Hi there and welcome to the forums!
A mid ranged notebook shouldn't have a problem with video editing, but be careful what you buy! Price isn't always an indication of power performance in laptop terms, with the performance of laptops being judged on battery life as well as processing power. Laptop harddrives are also typically slower than desktop equivalents, and pound for pound, you'll be buying a less powerfull system by opting for a laptop. Also consider that video editing requires ample disk space, and laptops are typically stingy on the size of harddrives.
Given that video editing always demands more and more processing power, I'd always go for the Desktop. I have both a laptop (2.4 Pentium 4 with 256MG Ram, 30GB harddrive) and video editing is possible - but I'd always chose my desktop over this.
With this in mind, I'd always advise someone want to do A LOT of video editing to invest their money in a decent desktop system. This also gives the user ample upgrade opportunity - installing a dedicated video editing card for example.
That being said, people are often tempted by laptops for video editing and Avid have recently launched a product aimed at this market (check out the Avid website). However, if it's the small form factor that appeals, why not going for a neat little bare bones system such as a Shuttle PC. These offer the compactness of a Laptop (they're TINY), but the scalability of a desktop system.
As for a glossary, there's one at the main site at
http://www.marcpeters.co.uk/glossary.html however, I've been told it's in need of updating
Can I use a Laptop (Notebook) to edit 
Linear Mode
