computer & web words made simple (for PC only)
The Internet and a computer can be a daunting cyber jungle of confusion for many people. The first lesson is never be afraid of trying things. There are always many ways of doing each task and it is very difficult to completely delete anything. The complicated language used can be a great barrier and puts so many people off. Hopefully this page will help you keep at it! add on or plug-in
A piece of software or hardware designed to enhance the performance of another piece of software or hardware. A synonym, especially for software, is plug-in. There are many (mostly unnecessary) plug-ins/add ons for your browser which sometimes annoyingly get downloaded automatically when installing other programs. These can be disabled by going to your Internet browser, then tools, then add ons or plug_ins. Disabling software add ons does nothing to your Internet experience and may in fact speed it up in some cases.
banner
This is simply a box ad nothing more. It is usually linked to a file or web page so that when you click it you are taken to this designated place.
browser
This is the program you use to surf around the internet looking at websites. Some examples are Internet Explorer, Firefox and Netscape but there are many others. hback to toph
clipboard
Your clipboard is simply a place which remembers the last piece of text or image which you have copied or cut. There is no need to view the clipboard. Just remember what you last copied to it. This will be lost when you switch off your computer. (See copy, cutting & pasting below) hback to toph
copy, cutting & pasting
This is probably one of the first things you should learn about to use your computer effectively. It saves typing out text (which we all have problems with) and makes your life so much easier. It is the basic method which can be used on the internet, for filling in forms, putting addresses of websites in the address bar of your browser and in most programs thus eliminating mistakes when typing passwords and other information. You can use it in emails and when creating various documents to duplicate something for printing and so on. When you realise how simple it is you will wonder how you ever managed without it! Click here for full easy to follow copy, cut & paste instructions hback to toph
disk cleanup & defrag
It is important after you have been using your computer to visit websites or run any programs that you do some 'housework'. Every single file, page and image etc that you have viewed on the Internet is stored in your Temporary Internet Folder and this needs clearing out from time to time or it will eventually slow your computer down. To do this you need to use the program which in your System Tools. Click here to find out how to do a disk clean up & defrag hback to toph
domain name
This is the name you choose to become your website address. For example: www.yourname.co.uk. The www means world wide web. You can choose from a number of abbreviations (suffixes) after the dot such as .com which stands for "commerce" or .co.uk which means "company in the UK" or .org which obviously stands for "organisation" and so on. Some are more expensive than others such as dot com, due to popularity but none give you more or less exposure. The choice is entirely yours. If you are a UK based company you will find dot co dot uk cheaper and just good as a dot com name which is used mostly for companies, services and people based in USA or for a business which is run entirely on the internet. The shorter your domain name the better it is as this will save potential visitors typing it all out as well as be more memorable! Many think it must be exactly as their company name to be found by search engines. This is not so as you will see if you read the paragraph on search engines. You can have a selection of letters or numbers. Again the choice is yours providing someone hasn't already bought the name before you. Many unscrupulous individuals bought up all the names they could think of that people may wish to use in the future then tried to sell them for large sums of money. Most were unsuccessful because there are so many variations and suffixes available. hback to toph
download
This is when you allow your computer to receive any files or programs (which are all made up of lots of separate files) from the Internet. hback to toph
drag & drop
This is a function which you can do with images and icons (which are images) using your mouse. Try it on your desktop. first of all right click anywhere on the desk top. You will see a box open. If auto arrange is ticked click on it and this will take the tick off. Now place your cursor (mouse arrow) over an icon and hold the left mouse clicker down then drag the icon across your screen and place it anywhere you like by letting it go. Now you can place all your desktop icons exactly where you want them. You can also move images up and down within a document using this method and use the margin function to set which side of the document you want the image. hback to toph
email address
Many people get confused between their email address and their website address. Your website consists of all the files you have uploaded to a space using your domain name and is either hosted by an Internet Service Provider or by you if you own a server. Whereas, your email address always contains an @ sign. you@yourdomain.co.uk and means as it says: you "at" your website. You also get an email address when you register with an Internet Service Provider and this will always be: your name choice @internetserviceprovidersaddress.co.uk (or dot whatever they have chosen to use). The name after the @ sign is always the senders website or internet providers address. If you want to find a companies website and you have their email address just type www dot in place of the first name and @ sign in your browser address bar. For example: sales@thecompany.co.uk just type in www.thecompany.co.uk Click here to view and print out the ten simple steps to set up an new POP3 email address using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express: Note: there are also free email addresses available like hotmail etc. These can be banned from being able to register on certain websites as they have been used so much for spamming and sending malicious emails. It is always worth taking the trouble to set up a new email, account with your new website. It is a more professional approach and helps you to separate your personal emails from your important business ones and you will be able to answer these emails without giving away your personal email address. hback to toph
files & folders
Every single document or image or sound or component is known as a file. These can then be saved into folders so you can find them easily. Think of it as a real life filing system. You need things labelled and dated in order to find them in real life just as you do on your computer. hback to toph
hardware
This is all the internal hard components which make up your computer and include peripherals such as printers, scanners, keyboards, web cams and so on. hback to toph
hosting
As the name suggests, this is where a web space is which is where a website lives. There are many hosting companies on the Internet all offering a variety of deals but unfortunately many hosting companies offer a poor level of support which is why Aztech Webs, who provided the HHA website, has always been in partnership with Skymarket, a long established Surrey based Internet Service Provider. hback to toph
html (code)
This stands for "Hyper Text Markup Language". All it means is the coding that goes into your pages (and is hidden from the visitor) to make them appear and behave as you want them to. For example the visitor only needs to know that they can click on a link to go somewhere else. They do not need to know all the code that is behind that. hback to toph
ip address
The explanations for an IP (Internet Protocol) address are far too unnecessarily complicated. Put simply it means Internet address. Every single website or computer connected to the internet or a network of other computers has a IP address which is something like a bar code identification number. Your website will always have the same IP address while it is situated on a particular web space. Your computer, however may have different IP addresses depending on your Internet Service Provider. The address is made up of four lots of numbers separated by dots from zero - 255 for example: 1.160.10.240 hback to toph
isp
This stands for Internet Service Provider. They will provide you with some or all of the following: 1. hosting of your web space
2. email addresses
3. domain name registration facilities
4. broadband or dial up services
5. web design
6. website optimization hback to toph
keywords
These are words added to the html scripting which is behind each web page and is invisible to your visitors but can be searched by robots and spiders which the search engines such as Google, send out in order to list you on their directory pages. The better your keywords the better you will be found as you will be higher on the search engines lists. You just have to think of all the words someone may type into a search engine like Google to find you. Your web designer should do this for you as part of the set up process. hback to toph
link (hyperlink)
This is an object (some text or an image) on any window of a program or a web page which, when clicked, takes the user/visitor to another place. This can be another file on your computer or another page on a website or another page or file anywhere on the internet. The unseen code behind the link defines where the user/visitor ends up next. hback to toph
link exchanging
You email other appropriate websites and offer them a free link on your website for one in return on theirs. This can be a line of text or a banner. It is a great way of networking freely with other sites and is beneficial to both parties. This again is something a diligent webmaster would do for you. hback to toph
network
A bunch of computers connected together either with cables or wirelessly or over the internet. You can allow your computer to share its contents with others or not. You can also choose which contents to share with others. hback to toph
program
This is a software bundle made up of a collection of files which executes functions on your computer. hback to toph
robots
These aren't real robots. It is the nickname of the programs that Search Engine websites such as Google use to send out all over the world wide web. They visit every website (providing a piece of blocking HTML code has not been used) collecting the title, keywords and description of each of your pages then collates them at lightening speed into a list with relevance of the keywords in your web pages to the words typed into the search box of their search page by the searcher. hback to toph
search engines
These are websites like Google, Yahoo, Ask etc who periodically send out "spiders" or "robots" who trawl all the millions of websites on the internet and pick out the words which have been placed in the keywords coding of each of the pages in your website. The more appropriate the words to the page of your website the higher on the search engines list your website will be. This is something which you as a website owner need not worry about. A good web designer should take care of this. You may want to suggest some keywords that people may type in order to find you. hback to toph
search engine optimization
Known as SEO, this is the simple process of making your website friendly to the various search engine spiders & robots. It is very simple to do but many online businesses pretend it is a very complicated and difficult affair and charge you the earth to add a few choice keywords into the scripts of your pages! A good webmaster knows how to do this and Aztech Webs offer this as part of your set up package fee. hback to toph
server
This is the computer which holds (hosts) the files and folders of your website for you and allows visitors to view them. There are many server providers on the internet where you rent the space or, if you have a large enough business, it is worth buying a server capable computer to look after your own website. hback to toph
site tracker
This is a program that keeps track of the visitors to your web pages. There are various different types and some give more detailed information about each visitor than others. They can track your visitors IP addresses, location in the world, windows operating system, where the visitor came from to land on your page and so on. They can give the time the visitor spent on each page and which pages they visited. This gives you an idea of what is popular on your website and what is not! A site track is a useful tool for you to see which links to your site are bringing in visitors and what they typed into a search engine to find you. hback to toph
software
Software simply means the programs on your computer. Each software program is made up of lots of files and files within folders and has it's own set of functions and can interact with other files and programs. hback to toph
spiders
This is another nickname of the programs that Search Engine websites use to send out all over the world wide web. They visit every website (providing a piece of blocking HTML code has not been used) collecting the title and description of each of your pages then collates them at lightening speed into a list with relevance of the keywords in your web pages to the words typed into the search box by the searcher. hback to toph
upload
This is when you send files to a place on the internet from your computer. hback to toph
url
This is your full website address. The technical term would only serve to confuse (Uniform Resource Locator) so ignore that and know that URL simply means website address! hback to toph
virus & spyware or adware
Virus is a rather ominous term which scares many novice computer users. It does accurately describe the program which some unkind and thoughtless individual has designed to infiltrate your computer and corrupt certain files. It is something that a simple program such as Zone Alarm (the professionals choice) can stop it in it's tracks. Viruses and Spyware mostly cause just minor problems and slow your computer down or they may be more serious and give the sender information about certain stuff you may have documented on your computer. However, sometimes, the anti-virus software can cause more problems and hang ups on your computer than the viruses they are suppose to be protecting you against! Certain anti-virus programs such as "Norton" use up a lot of your resources, send too many unnecessary alerts and slow your computer right down whilst they do their scans. Aztech Webs recommends the Zone Alarm Security Suite as it runs quite happily, successfully and silently in the background and is simple to set up and inexpensive compared to others. hback to toph
web page
This is a single page of a website. When the visitor takes a look at your website their computer downloads the page and all of it contents including image or sound files to their own computer. These get stored on their computer in a Temporary Internet Folder. If they then go back to this particular web page, their browser may show them a previously stored version and not the current one that may have been added to or changed. It is a good idea to clean out your Temporary Internet Folder from time to time using disk cleanup as it will continue to store everything and eventually slow your computer down! Click here to learn how to clean up your computer NOTE: A good trick to see the latest version of a page on a website (if you are on a PC and not a MAC) is to hold down your Ctrl key (bottom right of keyboard) and press F5. This then refreshes the page for you and shows the latest updated version instead. hback to toph
website
This is a collection of pages (files) which has been designed to portray something. Just like a letter or email. Websites also contain other components such as images, animations, sounds, scripts, forms and other documents which make the website more interesting or interactive. A website lives on it's own web space which is situated on a server on the Internet which has the facility to allow anyone browsing the Internet to take a look. hback to toph
website marketing
In order for your potential customers to find you on the internet, you need to publicise your new website address. New business stationery is always a good idea which has both your new email address and your new website address listed. If you have business premises or vehicles it is a good idea to have your new website address added to your existing signs. hback to toph
web space
This is the place where your website lives. It is hosted on a server by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and you generally pay an annual fee for this facility. hback to toph
window
This is simply the open page of any program or website. All have the ability using the three tiny boxes at the top right hand corner to:
1. minimize to the bottom taskbar (click it on the taskbar to restore)
2. maximize (take up your whole screen) or click again and make it approx. half the size
3. close You will see them there now at the top of this window (page) of this website. Try the minimize and maximize. (If you click close you will have to come back to this website) 
When you have minimized the window of a program or website to the taskbar, you can then open other programs or websites and run them simultaneously...clicking between them on your taskbar. To get to your desktop just minimize all of the website or program windows you have open. They will remain open but on your taskbar until you click them again to restore to full screen size or right click and choose close or restore or maximise.
And that's it. I do hope this has enlightened you somewhat. If you have anything you are still not sure about don't hesitate to contact me on ask@hhassociation.org. I am also available to give computer, Internet & website set up lessons to members of the HHA in your home/office. Not a member? Click here to join us now. Helen Hurley
Web Development Committee
Hampton Hill Association
T: 07966 519844
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