Webopedia Blog: Top 5 “What Is” Technology Questions

Check out my new blog entry on Webopedia.com.

Over the seven years that I’ve been writing for Webopedia, many things have changed.  Our site finally lost the “ancient” look last year (yay!) and we have a great design now. Webo’s on-site search engine has been greatly improved, and even our parent company has changed.

What hasn’t changed is the editorial focus and dedication to writing easy-to-understand tech definitions that anyone can reference to learn about the world of computers, technology and the Internet.  That’s what Webopedia has always done (since 1996) and this is what we do best.

Webo Blog: Tech FAQ: Top 5 What Is Technology Questions Answered
Posted: Jun 21st,2011 by Vangie Beal

Twitter Dictionary: Understanding Twitter Chat and Slang

As with any new social medium, there is an entire vocabulary that users of the Twitter service adopt. Most of the Twitter-based terms and phrases are used to describe the collection of people who use the service, while other terms are used in reference to describe specific functions and features of the service itself.  Here are more than 20 words and phrases that are associated with the Twitter social service.

Twitter Dictionary: A guide to help you understand Twitter chatter and slang.
By Vangie Beal, November 06, 2009

Halloween Tech: Weird, Spooky and Odd Technology Terms

Zombies, Smurfs and Wolfpacks, oh my!

In our never-ending quest to gather terms and information for Webopedia, we have found many acronyms and tech terms that strike us as being odd, weird or just plain spooky. To celebrate Halloween tech-style, we’re bringing you a fun — but totally legit — list of some of the spookiest acronyms and tech term oddities we’ve come across while compiling the Webopedia database.

Who knows, maybe one of the following tech terms will spawn a costume idea that will bring first place at this year’s office (IT) Halloween party.

Seriously, we didn’t make these up…

Text Messaging Demystified

The Webopedia Guide to Understanding Online Chat Acronyms has been updated with definitions to more than 1,180 chat abbreviations. I know… SRSLY, GTFO! DIS 1180? YGTBKM!

(Seriously, get the *freak* out! 1180? You got to be kidding me!)

Funky Tech Slang

Webopedia.com is an excellent resource for adding a little tech term creativity to your blog posts. Lamer, dilberted, e-nag, Tweeple and many other tech term oddities are defined in Webopedia’s slang category. Here is a list of all the slang tech terms currently defined:

133t speak  24-7  advermation  alpha geek  anonoblog  anticipointment  AOLese  astroturfing  bagbiter  banana code  barn doors  best practices  beyond-the-banner  Big Blue  Big Iron  bioidentification  blaudience  blawg  blog storm  blogola  blogroach  blook  burp  buzzword  cellphone novel  chips and salsa  churn  citizen journalism  clewbie  cobweb Site  compooter  connectile dysfunction  crackberries  crapplet  creeping featurism  crisis blog  crowdsourcing  customer bounty  cyber  cyberbuck  cyberbullying  cyberculture  cyberlawyer  cyberloafing  cybernaut  cyberprise  cyberpublisher  cybersuicide  CYS  cytizenship  dead tree edition  digital footprint  dilberted  DM  dooce  drexting  early adopter  ego-surfing  e-nag  enterprise whuffie  faceosphere  flog  floodgater  friendquest  future-proof  Google blips  Googlewhack  griefer  grok  GUIX  hairball  id10t error  influencer  Intarweb  internesia  jailbreak  lamer  linerd  lock-in  LOL  loss leader  mashboard  mopy  moved to Atlanta  Neo-Luddite  netroots  netscuse  PEBCAK  photoshopping  picnic  Retweet  screenager  spaghetti marketing  Splog  sploitz  sporn  swag  swivel chair interface  synchicity  TOSsed  Twaffic  Tweeple  Twidroid  Twitosphere  Twitterers  Twittworking  Uberveillance  virtual group  Web novel  Webinar  woot  wugging

Visit the Webopedia slang category to see the terms and definitions.

Nifty Tech Terms You Can Use (#8): mopy

Looking for interesting tech terms to spice up your blog or tech articles? Mopy is an interesting term that you can use when describing fast multifunction printers (MFPs) that are used to create originals from files, rather than creating copies from the original. The MFP used for this process is referred to as a mopier.  This is the Webopedia.com definition for mopy;

mopy: A slang term that combines the words multiple original prints (plus the “y” from the word “copy”). The term is used to refer to the increasing use of fast, multifunction printers (MFPs) to create multiple original copies of documents, as opposed to using photo copiers. When using MFPs, the word mopy can replaces the common word copy, where the equipment would be referred to as a mopier (instead of copier).

Online Social Media Glossary

When it comes to the Internet and technology—especially social media, it is amazing how quickly new words, acronyms, and slang words are created and used online. For those looking to boost their blogging, Facebook or Twitter vocabulary (or those wanting to understand what these new acronyms and words mean) Webopedia.com has a social media category that defines nearly 50 social media terms, like  A-List blogger, Digg This, faceosphere, Fail Whale, microblog, tagging, and Twidroid to name a few. Check out Webopedia’s Social Media Glossary for terms and definitions.

YGTBKM! Definitions to more than 1,100 chat abbreviations

If you have ever received an instant message or text message that seemed to be written in a foreign language, this Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher the text chat lingo by providing the definitions to more than 1,100 chat abbreviations.

Text Messaging Abbreviations
Webopedia’s Online Chat Guide is compiled and maintained by Vangie Beal
Last updated: April 03, 2009

Text Language: A Guide to Understanding Text Messaging and Text Faces

With the rise in usage of real time text-based communications, such as cell phone text messaging (SMS), instant messaging, e-mail, and online gaming came the emergence of a new text language tailored to the immediacy and compactness of these new communication media.

To help you understand what friends and family are really saying in those quick text messages, Webopedia has put together several guides to help you decipher the abbreviated text language lingo and to assist you in using different online communication applications.

• Text Message and Chat Abbreviations: If you have ever received a text message or you have been in an online chat room, instant messenger, or on a game server and the messages seem to be in its own foreign language, this Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher the text language by providing the definitions to over 1,000 text and online chat abbreviations.

• Text Faces (Smiley Faces) and Emoticons: A ‘smiley face’, often called a text face, smiley face, or emoticon, is used in text communications to convey an emotion with a text message. this Webopedia Quick Reference offers step-by-step instructions to understanding and creating your own text faces.

• A Guide to Understanding eBay, Auction and Classified Ad Acronyms:  Internet and online classified lingo has also grown. Abbreviations and acronyms on eBay and other sites are important to sellers.This Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher what sellers are saying in their online ads.

• A Guide to Online Forum Etiquette: Forums are an online discussion areas where you can post and read messages from other users with similar interests, usually in an organized thread layout. The Webopedia Forum Etiquette Guide can help you learn forum language, and offers tips to keep new users from being banned.

• Webopedia “Did You Know… Internet Grammar Concerns?” With new technology comes new jargon, and often it takes years before we can agree on the proper spelling and usage of words that seep into our vocabulary from common usage.

• Webopedia Quick Reference: A Guide to Public IM Services: From AIM to Meebo to Yahoo Messenger, here’s a list of the leading public (and free) instant messaging services.

Read the Webopedia Guides to Texting (Messaging) here.

More Than 1,000 Text Messaging Abbreviations

If you have ever received an instant message or text message that seemed to be written in a foreign language, this Webopedia Quick Reference will help you decipher the text chat lingo by providing the definitions to more than 1,000 chat abbreviations.

Some of the following chat abbreviations may be familiar to you, while others may be foreign because they are used by a different group of people with different online interests and hobbies than your own. For example, people playing online games are likely to use chat abbreviations that are different than those used by teenagers texting on their cell phone or abbreviations used by someone updating a financial blog.

AAF As a matter of fact
AAK Asleep at keyboard
AAK Alive and kicking
AAMOF As a matter of fact
AAMOI As a matter of interest
AAP Always a pleasure
AAR At any rate
AAS Alive and smiling

Read all 1,011 text abbreviations here.