to which they are entitled to use. CRM - Customer relationship management - Is a broadly recognized, widely-implemented strategy for managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with customers and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales related activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new customers, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former customers back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service.
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E ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning - Is a term usually used in conjunction with ERP software or an ERP system which is intended to manage all the information and functions of a business or company from shared data stores. It is a commercial software package that promotes seamless integration of all the information flowing through a company. An ERP system typically has modular hardware and software units and "services" that communicate on a local area network. The modular design allows a business to add or reconfigure modules (perhaps from different vendors) while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed.
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H HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language - Is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms.
I ICT - Information and Communication Technologies - The uses by electronic means by which we communicate, store, manipulate and manage information. The term “Information” is held here in the widest sense and includes all forms of transmitted or file information: Data, Images and Voice, both live and recorded. Internet - The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail. Most traditional communications media, such as telephone and television services, are reshaped or redefined using the technologies of the Internet, giving rise to services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV. Newspaper publishing has been reshaped into Web sites, blogging, and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated the creation of new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking sites.
J Java - Is a computer programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. Java is general-purpose, concurrent, class-based, and object-oriented, and is specifically designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is intended to let application developers "write once, run anywhere". Java is used in many applications and on most devices as a universal code base. Sun relicensed most of their Java technologies under the GNU General Public License as “Open Source” and is free to use.
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L LAN – Local Area Network - Is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings. The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to wide-area networks (WANs), include their usually higher data-transfer rates, smaller geographic area, and lack of a need for telecommunication lines. Importantly they should be held apart from the wide-area network (commonly the Internet) with a firewall router to protect users on the LAN from intrusion and malicious attack. M
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O On Line – A term use generally to mean being connected to and using the Internet via a computer terminal, laptop or other pocket or hand held device. Open Source Software – Computer software that is distributed free together with the un-compiled source code. Use of the software carries little restriction to the content and the number of users. It is a misconception however, to believe that the use is free. Developers gain their income through the development and ongoing support of the software in use and will often use similar pricing to that of closed source developers.
P PHP - A widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. As a general-purpose programming language, PHP code is processed by an interpreter application in command line mode performing desired operating system operations and producing program output on its standard output channel. It may also function as a graphical application. PHP is available as a processor for most modern web servers and as standalone interpreter on almost every operating system and computing platform.mPHP was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 and has been in continuous development ever since. The main implementation of PHP is now produced by The PHP Group and serves as the de facto standard for PHP as there is no formal specification. PHP is free software released under the PHP License, which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License(GPL) because of restrictions on the use of the term PHP.
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S SharePoint - A product produced by the Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft SharePoint, also known as Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies, is a collection of products and software elements and includes, among a growing selection of components: Web browser based collaboration functions, process management modules, search modules and a document-management platform. SharePoint can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces, information stores and documents, as well as host defined applications such as wikis and blogs. All users can manipulate proprietary controls called "web parts" or interact with pieces of content such as lists and document libraries.
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U Utopia – The name given by The ICT Practice for a range of Workspace CRM software constructed from various Open Source PHP modules. These are used to create integrated browser based software for users to collaborate, share information and manage projects and documentation. UBM - Unified Bonded Management - A technology where multiple Internet connections (ADSL, Cable, 3G, ISDN etc) can be bonded together and unified so that the sum total of the connections is available as one large connection.
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W Workspace - Is a term used by software vendors for applications that allow users to exchange and organize files over the Internet. Such applications have several advantages over traditional FTP clients or virtual folder offerings, including:
Beyond organizing and sharing files, these applications can often also be used as a business communication tool for assigning tasks, scheduling meetings, and maintaining contact information. Wiki - Pronounced “WIK-ee” is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative websites, to power community websites, for personal note taking, in corporate intranets, and in knowledge management systems.
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