just wan to know more

i m a real junior here but having great interest in all these hacking and cracking
stuffs..just wan to tell u i have little knowledge on these things and would like to
start from basics...let say....what's the difference between hacking and cracking..
just that simple...i am eager to see someone reply to this thread and tell me more
about the hacking things.And i don't mean to ' practically ' use what i learnt here
to do something harmful to others.I just want to know more about these things
because it appears to be so mysterious to me, at least i could make my pc less
vulnerable to the hacking activities on net. That's all from me..and just want to
say nice to be a member of antionline.