A computer small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. See also PDA.

A sequence of characters that allows access to a system.

A Patch is an Update for a Program with a Bug in it. Patches are usually available from the Software manufacturers website.

Stands for Personal Computer, and is used to describe a desktop or portable single-user computer.

Stands for Personal Digital Assistant, and sometimes known as a Palmtop computer. A PDA is like a scaled down computer that fits in your pocket, and can be used for sending and receiving emails on the move, or even editing Word and Excel documents.

Stands for Portable Document Format, and is the file format for the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Documents in a PDF format can be sent or viewed regardless of how the original document was created. This eases the problem of business contacts not using the same Software as you, as they would not be able to view documents created in software they did not have themselves.

Peripheral refers to anything that can be connected to the exterior of a PC, like an LCD monitor or FireWire hard drive.

Phishing is a form of Social Engineering to get you to disclose personal information about yourself. A fake email is sent, disguised to look like the emails of a legitimate business, such as a bank. The email includes a link to a fake Log-in page that asks you to reveal personal information about your account - such as username and password. This data is then sent to the Phisher, and they can use the knowledge gathered to empty your bank account.

A type of Virus that modifies its own code in a bid to make itself harder to detect.

Stands for Post Office Protocol version 3. This is the protocol that mainly handles the receiving of email. Most sending of email is handles by the less powerful SMTP protocol.

A Program is Software running on a computer. Programs handle many different tasks. Commonly Installed Programs include Microsoft Word and Excel.

Sometimes known as a Parasitic Virus. A type of Virus that attaches itself on to other computer programs, and becomes active when that Program is run.

A language in which a computer can speak to another computer, Hardware or Peripheral.

A Server that makes requests to the Internet on behalf of another computer. It essentially filter all the traffic to the internet from a Network, which can be used as a security method.