Select the first letter of the word from the list above to jump to appropriate section of the glossary or type the term on which you want to search.

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spell check

a feature found in many text oriented software applications such as word processors that scans the text in a document and alerts the user to misspelled words, many with the ability to offer suggestions for the correct spelling. Such a program needs to maintain its own dictionary. A small drawback to a spell check feature is that many don’t recognize a misused word that is correctly spelled, such as the words there and their.

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spider

a program that searches out information online. It works by systematically accessing one Web page after another, making use of the many hyperlinks connecting the pages on the World Wide Web. Search engines employ spiders to seek out information from millions of sources. see bot, crawler.

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splash page

also called a doorway page, the first page a user often comes upon when arriving at a Website, though usually not the Homepage. Often the splash page displays a paragraph or two describing the site’s contents. The purpose of such a page is to incorporate keywords and phrases that will get the site listed on the major search engines. A Website may have several splash pages, each using a different set or a combination of keywords, with the intention of picking up more and higher search engine ratings.

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split screen

the division of a display screen into two or more frames each displaying a different document or different portion of the same document.

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spod

an unsophisticated inhabitant of cyberspace who, often unknowingly, makes a nuisance of himself by violating any and all rules of netiquette. Spods, like dweebs, are concerned with meeting members of the opposite sex and gaining access to forums such as MUDs where they are unwelcome. They often achieve this end through the use of begged, borrowed, and stolen passwords and codes. see dweeb, MUD.

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spoof

also called spoofing, to fool or trick. In online data transmission (called IP spoofing), to make a message appear as though it originated from a user or computer other than the one that actually generated the message.

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spooling

to order items or jobs in a queue before sending them to an output device such as a printer. Spooling furnishes a waiting area for documents to pause while waiting for the printer to accommodate each item in the queue.

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spot color

the use of a specific color of ink in the production of an image rather than the combination of the four basic colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) used to simulate the desired color.

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spray can

a tool available in a paint program that applies color much like a spray can in the real world. That is, when used, it disperses color sparingly first using a fine mist. To add density, the user must concentrate the application by spraying more in the same area. The concentration of color depends on how quickly the can is swept over the desired surface while using a mouse.

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spreadsheet

a table, chart, or graph displaying information such as numbers or text arranged in vertical and/or horizontal columns and pie charts. Spreadsheet applications are capable of a wide range of functions such as mathematical calculations, which will automatically adjust values as new data is added. Spreadsheets can be created using three-dimensional features and color to accent specific items.