The Wii Menu (known internally as the System Menu) is the graphical shell of the Wii game console, as part of the Wii system software. It has four pages, each with a 4:3 grid, and each displaying the current time and date. Available applications, known as "channels", are displayed and can be navigated using the pointer capability of the Wii Remote. The grid is customizable; users can move channels (except for the Disc Channel) amongst the menu's 47 customizable slots by pressing and holding the A and B button while hovering over the channel the user wants to move. By pressing the plus and minus buttons on the Wii Remote users can scroll across accessing empty slots.
The Homebrew Channel, commonly abbreviated as HBC, is a freeware homebrew application loader that was developed to provide a way of easily running unofficial software on the Wii console. Once installed, it appears as a standard Wii Channel on the Wii Menu. When launched, it displays a list of applications found on an SD card or a USB drive. The user then can control and select an application to launch by using a Wii Remote or the GameCube controller. It also accepts application uploads via a USB Gecko or TCP/IP (over Wi-Fi or Ethernet), which allows for quick application testing during development. When first launched from the Wii Menu, the Homebrew Channel will check for updates to itself and automatically download them if the user chooses to do so.
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporarily archived. Also, depending on the access level of a user or the forum set-up, a posted message might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible.
Forums have a specific set of jargon associated with them; e.g., a single conversation is called a "thread", or topic.
A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread, and can be replied to by as many people as so wish.
Depending on the forum's settings, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum and then subsequently log in in order to post messages. On most forums, users do not have to log in to read existing messages.