Capabilities

The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them.

Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web.

HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items. It allows images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms. It is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of "tags" surrounded by angle brackets within the web page content. It can include or can load scripts in languages such as JavaScript which affect the behavior of HTML processors like Web browsers; and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to define the appearance and layout of text and other material. The W3C, maintainer of both HTML and CSS standards, encourages the use of CSS over explicit presentational markup. Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the encoding scheme used to create and format a web document.

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a set of rules for encoding documents electronically. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C and several other related specifications; all are fee-free open standards.

XML’s design goals emphasize simplicity, generality, and usability over the Internet. It is a textual data format, with strong support via Unicode for the languages of the world. Although XML’s design focuses on documents, it is widely used for the representation of arbitrary data structures, for example in web services.

Ajax (shorthand for asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications. With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page. The use of Ajax techniques has led to an increase in interactive or dynamic interfaces on web pages. Data is usually retrieved using the XMLHttpRequest object. Despite the name, the use of JavaScript and XML is not actually required, nor do the requests need to be asynchronous.

A master page layout used in document creation systems such as word processing, desktop publishing and the Web. The style sheet is a file that is used to store margins, tabs, fonts, headers, footers and other layout settings for a particular category of document. When a style sheet is selected, its format settings are applied to all the documents created under it, saving the page designer or programmer from redefining the same settings over and over again for each page. A style sheet format for HTML documents endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium. CSS1 (Version 1.0) provides hundreds of layout settings that can be applied to all the subsequent HTML pages that are downloaded. CSS2 (Version 2.0) adds support for XML, oral presentations for the visually impaired, downloadable fonts and other enhancements.

JavaScript is a popular scripting language that is widely supported in Web browsers and other Web tools. It adds interactive functions to HTML pages, which are otherwise static, since HTML is a display language, not a programming language. It is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable program related access to objects within both the client application and other applications, utilized in the form of client-side JavaScript, allowing the development of enhanced user interfaces and dynamic websites. JavaScript is a dialect of the ECMAScript standard and is characterized as an energetic, prototype-based language with first-class functions. JavaScript typically relies on a run-time environment (e.g. in a web browser) to provide objects and methods by which scripts can interact with "the outside world". In fact, it relies on the environment to provide the ability to include/import scripts (e.g. HTML >script> elements).

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a database computer language designed for managing data in relational database management systems (RDBMS), and originally based upon Relational Algebra. Its scope includes data query and update, schema creation and modification, and data access control.

The Microsoft .NET Framework is a software framework that can be installed on computers running Microsoft Windows operating systems. It includes a large library of coded solutions to common programming problems and a virtual machine that manages the execution of programs written specifically for the framework. The .NET Framework is a Microsoft offering and is intended to be used by most new applications created for the Windows platform.

The framework's Base Class Library provides a large range of features including user interface, data and data access, database connectivity, cryptography, web application development, numeric algorithms, and network communications. The class library is used by programmers, who combine it with their own code to produce applications.

Programs written for the .NET Framework execute in a software environment that manages the program's runtime requirements. Also part of the .NET Framework, this runtime environment is known as the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The CLR provides the appearance of an application virtual machine so that programmers need not consider the capabilities of the specific CPU that will execute the program. The CLR also provides other important services such as security, memory management, and exception handling. The class library and the CLR together constitute the .NET Framework.

Version 3.0 of the .NET Framework is included with Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista. The current stable version of the framework, which is 3.5, can also be installed on Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems. Version 4 of the framework was released as a public Beta on 20 May 2009.

The .Net Framework family also includes two versions for mobile or embedded device use. A reduced version of the framework, the .NET Compact Framework, is available on Windows CE platforms, including Windows Mobile devices such as smartphones. Additionally, the .Net Micro Framework is targeted at severely resource constrained devices.

Visual Basic .NET is an upgraded version of Visual Basic (VB). An object-oriented programming language from Microsoft, it is the .NET version of the Visual Basic (VB) programming language. Like all .NET languages, Visual Basic.NET uses the Common Language Runtime (CLR) for program execution. Visual Basic.NET is substantially different from traditional Visual Basic, which has been the most popular language for developing Windows applications.

Its capabilities include support for the .NET Compact Framework and a better Visual Basic upgrade wizard. Improvements were also made to the performance and reliability of the .NET Framework. Visual Basic .NET is an object oriented programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its .NET programming model. Visual Basic .NET enables the rapid application development (RAD) of graphical user interface (GUI) applications, access to databases using Data Access Objects, Remote Data Objects, or ActiveX Data Objects, and creation of ActiveX controls and objects.

a web application framework developed and marketed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, web applications and web services. In general, the ASP.NET directory structure can be determined by the developer's preferences. Apart from a few reserved directory names, the site can span any number of directories. The structure is typically reflected directly in the urls. Although ASP.NET provides a means for intercepting the request at any point during processing, the developer is not forced to funnel requests through a central application or front end controller.

Active Server Pages (ASP), also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was Microsoft's first server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages. It has now been superseded by ASP.NET.

Developing functionality in ASP websites is enabled by the active scripting engine's support of the Component Object Model (COM), with each object providing a related group of frequently used functions and data attributes. Functionality is further extended by objects which, when fully supported, provide access to the environment of the web server; as an example FileSystemObject (FSO) is used to create, read, update and delete files.

Web pages with the .asp file extension use ASP, although some Web sites disguise their choice of scripting language for security purposes (e.g. still using the more common .htm or .html extension). Pages with the .aspx extension are ASP.NET (based on Microsoft's .NET Framework) and compiled, which makes them faster and more robust than server-side scripting in ASP which is interpreted at run-time; however, many ASP.NET pages still include some ASP scripting. Such marked differences between ASP and ASP.NET have led to the terms Classic ASP or ASP Classic being used, which also implies some nostalgia for the simpler platform.

A database program for Windows, available separately or included in the Microsoft Office Suite, Access is programmable using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Access can read Paradox, dBASE and Btrieve files, and using ODBC, Microsoft SQL Server, SYBASE SQL Server and Oracle data.

A full-featured spreadsheet for Windows and the Macintosh from Microsoft. It can link many spreadsheets for consolidation and provides a wide variety of business graphics and charts for creating presentation materials. Since its launch in the mid-1980s, Excel has captured some 90% of the spreadsheet market, enduring well past VisiCalc and Lotus 123.

Adobe Flash is the application that makes your pages come “alive” and engages your audience in a way a simple photo or illustration cannot. In other words, it “captivates” your audience by taking the audience from being just a spectator to having an interactive experience within your website.

Adobe Flash has become an industry standard when it comes to creating interactive picture graphics and illustration features for websites. It can create; interactive websites, enrich media advertisements, can bring to life instructional media, engaging presentations, games, and more.

The Adobe Flash Platform is a combined set of technologies that connects an established network of supporting programs, business partners, and energized user communities. Collectively, they provide everything a designer needs to create and deliver the most compelling applications, content, and video in order to reach to the widest possible audience.

A popular high-end image editor for the Macintosh and Windows from Adobe. The original Mac versions were the first to bring affordable image editing down to the personal computer level in the late 1980s. Since then, Photoshop has become the standard in image editing. Although it contains a large variety of image editing features, one of Photoshop's most powerful capabilities is layers, which allows images to be rearranged under and over each other for placement. Photoshop is designed to read from and convert to a raft of graphics formats, but uses its own native format for layers (.PSD extension).

A graphics editor for computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system that was originally published by Minneapolis-based Jasc Software. It was originally called simply Paint Shop, the first version, 1.0, was released in early 1992. In October 2004, Corel Corporation purchased Jasc Software and the distribution rights to Paint Shop Pro.