A symlink is a UNIX thing. I think there's a similar concept on Macintoshes called an "alias". (Mac people, please fill me in on this, or correct me.) Basically, it's a filename that has associated with it a string rather than the contents of a file. This string is the name of another file to which the symlink points. If you try to read the symlink, you see the file-to-which-is-pointed-by-the-string. You can make symlinks to anything that is in a UNIX filesystem, including regular files and directories. I use them a lot to make links from one place in my home directory to others places, especially when people might look in more than one place to find a bit of information or a file they're trying to find.
You create symbolic links with the command
ln -s linktext linkname-- replacing "linktext" with the file you'd like the link to point to, and "linkname" with the name of the link you're creating.
Eric Mumpower, nocturne@mit.edu