[ti:Computer Terms] [ar:Faith Lapidus] [al:WORDS AND THEIR STORIES] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]go to 51voa.com for more... [00:09.68]Now, the VOA [00:13.33]Special English program [00:15.02]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES. [00:17.81]Computer technology has become [00:20.79]a major part of people's lives. [00:23.78]This technology has [00:26.46]its own special words. [00:28.66]One example is the word mouse. [00:32.70]A computer mouse [00:35.03]is not a small animal [00:37.62]that lives in buildings [00:39.98]and open fields. [00:41.22]It is a small device [00:43.17]that you move around [00:45.06]on a flat surface [00:46.85]in front of a computer. [00:49.68]The mouse moves the pointer, [00:52.23]or cursor, [00:53.53]on the computer screen. [00:55.32]Computer expert Douglas Engelbart [00:59.30]developed the idea for the mouse [01:02.09]in the early nineteen-sixties. [01:05.12]The first computer mouse [01:07.51]was a carved block of wood [01:10.20]with two metal wheels. [01:12.69]It was called a mouse [01:15.32]because it had a tail [01:17.51]at one end. [01:19.40]The tail was the wire [01:21.64]that connected it [01:23.14]to the computer. [01:24.53]Using a computer [01:27.57]takes some training. [01:29.01]People who are experts [01:31.46]are sometimes called hackers. [01:34.44]A hacker is usually a person [01:38.38]who writes software programs [01:41.22]in a special computer language. [01:43.96]But the word hacker is also [01:47.44]used to describe a person [01:49.78] who tries to steal information [01:52.47]from computer systems. [01:54.56]Another well known computer word [01:58.89]is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. [02:05.56]It is the name of a popular [02:08.69]"search engine" for the Internet. [02:11.28]People use the search engine [02:13.98]to find information about almost [02:17.41]any subject on the Internet. [02:19.60]The people who started the company [02:22.44]named it Google because [02:25.03]in mathematics, googol, [02:28.27]spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, [02:32.60]is an extremely large number. [02:35.14]It is the number one [02:37.33]followed by one-hundred zeros. [02:41.01]When you "Google" a subject, [02:44.59]you can get a large amount [02:47.08]of information about it. [02:48.97]Some people like to Google [02:51.52]their friends or themselves [02:54.07]to see how many times [02:56.57]their name appears on the Internet. [02:59.65]If you Google someone, [03:02.59]you might find that person's name [03:05.47]on a blog. [03:07.17]A blog is the shortened name [03:10.30]for a Web log. [03:13.39]A blog is a personal Web page. [03:17.07]It may contain stories, comments, [03:20.31]pictures and links [03:22.35]to other Web sites. [03:24.49]Some people add information [03:26.97]to their blogs every day. [03:29.47]People who have blogs [03:32.06]are called bloggers. [03:34.61]Blogs are not the same as spam. [03:38.52]Spam is unwanted sales messages [03:42.70]sent to your electronic mailbox. [03:45.39]The name is based on a funny joke [03:48.88]many years ago [03:50.47]on a British television show, [03:52.56]"Monty Python's Flying Circus." [03:55.76]Some friends are at an eating place [04:00.19]that only serves [04:01.53]a processed meat product [04:03.98]from the United States called SPAM. [04:07.60]Every time the friends try to speak, [04:10.74]another group of people starts [04:13.97]singing the word SPAM very loudly. [04:17.55]This interferes [04:19.20]with the friends' discussion [04:21.09]¨C just as unwanted sales messages [04:24.62]interfere with communication [04:26.86]over the Internet. [04:28.15](MUSIC) [04:38.52]This VOA Special English program, [04:42.11]WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, [04:44.10]was written by Jill Moss. [04:46.19]I'm Faith Lapidus.