John,

A cookie is a little bit of information that many web sites will store on your computer. For example, have you noticed that when you go to post a message, your name and email address are already filled in for you? That is because that info has been stored on your computer as a cookie. When you click the button to post a message, the software that operates this bulletin board looks to see if you have a cookie from The Chip Board. If you do, it reads it and plugs that info in for you automatically.

A user profile is nothing but a little bit of information about yourself, perhaps also a picture, so that someone who has never met you can get an idea of "who you are".

Greg