Profile
From Freepedia
- This article should become a disambiguation page, and should attempt to list the various other meanings of this word.
The word profile has a variety of distinct meanings. Some few of these include:
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Art
See silhouette.
Biography
A brief account of someone's salient characteristics and deeds.
Engineering
In standardisation, a profile consists of an agreed-upon subset and interpretation of a specification. Many complex specifications have many optional features, such that two conforming implementations may not inter-operate due to choosing different sets of optional features to support. Even when no formal optional features exist within a standard, vendors will often fail to implement (or fail to implement correctly) functionality from the standard which they view as unimportant. In particular, implementations of standards on mobile devices often have significant limitations compared to their traditional desktop implementations, even if the standard which governs both permits such limitations. Also, some writers of standards sometimes produce vague or ambiguous specifications, often unintentionally, but sometimes by intention. Profiles can enforce one possible interpretation.
Users can utilise profiles to ensure interoperability, and in procurement.
In some cases, profiles themselves can become standardised: for example, US-GOSIP, UK-GOSIP and the ISO ISP (International Standard Profile) series in the context of OSI networking, and the various mobile profiles adopted by the W3C for web standards.
In fabricating, a profile consists of the more or less complex outline of a shape to be cut in a sheet of material such as laminated plastic, aluminium alloy or steel plate. In modern practice, the drawing office determines the shape and dimensions required to fit the sheet into a larger work and feeds directions to a computer controlling a profile cutter. This then cuts the shape from a standard-sized sheet. The cutting-head may use a rotating cutter like that of a spindle router or, in the case of steel plate, a torch burning oxy-acetylene or other oxy-gas.
Computing
In end-user computing, a profile includes configuration settings and other data associated with an individual user. Thus for example, in Microsoft Windows users have profiles associating them with storage settings, files, history, web caches, etc. Likewise, in Netscape-derived products (Netscape 6/7, Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.), users have profiles containing their settings, web browsing history, etc. Many systems support storage of the profiles on a centralised computer in a network, so that a user can get their own preferred desktop settings on any computer they log into on the network.
Instant Messaging and Chat applications also typically have profiles which include some personal information about the identified user.
- Yourespot - An example of a profile site on the web
- GTalk Profile - Another example of a profile site on the web
Business
A business profile summarises a company's products and services and specifies its market positioning.
An investor profile summarizes its investment habits and preferences. See also stock profile.
Criminology
See profiler (criminology), serial killer
