- •Vocabulary 253
- •Information for study
- •If it keeps up, man atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger.
- •1. Read and translate the text.
- •2. Check up your understanding.
- •3. Retell the text briefly using the following expressions:
- •4. What's missing? You can help yourself referring to the text.
- •7. There are two words given in each item. You must explain
- •8. Give the opposites of the following words.
- •9. Give the synonyms of the following words:
- •10. What verbs frequently precede these words?
- •11. Supply the articles where necessary:
- •5. Rearrange the words and get the right sentences.
- •6. Put the letters in order to make words, then use the words to complete the sentences.
- •12. Translate into English:
- •13. Are you up to giving a right explanation?
- •Who can express the most precise meaning of the word? Are you getting on well with your English? Try to do your best!
- •14. Fairly and rather
- •1. Match the words given in the left column with their definitions in the right column, e.G. 1-21:
- •2. Invent sentences using the expressions from the list below:
- •3. Reading comprehension
- •Computer terms in use
- •If it’s beyond your reach, give Russian explanations at least.
- •Information for study
- •We live in a time when automation is ushering in a second industrial revolution.
- •1. Read and translate the text.
- •2. Are you an experienced person?
- •3. Retell the text briefly using the following words and expressions:
- •4. What’s missing? You can help yourself referring to the text.
- •5. Rearrange the words and get the right sentences.
- •6. Put the letters in order to make words, then use the words to complete the sentences.
- •11. Supply the articles where necessary:
- •12. Translate into English.
- •13. Are you up to giving a right explanation?
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •Identification of words.
- •4. Computer terms in use
- •1. Read and try to understand the given above text.
- •2. No doubt, a person who is willing to establish a new business must have certain skills, such as:
- •Phrasal verbs
- •If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
- •If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
- •If everything seems to go well, you have obviously overlooked something.
- •Information for study
- •1. Read and translate the text.
- •2. Check up your understanding. Give full answers:
- •3. Retell the text briefly using the following expressions and terms:
- •4. What’s missing? If you are in doubt refer to the text.
- •5. Rearrange the words and get the right sentences:
- •6. Put the letters in order to make words, then use the words to complete the sentences:
- •12. Translate into English:
- •13. Are you up to giving a right explanation?
- •If you’re in doubt we can help you.
- •He did his best and won the prize.
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •1. Identification of words
- •2. Useful expressions
- •Invent sentences using the expressions from the left column:
- •3. Reading comprehension
- •4. Computer terms in use
- •If it is beyond your grasp give at least Russian explanation:
- •Information for study
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •Fig. 1 Basic Computer Architecture
- •Moor’s law
- •1. Information for study
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •Inflation
- •Infidelity
- •1. Information for study
- •If builders built buildings the way the programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.
- •1. Read and translate the text.
- •2. Check up your understanding. Give full answers:
- •3. Retell the text briefly using the following terms and expressions:
- •4. What is missing? If you are in doubt refer to the text. Take it into account that in each item the first letter of the missing word is used:
- •5. Rearrange the words and get the right sentences:
- •6. Supply the preposition if one is missing. If necessary refer to the text:
- •12. Translate into English.
- •13. Are you up to giving a right explanation?
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •Identification of words
- •2. Useful expressions
- •3. Phrasal verbs
- •If necessary use the dictionary at the end of this book.
- •4. Reading comprehension
- •5. Computer terms in use
- •Read and try to understand the given above text.
- •What’s your opinion concerning software piracy? Will it exist always?
- •It is a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night.
- •1. Information for study
- •Information.
- •1. Read and translate the text.
- •2. Check up your understanding. Give full answers.
- •3. Retell the text briefly using the fallowing expressions and terms:
- •4. What’s missing? If you are in doubt refer to the text. Take it into account that in each item the first letter of the missed word is used.
- •5. Rearrange the words and get the right sentences.
- •6. Supply the preposition if one is missing.
- •12. Are you up to giving a right explanation?
- •Identification of words
- •Useful expressions
- •Invent sentences using the following expressions and words:
- •Reading comprehension
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •4. Each sentence contains a word that is wrong.
- •5. Fill the gaps with the appropriate word. Then refer to the text.
- •Give the explanation to the following acronyms and abbreviations (p. 223 will help you):
- •Multimedia
- •Programming languages and functions
- •Real-Time Communication
- •I give myself sometimes admirable advice, but I’m incapable of taking it.
- •Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
- •It is a human zoo.
- •I’ve had three wives, six children, six grandchildren, and I still don’t understand women.
- •Vittorio Gassman
- •I prefer the company of women. I’m buzzed by the female mystique.
- •If Restaurants Function Like Microsoft
- •I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.
- •Fairly, rather
- •Vocabulary training
- •1. Match the words with their definitions:
- •3. Reading comprehension
- •Vocabulary training
- •1. Identification of words
- •3. Reading comprehension
- •4. Computer terms in use
- •Do and make
- •3. Vocabulary training
- •1. Identification of words
- •2. Reading comprehension
- •4. Computer terms in use
- •Vocabulary training
- •Verb study practice
- •Vocabulary training
- •Vocabulary training
- •Vocabulary training
- •Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language.
- •Vocabulary
- •I. Funk, n. Lewis
- •Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary Of the English Language
Multimedia
The Web has become a broadcast medium. It is possible to listen to audio and video over the Web, both pre-recorded and live. For example, you can visit the sites of various news organizations and view the same videos shown on the nightly television news. Several plug-ins are available for viewing these videos. For example, Apple's Quick Time Player downloads files with the .mov extension and displays these as «movies» in a small window on your computer screen. Quick Time files can be quite large, and it may take patience to wait for the entire movie to download into your computer before you can view it.
The problem of slow download times has been answered by a revolutionary development in multimedia capability: streaming media. In this case, audio or video files are played as they are downloading, or streaming, into your computer. Only a small wait, called buffering, is necessary before the file begins to play. The RealPlayer plug-in plays streaming audio and video files. Extensive files such as interviews, speeches and hearings work very well with the RealPlayer. The RealPlayer is also ideal for the broadcast of real-time events. These may include press conferences, live radio and television broadcasts, concerts, etc. The Windows Media Player is another streaming media player.
Shockwave presents another multimedia experience. Shockwave allows for the creation and implementation of an entire multimedia display combining graphics, animation and sound.
Sound files, including music, may also be heard on the Web. It is not uncommon to visit a Web page and hear background music. Sound files are also available for downloading independent of Web page visits. Sound files of many types are supported by the Web with the appropriate plug-ins. The MP3 file format, and the choice of supporting plug-ins, is the latest music trend to sweep the Web. The famous Napster site allows for the exchange of MP3 files.
Live cams are another aspect of the multimedia experience available on the Web. Live cams are video cameras that send their data in real time to a Web server. These cams may appear in all kinds of locations, both serious and whimsical: an office, on top of a building, a scenic locale, a special event, and so on.
Programming languages and functions
The use of existing and new programming languages have extended the capabilities of the Web What follows is a basic guide to a group of the more common languages and functions in use on the Web today.
CGI, Active Server Pages: CGI (Common Gateway Interface) refers to a specification by which programs can communicate with a Web server. A CGI program, or script, is any program designed to accept and return data that conforms to the CGI specification. A common use for a CGI script is to process an interactive form on a Web page. For example, you might fill out a form ordering a book through Interlibrary Loan. The script processes your information and sends it to a designated e-mail address in the Interlibrary Loan department.
Another type of dynamically generated Web page is called Active Server Pages (ASP). Developed by Microsoft, ASPs are HTML pages that include scripting and create interactive Web server applications. The scripts run on the server, rather than on the Web browser, to generate the HTML pages sent to browsers. Visual Basic and JScript (a subset of JavaScript) are often used for the scripting. ASPs end in the file extension.asp.
Java / Java Applets: Java is probably the most famous of the programming languages of the Web. Java is an object-oriented programming language similar to C++. Developed by Sun Microsystems, the aim of Java is to create programs that will be platform independent. The Java motto is, «Write once, run anywhere». A perfect Java program should work equally well on a PC, Macintosh, Unix, and so on, without any additional programming.
Web-based Java applications are usually in the form of Java applets. These are small Java programs called from an HTML page that can be downloaded from a Web server and run on a Java-compatible Web browser. A few examples include live newsfeeds, moving images with sound, calculators, charts and spreadsheets, and interactive visual displays.
JavaScript / JScript: JavaScript is a programming language created by Netscape Communications. Small programs written in this language are embedded within an HTML page, or called externally from the page, to enhance the page's the functionality. Examples of JavaScript include moving tickers, drop-down menus, real-time calendars and clocks, and mouse-over interactions. JScript is a similar language developed by Microsoft and works with the company's Internet Explorer browser.
VRML: VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) allows for the creation of three-dimensional worlds. These may be linked from Web pages and displayed with a VRML viewer. Netscape Communicator comes with the Cosmo viewer for experiencing these 3d-worlds.
XML: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is a Web page creation language that enables designers to create their own customized tags to provide functionality not available with HTML. XML is a language of data structure and exchange, and allows developers to separate form from content. At present, this language is little used as Web browsers are only beginning to support it.