Glossary

A

absolute pathname

A pathname that specifies the exact location of a single directory. An absolute pathname begins at the root directory, a slash (/), and traverses through the Unix file system, ending at the desired directory or file, and naming each directory that is passed through. Each directory that is passed through is named and separated by a slash. /Users/warren/Documents is the absolute pathname of my Documents folder. This contrasts to the relative pathname.

Active application

The application that is visible in the foreground. If iTunes is the Active application, its name is visible in bold in the menu bar, directly to the right of the Apple menu.

admin

See administrator account

administrator account

Admin is one type of Mac OS X user account in which the user has access to system-wide resources, including abilities to modify the System Preferences, create and edit other user accounts, and install applications. When OS X is initially set up, the first user created is an admin.

adopted ownership

When a Mac OS X user account is deleted, its contents can be transferred to an existing admin account. The admin user is said to be adopting ownership of the previous user’s files.

Advanced Memory Management

Automatically and dynamically assigns and handles the allocation of both physical RAM and virtual memory to applications and processes as needed.

AirPort

Apple’s name for its implementation of the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless networking. This includes AirPort, (802.11b) at speeds of 11Mbs, and AirPort Extreme, (802.11g) at speeds up to 54Mbs.

AirPort Base Station

An Apple hardware device that provides a wireless signal to 802.11-equipped computers, Macintosh or otherwise. A base station can be connected to the Internet and transmit a wireless net connection, and can dial up directly through its own internal modem. “Extreme” versions can wirelessly share USB printers and can be connected to an external antenna.

alias

Also known as a shortcut, an alias is a representative file that can dynamically locate its target file or folder. The pathway will not be lost if either the original or the alias is moved to a different location on the same volume. Under the Mac file system, each file has a unique identifier, which can be traced even if the file has moved.

antialiasing

A technique that causes text and graphics to appear smoother and easier to read when displayed using the relatively low resolution of a computer screen. Shading and blending of otherwise jagged lines are used to fool the eye into seeing a cleaner image.

Apache

An open source Web server that is provided within every copy of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server. Apache is the most widely used Web server (over 60 percent of Web sites) on the Internet and runs on a variety of platforms, including Unix-based operating systems and Windows servers.

API

See Application Programming Interface

AppleCare Knowledge Base

Located at www.apple.com/support, the Knowledge Base is Apple’s official Web-based library of articles and information pertaining to the usage and support of its products.

Apple Menu

Located at the top left-most corner of the screen, it is a menu in the shape of an Apple logo, either gray or blue depending on the configuration. The Apple Menu contains commands that affect the machine on a system-wide level, such as changing the settings of the Dock, or shutting down the machine.

AppleScript

A programming language that is used for automating tasks and customizing application features, as well as creating stand-alone applets. The language is heavily English based, more so than most, making it easy to learn and decipher. AppleScript is included with every copy of OS X; a third-party application that is able to be affected by an AppleScript is said to be “scriptable.”

applet

A mini-Application program that is usually Java or AppleScript based. Java applets are often embedded within Web pages (like an Internet search engine), and AppleScripts are often integrated within a larger application to perform a certain function. For example, within Apple’s DVD Player application, one can pull down the scripts menu and access a specific time within a movie.

AppleTalk

A networking protocol created by Apple that dates back to the early Macintosh days in the mid-1980s. It was (is) popular due to its ease of use and the fact that network devices easily make themselves known on a network. It was the primary method of networking Macs and peripherals for many years and only now is being phased out in favor of less “chatty” protocols, such as TCP/IP networking and Rendezvous, Apple’s new “zero-config” networking protocol.

application

A complete and self-contained program that when launched (for example, double-clicked on) will perform certain functions for a human being. The Finder, iTunes, and the Print Center are all examples of applications.

Application Programming Interface (API)

The method by which an operating system can make certain requests of an application, or by which an application can make certain requests of an operating system in order to call upon and perform specific tasks. For example, the Quicktime API would be called upon to add movie and sound features to an application.

applications folder

The default location for all of the user-accessible programs. For example, if one installs FileMaker Pro for the first time, it is automatically placed inside the applications folder. Applications do not have to be placed here, but it is a good idea to keep them here for organizational purposes.

Aqua

Apple’s name for the look and feel of the graphical user interface that makes up OS X. The pulsating OK buttons, the huge photorealistic icons, and the fancy “genie” animation that occurs when a window is minimized to the Dock are all examples of what Aqua is.

archive

A single compressed file containing files and folders, ready for emailing or backing up.

argument

Is the piece of a Unix command line on which the command is being acted. Arguments are usually filenames or directory names. For example:

% chown warren:staff /Users/warren/Documents

In this command, the argument is the documents folder.

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)

The most basic character set used by almost all modern computers. US-ASCII uses 0-127 to represent upper and lowercase letters, punctuation, space, and numbers. More advanced ASCII sets, like Unicode, use more characters and can represent accented letters and more complicated punctuation.

authentication

The process of verifying that someone is, in actuality, who he or she claims to be. Under Mac OS X, when one types a correct password into the login screen, that person is being authenticated to log in to the system.

authoritative DNS server

An authoritative DNS server is a computer that holds the definitive DNS records for a given domain name. A DNS server that can hold the DNS entries for IP-aware entities connected to the Internet.

autoscrolling

When scrolling is accomplished by dragging an item to the edge of a window (which will cause the window’s contents to scroll in that direction) and not by manually clicking on the scrollbar or arrows, then the window is said to autoscroll.

background program

A program that while running is usually not visible to the user of the system. Launch the Process Viewer to see examples of this. The iChat Agent is one such instance. This process runs in the background and can sign the user onto AOL’s Instant Messenger service even if the iChat application is not open yet.