Hacker

A person who deliberately logs on to a system without prior authorisation, either by using somebody else's login or by finding another less-controlled route into a system. Sometimes this is done for fun, other times it is done to steal valuable information about a company or to cause damage to a system.

Handheld PC

Also known as Palmtops. A term often used to describe very small computers (palm sized) like Psion and Windows CE machines.

Hardware

Everything that is physical about a PC, such as the individual components. This also includes computer peripherals, such as printers.

Hit

A technical term for a visit to a site on the Internet. Each time a machine requests access to the relevant data, a hit is generated.

Hit Counter

A image of a number found on a web page which records the amount of visitors a web page receives. This is useful for webmasters to keep track of how popular their web pages are.

Homepage

A page on the Internet for a particular person or organisation, which is usually the main index or contents page for subsequent pages.

HTML

HyperText Mark-up Language. The language in which the majority of pages on the Internet are written. HTML consists of the text that is to be displayed on the page together with tags which control how the text behaves (itallic, bold etc. etc.) and references to graphic files.

HTTP

HyperText Transfer Protocol. The way in which pages and files on the Internet are distributed.

Hyperlink

A textual or graphical reference to another page, website or files. Users click on the word or picture and the browser automatically finds and displays the new page or downloads the file.