Once you venture beyond the basics of Internet photo galleries, technical terms and acronyms abound. This glossary will hopefully help.

Apache - Web server that runs on Linux or Microsoft systems.

APP12 - A format used for storing information in image files, current in the late 1990’s. Superceded by EXIF.

Assetts - Non-HTML web site content. Typically images like .gif and .jpg files. Often held in a seperate assetts folder on the web server.

ASP - Active Server Pages. This runs on Microsoft web servers. It is scripting language that is embedded in HTML mainly used in accessing databases and creating dynamic content for web pages.

Blog - Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.

Browser - The web browser is the interface between the user and the web server. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is the default on Windows PCs. Other browsers include Mozilla (the world’s first browser), Opera, Netscape, Konquerer (for Linux), and Safari (for Macs).

CGI - Common Gateway Interface. This is a way for the browser to interact with the web server by running a program (usually from the CGI-bin folder)  on the web server.

DPI - Dots per inch. A refreshingly imperial measurement of resolution capability in a metric world.  Prints from digital photos are usually produced at 300 to 600 DPI.

EXIF - Exchangeable Image File Format. It is a standard for storing information in image files, such as exposure details, especially those using JPEG compression. Enthusiasts may be interested in EXIF-O-Matic, an example of Postcardware.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol. Typically used to transfer files such as images up to a web server. A number of packages are available for this, such as AceFTP, and WS_FTP. A number of the gallery building packages have a built-in FTP facility.

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format. A standard for compressed graphics images developed by Compuserve. One of the main main graphics formats for web publishing. Limited to 256 colours, so is particularly effective for images that have large areas of a single colour. GIF files can hold animated images.

HDR - High Dynamic Range. An HDR image aims to store pixel values that span the whole tonal range of real-world scenes. In order to create such an image several low dynamic range (ie ordinary digital photos) taken at differing exposure values are combined.

Host - Strictly speaking a computer connected to a network, but usually applied to a computer permanently connected to a network running a web server application (as in Hosting a web site).

HTML - Hypertext Markup Language. All web pages are written with some form of HTML. A particular page’s HTML can be viewed from a browser by using the view menu, and selecting source.

ISP - Internet Service Provider. They provide the connection from your PC to the Internet. Usually they also provide email and hosting services.

Java - A programming language developed by Sun and designed to create programs capable of being run on any hardware. Java applets are designed to run in a web browser, while Java applications are pretty much like any other program.

Javascript - Totally different from Java (it was originally called LiveScript by its developers, Netscape). It only runs in a web browser, and can be used to alter the browser window and access objects such as images on the web page.

JPEG - Joint Photographic Experts Group. They developed this compressed image format, which can carry effectively unlimited colours. It is a “lossy” format, in that information is lost by the compression process.

IIS - Internet Information Services. Microsoft’s web server application.

MySQL - Open source database. Runs on most platforms, but particularly well suited to working with Linux, Apache, and PHP.

Perl - A very powerful interpreted language that runs on enabled web servers. CGI programs are often written in perl. Perl scripts have the .pl file extension.

Pixel - Picture element.  The smallest discrete component of an image or picture on a CRT screen, which typically display 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 pixels.

Photoblog - A photography blog, picture log or simply a photoblog, is a web application which contains periodic posts containing user-taken photographs on a common webpage. These posts are often but not necessarily in reverse chronological order, from the date when the photograph was taken.

PHP - This acronym stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor (I haven’t quite worked that out yet...). It is programming language that is run on the web server. Not all web hosts support PHP, especially the free or cheaper packages, so worth checking before before using gallery software that depends on PHP.Web pages containg PHP have a .php extension.

PNG - Portable Network Graphics. A newer image file format, combining GIF’s excellent compression with JPEG’s unlimited colours. Unfortunately not supported by older browsers. The file extension is .png.

PPI - Pixels per inch. A measure of the resolution of digital imaging devices such as scanners.

RAW - A file format that stores data directly produced without compresion or manipulation by a digital camera. Usually converted to JPEG or TIFF format for manipulation and display.

SSI - Server Side Includes. A simple scripting language. SSI instructions are embedded in HTML. THe web server has to enabled to run SSI commands. The pages containing SSI instructions end with a .shtml extension.

Thumbnail - A minature version of an image. Typically used in a photo gallery as the link to the large version of the image. Usually they are about 75 to 120 pixels in size along the longest side

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format. An uncompressed image file format.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a web page. For example http://www.frameroom.com.

XHTML - Extensible Markup Language. The HTML language re-written in XML. Now you know.

XML - XML is a computer language for creating other languages and describing data.