Web Style
GuideRevised September
2001 A style guide is where you turn when you're not sure how
to spell, capitalize, or punctuate a word or name. This is
presented as a public service to Mac webmasters, who should
feel free to contribute additions and suggest changes (email
link below). "...generally we'll go with the company preference,
unless it's really bizarre." Style, Product Names- CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, always include
the hyphen.
- disk, preferred over disc.
- DIMM, DIMMs, a type of memory module. Note the
lower case "s" at the end of the plural.
- email is displacing e-mail, which displaced
E-mail, by analogy with words such as ecommerce (which
has no hyphen). We've received several objections to this
one, but it is our preference.
- GB (gigabytes), both letters capitalized, used
with leading space (e.g., 4 GB)
- hertz, Hz with leading space (e.g. 60 Hz)
- kilobits, Kb or kb
- kilobytes, KB or K? with or without leading
space?
- hard drive, sometimes abbreviated HD. At Low
End PC, the rule is spell it out whenever possible.
Exception: discussing a computer with a list of specs,
such as Power Mac 7500/132, 32 MB RAM, 1.2 GB HD,
etc.
- iBook, iMac, iTools, iReview, the first letter
is never capitalized. Some publications have tried - it
looks ugly.
- Mb (megabits), the M is always capitalized,
the b lower-case to represent bits (vs. bytes), should
have a leading space.
- MB (megabytes), both letters capitalized,
since upper-case B represents bytes (vs. bits), used with
leading space (e.g. 64 MB)
- MHz (megahertz), H capitalized in honor of Mr.
Hertz, used with leading space (e.g., 60 MHz)
- megs, short for megabytes, discouraged
- Microsoft, never MicroSoft, and it hasn't been
Micro-Soft for ages.
- ns, nanosecond, a billionth of a second,
generally used when measuring memory speed.
- PowerBook, one word, P and B always
capitalized
- Power Mac, Power Macs, Power Macintosh, two
words
- PowerPC, PPC, family of processors made by IBM
and Motorola, not a synonym for Power Mac.
- RAM, Random Access Memory. Except when listing
product specs, Low End Mac prefers to talk about memory
or computer memory.
- SIMM, SIMMs, a type of memory module. Note the
lower case "s" at the end of the plural.
- Web, a proper noun (there is only one World
Wide Web), so it should always be capitalized when used
to refer to the whole Web.
- webmaster, not capitalized
- website, Web site, both are common,
although we are leaning toward the use of "website."
Site Names, URLsThese are taken from current usage on these sites and are
the way I prefer to use them at Low End Mac. Most are
presented without comment. - 3dfx <http://www.3dfx.com/>
- c|net <http://www.cnet.com/>,
as used in their logo, uses vertical bar between C and N,
many sites use Cnet or CNET.
- ixMicro <http://www.ixmicro.com/>,
"I" never capitalized, "M" always capitalized, although
the company seems to have settled on IXMICRO (all caps),
this is ugly so we're sticking with the old form.
- Low End Mac <http:/>,
three words, no hyphens (not Low-End Mac or
LowEndMac)
- Low End PC <http://lowendpc.com/>,
three words, no hyphens (not Low-End PC or LowEndPC)
- Slashdot <http://slashdot.org/>
- Voodoo2, Voodoo3, etc., no space
between Voodoo and number, D is not capitalized (not
VooDoo, Voodoo 2)
Please send additions, corrections to <webmaster@lowendpc.com>.
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Favorite Sites
- Living Without
Microsoft
- The Register
- Slashdot
iTunes Store
eBay
Amazon.com
PayPal
PC
Zone
Crucial
Memory
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