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Among the New Words
Is your small business Y2K OK?” asks the poster at the US Post Office in Milledgeville, Georgia. “I’m OK with Y2K,” answers the button handed out by a bank in Macon, Georgia. We are all hoping, of course, that we have paid for expansion, a permanent fix for the millennium bug, and not for windowing, a temporary fix said to expire in 30 years or so (Milledgeville, GA, Union-Recorder 16 Mar. 1999: 4A [AP]). Just before April Fool’s Day in 1999—but months before the millennium bug was more than anything but a bothersome expense paid to a consultant—many e-mail users were surprised to find out that “an important message” from a friend contained the virus Melissa, which sent out 50 infected attachments to 50 of a user’s friends and to 50 of their friends and so forth until the information superhighway was more like a traffic jam. We were saved from Melissa (as far as we know) and also from the Chernobyl virus, which destroyed hard drives around the world on 26 April, the 13th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Milledgeville, GA, Union-Recorder 28 Apr. 1999: 6). We also learned to fear script kiddies, hackers motivated by the sheer joy of destruction (US News & World Report 14 June 1999: 49). After apocalyptic talk about the break up of Microsoft into Baby Bills and Mini-Microsofts (Victoria, BC, Times Colonist 5 Mar. 1999: E2), we received an e-mail April Fool’s Day news article telling us that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates was going to establish a new country to avoid further troubles with the US Justice Department. The report said that he was originally going to call the country Micronesia but decided on Windonesia since the first was trademarked. (If the new country had a beach, would the silicon-collar class of Microserfs become Microsurfers?) After all of this e-commotion, we agreed with the suggestion of the academic vice president of Georgia College & State University that we all needed an electronic day of rest.
However, at “Among the New Words” we were far from such a day. The students in ENGL 4115/5115 had rummaged through our files and pulled all of the words referring to computers or the Internet. We had been avoiding these words for the most part: we got disheartened when we saw [End Page 298] how many there were, and many of them seemed to refer to things beyond our technical competence. Indeed, Paul Ivsin (who referred us to <http://www.whatis.com> for more information) had let us know that our definition of api should be expanded to include other programs besides e-mail and that the screening of users is only one of the many functions of cgi (“ATNW,” American Speech 73 [1998]: 300, 302–03). However, the students insisted that they work on computer words and began whittling down a list of nearly 600 terms to a shorter list to be printed in this installment (A-H) and in the next one (I-Z).
While we were struggling with these computer terms, others were e-publishing witty comments on the meaning of computer terms. One day the e-mail brought this anonymous poem:
Remember when . . .
A computer was something on TV From a science fiction show, A window was something you had to clean And a ram was a cousin of a goat.
Meg was the name of a girlfriend And gig was your middle finger upright, Now they mean all different things And that really megabytes.
An application was for employment A program was a TV show A cursor used profanity A keyboard was a piano.
Memory was something you lost with age A CD was a bank account And if you had a 31Ž2 inch floppy You hoped nobody found out.
Compress was something you did with the garbage Not something you did to a file, And if you unzipped anything in public You’d be in jail for a while.
Log on was adding wood to a fire Hard drive was a long trip on the road A mouse pad was where a mouse lived And a backup happened to your commode.
Cut you did with a pocket knife Paste you did with glue A web was a spider’s home And a virus was the flu. [End Page 299] I guess I will stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head I hear nobody’s been killed in a computer crash But when it happens, they wish they were dead.
But this poem was not the only bit of homespun computer humor we received in the same time period. Despite television commercials letting us know that young people on isolated cattle ranches see their futures tied up with computers too, somebody on the Internet devised this glossary for people who are less than urban:
Technology for Country Folk
Whut them dang flys do
Munchies fer the TV
Old Dan Matrix’s wife
Gettin the farwood off the truk
Northerner talk fer “C’mon in y’all”
Whatcha git from tryin to carry too much farwood
Gettin home in the winter time
Whar ya hang the dang keys
Whar the kitty sleeps
Don’t add no more wood
Makin a wood stove hotter
Holds up the barn roof
When yer not kerful gettin the farwood
Whut’s in the bottom of the munchie bag
Whut cha did to the hay fields
Keepin an eye on the wood stove
Whut eats the grain in the barn
That hippie talk fer the rat hole
Fancy Flatlander wine
What the mail ain’t in the winter time
That thar thing whut splits the farwood
Wen ya cain’t remember what ya paid fer the rifle when yore wife asks
Whut to shut wen it’s blak fly season
Them dang plastic forks and knifs
Whut to shut wen it’s cold outside
Yet another glossary sent to us via e-mail examined computer terminology from the point of view of users at various ages:
Word used to describe computers, as in “Our son’s computer cost quite a bit”
What your friends give you because you spend too much time bragging about your computer skills
What your eyes do after you stare at the tiny green computer screen for more than 15 minutes. Also: what computer magazine companies do to you after they get your name on their mailing list [End Page 300]
Fattening, nonnutritional food computer users eat to avoid having to leave their keyboards for meals
What you have to do during school tests because you spend too much time at the computer and not enough studying
What you turn into when you can’t get your computer to perform, as in “You $#% computer!”
What goes out in your back after bending over a computer keyboard for seven hours
Place all your former hobbies wind up soon after you get a new computer
What you made the first time you walked into a computer showroom to “just look”
New room you have to build on to your home to house your computer and all its peripherals
What your secretary can now do to her nails six and a half hours a day, now that the computer does her day’s work in 30 minutes
Condition of a constant computer user’s stomach due to lack of exercise and a steady diet of junk food (see chips)
Tools, such as lawn mowers, rakes, and other heavy equipment you haven’t laid a finger on since getting your computer
Kind of missile your family members and friends would like to drop on your computer so you’ll pay attention to them again
What you’ll never see again after buying a computer because you’ll be too poor to eat in a restaurant
Often thought to be a word associated with computers, this word actually refers to those obnoxious kids who always want to see your hall pass at school
Those things you used to look at on your television before you hooked your computer up to it
What lots of people do with their computers after only a week and a half
Place where you can find buses, trains and really good deals on hot computers
What you heave the computer out of after you accidentally erase a program that took three days to set up
It is probably fitting that these glossaries circulated in e-mail without authorial attribution. But let us assure you that we did not make them up and that we cannot blame them on the contributors listed below.
Contributors for this installment include Adele Algeo, John Algeo, Thomas Algeo, George S. Cole, Gaelan de Wolf, Yongwei Gao, Anne V. Gormly, Betty J. Irwin, W. Kirwin, Frank Nuessel, Linda L. Rapp, Laurent D. Thomin, and Luanne von Schneidemesser. We have included researcher Barry Popik as a coauthor for his work in antedating the full citations given below. These antedatings were uncovered using Lexis-Nexis Universe under “Major Trade Journals.” Space and time prevented us from giving more than just a minimal reference to the antedatings. In addition, we acknowledge the receipt of two dictionaries with words arranged by subject matter: Stephen Glazier’s Random House Word Menu (New York: Random, 1997; [End Page 301] computers, 186–96) and Paul Dickson’s Slang: The Authoritative Topic-by-Topic Dictionary of American Lingoes from All Walks of Life (rev. ed., New York: Pocket, 1998; computers, 90–124).
n Identification card tracked with infrared technology in an office building 1992 Jul 6 Bob Metcalfe InfoWorld 51/1 Thanks for the many responses to my May 25 column on active badges. Many of you were intrigued and wanted to know more about experimental wireless networks that continuously monitor where badge wearers are in office buildings.
n Temporary employee (at Microsoft) 1998 May 10 Alex Fryer Chicago Tribune 6/21/2–3 On the Microsoft campus, for example, temps are informally known as “A-dashes,” from the agency preface of their e-mail addresses.
n Time period when photons (instead of electrons) will convey information in a computer network 1998 Apr 20 Patricia King Newsweek 13/1 The next millennium may usher in the Age of Light, an era that promises to bring many wonders, among them hassle-free Net surfing.
n Office machine that scans, prints, makes photocopies, and sends and receives faxes 1995 Mar 29 Apple (Popik) Nov 6 Larry Armstrong Business Week 134/3 But many buyers are willing to take that risk, given that all-in-ones cost less than half of what you’d spend outfitting an office with individual components.
attrib [anti-spam indexing] Opposed to Web sites loaded with hidden search terms (esp illegally or unethically used terms) (see also spamdexer, metatag) 1997 Nov 17 Paul Bissex Chicago Tribune 4/5/5 Relief is more likely to come from new anti-spamdexing policies and from custom software used behind the scenes to examine pages before they are added to the index. The Excite search engine, for instance, limits the effect of repeated words, so that a page consisting of 500 repetitions of the word “money” will not be ranked higher than one in which the word occurs only five times.
n Web site expressing hostility against a corporation or organization 1997 Oct 27 Jennifer Tanaka Newsweek 80/1 These days practically any search for a company by name will turn up “anti” Web sites created by angry customers, disgruntled ex-employees, crusading activists and a handful of kooks.
n Computerized parking garage using a system of mechanized pallets to park and return cars 1998 Feb 16 Arlyn Tobias Gajilan & Mark Rambler Newsweek 12/5 Leave your locked car on a pallet at the entrance bay and let the computerized system take it through a series of lifts and carriers to a vacant slot. The garages can squeeze up to twice the number of cars in the same space as a conventional garage and don’t require attendants. The automated valet, so to speak, will fetch your car in minutes.
adj [Before Computers] Of the time period before the common use of computers 1996 May 20 Misc Education (Popik) 1998 Mar 6 Sharon Johnson Harrisburg PA Patriot News D4/2 “Peter Pan,” Disney’s version of the classic hero created by Sir James M. Barrie, is an animated feature film from Disney’s BC (before computers) era.
n Radio station broadcasting over the Internet 1997 Jul 24 MIT Bitcaster site bit.listserv.edtech (Popik) 1998 May 11 Tim Jones Chicago Tribune D1/5 National Public Radio may have carved a niche as the best-known Net broadcaster (or bitcaster) in America, but barely 5 percent of the nation’s [End Page 302] 12,241 radio stations—and only a handful in Chicago—are broadcasting on the Net.
n Measurement of the color gradations in dots produced by a computer printer 1998 Oct Will Hively Discover 96/2 A printer with the bit depth of 8 has eight gradations between the lightest and darkest dots, and manufacturers now claim bit depths of 32.
n Creator of an online bulletin board 1992 Jun 8 Newsweek (Popik) 1995 Feb 27 Newsweek 45/4 Omar Wasow / Chatmeister / The 24-year-old who established the New York Online bulletin board as a forum for discussions of race and culture.
n Participant on an online bulletin board 1997 Nov 17 Jim Pawlak Detroit Free Press 12F/4 Real-time “conversation” allows chatters to share problems, give opinions, vent, ask questions and get answers.
n Engineer 1998 Mar 1 Mark Leibovich Athens Daily News-Banner-Herald 17/1 (Washington Post) Known in some management circles as “creative titling,” this phenomenon has morphed yesterday’s uninspired “engineers,” “recruiters” and “personnel managers” into today’s “chief techie geeks,” “nerd rustlers” and “directors of bringing in cool people”—all real titles, at real companies, authenticated on real business cards.
n Yahoo Inc., a company offering a Web search service (nickname) 1996 Mar 20 Wall Street Journal (Popik) 1998 Mar 1 Mark Leibovich Athens Daily News-Banner-Herald 17/3 Like so much tech ingenuity, creative naming has its roots in Silicon Valley, home of “chief yahoos” (Yahoo Inc.), “lighting diva” (Pacific Delta Images), “virtual reality evangelists” (Silicon Graphics Inc.) and “Ninjas” (Red Brick Systems Inc.).
n Adult who chooses not to become familiar with computers 1995 Feb 27 LynNell Hancock et al Newsweek 53/1 These aging choose-nots become a more serious issue when they are teachers in schools.
n Web link accessible with the depression and release of a mouse button 1996 Mar 28 Wall Street Journal R13/1 SANDBERG: This [Website for a movie] is unabashed brochureware in which the only clickable link buys you a ticket through the Movielink service.
n Record of choices that one has made on the World Wide Web 1995 Mar 15 BellSouth Inside Media (Popik) 1996 Oct 24 Walter S Mossberg Wall Street Journal B1/2 A second practice involves companies trying to capture your “click stream,” which is the history of what you choose to view on the Web, to ascertain your likes and dislikes and create a profile that can be sold to marketers.
n Computer technology allowing several people to work together on one project from different locations (see also electronic whiteboard) 1985 Dec 5 London Financial Times (Popik) 1995 Jun 2 Thomas Petzinger Jr Wall Street Journal B1/2 AT&T Corp., forecasting that “collaborative computing” would far exceed fax technology, entered the fray. 1997 Mar 31 Ed Tittel Newsweek 13/2 Better still, networks are beginning to support a new class of applications, called “collaborative computing,” that permits multiple users to work together on a single document or project.
n Gathering information about the interests and habits of Web users (see also COLLMINING, CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE, CUSTOMER-SERVICE SOFTWARE, CUSTOMER-SUPPORT SOFTWARE, DATA MINING, INFORMATION MINING) [End Page 303] 1992 Dec Communications of ACM (Popik) 1996 Mar 18 Bob Metcalfe InfoWorld 52/1 THE PRESIDENT of the United States and your next video rental might both someday be chosen over the Internet through what’s called collaborative filtering.
n [collaborate + -ory (after laboratory)] Room equipped for electronic teleconferencing 1991 Dec Communications of ACM (Popik) 1997 Jan 27 Bob Metcalfe InfoWorld 44/1 The proposal is to build 100 prototype “collaboratories”—multimedia rooms to facilitate advanced audio-, video-, and data-conferencing simultaneously among as many as 10 research and development teams—over the next several years.
n [collaborative filtering + data mining] Gathering information about the interests and habits of customers (see also COLLABORATIVE FILTERING, CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE, CUSTOMER-SERVICE SOFTWARE, CUSTOMER-SUPPORT SOFTWARE, DATA MINING, INFORMATION MINING) 1996 Dec 2 Bob Metcalfe Infoworld 47/5 I’m tempted to combine the two as “collmining.” . . . As you do, think about the collmining potential that Amazon has—you rate books, you buy books, you shop for books, and Amazon’s millions of customers help recommend books to you. [¶] And think about the tension developing—thanks to the more aggressive collmining we can expect in coming years—between personalization and privacy.
n Chat room program placing online comments into comic strips 1988 Nov 24 Los Angeles Times (Popik) 1996 Aug 6 Don Clark Wall Street Journal B4/5 A more offbeat example is Comic Chat. David Kurlander, an expert in user interfaces, created a World Wide Web program that turns people’s typed-in comments into an instant comic strip. People choose their characters, and the program automatically determines their gestures, location and their arrangment in the landscape—with bizarre and funny results.
n English used by computer users throughout the world (who often do not know much English) 1988 Jul 23 Economist (Popik) 1995 Mar 22 Barry Newman Wall Street Journal A1/1 (head & subhead) World Speaks English, Often None Too Well; Results Are Tragicomic / Talking Turkey With Japan, Czechs Can Get the Drift; Compu-Jargon Is Vexing
n Destruction of computer hardware or software 1997 Aug 2 Ellen Goodman Victoria BC Times Colonist A14 (from Jul 31 Boston Globe A13 [Popik]; head & text) Anyone who’s ‘crashed’ will understand ‘Computercide’ / Who could resist a tale of computercide? Who among us who had ever booted up, crashed, or freaked out could have done anything but exhale a resounding “YESSS!” for the man who pumped lead into his hard drive. —computercidal adj Full of an urge to destroy a computer or a piece of software 1997 Aug 2 Ellen Goodman Victoria BC Times Colonist A14 (Boston Globe) The rest of us, however, are experiencing what Avram Miller, the vice president of Intel, describes with astounding understatement as the “pain of ownership issues.” We went looking for a tool, not a toy. We regard bells and whistles as hassles. We are feeling computercidal.
n Computer expert 1989 Jun 22 Whole Earth Review 78 (Popik) 1990 Sep Government Executive (Popik) 1993 Aug 1 Los Angeles Times D1/2 (Popik) 1996 Oct 18 Ruth Mullen Indianapolis Star D1-2 (head & text) WHAT TO SAY IF: / You want to be cool at college / Computer cowboy, computer jock—computer expert [End Page 304]
n Realm of the computer 1995 Feb 16 Stephen Kreider Yoder Wall Street Journal B1/4 Many in computerdom weren’t unhappy when Judge Stanley Sporkin rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to settle its antitrust charges against Microsoft Corp., but there was a collective gasp over the judge’s denunciation of a time-honored software marketing tactic: “vaporware.”
v Generate a map (by computer) showing a region’s statistics on income, employment, racial makeup, and voting trends 1980 Mar 5 Wall Street Journal 48/1 (Popik) 1992 Nov 30 Jim Hammett InfoWorld 12/1 The road to the White House for president-elect Bill Clinton began two years ago with Democrats literally computer mapping the country to show voting trends and voter profiles from every region of the country.
adj Of a machine with calibrations controlled by a computer 1982 Aug 4 London Financial Times 8 (Popik) 1998 May David Searle Classic Auto Restorer 7/2–3 Nowadays, a computer numerically controlled (CNC) milling machine can cut a master cam in only 35 seconds to an accuracy of .0002”, ensuring accurate reproductions. . . . Major car companies can afford the latest CNC cam grinders that may cost a half million dollars or more.
attrib Of or like a person with computer-generated speech 1990 Mar 7 Larry Wallberg Wall Street Journal A16/1 The soothing, computeroid female voice on the other end of the phone line will have worked it out for you.
n Eyestrain associated with prolonged computer use 1994 Jan American School & University 60A (Popik) 1997 May 20 Tampa Tribune 2 (Popik) Dec 14 Beth Berselli Atlanta Journal-Constitution 9/1 Yet just when you think you’ve got this ergonomics thing conquered, along comes another high-tech ailment: “computer vision syndrome,” or CVS.
n Copyright arrangement allowing a number of people to use a piece of software at the same time 1988 Jan Data Communications 238 (Popik) 1992 May 12 PC Magazine 99 (Popik) Nov 30 Bert Latamore InfoWorld 50/1 While both software publishers and users agree that concurrent licensing—in which a specific number of users can simultaneously access an application—offers the best value and least administrative hassle, no clear standard for metering software use has emerged.
n Author 1992 Jul 27 Telephony 8 (Popik) 1993 Dec 1 Atlanta Journal-Constitution D5 (Popik) 1994 Feb 21 Newsweek 65 But the explosion of electronic publishing is likely to be little comfort to most authors, who’ve been demoted to “content providers” in the multimedia universe. 1997 Aug 11 Newsweek 49 He figured he was, in ‘90s language, a “content provider.” So he began providing news and information every which way. He started magazines, TV shows, a book-publishing arm, cable TV and satellite services, a radio operation. Oct 20 New York 30 Woody Allen—these days merely an aging content-provider rather than a chronicler of our lives.
attrib Of an electronic device performing the combined tasks of several such devices 1997 Jan 3 Patrick M Reilly Wall Street Journal B8/3 The consumer electronics industry has attempted to curtail clutter, creating smaller remote controls or universal remotes for multiple machines, and marketing “convergence” machines that do the work of once-disparate hardware. . . . The rage for convergence products, however, has added to the clutter. [End Page 305]
n Older computer expert 1998 Jul 10 James Lileks Harrisburg PA Patriot-News A11/2 These old codewarriors, incidentally, are now being paid big sums to pore over the code and find the bugs. The nation’s economy now rests in the hands of people who show up at Denny’s at 7 a.m. for the Senior Grand Slam Special discount. But despite the coot-geeks’ labors, Gilligan still capers haplessly in every major market, and the same programs lurk in mainframes across the land.
n Software linking together several computer network systems 1995 Mar 28 San Diego Union-Tribune C2 (Popik) 1997 Mar 10 PC Week 1 (Popik) Sep 16 Dwight Silverman Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B8/4 What Netscape believes is going to be its new ace in the hole is something it calls “crossware”—software that links corporate intranets to each other in a network that’s been dubbed an “extranet.”
n Person starting a false e-mail chain letter 1997 Aug 3 Mary Schmich Chicago Tribune 4/1/1 Hoping to find the source of this prank, I traced the e-mail backward from its last recipient. . . . I realized the pursuit of culprit zero would be endless.
n Software tracking customer interactions on the Internet for various business purposes; CUSTOMER-SERVICE SOFTWARE; CUSTOMER-SUPPORT SOFTWARE (see also COLLABORATIVE FILTERING, COLLMINING, DATA MINING, INFORMATION MINING) 1994 Sep 1 YAV Business 132 (Popik) 1996 Apr 29 Neil Gross Business Week 97–98 (head, subhead, & text) NEW TRICKS FOR HELP LINES / Customer-support software is going gangbusters / Across Corporate America, troubleshooters such as Thatcher are discovering the benefits of “customer-interaction” software. . . . Customer service software startups will get an even bigger boost as Web-browsing programs gain new powers and companies begin to integrate their telephone and computer systems more tightly.
n CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE; CUSTOMER-SUPPORT SOFTWARE 1988 Mar United States Banker 90 (Popik) 1996 Apr 29 Quot SV CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE
n CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE; CUSTOMER-SERVICE SOFTWARE 1986 Nov 13 PC Week 201 (Popik) 1996 Apr 29 Quot SV CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE
n Internet business opportunity 1995 Nov 11 Ottawa Citizen D9 (Popik) Dec 27 Sally Goll Beatty Wall Street Journal 17/2 Advertisers also are developing on-line sites independent of emerging on-line media, typically spending from $200,000 to $300,000 in production costs. . . . Not all traditional agencies are missing out on the cyberaction.
n Advertisement on the World Wide Web 1995 Dec 27 Sally Goll Beatty Wall Street Journal 17/2 Critics argue that most upstarts lack the skills necessary for the next stage of cyberad development: integration of Web sites into advertisers’ mainstream marketing activities—including TV and print. 1996 Apr 29 Business Week 8/4 (caption & text) CYBER AD: This note brought to you by. . . [ellipsis in text] / Ads, which change each time you dial into Juno, appear first as a banner along the screen’s top edge. Viewers may click on the banner and get a full screen or more of cyberspiel.
n Person having a vicarious adventure (like river rafting or scuba diving) by visiting a Web site 1997 Jun 1 Mike Steere Harrisburg PA [End Page 306] Sunday Patriot-News J6/6 Bangs also hopes Mungo Park will inspire cyberadventurers to try the real thing even when there isn’t a commercial version of the specific experiences his Web site covers.
n Web-oriented advertising agency 1995 Dec 27 Sally Goll Beatty Wall Street Journal 17/1 Advertisers are invading the Internet, taking upstart cyberagencies with them—and leaving much of Madison Avenue scrambling to catch up, a new survey says.
n Person representing computer specialists in the film industry 1996 Jan 2 Electronic Buyer’s News (Popik) Apr 8 Kendall Hamilton & Patricia King Newsweek 59/2 Tinseltown and Silicon Valley still don’t intersect as neatly as Hollywood and Vine, but a growing cadre of “cyberagents” is at long last gaining the trust of wary techies and positioning itself for interactive entertainment’s potentially tremendous payoff.
n, pl Those desirous of advancing a career in the computer industry 1997 Aug 16 editorial Harrisburg PA Patriot-News A7/1 Seattle is supposed to be the promised land for the cyber-ambitious, but [author Mark] Monmonier warns of nearby active volcanoes and the possibility of earthquakes. Not to mention the lurking lattes and rampaging radicchio.
n Heartbreak and misery expressed on the Internet 1996 Oct 2 Vancouver Sun D14/1 (head & text) TEENAGE CYBER ANGST / Somewhere in your attic, says the Bad Teenage Angst Poetry Page, you probably have a notebook you’d rather forget—one filled with heartfelt sentiments, tearstained pages and wretched writing.
n Banking practiced on the Internet 1994 Jul Swiss Business 45 (Popik) 1995 May 8 Newsweek 71 (Popik) Dec 27 Ottawa Citizen B8 (Popik) 1996 Mar 25 Brian Bremner et al Business Week 176/1 In March, a group of Tokyo banks, led by Sakura Bank Ltd. and Mitsubishi Bank Ltd., complained to the Japanese patent office that Citi’s [Citibank’s] claims on proprietary electronic-cash technology were too broad and might stymie their own moves into cyberbanking.
n World Wide Web as a conglomeration of small shops 1996 Feb 28 Joan E Rigdon Wall Street Journal B1/4 That’s becoming increasingly important as more clients buy into the theory that the World Wide Web will one day morph into a giant cybermall. . . . Of course, the giant cyberbazaar may never materialize.
n High level of business activity on the Internet 1995 Mar 7 Houston Chronicle 1 (Popik) 1996 Jul 19 Wall Street Journal B3/2 One of Mr. Kaplan’s first ideas to capitalize on the cyber boom was an on-line take-out food service, though he quickly shelved that in favor of auctioning less-perishable computer goods.
n Warning icon appearing at a Web site for adults 1995 Mar 15 Fara Warner Wall Street Journal B1/3 Call it a cyberbouncer: “You must be 21 or older” to visit Jim Beam Brands’ new “virtual bar” on the Internet, a computer icon warns Internet users.
n Intrusion of a computer hacker into a secure computer system 1995 Feb 27 Newsweek 63/1 (head & text) Anatomy of a Cyber Break-In / The hacker “spoofs” his way past security locks on Shimomura’s networked databases and makes off with hundreds of documents and software programs. [End Page 307]
n Commercial activity carried out on the Internet 1994 Jun 6 Financial Times 16 (Popik) Oct 14 Seattle Times H25 (Popik) 1995 Feb 27 Clifford Stoll Newsweek 41/2 Then there’s cyberbusiness. We’re promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals.
n Money available online (see also digital money; digital cash “ATNW” AS 70 [1995]: 306) 1994 Sep 13 Wall Street Journal B1/6 (Popik) 1995 Nov 6 PC Week E8 (Popik) 1996 Mar 25 Brian Bremner Business Week 176/1–2 A group of Japanese commercial banks and high-tech powerhouse Hitachi Ltd. will soon back the rival Mondex cybercash system under development by London-based National Westminster Bank PLC.
n [cyberbroadcaster] Person broadcasting information (like sports updates) on the Internet 1996 Jul Searcher 22 (Popik) Jul 15 Playback 12 Jul 27 Detroit Free Press 2B/2 In its simplest form, a rudimentary account of each half-inning is typed into a computer by the cybercaster and transmitted all over the world.
n Promotion of something on the Internet 1996 Jun 19 Margaret Scott Wall Street Journal A18/1 Yes, there is a whiff of cyber-cheerleading in the air, yet [the] downstairs at SIBL [the Science, Industry and Business Library in New York] has indeed become a gallery of the crass and marvelous possibilities of the evolving library.
n Chef with the appearance of a robot 1996 Sep 14 Daily Yomiuri 8 (Popik) 1997 Oct 27 Newsweek 75 (caption) Computer couture: A model wears a futuristic ‘translator jacket’ at MIT’s Media Lab fashion show (right); other costumes include a ‘cyber chef’ (below, left)
n Political protest mounted on a Web page 1996 Oct 13 Michael Smyth Victoria BC Province A6 (head & text) CYBER-CHOP FOR CLARK? / University student William Burchill says 100 people signed his cyberspace petition to kick Glen Clark out of office on the first day of operation for his Internet home page. [¶] The UBC grad student set up the C.H.O.P. Clark web site to protest the government’s budget shenanigans. [¶] C.H.O.P. stands for Citizens for Honesty in Our Politicians.
n User of the World Wide Web 1995 Jan 9 Seattle Times B4 (Popik) 1996 Jun 11 Debra Jo Immergut Wall Street Journal A12/1 While an old-fashioned analog type like the Indian mogul Shah Jahan had to shell out untold sums to build the Taj Mahal for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, today’s cybercitizens can create on-line shrines on the Internet for little or no money.
n Use of computer technology in the direction of a sport 1996 Mar 22 James Sterba Wall Street Journal B7 (head, subhead, & text) Let’s Go to the Digital Videotape! / NBA Teams Byte Into Cyber-Coaching / It may be hard to believe that in that loft began today’s National Basketball Association’s techno-wars, in which various teams around the league are busily arming themselves with pricey computers, analysis software and fast digital video gear to help them win games.
n Internet enthusiast 1995 Apr 30 London Independent 14 (Popik) 1996 Mar 28 John Lippman Wall Street Journal R22/1 Cybercrats like to compare the on-line world to a dimensionless, limitless library that will eventually encompass all the information ever produced—a “virtual” version of the great Library at Alexandria. [End Page 308]
adj [cyber + psychedelic] 1: Appearing to have computer expertise 1993 Oct 9 London Independent 35 (Popik) 1995 Mar 1 Creative Review 16 (Popik) 1996 Jun 3 Andrew Leonard Nation 36/2 “Do you believe in math?” a caller asked Mark Dery during Jerry Brown’s Pacifica radio talk show, We the People. Talk about your tough questions. Say yes, and half the audience pegs you as an anti-Gaia techno-fascist. Say no, and the rest dismiss you as yet another brain-fried “cyberdelic” wannabe. 2: Attractive (as an image on the Internet) 1998 Jan 2 Barry Fox Harrisburg PA Patriot-News D9/6 (head & text) SHE’S CYBERDELIC BABY, YEA! / She is Cindy Margolis, the most downloaded woman in cyberspace, according to Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine.
n Police officer tracking down suspects of Internet crimes (see also cyberforensics, cybersleuth) 1995 Apr 2 Seattle Times C1 (Popik) Apr 17 Information Week 12 (Popik) 1999 Apr 8 Leonard Pitts Milledgeville GA Union-Recorder 4A/4 (Miami Herald) One hopes the fact that cyberdetectives were able to pluck [David] Smith [alleged creator of Melissa, an e-mail virus] from his anonymity and that he’s now facing the possibility of prison and a hefty fine will be sufficient to give at least some of his fellow hackers second thoughts.
n [cyber dinosaur] Computer-animated dinosaur 1996 May 29 Beth Pinkster Harrisburg PA Patriot-News C5/1 (Dallas Morning News) After all, it’s been three years since Steven Spielberg’s cyber-dinos emerged from “Jurassic Park” and seven since “The Abyss” introduced the movies’ first digital character.
n Bad computer-generated art 1996 Jun 3 Andrew Leonard Nation 36/3 Escape Velocity is a packet-switched plummet through punctured flesh, digital brain-jack dreaming and muddled politics, a fiber-optic foray through crowds of teeming cyberpunk poseurs and Terminator 2 morph-junkies. And if the messiness confuses, one nonetheless feels safe in [Mark] Dery’s hands—you have to trust someone who eschews “cyberdrool” from the outset and then later coins the word “cyberbole” (to describe what everyone else is doing).
n Excessive self-esteem based on one’s status in the computer industry 1997 Aug 4 David Kaplan Newsweek 56/1 A sprawling, ultramodern architectural series of tilts and angles, the house is high-tech testament to cyberego and what “spare no expense” really means to a man with many millions—which Simonyi, Microsoft’s chief software wizard, happens to be.
n Enthusiast with a Web site providing information about the object of his passion 1994 Jun 21 Miami Herald 6/1/5 (Popik) 1997 Aug 8 Harrisburg PA Patriot-News D2 (head) Cyberfan counters the Hollywood hype
n Filmmaking with computer animation technology 1996 Jun 29 Beth Pinkster Harrisburg PA Patriot-News C5/2 (Dallas Morning News) After all, where could filmmakers find cooperative mile-wide tornadoes, aliens or dragons? [¶] While that means much of the action takes place within the safe confines of a disk drive, it’s not all cyber-filming.
n Online sexual banter 1996 Aug 12 Ann Landers Harrisburg PA Patriot-News C7/5 I agree that relationships that were destroyed by cyber-flirting were in danger to begin with.
n Detective work involving computer network systems (see also CYBERDETECTIVE, CYBERSLEUTH) 1998 Oct 26 Network World 54 Dec/Jan Robert Aanerud Business Upshot 7/2 (head & text) Get Ready To Learn About Cyberforensics / A skilled Cyberforensics team can help determine when an [End Page 309] intrusion occurred and the extent of the entry. It can also help the business recover from the intrusion. Finally, it can help identify and track the computer criminal—and establish an evidence trail that will stand up in court.
n Computer game 1994 Aug 28 Houston Chronicle Bus sec 1 (Popik) 1995 Feb 27 Newsweek 43/2 (head & text) Haruhiko Shono / Gamesman / The Japanese multimedia artist invents cybergames. His latest: a new version of his classic “L-Zone,” which takes players through a deserted mechanized city.
n Wasting time on the Internet while at work 1996 Jun 7 Joe Mullich Central Penn Business Journal 14 (head & text) The lowdown on cybergoofing / When I opened the paper this morning, I saw a headline that read: “New office worry: Goofing off online.”
n Governmental involvement in Internet activities 1995 Aug 28-Sep 3 Howard Kurtz Washington Post National Weekly Edition 24/1 Perhaps all this cyber-governing would have a bit more resonance if Virtual Washington let the rest of the country in on the action.
n Memorial to a dead person on the Internet 1996 Feb 10 Richmond Times-Dispatch D-1 (Popik) May 27 John Bebow Detroit News 1A/1–2 (subhead & text) Latest in Memorials? Cyber graves, pendants filled with our ashes. / Instead of names carved in cold granite, the World Wide Cemetery on the Internet features smiling photos and, in some cases, the recorded voices of the dead.
n Exercise program on CD-ROM 1997 Nov 25 Marlene Habib Victoria BC Times Colonist D3/1 (head & text) Canadian cybergym takes over where fitness videos leave off / It’s a reality now that the latest in shaping up is loading down a computer with a CD-ROM that gives users one-on-one exercise and nutrition instruction.
n Person spending most of his time on the Internet 1995 Dec 22 London Independent 11 (Popik) 1997 May 26 Newsweek 66/3 “When I meet people, they go, ‘You’re Matt Drudge?’” the unassuming cyberhermit says.
n Change from noncomputer to computer technology 1996 Jun 2 Richard Lorant Harrisburg PA Patriot-News D3/6 Lincoln-Sudbury is not the first school to make the cyberleap to CD-ROM yearbooks.
n Library providing online access to information 1996 Jun 19 Margaret Scott Wall Street Journal A18 (head) The Cyber-Library: Research in the ‘90s
n CYBER-BAZAAR 1994 Aug Multimedia & Videodisc Monitor (Popik) 1996 Feb 28 Quot SV CYBER-BAZAAR
n Attendee at an online funeral 1996 Aug 21 Lucette Lagnado Wall Street Journal B1 (head & text) Phone Eulogies, Cybermourners Make Funerals Into Virtual Events / A camera in the funeral parlor will flash out images of the mourners, the flowers, the coffin, and—if the family permits—even the dearly departed. Cybermourners can sign on to participate in the service and express their condolences on a chat line.
n User of the World Wide Web 1993 Jun Popular Science 82 (Popik) 1995 Jul 16 Howard Kurtz Washington Post C3/1 When I wrote a piece a few months back about the difficulty of reading magazines on a computer screen, a number of cybernauts ridiculed me as an antiquated printhead who just didn’t get it. 1996 Mar 25 Kathy Rebello et al Business Week 37/1 Don’t bother trying [End Page 310] to keep score. In the battle for the hearts and minds of cybernauts, things move so quickly that even the players sometimes lose track.
n Online newborn viewing room 1996 Nov 26 Boston Globe 62 1997 Nov 24 Harrisburg PA Patriot-News A2/5 (Knight-Ridder) Now, at least at one hospital they not only take your picture moments after your debut on Earth, they also will, parents permitting, slap it on the World Wide Web, where the newborn can be viewed by delighted friends, family and perfect strangers. [¶] Cybernursery is a feature used by the Holy Name Hospital in New Jersey. Visitors are welcome at http://www.cybernursery.com.
n Dinosaur research using computer technology 1998 May 11 advertisement Chicago Tribune 4/6/1–3 Did dinosaurs break the sound barrier? Discover the worlds of supersonic dinosaurs and “cyberpaleontology” with a keynote presentation by Nathan Myhrvold, Ph.D., of Microsoft. Based on research he conducted with Philip Currie, Ph.D. of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Myhrvold will share how he used computer simulations to explore how some dinosaurs may have broken the sound barrier by simply whipping their powerful tails. He will also provide theories on why these dinosaurs might have produced these loud booms.
n Sociological information about a group of Internet users 1996 Mar 26 Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B9/56 (caption head & text) A CYBER-PROFILE OF BLACKS ON THE INTERNET / African Americans on the Internet tend to be younger, are more likely to be single and are much more likely to be women than is the case with the average cyberspace traveler.
n Forecaster of Internet and computer developments 1997 Sep 28 New York Times 6/40/2 (Popik) Dec 1 Robert J Samuelson Newsweek 53/1 The most recent issue of Vanity Fair carries a long profile of Esther Dyson—editor of the newsletter Release 1.0 and reputed cyber prophet.
n Hiring of employees via the Internet 1997 Oct Newsweek 111 (Popik) 1999 Mar 12 Diane Kunde Financial Post C12/4 Still, the résumé is only the beginning. In the world of cyber-recruiting, the next communication is likely to be by e-mail. —cyber-recruiter n Person hiring employees via the Internet 1998 Jun 8 Tech Web News (Popik) 1999 Mar 12 Diane Kunde Financial Post C12/3 In general, the watchword for a résumé submitted on the World Wide Web is simplicity, said John Nelson, a TI [Texas Instruments] cyber-recruiter.
n Romantic interaction between two people via the Internet 1995 Apr 12 Computing Canada 13 (Popik) 1997 Feb 12 Trish Mcdermott Victoria BC Times Colonist C12/5 How do I break off a cyberrelationship? In the online world where anyone can easily disappear by changing their handle, it’s important to be straightforward about ending relationships.
n Business where customers can sit to explore the Internet (see also CYBERCAFE “ATNW” AS 74 [1999]: 210) 1995 May 4 San Francisco Chronicle F4 (Popik) 1996 May 27 Computerworld 81 (Popik) Aug 5 Michael Meyer Newsweek 69/3 One of New York’s trendy cybersalons, @Cafe, recently added Wynse’s WinTerms to its network of stand-alone PCs, sparing the expense of upgrading to more costly desktops as well as the headache of administering and maintaining dozens of computers, each with its own software and operating system. [End Page 311]
adj Familiar with the Internet 1994 Sep 19 Electronic Engineering Times 1 (Popik) 1998 Jan 27 Kristen Hays Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B12/1 Net surfers who have cold feet about visiting frigid Gobbler’s Knob to watch Punxsutawney Phil check his shadow on Groundhog Day can stay home this year and see it almost live on their computer screens. . . . [PA governor Tom] Ridge will watch the broadcast with cyber-savvy students at Susquehanna Twp. Middle School.
n Person who buys products on the Internet 1994 Nov 22 PR Newswire (Popik) 1995 May 16 San Diego Union-Tribune B1 (Popik) 1996 Feb 12 Sally Goll Beatty Wall Street Journal B3/1 So, for instance, when a cyber-shopper clicks onto the Ford web-site, Ford could someday theoretically track all the shopper’s activities on the Web—to say nothing of the information he or she types in directly to the Ford site.
n Putative disease caused by a computer 1996 Mar 5 Dwight Silverman Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B3/1 No, this is not about some bizarre cyber-sickness. These visual victims are merely Netscape-deprived—they are using a Web browser other than Netscape Navigator.
n Detective using computers to track down suspects and collect evidence (see also CYBERDETECTIVE, CYBERFORENSICS) 1995 Feb 21 Los Angeles Times B4/1 (Popik) 1996 Jun 17 Melinda Liu & Gregory L Vistica Newsweek 47/2 CIA cybersleuths could follow the money right back to the mafia bosses. Jun 22 London Financial Times 11 (Popik)
n Ineffective substance sold as a medicine on the Internet 1996 Apr 4 Wall Street Journal B8/4 (head & text) Internet AD for Aids Cure Draws Restraining Order / Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, in his first action to combat the growing problem of misleading advertising on the Internet, said the case should “serve as a stern warning to other cyber-snakeoil salesmen.”
n Person maliciously defacing or changing a Web site (see also DIGITAL SPRAY CAN, ELECTRONIC VANDAL) 1996 Jun 26 Sewell Chan Wall Street Journal B1-6 (head, text, & subhead) Electronic Vandals Tamper With Web Pages / Victims include the British government, the Nation of Islam and the American Psychoanalytic Association, which have had their Web pages defaced, erased, or, in one case, replaced, by intruders. [¶] “The problem is basically cyberspace vandals with digital spray cans,” says Richard Power, an analyst at the Computer Security Institute, an association of security consultants in San Francisco. / Electronic Vandals Leave Their Messages on Others’ Web Pages
n Advertising on the Internet 1996 Apr 29 Quot sv cyberad
n Person registering for an Internet address with the intention of reselling it at a profit 1996 Dec 20 Media & the Law (Popik) 1997 Jul 11 Jack Kapica Globe & Mail A6 On the food chain, speculators are rated lower than pond scum by most Net heads; they’ve been called cybersquatters and poachers. But scalpers is best—they work like those villainous folks who shove tickets in your face as you saunter past the local sports palace. 1998 Dec 3 NPR’s All Things Considered archive http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/archives/1998/981203.atc.html (head & text) Cyber-Squatters / . . . Many entrepreneurs have registered certain website names, hoping to sell them later to companies that want to use them. Yesterday, Exxon and Mobil discovered that someone had [End Page 312] already registered the website names “ExxonMobil.com” and “Exxon-Mobil.com.” 1999 May 27 Jon Swartz San Francisco Chronicle D3/5 (head & text) Court Case Could Stop Cybersquatters / Corporate America is closely watching an obscure case in a Virginia federal courthouse tomorrow that could effectively quash “cybersquatters”—individuals whose Web site addresses contain the names of well-known companies to ensnare unwitting Web surfers. —cyber-squatting n Registering an Internet address with the intention of reselling it at a profit 1999 May 24 Charles Spiller Los Angeles Times C1/5 Included in that process has been an effort to deal with the contentious issue of “cyber-squatting”—the speculative buying and selling of addresses known as domain names.
n [cyber haystack] World Wide Web (as a difficult place to find something) 1995 Dec 1 Online Libraries & Microcomputers (Popik) 1998 Apr 3 Milledgeville GA Union-Recorder 5A/1 (AP) A computer search for a needle in the cyberstack now involves sorting through about 320 million Web pages and even the best search agents index no more than 40 percent of them.
n Software format considered standard (because of its popularity) 1996 Mar 25 Kathy Rebello et al Business Week 37 (head & text) BROUHAHA IN BROWSERLAND / Who will set the cyberstandard—Netscape or Microsoft? / The company with the most popular browser can set industry standards and sell software that works seamlessly with the browser.
n Information transmitted with e-mail identifying its source 1994 May Computer Shopper 6/2 (Popik) 1995 May 27 PR Newswire (Popik) 1996 Aug 6 Alex Markels Wall Street Journal B1/3 Although some users treat e-mail as if it were written with disappearing ink, electronic messages leave a cybertrail that can come back to haunt the indiscreet.
n Something currently popular in computers or online services 1995 Sep 4 Computer Reseller News 43 (Popik) 1997 Dec 8 Jennifer Tanaka & Mark Rambler Newsweek 14/4 WE WERE GOING to razz Bausch & Lomb for shameless cybertrend mongering.
n Indian working on software for less money than a Western worker would accept 1995 Jul World Press Review 36/3 At these meetings, the executives also discuss other things that the multinationals would not want to hear—for instance, that many of the computer jobs on the subcontinent involve just data entry and debugging, work that is looked down on in the West and that reinforces the image of India as providing “data coolies.”
n Device linking computers in a local area network (LAN) 1986 Nov 3 Computerworld 26 (Popik) 1996 Nov 3 Paul Andrews Harrisburg PA Patriot-News D11/1 (Seattle Times) [Microsoft Merchant] “Server” refers to powerful, centrally administered software and hardware that acts as a butler, or data hub, for Internet-linked computers.
v Search in a large computer database for information useful in predicting the behavior of people (see also collabORATIVE FILTERING, COLLMINING, CUSTOMER-INTERACTION SOFTWARE, CUSTOMER-SERVICE SOFTWARE, CUSTOMER-SUPPORT SOFTWARE, INFORMATION MINING) 1981 Mar Engineering and Mining Journal 207 (Popik) 1996 Mar 22 James Sterba Wall Street Journal B7/5 Mr. Sterner, of the Magic, says he data-mines up-and-coming opponents for weakness-revealing patterns. —data mining n Searching a large computer database for information [End Page 313] useful in predicting the behavior of people 1992 Apr 16 PR Newswire (Popik) 1995 Mar 16 Richard L Hudson Wall Street Journal B6/5 Already, he noted, hundreds of big corporations are using machines from IBM and other companies for “data-mining” to spot unexpected but useful trends. 1996 Dec 2 Bob Metcalfe InfoWorld 47/3 Data mining is running software over a data warehouse looking for relationships among the data that can help a company predict the preferences and actions of its customers. Mar 22 James Sterba Wall Street Journal B7/2 Enter Inderpal Bhandari, a 35-year-old cricket-loathing Sikh from Calcutta with a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who thinks for a living at International Business Machines about attribute-focused data-mining. 1997 May 29 Jon Bigness Wall Street Journal B1/3 By taking advantage of new technology and better marketing tools, the two companies hope to combine one’s customer list and the other’s marketing skills. They will form one of the nation’s biggest contenders in the growing business of data mining.
n, attrib Disabling of an Internet service provider by a hacker flooding its server with phony requests 1988 Feb 5 Government Computer News 1 (Popik) 1996 Dec 23/30 Lynda Radosevich InfoWorld 3/2–3 During the assault, the 3,000 Web sites hosted by the company were unavailable, said Chris Schefler, Web Communications president. [¶] The assault was a form of Internet vandalism called “denial of service,” or Syn flood attack. 1997 Jan 6 Infoworld 34/1–2 For example, two organizations that track computer security violations—the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute and the Department of Energy’s Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC), an organization that tracks computer security violations—issued advisories in late December warning against denial-of-service attacks via the Ping o’ Death.
n Virtual coffee shop 1994 Jun 8 PR Newswire (Popik) 1995 May 8 Toronto Star G4 (Popik) 1997 Oct 27 Deborah Branscum Newsweek 78/3 Over the last decade, as more and more universities have gotten wired and computerized, college life has changed dramatically for students. . . . Need a date? Try your luck at a college’s digital café.
n Identification system validating the legitimacy of an online commercial transaction 1994 May 4 Open System Communication (Popik) 1997 Jan 13 Chris Jones InfoWorld 21/1 Certification authorities issue the digital certificates, or IDs, that validate users involved in transactions over the Internet and other networks. Feb 3 Chris Jones InfoWorld 14/4 Authentification of digital certificates—a fundamental part of the transaction process—is one area that is still being hashed out.
n Realistic computer imaging 1989 Apr 14 Back Stage 1 (Popik) 1996 May 29 Beth Pinkster Harrisburg PA Patriot-News C5/2–3 (Dallas Morning News) That’s where the magic of “digital compositing”—mastered by “Star Wars” pioneer George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic—comes in. . . . This toughness makes De Bont scoff at more traditional effects techniques, such as miniature models, because they lack the 3-D interactivity of digital compositing. 1997 Jul 11 Duane Dudek Milwaukee Journal Sentinel C4/1 (Lexis-Nexis) Combining the late stargazer Carl Sagan’s book and the same digital compositing that director Robert Zemeckis earlier used in “Forrest Gump” to put his hero at [End Page 314] the center of historic events, “Contact” is science fantasy at its most thoughtful and optimistic.
n Adulation of someone or something expressed at a Web site created for that purpose (see also VIRTUAL MONUMENT, VIRTUAL SHRINE) 1996 Jun 11 Debra Jo Immergut Wall Street Journal A12/1 Poems are posted using programming code, photos are electronically scanned, and, through these acts of digital devotion, ordinary Web pages are transformed into virtual monuments to a computer user’s passion or obsession.
n 1: Altering or creating images with a computer 1996 Oct 1 Salem Alaton Globe & Mail C1 (head & subhead) When pictures lie—on purpose / DIGITAL DOCTORING / A home PC and cheap software are all you need to remove wrinkles or ex-spouses. 1997 Sep 15 NBC News at Sunrise (Lexis-Nexis) Digital Doctoring of Video Images. Hollywood uses it for entertainment to create footage of things that never actually happened but when the technology spreads beyond the boundaries of Hollywood other people start using it. 2: Advice given to patients by physicians via the Internet 1998 Oct 25 KMGH-TV 7 News at Five (Lexis-Nexis) Graphic—Digital Doctoring, in “The Journal of American Medical Association.” Ferguson, talking about doctors having e-mail communications with their patients.
n Serving of mayonnaise at a Web site (figurative) 1997 Jun 30 Chana Schoenberger Wall Street Journal B1/2 The cyber-sandwiches at Best Food’s “Planet Sandwich” (your choice of the Heavenly Hero, Salmon Sandwich Supreme, or several others) all use a digital dollop of Best Food’s Hellmann’s Mayonnaise. Are you getting hungry yet?
n Violence portrayed on a computer 1990 Nov 8 Computing Canada 72 (Popik) 1996 Nov 4 Kathy Rebello Business Week 150/1 If you just couldn’t get into digital gore, now is the time to take the fun plunge.
n Commentary added to a Web site (but viewable only with software used by the commentator) 1999 Jun 14 Hiawatha Bray Chicago Tribune 4/6/4 (Boston Globe) It’s been called digital graffiti, but Third Voice is far more sophisticated than a can of spray paint. . . . Nobody will see your note unless he or she is also running the Third Voice client software.
n, pl People not owning or using computers 1995 Feb 27 LynNell Hancock et al Newsweek 53/1 The gap between generations may be the most important, says MIT guru Nicholas Negroponte, author of the new book “Being Digital.” Adults are the true “digitally homeless, the needy,” he says.
n Competition in computer use 1996 May 29 Beth Pinkster Harrisburg PA Patriot-News C5/1 (Dallas Morning News) The pressure of all this digital one-upmanship has filmmakers, studio chiefs and commentators on edge, worrying that too many extravaganzas will become extravagant flops, a la last summer’s “Judge Dredd” or the holiday bomb, “CutThroat Island.”
n Data manipulation on a computer 1993 May Christopher O’Malley PC Sources 92/3 Lotus’s Organizer deftly blends the look and feel of a Day-Timer with the manipulative powers of digital sifting.
n Method used by computer hackers to vandalize Web sites (figurative) 1996 Jun 26 Quot SV CYBERSPACE VANDAL [End Page 315]
n Postage downloaded from the Internet for use in the postal system (see E-POSTAGE, E-STAMP) 1993 Dec 7 AP (Popik) 1997 Dec 1 Newsweek 12/3–4 DIGITAL STAMPS ARE coming. E-Stamp Corp will let PC users download U.S. Postal Service-approved stamps from the Internet.
n Television using computer code to transmit and receive programming 1988 Sep 23 London Financial Times I17 (Popik) 1995 Jun 23 Chattanooga Free Press np (Lexis-Nexis) Digital television will give viewers movie-quality images and compact disc-quality sound. Using the language of computers—0s and 1s—to transmit information, the digital signal is less susceptible to interference and more efficient. 1997 Apr 21 Johnnie L Roberts Newsweek 50/1 WHEN IT comes to digital television, the revolutionary new offering now on the communications horizon, the picture on the screen doesn’t lie.
n Mock stock rating given to high-tech companies where the cartoon character Dilbert would be likely to work 1998 Feb 6 Deborah Lohse Wall Street Journal B1 (head & text) Downtrodden Cubicle-Dwellers Now Can Snicker at DILBX Index / You’ve heard of the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average. Now there’s the computer-chip Dilbert Index. [¶] As a marketing stunt, the brokerage Datek Online got cartoonist Scott Adams to create stock indexes that mirror quirks of his Dilbert comic-strip characters. [¶] The Dilbert Index, or DILBX, is composed of companies that are “most like a place Dilbert would work,” Mr. Adams says. . . . Mr. Adams provides this formula for creating DILBX: “Company = (P*10)+X+Y, where P is my personal opinion and X and Y are both letters that don’t mean anything.” The indexes scroll under their mock trading symbols on Datek’s Web site. The companies in each can be found on the Dilbert Zone Web site.
n Computer chip recognizing the chemical sequences of DNA strands 1991 Sep 27 Science 1489 (Popik) 1994 Nov 30 Wall Street Journal B6/5 (Lexis-Nexis abstract) Affymax NV says its Affymetrix unit will work with Genetics Institute Inc, which is 64% owned by American Home Products Corp, in analyzing the function of human genes using so-called DNA chips developed by Affymetrix (M) 1998 Sep 21 Harrisburg PA Patriot-News A2 The DNA chip resembles a computer chip, but instead of reading long strings of numerical data, it recognizes the chemical sequences on the DNA chain that make up genes.
attrib [Brand of soap] Oval shaped (of a computer mouse) 1989 Jun 17 PC Magazine 116 (Popik) 1993 May 3 Tom Quinlan InfoWorld 34/4 Unlike the small “Dove Bar” shape of the original Microsoft Mouse, the latest version is larger, with most of the weight pushed backward to give it a more natural feel.
n Image of flowers sent via e-mail (see E-FLOWERS) 1997 Jun 30 Chana Schoenberger Wall Street Journal B1/2 Tom Johnson, president of Internet Florist Inc., says between 15,000 and 30,000 people send e-bouquets each day from his site.
n, attrib Commercial activity on the Internet (see E-COMMERCE) 1995 Nov 20 Advertising Age 56 (Popik) 1996 Dec 12 Lim Chong Malaysia New Straits Times Business/14 (Lexis-Nexis) “How will business take advantage of the ability to reach an increasing number of people around the world via the [End Page 316] Internet and intranets? We think it’s e-business,” [general manager of IBM’s Internet division Irving] Wladawsky-Berger said, referring to a generic term which incorporates all the parts of IBM’s on-line solutions, ranging from Web server hardware to Lotus Notes Domino technology. 1997 Jul Melanie McMillen ZD Internet Magazine 23 (head & text) There’s No Business Like E-Business / Network computing, the old IBM mantra, is yesterday’s news; e-business is the new world order. Dec 8 Globe & Mail D6/56 Customers who are embracing the burgeoning e-business opportunities will also benefit from other aspects of QRS’s Inventory Management Services suite of products, especially in the areas of sales analysis and forecasting.
n E-business 1994 Oct 20 Telecom World Wire (Popik) 1995 Jul 7 Information Law Alert: A Vorhees Report (Popik) 1997 Jan 6 Jim Carr InfoWorld 46/4 But the e-commerce market is expected to expand to the point where online sales will represent $6.9 billion out of $2.1 trillion in overall retail spending by the year 2000, according to Forrester Research. Jun 29 Chicago Tribune 1/10/2 Randall C. Whiting, president and chief executive officer of CommerceNet, a consortium of more than 500 businesses and organizations intent on hastening the growth of electronic commerce, or “eCommerce,” said the administration’s position will encourage increased trade over the Internet. 1998 Dec 7 William J Holstein et al U.S. News & World Report 45/3 As E-commerce becomes more important, advertisers are rethinking how they spend their dollars.
n, pl Image of a bouquet sent via e-mail; E-BOUQUET 1997 Jun 30 Chana Schoenberger Wall Street Journal B1/2 “I like it just as much as I like getting real flowers,” says Justin Fields, a Harvard junior whose girlfriend has sent him e-flowers several times. “Plus, you don’t have to water them.”
n Image of objects such as flowers or candy sent via e-mail as a present 1997 Jun 30 Chana Schoenberger Wall Street Journal B1/2 Some Internet merchants offer e-gifts as marketing gimmicks to lure potential customers to their sites; with luck, some will place orders for real stuff too.
n Personal information spread via the Internet 1995 Apr Database 72 (Popik) 1998 Jun 30 Chicago Tribune 5/5/1 But e-mail gives workers a cloak of invisibility from one another, even in close quarters. The person across the cubicle wall with that intense, beat-the-clock look might just be swapping juicy e-gossip with someone else. About you.
n Contentious e-mail discussion 1996 Aug 6 Alex Markels Wall Street Journal B1/4 E-mail users should also avoid heated electronic arguments, say Jeffrey Christian, president of executive recruiter Christian & Timbers in Cleveland.
n Advertising through mass e-mail; spamming 1993 Sep 16 Steve Stecklow Wall Street Journal A1/1 They do not take kindly to sales pitches or electronic cold calling.
n Credit card machine attached to a traditional Salvation Army holiday kettle for collecting donations whose creditworthiness is checked by cellular telephone 1997 Dec 26 Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B6/5 (AP) (head, subhead, & text) Credit card experiment proves to be salvation / Electronic kettle will allow contributor to push buttons, ring Salvation Army’s bells / Next year, expect to see more credit-card machines atop the Salvation [End Page 317] Army’s traditional holiday donor kettles. [¶] In an experiment this year, electronic kettles attracted fewer donors than the cash kettles—perhaps because of the novelty. But individual donations were higher, as much as $20 at a time.
n E-mail 1982 Apr Data Communications 16 (Popik) 1989 Nov 27 Yvonne Lee InfoWorld 58/1 [Groupware] can include group editing tools, but most often refers to LAN [local area network] software that includes electronic messaging and tools like group scheduling.
n Computer or other electronic device as an addiction (like a drug delivered via syringe) 1995 Oct National Geographic 7 Our dependency on the “electronic needle” will increase if wireless, palm-size receivers become available.
n Electronic sensor that detects odors 1994 Jul 11 Food & Drink Daily (Popik) 1995 Mar 1 Kyle Pope Wall Street Journal B1/3–4 At General Motors Corp., researchers are using electronic noses to pinpoint the “new car” smell that melts buyers’ hearts and opens their wallets. At Unilever PLC, high-tech schnozzles are replacing some of the human smell panels that sniff people’s armpits as part of the research into new deodorants.
n Possible devastating attack on US computer systems (see also infowar) 1995 Jul 16 Neil Munro Washington Post C3 (head & text) The Pentagon’s New Nightmare: An Electronic Pearl Harbor / In short, if the civilian computers stopped working, America’s armed forces couldn’t eat, talk, move or shoot.
n Plastic card encoded with an amount of money for small purchases at vending machines and pay phones 1991 Nov 22 Thomson’s International Banking Regulator 1 (Popik) 1995 Mar 21 Saul Hansell New York Times D3/6 Unlike debit cards, which transfer money electronically from customers’ bank accounts, the new “electronic purse” cards will have an amount of money stored on them.
n Mess resulting from the compulsive buying of electronic gadgets; ELECTRONIC SPRAWL 1987 Jul 30 American Banker 27 (Popik) 1997 Jan 3 Patrick M Reilly Wall Street Journal B8/1 There is evidence, quite unscientific, that electronics clutter cuts along gender lines.
n ELECTRONICS CLUTTER 1997 Jan 3 Patrick M Reilly Wall Street Journal B8/1 Electronic sprawl has brought high-tech clutter, hardware clutter, software clutter (count your CD jewel boxes if you can), and possibly the most insidious, remote-control clutter.
n Commercial Web site 1995 Mar 11 Travel Weekly 3 (Popik) 1997 Jan 6 Jim Carr InfoWorld 46/1 Building an electronic storefront from scratch includes developing online order forms; an electronic “shopping cart” that allows shoppers to buy multiple items; an online catalog, or product database; and secure transaction-handling, inventory-control, and fulfillment systems.
n CYBERSPACE VANDAL (see also DIGITAL SPRAY CAN) 1986 Aug 10 AP (Popik) 1996 Jun 26 Quot SV CYBERSPACE VANDAL
n Network program allowing users to share a collection of text and graphics (see also COLLABORATIVE COMPUTING) 1995 Jun 5 Newsbyte News Network (Popik) 1997 Mar 31 Ed Tittel Newsweek 13/1 Today, Microsoft offers an electronic “whiteboard” that permits users to see (and share access to) a collection of text and graphics across the network. [End Page 318]
n Place stocked with a large number of electronic gadgets 1990 Jan 6 UPI (Popik) 1997 Jan 3 Patrick M Reilly Wall Street Journal B8/1 A walk through the Hoffman home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side is like touring an electronic wonderland—or hell, depending on your viewpoint. For a wife, a son and himself, Mr. Hoffman possesses: six color television sets, four VCRs, several TV cable boxes, and three stereos with compact disk and audio cassette players.
n Transmission of thousands of e-mail messages to one address to crash the receiving computer system 1997 Feb 24 Computerworld 6 (Popik) Mar 6 Harrisburg PA Patriot-News A2/3 In another e-mail “bomb attack” a junior at Monmouth College in New Jersey was charged by the FBI with routing 24,000 e-mail messages into mailboxes of school officials, causing the university’s entire system to crash.
n 1: Postage downloaded from the Internet for use in the postal system (see also DIGITAL STAMP, E-STAMP) 1997 Jan 20 InfoWorld 44 (Popik) Apr 26 Greg Lefevre CNN Computer Connection (Lexis-Nexis) E-postage. Post office in home office. It may soon be available to log onto a postage stamp program, buy stamps and print them out. 2: Proposed charge for e-mail messages (see also e-stamp) 1998 Nov 14 Economist 73/3 Firms will also try to stop employees sending vast quantities of e-mail by using e-postage, according to Ferris Research, a consultancy in San Francisco.
n Proposed charge for e-mail messages (see also E-POSTAGE 2) 1999 Jun 7 Kim Clark US News & World Report 70/1 If they succeed in these first steps toward a kind of “E-stamp,” the days of free E-mail may be numbered. [¶] The E-stamp, known in the industry as a “charge back” because providers charge the cost of a message back to its sender, is hardly revolutionary.
n Company selling US postage on the Internet for use in the postal system (trademark; see also DIGITAL STAMP, E-POSTAGE) 1997 Apr 18 PR Newswire (Popik) Dec 1 Quot SV DIGITAL STAMP 1998 Apr 16 Lisa Bransten Wall Street Journal B8 (head & text) E-Stamp Aims to Lick Postal Tradition / Mr. Kapoor is the chief executive officer of E-Stamp Corp., a start-up that plans to sell postage over the Internet.
n Medical procedure performed by a team of surgeons through a computer communications system 1999 Feb 24 CBS This Morning (Lexis-Nexis) Traveling on the Internet is about to get faster. Today doctors 300 miles apart will be connected by a new superfast data pipeline that promises—promises [sic] no information gridlock. While one doctor performs surgery in Ohio, the other will watch and advise from Washington. Organizers say today’s demonstration may be the e-surgery of tomorrow.
n [electronic retailer] Retail company conducting business over the Internet 1995 Sep 18 Discount Store News 7 (Popik) 1997 Apr 28 Allan Sloan Newsweek 57/1 Now, if stock peddlers have their way, it’s the turn of the Net retailers—or e-tailers, as they’re known. —e-tailing n Conducting retail business on the Internet 1997 Feb 25 PR Newswire (Popik) Jul Melanie McMillen ZD Internet Magazine 23/1 These two companies, along with dozens of others, are making Web-based e-tailing an easier task.
n Local computer network allowing open access to select groups 1997 Jan 27 Peter McGrath Newsweek 84/1 This is done through “extranets,” extensions of a company’s private, internal network (or intranet) to corporate customers [End Page 319] and suppliers. Sep 16 Quot sv crossware Oct 1 Financial Times IV Companies are opening up their intranet systems—internal systems that use Internet technology and standards—to their suppliers via secure lines. But he has not seen any examples of a company moving to the next stage and creating an ‘extranet’—that is, connecting their intranet to the Internet and allowing open access. Oct 9 Guardian Online 4 But beyond that is a very real fear that the core financial service—which is almost certainly the world’s oldest and largest “extranet”—could in future be holed [sic] below the waterline by publicly accessible Internet services. Oct 20 Wall Street Journal D7 An extranet is an e-business application deployed within the larger community of a business—including its suppliers, vendors and contractors. 1998 Oct Intermedia Visions np Which search engine should I use? Should I buy Intel? What’s an Extranet? You’ll find answers to all your computing questions on ZDTV, the new 24-hour television network about computing, technology and the Internet.
n Software demonstration intended to gain attention without forcing a company to disclose when the software will be available 1989 Nov 20 Alice LaPlante InfoWorld 5/4 In a time when pre-announcing products has proven to be financially disastrous—not to mention embarrassing—the PC industry has discovered yet another way to preserve “mind space” in the thoughts (and hopefully in the budgets) of corporate customers, dealers, and the press: fableware.
n Household network using one computer 1994 Jan 16 Allentown Morning Call (Fort Worth TX; Popik) 1996 Aug 5 Michael Meyer Newsweek 69/1 You could call it a family network, or “FamNet,” as a techie might say, and NEWSWEEK is testing one out in my home. The manufacturer, Wyse Technology in San Jose, Calif., describes it as “a way to turn a single PC into multiple PCs,” according to general manager Jeff McNaught.
n Web page devoted to theater information posted by a theater enthusiast 1996 Feb 5 Edwin Wilson Wall Street Journal A12/2 But often information comes from enthusiastic individuals—from fan pages, as they are called.
n Software requiring an excessive amount of memory and drive space 1993 Apr Byte cover & 109 (Popik) 1997 Feb 4 Dwight Silverman Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B3/1 When lexicographers write the computing dictionaries for 1997, a picture of the Office 97 logo will be found next to the entry for “fatware.” Sep 21 James Coates Chicago Tribune 5/4 Cynics started calling the phenomenon fatware, noting that no matter how big the hard drives got, no matter how fast the chips got, the software was always there to slow it down. Nov 4 Dwight Silverman Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B5/4 A lot of the e-mail was responding to my own whining. Quite a few agreed with me about how long it takes things to happen on a computer, and several despaired over fatware—bloated programs that hog memory and disk space—as the cause.
n Continual addition to the components of software 1994 Jan 10 PC Week 31 (Popik) 1997 Jan 6 Cara Cunningham InfoWorld 14/1–2 (text & sidebar caption) In 1996, the importance of the Internet and intranets left vendors scrambling to incorporate Web features into their product plans, causing some delays along the way. [¶] Another force at work last year was “feature creep,” where vendors delayed or even skipped releases by promising to add goodies later. / The year of waiting patiently / Casualties of “feature creep” in 1996 [End Page 320]
n Numerical ordering and linking of clusters of sectors on a computer disk 1989 Nov 20 Steve Gibson InfoWorld 33/2–3 For example, if cluster 100’s FAT [’File Allocation Table’; see “ATNW” AS 73 (1998): 307] entry contained a 101, the system would go to cluster 101 for the continuation of the data contained in cluster 100. And if cluster 101’s entry contained a 102, the system would head for the sectors of cluster 102 after reading or writing 101. [¶] The computer science term for this approach is a forward-chaining linked-list. In such a system each element of the list contains a “forward-pointer” to the next element in the list.
n Number at the end of material stored within a cluster of sectors on a computer disk indicating the number of the next cluster in a sequence of linked clusters 1989 Nov 20 Quot SV FORWARD-CHAINING LINKED-LIST
n [Ferroelectric Random Access Memory] Nonvolatile memory device using a thin ferroelectric film in the storage capacitors 1995 Aug 21 Newsbytes News Network (Popik) 1997 Nov Alice Hill & Bill O’Brien Computer Shopper 575–76 Last fall, Hitachi unveiled a little known RAM called FRAM, which stands for Ferroelectric Random Access Memory. To get the ultra-technical stuff out of the way (brace yourself), FRAM is a DRAM-style memory device that replaces the dielectric layer in data storage capacitors with a thin, ferroelectric film. This allows the RAM to be nonvolatile, which for those not up on wire-head terminology, is a state where stored data is not lost even after a break in power.
n [Random House Word Menu 196] Service providing free Internet access 1994 Oct 4 Ottawa Citizen A11 (Popik) Nov 5 Communications (Popik) 1995 Feb 27 Sharon Begley & Adam Rogers Newsweek 58/3 An Alaska network will connect 81 percent of the population; an Iowa project already links government agencies, schools and libraries with optical fiber (NEWSWEEK, Dec. 19, 1994); 30 “freenets” will provide free Internet access but could also be the backbone of its successor.
n Work assignments that arrive via e-mail minutes before workers go home for the weekend 1996 Aug 6 Alex Markels Wall Street Journal B1/1 Jaclyn Kostner, president of Bridge the Distance Inc., a company that holds seminars in “virtual leadership” for managers who work apart from their staffs, says one manager at a major telecommunications company that she advises subjects employees to “Friday afternoon dumps”—assignments via e-mail that arrive minutes before workers go home for the weekend.
n Series of letters at the bottom of an e-mail message indicating personal information about the sender 1996 Apr 15 Computerworld 2 (Popik) May 28 James Romenesko Harrisburg PA Patriot-News B7/1–2 Robert Hayden is king of the geeks. . . . The 25-year-old graduate student at Mankato State University is known across the Internet for inventing the Geek Code—a series of letters usually found on the bottom of e-mail messages that, when deciphered, offer a snapshot of the user’s geekness. . . . As an example, here is Hayden’s Geek Code: [¶] GED/J d- s:++ a-: C++(++++) ULU++ P+ L++ E—- W+(-) N++++ K+++ w—- O- M+ V—- PS++$ PE++$ Y++ PGP++ t- 5+++ X++ R+++$ tv+ b+ DI+++ G++++ e++ h r- y++ [¶] What does this all mean? A true geek can eyeball this gibberish and quickly develop a personality profile of Hayden. (It takes him 10 seconds, tops, to figure out somebody else’s code, he says). Others can drop a person’s code into a piece of software known as the Geek Code Calculator and it will spit out an instant analysis. [¶] Hayden’s personal code [End Page 321] reveals this, among other things, about him: He reads books, but not on a daily basis; he wears T-shirts with political messages; he worships the television show “Babylon 5”; he doesn’t understand the “Star Trek” phenomenon; he hates Windows; he reads many Usenet newsgroups; and he’s not considered to be hot dating material. [¶] Since its invention in 1993, The Geek Code has become part of Net Culture.
n Realm of computer experts 1988 Oct 23 Report 20 (Popik) 1995 Jan 30 Business Week 39 (Popik) 1997 Mar 31 Steven Levy Newsweek 77/1 NO ONE KNEW WHAT TO EXPECT when the Supreme Court took its first shot at the new world of cyberspace last Wednesday, hearing arguments in a case that may well set parameters for free speech in the next century. But almost everyone agreed on one thing: the Supremes, at the average age of 62, would be aliens to the world of geekdom.
n Jargon of computer users 1996 May Data Communications 19 (Popik) 1997 Oct 20 Russ Mitchell US News & World Report 58/2 Sun created Java originally for distributed, networked systems (geekspeak for computers that work seamlessly together), so programmers find it a natural to adapt to the Internet.
n [gigabyte network] Computer network, which may replace the Internet 1995 Feb 27 Sharon Begley & Adam Rogers Newsweek 58 (head, subhead, & text) MBones and Giganets / Coming Attractions: What will replace the Internet? / What do people want? Services like voice and video—the Internet delivers them only slightly faster than snailmail. To provide this, the Nextnet—actually, it’s unnamed so far, but Giganet and Mbone and National Information Infrastructure (NII) are in the running, and you can guess which snappy label is the government’s—would have info pipelines whose bandwidth swamps today’s standard phone lines.
n Electronic toy pet needing care from the owner (trademark; see also tamagotchi “ATNW” AS 72 [1997]: 423) 1997 Apr 28 Newsweek 10/1 Tiger Electronics has created its own cheaper and clunkier Giga Pets to compete with the May introduction of Tamagotchi in the United States.
n List of addresses excluded from mass e-mailing lists 1997 May 5 Infoworld 84 (Popik) Sep 29 Karen Kaplan Los Angeles Times D3/2 The five companies also established a “global remove list,” which allows spam victims to take their names off of mass-mailing lists.
n Computer network for a small group of users 1991 Jun 24 Broadcasting 59 (Popik) 1993 Jan 25 Ed Foster InfoWorld 43/2 Microsoft has suggested Windows for Workgroups will be more of an end-user, guerilla-network product. Users in small workgroups will get it for themselves, set it up, and administer it.
n Place on a cable system where Internet services can be installed 1982 Feb 8 Computerworld 108 (Popik) 1984 May 14 Computerworld 33 1985 Aug 5 Computerworld 51 (Popik) 1997 Jan 13 Bob Metcalfe InfoWorld 48/3 So @Home is building its own backbone network and is installing Internet services at cable head-ends.
n ELECTRONICS CLUTTER 1997 Jan 3 Quot sv electronic sprawl
n ELECTRONIC NOSE 1995 Mar 1 Quot SV ELECTRONIC NOSE
n [home office] Office in a home made possible by computer and telecommunications equipment 1997 Jun 9 Kendall Hamilton & Donna Foote [End Page 322] Newsweek 16/1 Social scientists are busy predicting that we’ll increasingly retreat from the rat race into hybrid home/office spaces, or “hoffices,” from which computer and telecommunications gear will let us live our professional and personal lives via wire.
v Send immediately via e-mail 1985 Sep 2 Computerworld 53 (Popik) 1987 Sep 28 InfoWorld 14 (Popik) 1997 Jan 28 Chris Petrakos Chicago Tribune 6/9/6 “We take 600,000 calls a month in the U.S.—everything from out-of-box questions to application questions, some of which we answer, some which we hotkey over to the manufacturer,” said [VP of corporate support for Apple Computer, Inc., Mike] Dionne.
v Connect (a system) to the Internet 1997 Jun 30 Jim Coates Chicago Tribune 4/2/5 Patrick credited an IBM project, putting virtually the entire content of the U.S. Patent Office files dating back to 1971 on-line, with showing corporate players how they can hot-wire their own databases to the Web and reap the benefits of instant communications with customers.
adj User-friendly; centering on the human user 1993 May Christopher O’Malley PC Sources 92/1 [General Magic] has adopted a very human-centric approach to developing software for PDAs and PICs, and it has the backers to take on all comers, including—gasp!—Microsoft.
n User-friendly software 1986 Aug 14 Financial Times sec 1/18 (Popik) 1995 Oct 30 Business Week 19 (Popik) 1997 May Christopher O’Malley PC Sources 91–92 (head, subhead, & text) Humanware, Like Magic / Some of the biggest names in the industry are starting a revolution to humanize software and make it truly intuitive / Others have begun mining the humanware vein as well, although in more measured steps.
n Computer faddishness 1993 Jan 11 Interest Week 29 (Popik) 1995 Dec 6 Debra Jo Immergut Wall Street Journal A18/1 CNN pundit Michael Kinsley took the plunge into hypertrend recently by signing on as head of a new on-line magazine based in Seattle.
Continued Next Issue
AN APPEAL FOR READERS: OED3
Oxford University Press has reissued James A. H. Murray’s worldwide appear of 120 years ago for readers from throughout the English-speaking world, this time to help with a completely revised Oxford English Dictionary, scheduled for publication in 2010. Readers wishing to help should contact OUP for a submission form: http://www.oed.com; words@oed.com; or 1999 Appeal, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon St., Oxford, England 0X2 6DP, UK. Questions or requests for additional information should be directed to Michelle McKenna, Publicity Manager, Oxford English Dictionary: mmm@oup-usa.org; (212) 726–6107; fax (212) 726–6447.
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