If you want a presence on the internet, people need to find you. That's the job of the Domain Name. So in the web address: www.yourdomain.com  'yourdomain.com' is the domain name. Domains have to be registered so that no two people have the same one, and they have to be renewed every year or else someone else can take it.

This is the bit after the main name. The most common are .com, .biz and .info, but you will see many country-specific letter such as, .ie for Ireland, co.uk for the UK, .se for Sweden etc. But the country-specific letter are usually much more expensive than  the generic letters. So if you are on a budget, it is cheaper to have something like: www.mydomain-ireland.com than www.mydomain.ie

Once you have your site designed, then it has to be placed so that anyone can find it 24/7. You could, of course, have it on your own computer, but then it would have to be on all the time, and be able to cope with a lot of traffic. So most people use the services of a hosting company who keep their 'servers' (the computers that 'serve up' the information about your site) on all the time and people can then access your site at any time, night or day

We assume you know what email is. But instead of using me@eircom.net why not use me@mydomain.com, which is much more professional. We will set that up for you and then tell you how to get your mails on your own computers