Glossary

Blog

Short for "Web Log". A blog is an easy-to-use web site, where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more. Scientologists should all have their own blog! Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. See "Personal Blog".

Blogger.com

An easy to use and popular website that allows people to create and promote their "blogs". If you don't have your own web site on which to publish your blog, blogger.com will provide you with a free site on blogspot.com. (e.g., My Scientology Blog)

Browser

A computer program used to view and navigate the World Wide Web and other Internet resources. Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari are popular internet Browsers.

Domain Name

A name that identifies a web site on the Internet. Usually when people talk about a domain name they are refering to the two most common parts: the "domain" (e.g., scientology) and the "top level domain" (e.g., org). These put together give us what people usually consider the domain name (e.g., scientology.org). There is a third part to a domain name which is most often the "www" at the beginning but can have other values (e.g. faq). An example of this would be "faq.scientology.org".

Link

Noun: A link is a way to move between pages on the Internet.  It is usually seen as plain underlined text. (e.g., Scientology Home Page). But a link can look different to this (e.g., Scientology Video Channel.  When you click on a link you will usually be taken to another page or another place on the current page. The fancy Internet name for a link is "hyperlink".

Verb: The action of creating a link.  E.g., "I'm going to link to that article on human rights."

Personal Blog

The personal blog, an on-going diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following.

URL

URL: Abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator, the "address" for pages, graphics, videos, etc. on the World Wide Web. URLs are typically entered into the Address or Location bar of a web browser. Address bars vary in appearance depending on the web browser you are using. Example: http://www.scientology.org is a URL for the Church of Scientology's video channel website. The "http" stands for "HyperText Transfer Protocol". Hypertext means all the interlinked pages on the Internet (see "Link"). "Transfer" refers to the fact that you move between pages, so the links are a way for data to be transferred. "Protocol" is the set of rules governing how your browser acts when dealing with these pages. Don't be put off my the symbols used in the URL. In human writing we use punctuation, such as spaces and commas to separate parts of what we are communicating. Computers also need something to separate parts of their communication and they use other symbols such as ".", "/", ":", etc. The symbols "://" are used to show the end of the protocol name. The symbol "/" is used separate parts of the url. For example, in http://www.scientology.org/home.html the "/" between ".org" and "home.html" indicates that the domain name has ended and the name of the page has begun. The "." symbols also divide up parts of the URL.

WordPress.com

Another website that allows people to create and promote their blogs.

World Wide Web

The part of the Internet that most people are familiar with. This is the part that contains pages of text, graphics and other media which people commonly think of as the Internet. However, there are other parts to the Internet which we will not be covering here.