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23 August 2006

Keeping up with the kids

Ja, sue me I haven't blogged in ages.

I realised the other day that I speak a different language at work. I've had problems explaining what I do to people because I can't get jargon out of my vocabulary. Mostly I get blank stares because apparently I am "not speaking English". And I am not sure my mom knows exactly what I chat about either.

Fortunately Dr Keyboard is at hand. Subscribe to this neat little forum and you can ask Dr Keyboard AKA Chris Ward, any questions that may puzzle you about the quagmire of eternally confusing bits, blogs and pixels that make up what I do with my day.

Here are a few definitions to get you started on your path to keeping up with us technological whiz kids:

The Internet:
Think you've got this one down pat? Ha ha. Read Matt Buckland's commentary on being net savvy.
Also see:
del.icio.us
Digg (and the South African version Muti)
Flickr
Technorati
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
Wikipedia - a wealth of information on any topic you can think of.

Skype
A form of VOIP or Voice Over Internet Protocol, a voice system that runs over Internet wires, a way to digitise your voice into 1s and 0s, split that up into packets and reassemble it at the other end into a semblance of what you were saying. Skype is essentially a way of making cheap telephone calls to and from your computer. You can call from your computer to an ordinary telephone (a service for which you pay in advance and the calls are usually much, much cheaper than ‘regular’ phone calls), or from an ordinary telephone to someone else’s Skype-enabled computer. Needs a headset and mic.

iPods
What you need to survive the trip to work in London. iPods play MP3 music files. MP3 means MPEG-1 (or -2) audio layer 3. MPEG is the Motion Picture Experts Group who decided just how things like sound and video could be put on to the Internet. The key thing about MP3 files is that they’re smaller than the audio files on a CD: a music CD contains around 700MB (MegaBytes) of information, but an MP3 file of the same album could be 100MB or smaller. This means that you can store more music files on your computer, or transfer them more quickly across the Internet.

Podcasting
A method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like 'radio', can mean both the content and the method of delivery. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Though podcasters' web sites may also offer direct download or streaming of their files; a podcast however is distinguished by its ability to be downloaded automatically using software capable of reading RSS or Atom feeds. Play them on your iPod on the way to work.

Please feel free to add more if you gurus out there think of anything else.