A friend of mine recently alerted me to an odd type of "word." See if you can guess what the following mean:

•   l10n
•   i18n
•   d11n

 Continue reading...

One aspect of the computing world that we're all deeply involved in (whether we realize it or not) is the specialized field of databases. In this article, I thought it might be fun to look at the terminology of that involvement from the database's point of view.  Continue reading...

In day-to-day discourse, we don't usually encounter terms that are genuinely problematic. If someone throws something at us that's clearly wrong, like calvary for cavalry, we still get it. If my dialect is "She took a cake to the party," whereas yours is "She brought a cake to the party," I'll still understand you.  Continue reading...

My wife and I were out Christmas shopping last week and came home with an armload of classic holiday DVDs that we somehow didn't already own. She'd gathered up every title you probably know, and we spent a couple of evenings watching our way through the pile. During this latter-day review of the holiday favorites of our childhood, it struck me that there were a surprising number of terms and phrases that had become familiar either directly from these Christmas classics or from their sources.  Continue reading...

I have only a glancing relationship with the fascinating world of computer security. But I've realized recently that even we non-experts have a pretty rich vocabulary for the many flavors of ill intent in the world of computers and beyond.  Continue reading...

A warm welcome to our newest regular contributor, Mike Pope. As a longtime technical writer and editor at Microsoft, Mike has developed some special know-how in that favorite techie shorthand, the acronym. Here Mike explains the ins and outs of acronyms and initialisms.  Continue reading...

Ever wonder what those squiggly words are that you have to spell in order to get past security on many websites? They're called CAPTCHAs, and Mike Pope, a technical writer and editor at Microsoft, has the full story on them.  Continue reading...