HyperText Markup Language, used to create web pages. A new version, HTML5, is currently being developed, which will improve site accessibility. This site conforms to the new HTML5 standard.
Cascading Style Sheets, used to separate the content from appearance of the site. The HTML pages just contain content, then CSS styles the page for its look and feel. These pages use CSS extensively.
Bootstrap is free framework system for constructing 'responsive' web-sites. It helps speed up the process of designing and implementing sites that respond to the size of the browser window they appear in, so the site will remain readable from a desktop monitor, a laptop, a tablet, down to a smartphone.
Active Server Pages use Microsoft's VBScript to create dynamic content and user interaction. The older version of ASP is ubiquitous on the internet, as is its rival PHP for Linux based servers. ASP.Net is the latest and more complex version. ASP is used to drive parts of this site.
Personal Home Page (always knows as PHP) is a server-side scripting language designed for web development much like ASP (above), but this system was developed as freeware and runs on many thousands of servers worldwide. Unlike ASP, it runs on Linux servers, so when choosing web hosting the normal choice for an active site is between Windows/ASP and Linux/PHP.
Javascript is used usually just a little on web pages, to enhance the very basic functionality that HTML provides. Typically the entries made on a form could be validated using Javascript prior to them being submitted to the site, though there are countless ways to use it to make the page seem more 'alive'.
EXtensible Markup Language is a method of transferring data easily across the internet. The structure of the data is strictly defined, but the user does the defining. This results in XML being used for a wide variety of tasks, including providing easily usable data to be injected into web pages.
Microsoft's lightweight but powerful database is called Access and has been around for many years. It is robust and easy to use, and can be utilized to store and retrieve data to be displayed on a web site. In fact large parts of a site can be generated from Access without the site viewer realizing what's really going on. This allows web site content to easily change without the need for 'hand coding' each individual page.
Microsoft's heavyweight database is called SQL Server, and again has been around a long time. It is even more robust and capable of dealing with vast quantities of data with great speed.
Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash takes the increase in functionality provided by Javascript to another level by providing a whole new environment embedded inside a web page that could do anything from be a much more sophisticated interface with a site user to allow the playing of quite sophisticated games. It is also used to display dynamic images, that consist of multiple frames, like a cartoon. Many banner adverts use flash for this purpose, as it makes a good eye-catching alternative to the normally static look of an HTML web page.
Google provide several excellent and free services which can be embedded into web pages quite easily. Google Maps allows a page to display a map or satellite view of any location in the world, and allow the user to zoom in and out and plan routes. Also available is a calendar that can be used to display upcoming events, and a photo gallery which can give a slide show of your images. Google also provide Blogs, Newsfeeds and social networking and shopping functions.
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and a dynamic content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1 million" websites and as of August 2011 manages 22% of all new websites. WordPress is currently the most popular CMS in use on the Internet.
Content Management Systems, or specifically in this case a WCM (Web Content Management) system allow people with no technical knowledge of HTML, CSS etc. to contribute to a web site using a simple interface. Blogging has become very popular as a result of these systems, which allow anyone to enter their thoughts in a simple manner, but which become quite presentable on a web page. Knowledge of the technologies surrounding web pages usually allows advanced users to customize their blog pages to suit themselves. The success of Facebook and Twitter are based on the concept of providing a shell into which folk can easily enter their own words and images. Perhaps the future of the internet lies this way, allowing not only access for all but contributions from all.