We know how annoying it can be if technicians try to baffle you with jargon, so here are some of the basic words you may come accross and there explanation.

Application: An application is a peice of software that is on your computer for a specific purpose.  For instance an antivirus program (which protects you from Virus's) is an application - it was designed to help protect your files from malicious attack.

Adware: Adware is any software application in which advertising banners are displayed while the program is running. The authors of these applications include additional code that delivers the ads, which can be viewed through pop-up windows or through a bar that appears on a computer screen. The justification for adware is that it helps recover programming development cost and helps to hold down the cost for the user.

Browser:  A browser can refer either to a person who browses the internet. Or, a browser can refer to the program used for browsing. Examples of browser software programs are Netscape, Opera, and IE. To understand browser think of someone walking up and down the aisles of a department store. They are browsing the shelves looking at items off the shelves periodically. Well, a web browser is a person who goes up and down the aisles of the internet looking at pages every now and then. Instead of using your arm to grab an item off the department store shelves you use a browser program to grab the webpage.

Client Software:  On the internet you will from time to time see reference to "client" software. Client software is a software program which you run on your computer. This is software which you would have purchased on a CDROM or you will hvae downloaded from the internet. After installing this software you will see an icon on your computer somewhere. When you click on this icon on your computer you will open and run the "client" program for accessing the internet. Only programs which access the internet are called "client" programs. A regular program such as Excel, Word, Photoshop, etc. are not called client programs. They are just programs. Client programs are designed to work with "server software" to help you do stuff on the internet. 
Download:  Download means to get a file from the internet and have it stored on your computer's harddrive. Typically you will download stuff by clicking on a "hot link" in your browser.

File:  A file is a collection of character (letters and numbers) which are stored together. They can be stored together on your computer harddrive. They can be stored together on a floppy disk. They can be stored together on a CD. They can be stored together on an internet server. They can be stored together on lots of different things. It is the being stored together which makes the collection of characters a file. On your computer when you look in your directory folders you see two types of things. You see folders and you see files. They are all referred to by their names.

FTP:  If you are interested in FTP (or File Transfer Protocol) you are either trying to upload pages to your website or you are trying to download something from the Internet.
For download from the internet don't even worry about FTP. Your browser will do that for you without any fuss or muss.

To upload files to the Internet will typically require a FTP client program. The program we use is Filezilla. There are other free and paid programs.. this is just the one we use.

Some people find FTP a daunting experience, so if FTP seems strange, bizarre and hard to grasp that is because it is strange, bizarre and hard to grasp. You are not going crazy. But with a little guidance we can help you over come this confusion. Learning to walk was hard too! So don't despair with a little practice it will be no harder than a your 1st baby steps. It is only for those who expect this to be instantly known that FTP will be a major challenge. Accept that in this one case you will have a learning curve and all will be not too bad.

Hardware: Describing hardware is simple.  If you can physically touch it.. Then its hardware.  Your screen, keyboard, mouse, speakers, cd-rom etc, they are all hardware.  Hardware is usually coupled with 'software' (see Software for its explanation) and much to every one's surprise, without hardware software is useless!
 
HTML:  HTML (pronounced 'h', 'tee', 'em' 'el') is an acronym for hyper-text markup language. Usually the word HTML means webpage. You see a webpage is made up of html code. This html code tells your browser what to show you. It is the instructions which create the webpage as you see it.  Web pages can also be created in other languages other than HTML, such as FLASH, PHP or ASP.NET, these are plain and simply languages.. similar to the languages we speak in different countries! there are multiple ways to say Hello in different languages.

Plain Text:  Plain text refers to files which have only ordinary characters.  That is text without any of those fancy weird characters or type faces you can add to your text in programs like MSWord etc.. Ordinary characters are those you find on your keyboard. Fancy characters are weird (often invisible) characters. A plain text file can be edited by almost any text editor in the world a simple text file editor in Windows is 'Notepad'. 

Personal Firewall: A personal firewall (sometimes called a desktop firewall) is a software application used to protect a single Internet-connected computer from intruders. Personal firewall protection is especially useful for users with "always-on" connections such as DSL or Cable Modem. Such connections use a static IP address that makes them especially vulnerable to potential hackers.

Often compared to anti-virus applications, personal firewalls work in the background at the device (link layer) level to protect the integrity of the system from malicious computer code by controlling Internet connections to and from a user's computer, filtering inbound and outbound traffic, and alerting the user to attempted intrusions.

Some people who have more that 1 PC may have a Router to connect the PC's together which also acts as a excellent Hardware Firewall (if these PC's share the Internet connection). This works in the same way as the personal firewall (desktop firewall), however the firewall is inside the router and not installed on the PC. A firewall in a router is classed as a 'Hardware' firewall rather than a 'Software' firewall (installed firewall application on a PC).

In essence the PC's that connect to the router will have different IP addresses making it harder for 'hackers' to identify the address of a PC on that network, they will only be seeing the IP address of the router as it is between the PC's and the modem, although all firewall's have the ability of stealthing their Internet IP address from potential hackers and Internet port scanners.

Server:  A server is a computer which is made for "serving" pages to people on the Internet. A server will live somewhere like your ISP (Internet Service Provider), TradeMe, Yahoo, Google, etc. Servers often don't have a monitor because they aren't used on anyone's desktop. They are hooked up only to the Internet through cables. 

Server Software:  Server Software refers to programs which run on Internet servers far away on the ISPs computers or on computers at places like TradeMe, Yahoo, Google, etc. Server software almost always requires people use client software to access them. 

Software: software is the code used to make hardware (see hardware for its description) work.  Some software products are licences for use and the software is usually designed for ease of use.  Without software your computer will not function, as the programs and images are all driven by software.

Spyware: Spyware is any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organisation without their knowledge. On the Internet (where it is sometimes called a spybot or tracking software), spyware is programming that is put in someones computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties.

Trojan: Trojans are malicious programs often used by hackers to attack target computers, usually to provide a backdoor into the system but sometimes just to cause destruction. Remote Access Trojans (RATs) are the most famous class of Trojans and they usually come in two parts - a server that is sent to infect the victim, and a client that the hacker uses to connect to the server after the victim is infected. There are many ways that hackers can use to infect a target with a Trojan, and careful security measures aren't always enough - a strong anti-trojan program can easily detect tens of thousands of Trojans that would otherwise be near-impossible for a human to find.

Upload:  Upload is the process where by you transfer a file from your computer to the internet. Examples of stuff you might need to upload are:

Images for eBay/Trademe auction
Pages for your website
Images for your website
Programs you've written for others to download.
MP3 songs you've created
To upload a file usually requires an FTP program or the use of a special feature available on some websites. For example MP3 has a whole upload section on their webpages for musical groups. 

Virus: A program or piece of code that is loaded onto your computer without your knowledge and runs against your wishes. Viruses can also replicate themselves. All computer viruses are manmade. A simple virus that can make a copy of itself over and over again is relatively easy to produce. Even such a simple virus is dangerous because it will quickly use all available memory and bring the system to a halt. An even more dangerous type of virus is one capable of transmitting itself across networks and bypassing security systems