1. IP address – The Internet Protocol address; a numeric address such as 123.231.32.2 that the domain name server translates into a domain name.
2. Usenet - Users’ Network. A giant public bulletin board system on the Internet for news and electronic mail. Types of Usenet groups are comp (about computers), news (about newsgroups), rec (on sports and hobbies), sci (science), soc (social), talk (discussions), misc (miscellaneous), and alt (alternative newsgroups).
3. Account – an amount of money deposited with a bank, as in a checking or savings account: an oral or written description of particular events or situations
4. Host – 1. A computer connected to a network that provides data and services to other computers. Services may include data storage, file transfer, data processing, e-mail, bulletin board services, World Wide Web, etc. 2. A multiuser computer that has terminals attached to it.
5. FTP – File Transfer Protocol. A client/server protocol for exchanging files with a host computer. Examples are Xmodem, Ymodem, Zmodem and Kermit.
6. ZIP, EXE, CAB - To compress a file using PKZIP, ZipIt, gzip, or other compatible archiver…. An executable binary file, marked with the .EXE filename extension in MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, and VAX/VMS…..
7. HTML – HyperText Markup Language. The language used to create World Wide Web pages, with hyperlinks and markup for text formatting (different heading styles, bold, italic, numbered lists, insertion of images, etc.).
8. Link - 1. A connector; anything that connects two or more things. 2. A pointer in an HTML document that leads to another World Wide Web site, or to another place within the same document; also called a hyperlink. Linked text is usually underlined or shown in a different color from the surrounding text. Sometimes graphics are links or contain links. A link is activated by clicking on it. 3 A pointer embedded in a database record that refers to data or the location of data in another record. 4. A line or channel for transmitting data. 5. A call from a program to another program or subroutine. 6. To connect with a link.
9. WYSIWYG – What You See Is What You Get. Refers to the ability of a computer to present an image of a page layout or graphic on its screen that shows how the actual page will look like when it comes out of the printer. Before advanced computer technology made WYSIWYG possible, a typesetter formatting a page would see only unformatted lines of type and coding on the screen, and would have to hope that the copy that came out would look the way it was supposed to.
10. TXT, DOC, XLS – Common spoken and written shorthand (text, document)
11. Bandwidth – the transmission capacity of an electronic communications device or system; the speed of data transfer
12. DNS server – When you send email or point a browser to an Internet domain such as comcast.com, the domain name system translates the names into Internet addresses (a series of numbers looking something like this: 123.123.23.2). The term refers to two things: the conventions for naming hosts and the way the names are handled across the Internet.
13. Client – The computer in a client/server architecture that requests files or services. The computer that provides services is called the server. The client may request file transfer, remote logins, printing, or other available services. The client also means the software that makes the connection possible.
14. Bounce – A message indicating an electronic mail message was not delivered, either because it was misaddressed or a connection failed.

We are going to create a vocabulary list about health problems. You can suggest any word or expression related to health and I will edit this post to make the list ok?

You can use some of the words or expressions appearing in “Catching a cold”.

* catch a cold = coger un resfriado/resfriarse

Used courtesy of Ansik at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ansik/

I’ve been working on a few ideas for the Son of the Pitch competition that has something to do with the Cheltenham Screenwriters Festival.

The idea is to pitch a movie idea in 25 words or less, and then write a 150 word synopsis to go with it.

I’m finding the 25 word pitch quite tricky but a really good exercise. Can you sum up a whole story in 25 words?

I’ve decided to stick in 3 ideas (seems you can send as many as you like). But 3 is enough for me for now. I’m not going to send in my best ideas cos I don’t know these people and I trust no one. Never.

I’ve been greedy and used all 25 words in all 3, but it’s been interesting, for me, to write them and see what works and what doesn’t.

I remembered reading something about this somewhere and I finally tracked it down to John Truby’s book, The Anatomy of Story. In it, he says:

‘You want to figure out what your story is at the most essential level. This means determining the central conflict of the story. To figure out the central conflict, ask yourself “Who fights whom over what?” and answer the question in one succinct line.’

The example he gives is:

A man falls in love and fights his brother for control of a winery.

The problem with that, as I understand it, is the word ‘and’. This example basically describes two separate stories – the man falling in love AND the man fighting his brother for control of the winery.

Book cover via Amazon

Truby says:

‘Your hero will take many actions in the course of the story. But there should be one action that is most important, that unifies every other action the hero takes.’

He then improves on the above story and tells it like this:

Through the love of a good woman, a man defeats his brother for control of a winery.

I wonder how good the woman is if she gets her man to defeat his own brother but you get the point. And to be fair, Truby was talking about writing a story premise and I reckon the point of a pitch is to sell the idea, so we’re allowed to make it a bit more dramatic.

Alex Epstein, over at Complications Ensue quoted a bit on writing loglines from Blake Synder’s blog and that looks like handy advice too for this exercise.

In the meantime, I’m going to get on with writing my 150 word synopses because I thought they could only be 125 words but since writing this and checking the facts I now find i have another 25 words for every idea. That’s a whole story’s worth.

ONLINE SITE OF THE WEEK: THEBIGWORDPROJECT

Some may say that this is proof that anyone can make money on the internet.  And I. . .would agree.  The Big Word Project allows users to buy a word (literally) with the purpose of linking that word to the user’s site.  I decided to test this idea out typing in marauder of course.  While marauder was taken, marauders was available at the sweet price of &9 ($1 per letter).

3,080 words have been ‘re-defined’ thus far.  Using my dear friend’s estimation of 6 letters per word in the English language (I tried Googling this to no avail), that amounts to $18,400 before removing operating cost (which I imagine to be quite small in their case).  Not a bad way to earn a couple extra thousand dollars.

Smith Mag has invited people to share their life stories in six words. The “sixcinct” autobiographies can be read HERE. You can also submit your own. One of my favourites is “communist health nut, hammer and cycle.”.