Hi, I’m Rick and welcome to Help Me with my Web Site, Internet Jargon, part 1.

Don’t be afraid of jargon. We’ve got to call this stuff something. Yes, it’s a foreign language, but you can use these words intelligently.

Especially in this video, the jargon might seem elementary. If this is easy, you can just smile and look smug. We’ll deal with all of these topics in greater depth in upcoming episodes

Starting at your computer:

Browsers are simply programs that allow you to view a web page. Example browsers include Internet Explorer (boo!), Firefox (yea!), Safari (from Apple), Chrome (from Google), Opera and many more.

Web pages. Web pages are simply a combination of code and images that appear inside your browser.

Operating systems. The beauty of the web is that it does not matter which computer you use; virtually every computer can get to the web and has a browser. Most people know about several operating systems: Windows and Mac (or Apple). However, many web folks use a version of Linux, an open source operating system. Some of the small, inexpensive netbooks keep their cost down by using Linux and not paying Microsoft for a Windows license.

Open source. Unlike Windows or Mac, anyone can look at the source code that is Linux. There are an army of volunteer programmers that enhance the code of Linux and other open source projects. Again, unlike Windows or Mac, Linux is free. The concept of open source software is important because many web hosts use open source software to serve up your web pages.

ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. These are the folks that give you a “pipe” to the “interweb”. (Don’t say “Interweb”.) ISP’s include Comcast and your local telephone company. As you know, faster is better.

Host. Your web site must reside somewhere. You pay for someone to “host” your web site and make it available to the rest of the world.

Search Engines. Google, Bing, Yahoo and many others index web pages so you can find them. Search engines might be the single most important function on the Internet. Google is dominant in the market. Many folks think the internet is Google; some say they are right.

Enough for now. Join us for more intense jargon in web sites 103, Internet jargon part 2. Then, we will move on to the types of web sites out there, ways to develop a web site and much more.