What is the meaning of Actinic

[chris ashdown]

Looking up Actinic it would appear to be some sort of skin cancer, How was the name thought up by starters of Actinic software?

[Mike Hughes]

I thought 'Actinic' meant 'white hot'.

Mike

[guccij]

"producing a photochemical effect" - sounds like Mike is right http://www.thefreedictionary.com/actinic

[Paul Bulpit]

some sort of skin cancer

So Chris, the word actinic is only the descriptive part of the type of cancer, actinic keratosis. You can also have 'actinic dermatitus', etc., the word is an adjective.

[cbarling]

Kevin Grumball, my co-founder, came up with the name. It was the first that we thought of that met the following criteria:

- sounded techie
- was a real word
- started with an A so you always appear near the top of alphabetic lists
- had all of the appropriate domain names still available

If I was starting now I would add having the trademarks available, but fortunately it turned out later that they were for Actinic.

Chris

[Paul Bulpit]

Extract from this page:

In the case of my own company there were particular complications. The word “Actinic” has legitimate commercial use to describe a type of radiation, so we couldn't trademark the word across the board. Instead, we trademarked the name “Actinic” in relation to computer software and services