The Net, The Information Superhighway: The Internet
Web Page: A single Web document. Everything you can see in your browser window at one time (including what you can see by scrolling) makes up one Web page.
Browser, Web Browser: The piece of software that runs on your computer and allows you to view Web pages. The most common browsers are Netscape and Internet Explorer.
Web Site: A set of Web pages that are logically connected. They usually have a consistent look and feel, and are all related to the same theme.
Home Page: The starting, introductory or welcome page for a Web site. A person's own home page is a Web page that describes all about them.
Link, Hot Link, Hyper Link: A part of a Web page that can be clicked to get somewhere else - eg This is a link to the English Online Home Page. Links usually turn up a different colour and/or underlined in your Web browser.
Broken Link: A link that references a page that no longer exists. If you click on a broken link you will get some kind of "Page not found - Error 404" message.
Hypertext: Text that can contain links.
HTML: Stands for HyperText Markup Language. This is the language that all Web pages are written in.
URL: Stands for Uniform Resource Locator. This is the address of a Web page - for example http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/resources/tutorial/introduction/language.html is the URL of this Web page.
Webserver, Web Server: A Webserver is a computer which holds a number of Web pages, and 'serves' them out to computers that request them. There is nothing very special about the actual computer - it's just an ordinary computer (though usually a fairly powerful one) running special software. Surf: "Surfing the Web" means casually using the Web - not really having any direction, just clicking the links that look interesting to find yourself in weird and interesting places.
Cyber: Virtual - not real but existing only in the context of the Internet.
Cyberspace: A conceptual place that doesn't actually physically exist - but you can roam around in it, visit places, meet other people there, chat to them, go shopping ... Cyberspace is a real world metaphor for the Internet.
Newbie: A person who is new to the Internet, or new to a particular aspect of the Internet such as a service (IRC, usenet) or a particular group (a specific mailing list or newsgroup).
Post: When you send a message to a discussion forum, you're posting. This word can be used as a verb ("I posted a message") or a noun ("that was a nice post").
FAQ: Stands for Frequently Asked Questions. They originate from online discussion forums where more experienced users got sick of answering the same "newbie" questions over and over again. So they started writing lists of frequently asked questions and their answers so newbies could refer to those. The concept has grown, and now a FAQ is more general - designed as an introduction to a certain topic.
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