528 GlossaryGlossary
Web Design in a Nutshell, eMatter EditionASP
Active Server Pages; the part of Microsoft’s Internet Information Server soft-
ware that allows server-side scripting for the creation of dynamically
generated web pages and database functions. Web pages created with ASP
commonly have the suffix.asp.
audio bit depth
The number of bits used to define the resolution of the amplitude (or volume)
of a digital audio waveform—the more bits, the more accurate the rendering
of the original audio source, and the larger the resulting audio file.
Some common bit depths are 8-bit (which sounds thin or tinny, like a tele-
phone signal) and 16-bit, which is required to describe music of CD quality.
AVI
Audio/Video Interleaved; a digital video format developed by Microsoft in
which audio and video information are interleaved in every frame for
smoother playback.
binary files
Files made up of compiled data (ones and zeros), such as executable
programs, graphic images, movies, etc. Some programs refer to the binary
mode as “raw data” or “image data.”
CGI
Common Gateway Interface; the mechanism for communication between the
web server and other programs (CGI scripts) running on the server.
character entities
Strings of characters used to specify characters not found in the normal alpha-
numeric character set in HTML documents.
character set
An organization of characters—units of a written language system—in which
each character is assigned a specific number.
client
A software application that extracts services from a server somewhere on the
network. A web browser is a client that renders and displays documents on
remote servers.
CLUT
Color Look Up Table; a list of colors and associated index numbers used to
render eight-bit images.
CMYK
Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black—the four ink colors used in process printing. Not
appropriate for generating web graphics. (RGB is the color mode for web
graphics.)
codec
Compression/decompression algorithms applied to media files.
CSS
Cascading Style Sheets; an addition to HMTL for controlling presentation of a
document, including color, typography, alignment of text and images, etc.