Analogue - A transmission method employing a continuous (rather than pulsed or digital) electrical signal that varies in amplitude or frequency in response to changes of sound, light, position, etc., imposed on a transducer in the sending device; opposite of digital.

Analogue Signal - A signal in the form of a continuous varying physical quantity such as voltage -which reflects variations in some quantity; or loudness in the human voice as opposed to digital.

Archive - A procedure for transferring information from an on-line storage diskette or memory area to an off-line storage medium.

Consumables – Something designed to be consumed as a result of using your hardware and software, such as printer ink, address labels and photocopy paper.

Data – In computing terms, data is information that has been translated into a form that is more convenient to move or process.

Database – A structured, segmented collection of records managed and queried by a Database Management System.

Download – To receive or copy data (documents, photographs, video, music etc) from a remote computer to a local computer via a modem or network.

Email – Short for ‘electronic mail’. A common method of exchanging digital messages between one computer and another using a unique address e.g. info@itbuilder.co.uk

Firewall – A firewall is a program, set of programs or a piece of hardware that prevents unauthorised access to a network or individual computer.

Hard Drive – A sealed unit inside all computers that stores digitally encoded data on rotating platters with magnetic surfaces.

Hardware – The physical components of your IT – computer, printer, scanner, BlackBerry etc.

Instant Messaging (IM) - The facility to send and receive virtually instantaneous text messages across the Internet allowing a conversation in real time. This allows two (or more) people with the same (or compatible) instant messaging software to ‘talk’ to each other.

Internet – The global system of interconnected computer networks of local to global scope and interest linked by wires, fibre-optic cables, wireless connections and a host of other technologies.

Local Area Network (LAN) – a LAN is a computer network covering a small physical area like an office or school. They usually have higher data-transfer rates and dispense with the need for leased lines.

Network – A system containing any combination of computers, computer terminals, printers, audio or visual display devices or telephones interconnected by telecommunication equipment or cables and used to transmit or receive information.

Outlook – A personal information manager from Microsoft containing email, calendar, Task Manager, Contact Manager, note taking, a journal and web browsing.

Packet – A packet is a unit of data routed between an origin and a destination on the Internet. When a file is sent from one place to another on the Internet, it’s divided into ‘chunks’ of an efficient size for routing. Each of these packets is separately numbered and includes the Internet address of the destination. The individual packets for a given file may travel different routes through the Internet, but when they have all arrived, they are reassembled into the original file.

PDA – Personal Digital Assistant. A generic term used to describe any small, portable hand-held device used as a telephone, camera, address book, web browser and digital music player.

Peripherals – A device or unit that operates separately from the computer but is connected to it, such as a scanner or a printer.

Protocol – A  protocol is an agreed set of rules for the communication of information between two or more devices. Protocol examples include HTTP – Hypertext Transport Portocol – which is used for the transfer of web pages, and SMTP – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol – used for sending emails.

PSTN – Public Switched Telephone Network is the world's collection of interconnected voice-oriented public telephone networks, both commercial and government-owned.

Scanning – A method of copying, or optically scanning images, documents, printed text or even objects and converting them to a digital image.

Server – A server is a computer designed to process requests and deliver data to other computers over a local network or the Internet. Network servers typically are configured with additional processing, memory and storage capacity to handle the load of servicing clients.

Smartphone – A mobile phone with extended features and applications such as Internet browser, email capability and the functionality of a personal organiser.

Software – A general term used to describe the role that computer programs, procedures and documentation play in a computer system. Microsoft Office is software, so is Adobe Premiere, so is iTunes.

Voicemail – An electronic system enabling the recording and storage of (usually digitised) voice messages, which can subsequently be retrieved by the intended recipient.

VoIP – Standing for Voice Over Intenet Protocol, VoIP sends voice data i.e. telephone conversations, using IP packets across a network (such as the Internet) instead of across a traditional telephone network.

VPN – An acronym for Virtual Private Network that provides a secure connection between two or more computers across a public network such as the Internet. Data is encrypted between participating computers ensuring that even if the data was intercepted, it could not be read by any computer other than those participating in the VPN.

Web browser – A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the Internet. The major web browsers are Windows Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Google Chrome.

Webmail – Webmail, or web-based email is an e-mail service intended to be primarily accessed via a web browser, as opposed to through an e-mail client, such as Microsoft Outlook. A major advantage of web-based e-mail over application-based e-mail is that a user has the ability to access their inbox from any Internet-connected computer around the world. The biggest webmail providers are Hotmail and Googlemail.

Wireless or Wi-Fi – Uses radio waves to connect your device – laptop, PDA or Smartphone – to   an available network regardless of where you are.