PC.net

PC Glossary

Definitions of Computer and Internet Terms

Computer Terms Beginning with "W"

W3C W3C is short for "World Wide Web Consortium." The W3C is an international organization that develops Web standards...
WAIS Stands for "Wide Area Information Server." This is a program that can index enormous amounts of information and make...
WAN Stands for "Wide Area Network." It is similar to a Local Area Network (LAN), but it's a lot bigger. Unlike LANs, WANs...
Warm Boot A warm boot or "soft boot" means to restart a computer. It is often used in contrast to a "cold boot," which refers to...
Waveform A waveform is an image that represents an audio signal or recording. It shows the changes in amplitude over a certain...
Web 2.0 Web 2.0 is a term that was introduced in 2004 and refers to the second generation of the World Wide Web. The term...
Web Browser You are probably using a browser to read this right now. A Web browser, often just called a "browser," is the program...
Web Host In order to publish a website online, you need a Web host. The Web host stores all the pages of your website and makes...
Web Ring A Web ring is a way of interlinking related Web sites so that people can visit many similar Web sites by just following...
Webcam The term webcam is a combination of "Web" and "video camera." The purpose of a webcam is, not surprisingly, to...
Webmail There are two primary ways of checking your e-mail – using an e-mail program like Microsoft Outlook or with a...
Webmaster The webmaster is the person in charge of maintaining a Web site. The jobs of a webmaster include writing HTML for Web...
Webpage Web pages are what make up the World Wide Web. These documents are written in HTML (hypertext markup language) and are...
Website A website, or Web site, is not the same thing as a Web page. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they...
WEP Stands for "Wired Equivalent Privacy." WEP is a security protocol for Wi-Fi networks. Since wireless networks...
White Balance White balance is a setting available on most digital cameras and camcorders that defines how the color white should...
White Paper This term has historically been used to describe a report that states the social or political position of an...
WHOIS WHOIS is an Internet service that finds information about a domain name or IP address. If you enter a domain name in a...
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi is a wireless networking standard trademarked by the Wi-Fi Alliance. It refers to all networking equipment that...
Widget Widgets are small programs designed for the Mac OS X Dashboard. Some widgets included with Mac OS X include a...
Wiki A wiki is a Web site that allows users to add and update content on the site using their own Web browser. This is made...
Wildcard If you've played card games, you may be familiar with the term "wild card." It refers to a card that can take the...
WiMAX WiMAX, also known as "IEEE 802.16," is a broadband wireless access (BWA) standard similar to Wi-Fi. However, unlike...
Win32 Win32 is the Windows application programming interface (API) for developing 32-bit applications. It has been used for...
Window A window is an area on the screen that displays information for a specific program. This often includes the user...
Windows Windows is a series of operating systems developed by Microsoft. Each version of Windows includes a graphical user...
Windows 7 Windows 7 is the seventh version of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It follows Windows Vista and is designed...
Windows 8 Windows 8 is the eighth version of Microsoft Windows, released on October 26, 2012. It includes several improvements...
Windows Vista Windows Vista is the latest version of Microsoft's Windows operating system. The business version was released at the...
Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP was introduced in 2001 and is the most significant upgrade to the Windows operating system since...
Winsock Winsock. "Isn't that one of those tube-like flags that tell which way the wind is blowing?" Actually, that's a...
Wireless In the computing world, the term "wireless" can be rather ambiguous, since it may refer to several different wireless...
Wizard When most people think of a wizard, they think of an old man with magical powers. This, as with many other computer...
Word Processor A word processor, or word processing program, does exactly what the name implies. It processes words. It also...
Word Wrap Word wrapping is when a line of text automatically "wraps" to the next line when it gets to the end of a page or text...
WordArt WordArt is a text modifying feature in Microsoft Word, a popular word processing program. It includes effects such as...
Workstation It has been said that a bus stops at a bus station and a train stops at a train station, so what happens at a...
Worm Worm has two widely different definitions. One refers to a computer virus and the other is an optical storage...
WPA Stands for "Wi-Fi Protected Access." WPA is a security protocol designed to create secure wireless (Wi-Fi) networks...
WWW Stands for "World Wide Web." It is important to know that this is not a synonym for the Internet. The World Wide Web...
WYSIWYG Stands for "What You See Is What You Get," and is pronounced "wihzeewig." WYSIWYG refers to software that accurately...

W

space