Changing the command prompt

When you log on, you see a prompt on the left-hand side of your screen like this:

user@machine:~$

The 'user' is your username, 'machine' is the name of the machine, '~' is the directory you're currently in (your home directory) and $ tells you that you are an ordinary user (not the superuser, who has #). An example:

cyan@frink:~$

This prompt is completely configurable. You can do things like add the date and time, or add colours to make it stand out. However, the process is fairly complicated (certainly not for beginners). So if you're interested in changing your prompt, I suggest you search on google for "change bash prompt".