English for Information Technology Engineers. Учебно-методическое пособие

Fill in the gaps with the missing words:

save print receive open send forward

To: Paul_Johnson@bc.com

From: Samuel.Brown@bc.com

Subject: PC problems/paperwork

Hello Paul

There are a few IT problems in the office today. Can you help me?

Can you … a hard copy of the report from the business meeting with RP Corp. and give the documents to Sandra? I am also in need of a copy of the report from the meeting. Can you … the documents to me in your next e-mail?

Also, I can`t … our customer correspondence folder. If you can, please … the order forms in this folder. Can you … me the invoice from Bertrands so I have their contact details, please?

Finally, can you call me when you … this e-mail? I don`t know if I my computer is working!

Thanks,

Samuel Brown

Imagine you are Samuel Brown. Tell about some IT problems at your work this morning. What would you say to your colleagues un these situations?

•You don`t have a hard copy of the document.

•Your printer doesn`t work. You can`t print the necessary document.

•You have a secretary. What tasks would you give to her?

Spreadsheets are also used to generate invoices. Complete the invoice below with the following words:

Imagine you are Alicia Atkinson. When you use the printer, it gives error messages. You also have problems installing the database. Write an e-mail to Media Market to complain.

Tell about the problems and ask for a new printer and an upgraded version of the database.

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Revision

1. Read the text and briefly describe the differences between proprietary software and open-source software. What kind of software do you prefer?

With open-source software, what do people think about first? Money, usually. Because open-source software is free. But this isn`t the only important thing. First, there is freedom from software vendors. Organizations say that freedom is the number one reason to choose open-source software. With open open-source software, an organization doesn`t have to follow the software vendors` decision. With proprietary software the vendor controls software updates. For example, users can`t add features to proprietary software themselves but they can add features to open-source software.

Also, with open -source software companies have more control of their data. Proprietary software often stores data in special ways that only the vendor understands. So, when a company wants to change to another vendor`s software, moving the data to the new software can be very difficult. Open-source software is different, opensource software vendors explain the data clearly and openly so they are not a secret. Because of this, moving data isn`t a problem.

Sometimes people worry about open-source operating systems. They think that their favorite software won`t run on open-source operating systems. However, this isn`t true because there is a lot of office software, such as word processors and spreadsheets for open-source operating systems. In fact, there are many kinds of this software and they work well. It is only special areas such as graphics design where proprietary software is clearly better.

2. Match the words and their definitions

3. Rewrite the passage in the past tense.

Every morning, Tom reads the newspaper online. He wants to know the latest news. He enjoys the business section most. His wife, Eva, doesn't read any newspapers on her computer. She downloads them on her e-reader. She looks at the front pages first. She doesn't have a lot of time. She finishes the articles later in the day. Both Jake and Eva are very knowledgeable about the day's events.

4. Make sentences from the words in brackets. Use the present perfect or past simple.

a)(it / not / snow / this week) It …

b)(the weather / be / cool / recently) The weather …

c)(it / rainy / yesterday) It …

d)(I / not / read / any books yesterday) I …

e)(I / not / eat / any fruits today) I …

f)(Jim / earn / a lot of money / this year) Jim …

g)(Angelina / not / earn / so much / last month) Angelina …

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Unit 6. Database Communication

6.1. The Internet

Warming up

Give your examples of these phenomena which take place in modern digital space:

•file-sharing networks

•peer-to-peer networks

•open-source software

•e-tailer

•amateur videoblogs

•search engine

•podcasts

Tell a few sentences what you use these instruments for.

Reading

Read the text and explain these features of Internet communication, listed above. Before reading make sure you know these words and phrases:

•collaborate with

•peer to peer

•amateur

•participation

•residents

•contribute to

•route other people`s calls

•derive from

•break into small pieces

The Internet isn`t just about e-mail or web any more. Increasingly, people online are taking the power of the Internet back into their own hands. They’re posting opinions on online journals - weblogs, or blogs; they're organizing political rallies on MoveOn.org; they’re trading songs on illegal file-sharing networks; they’re volunteering articles for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia; and they’re collaborating with other programmers around the world. It's the emergence of the ‘Power of Us’. Thanks to new technologies such as blog software, peer-to-peer networks, open-source software, and wikis, people are getting together to take collective action like never before.

Jmyspace, eBay, for instance, wouldn’t exist without the 61 million active members who list, sell, and buy millions of items a week. But less obvious is that the whole marketplace runs on the trust created by eBay’s unique feedback system, by which buyers and sellers rate each other on how well they carried out their half of each transaction. Pioneer e-tailer Amazon encourages all kinds of customer participation in the site - including the ability to sell items alongside its own books, CDs, DVDs and electronic goods. My Space and Facebook are the latest phenomena in social networking, attracting millions of unique visitors a month. Many are music fans, who can blog, email friends, upload photos, and generally socialize.

There's even a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents, called Second Life, where real companies have opened shops, and pop stars such as U2 have performed concerts.

Some sites are much more specialized, such as the photo-sharing site Flickr. There, people not only share photos but also take the time to attach tags to their pictures, which help everyone else find photos of, for example, Florence, Italy. Another successful example of a site based on user-generated content is YouTube, which allows users to upload, view and share movie clips and music videos, as well as amateur videoblogs.

Another example of the collective power of the Internet is the Google search engine. Its mathematical formulas surf the combined judgements of millions of people whose websites link to other sites. When you type Justin

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Timberlake into Google’s search box and go to the star’s official website, the site is listed first because more people are telling you it’s the most relevant Justin Timberlake site - which it probably is.

Skype on the surface looks like software that lets you make free phone calls over the Internet - which it does. But the way it works is extremely clever by using Skype, you’re automatically contributing some of your PC’s computing power and Internet connection to route other people's calls. It’s an extension of the peer-to-peer network software such as BitTorrent that allow you to swap songs - at your own risk if those songs are under copyright. BitTorrent is a protocol for transferring music, films, games and podcasts. A podcast is an audio recording posted online. Podcasting derives from the words iPod and broadcasting. You can find podcasts about almost any topic - sports, music, politics, etc. They are distributed through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds which allow you to receive up-to-date information without having to check the site for updates. BitTorrent breaks the files into small pieces, known as chunks, and distributes them among a large number of users; when you download a torrent, you are also uploading it to another user.

Find the words with the following meanings:

•the same as electronic retailer,

•open-source, editable web-pages,

•a program that allows you to make video calls,

•an audio broadcast distributed over the internet?

•non-professional.

Make up a plan for the text and retell it.

Think about the Internet features that will be important in the nearest future. Give a full answer.

6.2. How we need to remake the Internet

Warming up

Answer the questions below:

How do you think the Internet influences people in negative life? List some of your ideas. Is it a good idea that everything on the Internet should be for free?

Listening

You are going to listen to a person who talks about the bad influences of the Internet communication. Jaron Lanier is a scientist, musician and writer best known for his work in virtual reality and his advocacy of humanism and sustainable economics in a digital context.

Before listening read and translate the words and phrases:

•face a knife-edged future

•undoing

•transcend with beauty and creativity

•culture filled with the infinite potential

•waking state intentional vision

•draw us away

•alluring future

•power trip

•subject to

•equal fervor

•technologically feasible

•ridiculous mistake

•dent the universe

•get caught into the loop

•publicly acknowledged

•different circumstances

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Give the definitions to the expression, search in the Internet: Skinner`s box, Moore`s law.

Listen to the speech and formulate the key idea of the speaker: https://www.ted.com/talks/jaron_lanier_how_we_need_to_remake_the_internet

Listen to the speech for the second time and give the answers to the following questions.

Listen up to 02:52

•When was the speaker`s first TED talk?

•What problem does he state?

•What does post-symbolic communication mean?

Listen up to 06:14

•What is the book “The Human Use of Human Being” about?

•What does it mean “Early digital culture had a sense of lefty socialist mission”?

Listen up to 10:53

•How does the speaker call social networks?

•How do social reward and punishment function on social networks?

•What is bargain stimuli?

Listen up to 13:00 and fill in the gaps:

The alternative is to turn back the clock, with …, and remake that decision. Remaking it would mean two things. It would mean first that many people, those who could afford to, would actually pay for these things. You'd pay for search, you'd pay for social networking. How would you pay? Maybe with a …, maybe with micropayments as you use them. There's a lot of options. If some of you are recoiling, and you're thinking, "Oh my God, I would never pay for these things. How could you ever get anyone to pay?" I want to remind you of something that just happened. Around this same time that … like Google and Facebook were formulating their free idea, a lot of … also believed that in the future, televisions and movies would be created in the same way, kind of like the Wikipedia. But then, companies like Netflix, Amazon, HBO, said, "Actually, you know, subscribe. We'll give you give you great TV." And it worked! We now are in this period called "peak TV," right? So sometimes when you pay for ... , things get better. We can imagine a hypothetical world of "… social media." What would that be like? It would mean when you get on, you can get really useful, authoritative medical advice instead of cranks. It could mean when you want to get factual information, there's not a bunch of weird, paranoid conspiracy theories. We can imagine this wonderful other possibility. Ah. I dream of it. I believe it's possible. I'm certain it's possible. And I'm certain that the companies, the Googles and the Facebooks, would actually … in this world. I don't believe we need to punish Silicon Valley. We just need to remake the decision.

Listen to the speech up to the end and answer the question: What are Google and Facebook based on?

Practice the vocabulary. Read the sentences and fill in with of the words from the list below. Use the words into the correct forms:

technologically feasible, a knife-edged future, different circumstances, publicly acknowledge, ridiculous mistake, get caught into the loop

•With ecological problems arising in our time, we are going to face …

•The company has created a … plan to overcome the problems.

•The mankind is making a … destroying forests.

•The President of the country himself … that people were wrong about the recent events.

•According to the speaker people who pay for all these subscriptions are …

•The animal behaves itself in different way in … .

Write down 10 key phrases of the speech.

Read the subtitles to check yourself:

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https://www.ted.com/talks/jaron_lanier_how_we_need_to_remake_the_internet/transcript

What comment would you leave as feedback to the speech? Write 3-5 sentences.

Choose one of the topics and be ready to give a short speech on it. Express your opinion and visualize your answer.

•The socialistic vision of cyber culture nowadays.

•Do Facebook and Google depend on behavior modification and spying?

6.3.Using the Internet

Warming up

What criteria do people rely on when they choose an ISP (Internet service provider)? What providers are there in your region? Which one is more reliable and convenient for you?

Write the translation of the words and phrases below: require

appropriate

worth looking

broadband connection

high usage allowances

initial fee

opt for pay-as-you-go packages

access

efficient

remove junk mail

Reading

Read the text and Find the Russian equivalents in the text:

•бесплатный

•стоит поискать

•установить соединение

•соединение широкого диапазона частот

•высокий коэффициент загруженности сети

•изменяться в пределах от …

•абсолютный новичок

•неограниченный доступ

•спам

•невостребованная почта

•количество данных

•достаточный

Using an Internet Service provider, ISP, requires no new technology – all you need is a computer, a modem, a telephone line (preferably broadband), and the appropriate software (which is available free of charge when you sign up with the service). Most of the services are very similar, but it is still worth looking around for a service that offers at least the following features:

High speed

Connection can be provided by standard dial-up using an ordinary modem or by using a broadband connection. Standard dial-up is the slowest at 56 Kbps. Broadband such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) provides different speeds for uploading (sending data) and downloading (receiving data) ranging from 256 Kbps to 2 Mbps.

High Usage Allowance

The amount of data that you are allowed to upload or download in a given time period may be limited. Sending email, browsing the Web or downloading images does not require high usage allowances, downloading MP3

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music files requires more. Online gaming and viewing video online will require a high usage allowance. Usage allowance is normally quoted as GB per month.

Good Value Packages

Various packages are available offering different options that can be paid monthly, annually, bi-annually etc. With these packages, after paying the initial fee, Internet access is usually unmetered. You can also opt for pay- as-you-go packages. Look for a package where the initial rate is reduced. You have to compare ISP offers carefully to find a package that provides what you want at the cheapest cost.

CD-ROM or Online sign up

Some ISPs require you to sign up for their service online (which obviously means you already need to have an Internet connection and some experience with setting up a dial-up networking connection). If you are a complete beginner, you’ll need an ISP which can provide its sign-up software on CD-ROM that will automatically conure your computer to access the Internet.

Local rate calls

Nearly all ISPs provide local call access numbers. Any ISP that uses a national rate number or charges an initial set up or administration fee should be avoided.

Email

Having several email accounts is very useful – you can separate business and personal email for example, or provide an address for each member of your family. Many ISPs also offer only Web-based mail which is great if you need to get into your computer on the move as you can access it from any computer with Internet access. POP3 email, however, is faster and more efficient and can be downloaded to your PC to read offline – a combination of the two is ideal. Junk mail filtering and virus checking Spam (unsolicited email) is very common. It fills up your storage space and is time consuming to deal with. It is also one of the main sources of viruses that attack your computer. Look for an ISP that provides good filtering services to remove junk mail and viruses before they reach your computer.

Free Web space

A decent amount of free Web space would be around 25-50 Mb. This would be sufficient for most of your own personal website developments. Also check to see if there are any restrictions on your use of web space, since some ISPs will not let you use the space for commercial purposes.

Customer Support

The accessibility and quality of customer support provided by ISPs varies greatly and some ISPs make an additional charge for support.

Reliable Service

Of course, all the features in the world won’t make a scrap of difference if the ISP is unreliable and you find it impossible to log on. Look out for recommendations from friends and shop around.

Answer the questions:

•What do you need to use ISP for?

•What features do the ISP services worth looking around possess?

•What Internet activities provide a high usage allowance?

•What ISP does the author of the text recommend to a complete beginner?

•How to choose a reliable ISP service?

Find all the sentences with modal verbs in the text. Read them.

Tell in a few sentences how one should choose ISP?

Grammar Practice

Modal Verbs

Watch the video and revise the rules of using modal verbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VpixmsT1bk Write down the examples with modal verbs.

Write the modal verb or its equivalent into the right column according to its meaning: must, be able to, have to, can, should, ought to, might, mustn`t, be allowed to, be permitted to

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Divide the sentences to the groups presented above. Define the function of the modal verb in each of the sentences.

•Connection can be provided by standard dial-up using an ordinary modem or by using a broadband connection.

•As the Internet becomes ever more pervasive, and the speed of access to other machines increases across our telephone lines, it might be possible to do away with local storage systems altogether.

•You mustn`t give out your passwords.

•You may also decide to split your hard drive because you want to store the OS and programs on one partition and your data files on another.

•You have to compare ISP offers carefully to find a package that provides what you want at the cheapest cost.

•You should change the location of your navigation elements.

Rewrite the sentences using modal verbs.

•It is forbidden to drink tea in this laboratory. If you spill it you may damage the devices!

•You are able to access this PC as I give you the password.

•She advises you to use this link to find the information.

•It is forbidden to use your flash cards on these machines as you may introduce new viruses.

•You are not allowed to work on this project!

Watch the video and formulate the rules connected with the use of must and have to, mustn`t and don`t/doesn`t have to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-jJPd5ZYo4

Answer the questions according to the video:

•Who is Leslie?

•What are the contestants` manes?

•How many questions are they asked?

•Who wins the quiz?

•What does the winner get in the end of the show?

Complete the sentences with don't have to, doesn't have to, or must not.

•You … drive when you are tired. It's very dangerous.

•She lives only a few blocks from her office. She … drive to work.

•Marcus finally got a car, so now he drives to work. He … take a taxi.

•Mr. Brown is very wealthy. He … work for a living.

•You … tell Daddy about the birthday party. We want it to be a surprise.

•A: Did Professor Cooper give us an assignment?

B: Yes, she assigned Chapters 7 and 9, but we … read Chapter 8.

• A: Listen carefully, Mariah. If a stranger offers you a ride, you … get in the car. Never get in a car with a stranger. Do you understand?

B: Yes, Mom.

Choose the right answer to the following questions:

•Which of these uses of ‘have to’ and ‘must’ is different from the others? a) You must wear your seatbelt.

b) You have to wear your seatbelt. c) You mustn’t wear your seatbelt.

d) You don’t have to wear your seatbelt.

•What is true?

a) There is no difference between ‘have to’ and ‘must’ for obligations.

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We use ‘have to’ for external

obligations, and ‘must’ for internal obligations.

Referring to the rule, decide if these obligations would take ‘have to’ or ‘must’. Write the sentences:

•You decide not to eat fattening food.

•The government wants you to pay your taxes.

•You don’t want to exercise, but the doctor tells you to.

•You try to resist eating chocolate.

•Your parents tell you to clean your room.

•Your teacher tells you to do your homework.

Revision

1. Fill in the gaps with the right word or a phrase:

Increasingly, collective, encyclopedia, user-generated content, amateur

The Internet isn`t just about e-mail or web any more. 1 …, people online are taking the power of the Internet back into their own hands. They’re posting opinions on online journals - weblogs, or blogs; they're organizing political rallies on MoveOn.org; they’re trading songs on illegal file-sharing networks; they’re volunteering articles for the online 2 … Wikipedia. Thanks to new technologies such as blog software, peer-to-peer networks, open-source software, and wikis, people are getting together to take 3 … action like never before.

Some sites are much more specialized, such as the photo-sharing site Flickr. There, people not only share photos but also take the time to attach tags to their pictures, which help everyone else find photos of, for example, Florence, Italy. Another successful example of a site based on 4 … is YouTube, which allows users to upload, view and share movie clips and music videos, as well as 5 … videoblogs.

2. Read the sentences and fill in with of the words from the list below. Use the words into the correct forms:

technologically feasible, a knife-edged future, different circumstances, publicly acknowledge, ridiculous mistake, get caught into the loop

•With ecological problems arising in our time, we are going to face …

•The company has created a … plan to overcome the problems.

•The mankind is making a … destroying forests.

•The President of the country himself … that people were wrong about the recent events.

•According to the speaker people who pay for all these subscriptions are …

•The animal behaves itself in different way in … .

3. Choose the right verb: can, can`t, must, mustn`t, have to, don`t have to.

a)I think there … be a mistake.

b)I … speak 3 languages.

c)Bella … go there. It is strictly forbidden.

d)I … eat much chocolate. It`s better to cut off sweet food for me.

e)My parents told me to stop going to bed late. I … stay. I … go home.

f)You … come there on Saturday and Sunday. We are able to do the work without you.

g)You … to read these books. Out teacher thinks it is necessary for us.

h)You … take photos in the museum. Take your camera away.

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