QuickStudy

Definition

Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is an approach to translating real-world algorithms into computer code. It focuses on representing algorithms in a modelling language, followed by a possibly automatic translation of the models into computer code. Doing justice to the definition of MDA's innovation requires a short, potted history of computers.

Although today's Internet is often credited with creating so much change that society is still racing to catch up, it has also come to be seen as unwieldy, hidebound and problematic -- ripe for revision or replacement. Security issues, spam, slow downloads and the exploding need for URLs are only some of its problems. The Internet is sometimes seen as a victim of its own success, and several initiatives are under way to develop the Internet of the future.

Definition: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions is the fundamental Internet standard for sending multimedia e-mail (contain, for example, audio, video and/or graphics) and messages in non ASCII character sets. Also used by Web browsers, MIME specifies what types of media a message contains and the form in which it has been encoded.

In his blog, Craig McClanahan recounts how, when he joined Sun Microsystems in 2000, he continued to support the development of an open-source application project. As part of that effort, he needed to take a U.S.-centric application and produce it in four languages and make it available to European users on the Web and through other channels.

Since the dawn of the digital computer age, long-term data storage and backup have been the province of a single primary medium: magnetic tape. Tape has compelling advantages. It's inexpensive to operate and buy, and even cheaper to store, whether it exists on reels, inside cartridges or as part of an automated tape library system. Tape also has the benefit of separating the portable and inexpensive storage medium from the larger, more costly recording machinery. The introduction of tape made it possible to back up everything, keep copies off-site and restore older or deleted files as needed.

Python is an object-oriented, open-source programming language often used for rapid application development. Python's simple syntax emphasizes readability, reducing the cost of program maintenance, while its large library of functions and calls encourages reuse and extensibility.

Component Object Model is a Microsoft-developed, language-independent architecture created in the 1990s that lets developers build applications from reusable, binary software components.

RSS is an XML format for syndicating Web content. A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user with a Web browser or a special RSS client program automatically receives notice of and links to new content on designated sites and can use it on a different site.

Markup languages have been around since 1969, when three IBM Corp. researchers created the Generalized Markup Language. That was the grandfather of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which makes the Web work, and of Extensible Markup Language (XML), which has become the primary means of defining, storing and formatting data in a multitude of areas, including documents, forms and databases.

ETL stands for extract, transform and load, the processes that enable companies to move data from multiple sources, reformat and cleanse it, and load it into another database, a data mart or a data warehouse for analysis, or on another operational system to support a business process.

Phishing is a technique used to gain personal information for purposes of identity theft, using fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from legitimate businesses. These authentic-looking messages are designed to fool recipients into divulging personal data such as account numbers and passwords, credit card numbers and Social Security numbers.

Services Provisioning Markup Language is an XML-based framework for exchanging user, resource and service provisioning information between applications and organizations.

Presence technology allows a network user to know when another user is connected to the network and thus available to receive and immediately answer a communication. Instant messaging, pioneered by America Online, is the first and best-known example of a presence technology.

Session Initiation Protocol is a signaling protocol for Internet conferencing, telephony, presence, events notification and instant messaging. The protocol initiates call setup, routing, authentication and other communication features to endpoints within an IP domain.