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Glossary

ADSL
A service offered by telephone companies, which enables some telephone lines to carry a lot of information in a short time. ADSL turns a phone line into a broadband link. Only available to some phone lines, but very useful where available.

Broadband
A word used to describe networks that can send a lot of information in a short time.

Browser

A computer program, running on the human user’s PC, which gets information from Web servers and displays it on the screen. These instructions are usually in the computer language HTML.

Browser window
The browser window shows the browser program, and includes the various parts of the browser (navigation bar, address bar, etc.) and of course the main browser screen that displays Web pages.

CD
Also called a CD-ROM. An optical disk, made of foil in a plastic coat, that stores computer files. Much larger in terms of storage capacity than a floppy.

Computer
A computer is a machine that carries out long and detailed lists of instructions called programs.

Cursor
The arrow or line or hand that moves around the screen when you move your computer mouse or while you are typing. People often refer to the cursor position as ‘where you are’ on a Web page or window.

Email
Email or electronic mail is a service that sends messages across the Internet from one human user to another. Like a letter, email is person-to-person and it stores messages until they are read.

File
A collection of computer information stored on a hard disk (or CD or floppy) and accessed when the user needs it. For example, a letter typed with a word processor and saved on the hard disk is in the form of a file. So is a song, in MP3 format, or a Web page.

Form
A part of a Web page where the human user can type in some information to be sent by the browser to the Web server. A form consists of fields that can have text typed into them, buttons that can be clicked and (sometimes) check boxes and radio buttons.

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