Glossary of common terms

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is a markup language based on XML for representing two-dimensional vector graphics. It allows for both static and dynamic graphics. Vector graphics usually perform better when compared to raster formats like JPEG, PNG or GIF, and can be rescaled arbitrarily without loss of quality, and the rescaling does not imply a larger digital footprint. Thus, for instance, the graphics for printing an entire outdoor picture could fit in just a couple megabytes of disk space (the same as a good cellphone picture) without loosing its quality.

SVG can also be used to represent text where the required fonts are unavailable, by converting each individual character to a set of graphical paths. It can also be used to represent other types of content like mathematical formulas,

Some web browsers have native (but incomplete) support for SVG. The list includes browsers based on the gecko engine (Firefox, Netscape, Camino, Epiphany, and SeaMonkey), browsers based on the webkit engine (Safari, Chrome, OmniWeb), Opera and Amaya. On the other hand, browsers based on the MSHTML engine (Internet Explorer, Wikibrowse, Maxthon, and NetCaptor) do not provide support for SVG.

References

1. The W3C recommendation on SVG.
2. SVG on Wikipedia.
   

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) comes virtually unchanged from the ISO 8879 standard SGML for the implementation of markup languages. It is a general purpose specification that aims at representing with simplicity documents with high quality and usability.

Examples of markup languages coming from xml are xhtml, mathml, musicml, graphml and svg. Applications like OpenOffice use the ooxml file format to represent word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and charts. This file format is essentially a zip file containing xml documents.

Although it is very similar to xhtml, the html specification is not a xml markup language.

References

1. XML on Wikipedia
2. The W3C recommendation on XML
   

This is an add-on or extension for the Firefox browser that adds a variety of tools useful for web developers manipulating HTML and CSS.

It is available from Mozilla Update though the most recent version is usually available from the author's website

Highly recommended.

Abbreviation for Internet Explorer which is Microsoft's web browser.

Originally provided free to undermine Netscape's browser dominance in the 90's and currently provided bundled as standard with Microsoft's microcomputer operating systems.

Many people are switching from IE to Mozilla's Firefox to avoid the perceived risk of spy-ware and other security risks.

This is an abbreviation for 'Thanks in advance'

Often used in usenet but has become increasingly popular in e-mails, text messages, instant messages, chat rooms and forum posts. In fact, you could come across this abbreviation in any modern electronic communication.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other serializable values). JSON is a language-independent data format. It was derived from JavaScript, but many modern programming languages include code to generate and parse JSON-format data.