Word of The Day

An application programming interface (API) is the interface that an application provides in order to allow requests for service to be made of it by other computer programs, and/or to allow data to be exchanged between them. For instance, a computer ... program can (and often must) use its operating system's API to allocate memory and access files. Many types of systems and applications implement API's, such as graphics systems, databases, networks, web services, and even some computer games. API: Description One of the primary purposes of an API is to provide access to a set of commonly-used ... (view more)

A plugin (or "plug-in") is a computer program that interacts with another program to provide a certain function. Typical examples of plugins include: a web browser plugin (such as "adobe acrobat reader"), a program to display specific graphic ... formats (such as "video codecs" for Windows Media Player), and the like. Plugins are slightly different from program extensions, which modify or add to existing functionality. The main difference is that plugins generally do not change a user interface and run within well-defined boundary; comparatively, extensions generally ... (view more)

Movable Type is a proprietary weblog publishing system developed by a Californian-based company, called "Six Apart". Movable Type is widely used and supports most popular weblogging features, including: user accounts, comments, TrackBacks, ... categories, and themes, and is extensible through a large library of third-party plug-ins. The TrackBack feature was actually originated by Six Apart, and version 2.2 of Movable Type was the first weblog publishing software to include support for it. Movable Type is free of charge for a single author, and paid licenses are available to allow more ... (view more)

In computing, the Windows registry is a database which stores settings and options for the operating system for Microsoft Windows 32-bit versions. It contains information and settings for all the hardware, software, users, and preferences of the PC. ... Whenever a user makes changes to "Control Panel" settings, or file associations, system policies, or installed software, the changes are reflected and stored in the registry. As time goes on, an aged Windows installation can have a very large registry database. This can slow down the computer's startup and has led to frequent criticisms that the ... (view more)

A volunteer is someone who performs or offers to perform a service out of his or her own free will, often without payment. Every 5th of December is International Volunteer Day. People may volunteer to perform some work, e.g., of charitable ... character. Some volunteer for clinical trials or other medical research, and may even donate their bodies to science after their death. Online Volunteer An online volunteer is a person who contributes time and effort with an organization through an online connection, rather than in person. A wide variety of people from around the world are online volunteers ... (view more)

An editor is a person who prepares text -- typically language, but also images and sounds -- for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, editor comes from the Latin phrase e ditus ... which means "to put forward". The editor ludorum in Ancient Rome was the person who put on the games. In French, editeur means "publisher". Also in Italian editore means "publisher". The word came into English from French. The verb to edit is a back formation from editor. In career terms, the word 'editor' has four major senses: Career Editor: ... (view more)

Seek time is one of the several delays associated with reading or writing data on a computer's disk drive. In order to read or write data in a particular place on the disk, the read/write head of the disk needs to be moved to the correct place (just ... as to play a particular song on a cassette of recorded music, the tape needs to be wound to the right place). This process is known as "seeking", and the time it takes for the head to move to the right place is the "seek time". Seek time for a given disk varies depending on how far the head's destination is from its origin at the time of each read ... (view more)

Flaming is the act of posting messages that are deliberately hostile and insulting, usually in the social context of a discussion board (usually on the Internet). Such messages are called flames, and are sometimes posted in response to flamebait. ... Flaming is one of a class of economic problems known as The Tragedy of the Commons, when a group holds a resource (in this case, communal attention), but each of the individual members has an incentive to overuse it. Although the trading of insults is as old as time itself, flaming on the Internet, like many other online 'actions', started in the ... (view more)

A crash in computing is a condition where a program (either an application or part of the operating system) stops performing its expected function and also stops responding to other parts of the system. Often the offending program may simply appear ... to freeze. If this program is a critical part of the operating system kernel the entire computer may crash (a system crash). Many crashes are the result of the execution of a single machine instruction, but the causes of this are manifold. Typical causes are when the program counter loses track of the correct execution path or a buffer overflow ... (view more)

Disk Cloning or Disk Imaging is a category of software which copies the contents of one computer hard disk to another, or onto a secondary medium such as a DVD or CD Recordable. A disk cloning program is most commonly used by large companies to ... provision new computers to install the initial package of the operating system and applications for sale, or by home computer users who wish to backup their operating systems in a healthy state. An individual user may also use disk cloning to upgrade to a new hard disk or backup an existing operating system. To provision the hard disk of a computer ... (view more)