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Zeus Lexicon

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E

E - 1. the fifth letter of the alphabet. 2. a drive letter on a PC following the drive designated D. 3. n. a single hexadecimal digit used to represent the decimal number 14.

EBCDIC - Enhanced Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (pronounced "eb-sih-dick) a binary code for describing text used on IBM mainframes. See ASCII, byte, hexadecimal, decimal.

EDT - Eastern Daylight Time, time zone in NYC, during daylight savings period. See EST.

edu - (pronounced "dot Ee-Dee-You", not "ehdu") the final portion of the domain name of an educational institution, such as mit.edu. See com, gov, mil, net, org, dot.

EGA - Enhanced Graphics Adapter (pronounced "Ee-Gee-Ay", not "egga"). See CGA, VGA, SVGA

EGA palette - a palette of 16 colors that is used for the Windows 3.1 Program Manager interface. These colors, and some variants, are also stored at the beginning and end of the standard 256 color Windows palette.

eight-dot-three - the so-called "eight-dot-three" DOS naming convention requires file names to be no more than eight characters, followed by a period (dot) and up to a three-letter extension (TLE). Refer to the TechNote, "File Types, Creator Codes and Extensions.

Ellison, Larry - CEO of Oracle, and generally cheesy billionaire. See NC.

e-mail - electronic mail. An e-mail address usually takes the form somebody@somedomain.com. Some e-mail addresses also include a mail server name, such as somebody@mailserver.somedomain.com. See mailing list, mailer daemon, TCIITM, Fed Ex, USPS, UPS, snail mail.

emoticon - (ee-MOAT-i-con) a series of characters that look like a facial expression when viewed sideways. Commonly used as an e-mail abbreviation to indicate mood or intention. Common emoticons include the smiley and the frown

emulation - 1. the sincerest form of flattery. 2. simulating some other computer or processor. In the context of a Macintosh, a PowerMac processor will run a 680x0-based application in emulation mode. It may even run slower than the same application on a 680x0 Mac, because emulation tends to be slower than native processes. See terminal emulation, and Fat Binary.

encapsulation - 1. traveling in a rocket to the moon. 2. the ability to isolate the internal contents and operation of an object from the rest of a program. This allows an object to behave as a black box with affecting other parts of the program or being affected by them. See OOP, instance, inheritance.

Encapsulated Postscript - a resolution-independent file format supported by many graphics applications on multiple platforms, including Macintosh and Windows. Postscript files are scalable so that they print nicely regardless of the resolution of the output device or the size of the image printed. See EPS.

end-of-line character - one or more ASCII characters used to indicate the end of a line of text, such as CR or CR/LF. See EOL.

Enhanced CD - an audio CD with additional computer data included, aka CD Plus.

Enhanced Graphics Adapter - an early IBM PC graphics display standard features 320 x 240 resolution and 16 colors (see EGA palette), commonly referred to as EGA. See CGA, VGA, SVGA

Enter - the Enter key is used to end a line of text or submit data. It is synonymous with the Return key, and is often marked with a bent arrow on the keyboard.

Enterprise Server - a web server from Netscape.

EOD - a character used to indicate End Of Data from a file.

EOL - End-Of-Line.

EPS - TLE used for files in Encapsulated Postscript format.

Epstein, Brian - 1. deceased ex-manager of the Beatles, who allegedly had a thing for John Lennon (also deceased). 2. Bruce Epstein's nephew.

Epstein, Bruce - Founder of Zeus Productions, purveyor of Zeus's Lair, and all-around good guy. Likes the Dali painting, "Apparition of Six Heads of Lenin on a Piano Keyboard".

Equilibrium Systems - makers of deBabelizer.

ERA - Earned Run Average. See RBI.

est - See Werner Erhard (sic?)

EST - Eastern Standard Time, time zone in which Zeus Productions exists, in the Eastern United States, same as NYC. One (1) hour later than CST, two (2) hours later than MST, and three (3) hours later than PST. Five (5) hours earlier than GMT. See EDT.

ETA - Estimated Time of Arrival (pronounced "Eee-Tee-Ay", not "Etta"), as in, "What's the ETA of that pizza," or ,"What's the ETA on that re-compressed video". See ETD.

etc. - etcetera, synonymous with, "and I can't think of the last one".

ETD - Estimated Time of Departure, as in "What's the ETD for Fed Ex'ing this CD out tonight". See ETA.

Excel - (also Microsoft Excel) a full-function spreadsheet which is part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications. See Word, Access.

EXE - (pronounced "Eee-Ex-Eee") 1. an executable program. 2. the TLE associated with executables on DOS/Windows PCs. See APPL.

executable - a stand-alone application program that allegedly performs some useful task. See EXE, DLL, plug-in, XObject, Xtra, compiler, linker, external.

Explorer - 1. Sir Edmund Hillary, first to conquer Mount Everest. 2. Microsoft Internet Explorer available for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95/NT. 3. The File Explorer in Windows 95/NT.

extension - 1. the part of a file name following the period (dot), which is often used to indicate the format of a file. See TLE, eight-dot-three, Creator Codes, File Type. Refer to the TechNote, "File Types, Creator Codes and Extensions. 2. an electrical cord or other cable extender that lengthens the distance between two devices. Extended cables may not work if the total cable length exceeds the maximum allowable length for the particular specification. See SCSI. 3. See Extension. 4. IRS Form 4868.

Extension - a component which adds functionality to the Mac OS. You can disable extensions wholesale by holding down the Shift key while restarting the Macintosh, or individually via the Extensions Manager. See System Folder, Control Panel, Extensions (Disabled), Extensions folder, device driver.

Extensions (Disabled) folder - a special folder within the Macintosh System Folder which contains Extensions disabled by the Extensions Manager. See Control Panels (Disabled), Extensions folder.

Extensions folder - a special folder within the Macintosh System Folder which contains active Extensions. See Extensions (Disabled), Extensions Manager.

Extensions Manager - a Macintosh Control Panel that allows you to set whether individual Extensions and Control Panels will be active or disabled when you restart you Macintosh. Convenient for debugging Extension conflicts. See Extensions folder, Extensions (Disabled), Control Panels folder, Control Panels (Disabled)

external - 1. adj. describing something that is not part of the central component of a program or computer, as in, "My DIR files are external to the Projector." 2. n. an Xtra, XObject, DLL or other auxiliary component, as in "This program requires several externals."

external application - an application on your computer, that is distinct from the "main" application. In the context of Director, an external application would be one running separate from the Projector such as Acrobat, as opposed to an Xtra which is considered a component of the Projector. Zeus Productions offers several utilities to integrate external applications with Director, such as zScript, zOpen and zLaunch.

external device - a physical device connected externally to a computer, perhaps via a serial, parallel, SCSI or GPIB port. This might be a printer, hard drive, modem or similar computer-specific device, but might also be a laboratory measurement device which is being controlled via the computer, or a card swipe reader, providing input to a computer database. Most devices require a driver to communicate with the computer, and some may include stand-alone applications that control the device.

external file - any file which is not contained within the main executable. In the context of Director, it may be a DIR or DXR file that resides outside of the Projector, or any externally linked asset, such as an AIFF file, QuickTime movie or PICT.

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