Introduction
Address Bar: The long narrow window at the top of the browser, which shows the Web address (URL) of the site you are currently viewing. In Internet Explorer, the word ‘Address’ appears just to the left of the window. The address bar is automatically filled when you visit a web page. Alternatively, you can type in the address of a web page you wish to visit, and click the ‘Go’ button at the right-hand end of the window, to view that web page.
Broadband: A type of Internet connection. A broadband connection provides very rapid connection to the Internet with fast download and viewing of web pages, online forms, etc. Broadband connections may use the telephone line, but in any case do not block the line for other types of use (e.g. phone calls).
Browse: This is another way to find what you are looking for online. Browsing a website is like browsing in a shop – you look at what is displayed, and see if it fits your requirements. Browsing does not require that you can describe what you are looking for; instead you take advantage of the layout of the website to find out what you are looking for. Websites may use categories, headings and site maps to help you to browse successfully.
Browser or A computer program, running on the human user’s PC,
Web Browser: which gets information from Web servers and displays it on the screen. These instructions are usually in the computer language HTML.
Download: The process of copying a computer file from the Internet onto your own PC is called downloading. A file such as a music (MP3) file or a document is made available to the Internet by storing it on a server. To download the file, you usually click on a link to it, or else right-click and choose ‘save target as’ (in Internet Explorer) or ‘save link as’ (Mozilla Firefox). A box pops up asking you where on your hard disk you want to store the file; you choose the location for storage, click the button and the file is copied onto your hard disk (or downloaded).
E-Learning: E-Learning or online learning is an increasingly popular new type of studying. It can result in class teaching, coursework, tutorials, assignments, and or examination results, to be all conducted via the Internet.
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.
Internet: A large collection of computers, connected together to allow them to share information with one another.
ISDN: A high-speed telephone line service. ISDN allows you to connect to the Internet while still having the telephone free for other use. It also allows faster Internet downloads (about twice as fast as a dial-up connection).
Link: A link, or hyperlink, is a part of a web page that, if clicked with a mouse, opens a different web page. Links are usually shown in blue and underlined on a webpage.
Online: A word used as shorthand for ‘on the Internet’ or ‘connected to the Internet’.
Portal website: A website that acts as a directory, providing links to many related sites.
Website: A website is a collection of web pages which displays information on a particular topic. Common types of websites include company websites (all about a company), online shops (where you buy goods and services and pay by credit card) and personal websites (where individuals share their interests). A website may consist of just one page of information, but will usually contain several pages, all linked together. All the pages in a website usually share the same ‘domain’ name. For example, all the pages in the large online shop ‘Amazon’ have an address (URL) that starts with
‘www.amazon.com’.
