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Glossary
Please do add to and update this as a shared resource for the Webmaker community. If you've been confused by a term and now know what it means, this is the perfect place to explain it to others!
A command line (or 'command prompt') is in many respects the opposite of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). The CLI is a terminal window on your device where you can interact with a computer at a more fundamental level than the GUI. An example is the difference between going to a website using a browser to see if it's working, versus sending a Ping via a command line to see if it's available.
Creative Commons licenses allow those creating digital artefacts to choose under what conditions their work can be remixed. There are different kinds of licenses, some more permissive and some more restrictive. An up-to-date list of these, along with a guided license chooser can be found at creativecommons.org
A packet of data is a formatted unit of data to be sent across a network. Packet-based networks are more efficient than bit-stream networks as packets can be shared among users. Each packet contains two types of data: control information and user data. An example of this would be the URL or IP address of a search engine (the control information) and your search term (the user data).
Users and software programs can send pings to IP addresses on a network. This can be used to judge the speed of a network connection, or to see whether the machine / website / resource at the IP address is currently available. A packet of data is sent between one IP address (normally the user's device) and another device on the network (normally a website). If this happens quickly, then the connection is said to have low latency. This is important for many types of realtime applications, including online games.
A remix is when an existing artefact is taken and altered in some wa. This can be done in a very subtle, barely noticeable way, such as when someone takes some text and changes a few words. It can also be done in a dramatic way, for example when several images are combined together using filters and other artistic techniques. Any kind of media can be remixed. Related: Creative Commons licenses.
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