Namespace & <iostream> help required for a confused noob

Greetings.
I`ve been wanting to program for ages but have been put of by the fact it seems so confusing and for some reason i`ve always had this niggle inside me that told me to program, and so about 4 hours or so ago i did.
I`m using the tutorial/s on this site and am finding them helpful so far.
I am however (and this is one of the things that has put me off programming) confused over what a namespace is, i looked on the FAQ to this site and all over the web,and i just can`t understand them, so can someone please explain it to me in simple terms.
Also do you use <iostream> on all projects?

Many Thanks

a namespace is a space that contains names.

the <iostream> header contains declarations for functions, classes, and objects that you use throughout your program. if you want to use cout, you have to include <iostream>. all of the items in the <iostream> header are in the std namespace. you could have another namespace with a different name, but that also contains an object called cout, and it would not conflict with std::cout. that's why namespaces are important. they prevent name collisions.

Also do you use <iostream> on all projects?

Not necessarily.

If you create a graphic user interface for your program, the type of text-only command based IO that <iostream> let's you do is a lot less important.