Glossary
Technical terms used across wowTools tools and learning content.
- AESAES is a symmetric block cipher standard used with a mode of operation such as GCM or CBC to encrypt data with a shared key.
- APIAn API is a documented contract that lets one program call another, most commonly over HTTP with JSON request and response bodies.
- ASCIIASCII is a 128-character encoding covering unaccented Latin letters, digits, punctuation, and control codes, using one byte per character.
- Base64Base64 encodes bytes as ASCII text using a 64-character alphabet. It is reversible encoding, not encryption, and expands data by roughly one third.
- BinaryBinary is base-2 notation using only 0 and 1, matching how hardware stores data and making individual bit positions directly visible.
- Canonical URLA canonical URL is the preferred address for a page, declared with a link tag so duplicate variants consolidate their ranking signals.
- ChecksumA checksum is a short value computed from data to detect accidental corruption during storage or transfer, usually a hash digest in practice.
- CipherA cipher is an algorithm that transforms plaintext into ciphertext and back using a key, unlike an encoding, which requires no key at all.
- Compound interestCompound interest applies interest to accumulated interest as well as the principal, so growth depends on both the rate and the compounding frequency.
- Content Security PolicyContent Security Policy is a response header that restricts which scripts, styles, and other resources a page may load, limiting injection damage.
- Contrast ratioContrast ratio compares the relative luminance of two colors on a scale from 1:1 to 21:1, and it determines whether text on a background is legible.
- Cron expressionA cron expression schedules recurring work using five fields—minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week—interpreted against wall-clock time.
- CSS gradientA CSS gradient paints a smooth transition between two or more color stops without an image request, along a line or from a point.
- CSVCSV stores tabular data as delimited text rows, with quoting rules for fields that contain the delimiter, quotes, or line breaks.
- EntropyEntropy measures unpredictability in bits: the base-two logarithm of how many equally likely values a secret could have taken.
- Epoch timeEpoch time counts elapsed seconds since 1 January 1970 UTC, giving an unambiguous instant with no timezone attached.
- HashA cryptographic hash maps input to a fixed-length digest. Hashes are one-way fingerprints used for integrity checks—not encryption and not a substitute for password storage without a proper KDF.
- HEX colorA HEX color writes red, green, and blue channels as two hexadecimal digits each, optionally with two more digits for alpha transparency.
- HexadecimalHexadecimal is base-16 notation where each digit represents exactly four bits, making it the compact standard for bytes, colors, and masks.
- HMACHMAC is a keyed hash construction that proves a message was produced by someone holding a shared secret, not merely that the bytes are intact.
- HSLHSL describes color as hue, saturation, and lightness, which makes generating tints, shades, and hover states far easier than adjusting RGB channels.
- HTML entityAn HTML entity represents a character using a named or numeric reference, letting markup-significant characters appear as literal text.
- HTTP headerAn HTTP header is a name-and-value pair carrying metadata about a request or response, such as content type, caching rules, or authentication.
- JSONJSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a text format for objects, arrays, and primitive values. It is the default interchange format for many HTTP APIs and browser apps.
- JWTA JWT is a compact token with Base64url-encoded header, payload, and signature segments. Decoding reveals claims; verification requires cryptographic checks in your auth stack.
- Lossy compressionLossy compression discards information the viewer is unlikely to notice in exchange for a much smaller file, and the discarded detail cannot be recovered.
- MedianThe median is the middle value of an ordered dataset, making it resistant to outliers that would drag the mean away from the typical case.
- Meta descriptionA meta description is the summary a page offers for search result snippets, usually around 150–160 characters before truncation.
- MinificationMinification removes optional whitespace and formatting from a document so it transports in fewer bytes while parsing to the same value.
- Open GraphOpen Graph is a metadata vocabulary that controls how a URL appears when shared, defining the card title, description, image, and type.
- PBKDF2PBKDF2 derives a cryptographic key from a password by applying a hash function many times with a salt, slowing brute-force attempts.
- PDFPDF is a fixed-layout document format that packages text, fonts, images, and metadata so a file renders identically across devices.
- Percent-encodingPercent-encoding replaces reserved characters in a URL with a percent sign and two hexadecimal digits so they survive transport as data.
- Pomodoro techniqueThe Pomodoro technique structures work into fixed focus intervals separated by short breaks, traditionally twenty-five minutes of work and five of rest.
- QR codeA QR code encodes text in a two-dimensional grid of modules with error correction, letting cameras recover the data even when part is damaged.
- RegexA regular expression describes a text pattern for search, extraction, or light validation. Regex excels at flat strings and struggles with nested languages better handled by dedicated parsers.
- robots.txtrobots.txt is a host-level file that tells crawlers which paths they may fetch; it controls crawling and not indexing.
- SaltA salt is unique random data added to an input before hashing so identical values produce different digests and precomputed tables become useless.
- Standard deviationStandard deviation summarises how far values typically sit from the mean, expressed in the same units as the underlying data.
- SVGSVG is an XML-based vector image format that scales to any size without loss and can be styled or animated with CSS.
- TimezoneA timezone is a named region with rules that map an instant to local time, producing different UTC offsets across the year.
- UnicodeUnicode is the standard that assigns a unique code point to every character across writing systems, independent of how those points are encoded as bytes.
- URL slugA slug is the human-readable portion of a URL path, normalised to lowercase words separated by hyphens with diacritics and punctuation removed.
- UTF-8UTF-8 is a variable-length encoding of Unicode code points using one to four bytes, and it is byte-compatible with ASCII for the first 128 characters.
- UUIDA UUID is a 128-bit identifier, often written as 36 hyphenated hex characters. Versions such as v4 (random) and v7 (time-ordered) optimize for different storage and privacy trade-offs.
- VATVAT is a consumption tax added at each stage of supply, quoted either inclusive of tax as a gross price or exclusive of tax as a net price.
- WCAGWCAG is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, a set of testable success criteria organised into A, AA, and AAA conformance levels.
- Web Crypto APIThe Web Crypto API is the browser interface for hashing, HMAC, encryption, and cryptographically strong random values without external libraries.
- WebPWebP is a modern image format supporting lossy and lossless compression plus transparency, typically 25–35% smaller than JPEG at similar quality.
- XML sitemapAn XML sitemap lists the canonical URLs you want discovered, optionally with last-modified dates, to help crawlers find and prioritise pages.
- YAMLYAML is an indentation-based data format designed for human-edited configuration, supporting comments and anchors that JSON lacks.