Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 631, Customizing a Personal Web Page.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 631.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode that will help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Customizing a Personal Web Page.
Many people have their own pages, their own websites.
We'll talk about some of the vocabulary that might be related to that, especially on social networking sites such as Facebook.
Let's get started.
The layout of your web page is so lame.
Why don't you customize it?
Why bother?
I don't want to spend the time or the energy.
Let me show you my page.
Check out this background.
Don't you think it's great?
Yeah, it's great.
Can I get back to my book now?
You haven't even looked at my page.
Look at this.
You can add all kinds of graphics and you can use the profile editor to list information about yourself your hometown, your likes and dislikes, your relationship status, your mood, everything.
You can link to or upload photos and videos too.
I even have a custom cursor and the scrolling text across the top.
Yeah, it's all great, but kind of dizzying.
You haven't even seen my animated GIFs.
This funny baby will dance across the page.
Look!
Thanks for the suggestions, but I think I'll stick to a simple, uncluttered page.
How long did it take you to do all of that?
How long?
Maybe a few hours.
I'd rather spend a few hours reading a good book.
Suit yourself.
Maybe that's why you have 22 friends and I have 200.
Clearly your time has been better spent.
Our dialogue begins with Keiko saying to Al, the layout of your web page is so lame.
The layout is the position of things either on a piece of paper or here on the computer screen, where you have your photos, where you have your writing, your text.
The position of things on the screen or on a page in this case a web page is the layout.
LAME L-A-M-E used to mean, and still does now, someone who has injured themselves, someone who is handicapped, who hurt their arm or their leg.
Now it's used more informally as meaning uninteresting, boring, not cool.
Lame is a little bit dated now.
It was more popular, I think, in the 90s. but it's still used.
Keiko says, why don't you customize it, meaning the webpage?
To customize something is to change something so that it is unique.
It is unlike anything else.
Here it means also, I think, to personalize, to make the page reflect the person behind it.
That is, the page will somehow show you who this person is.
Al says, why bother?
Why bother is an informal phrase used to show that you think the suggestion that someone is giving you is a waste of time.
You don't want to do it.
You can use it by itself, why bother?
Or you can be more specific and say why bother?
To customizing my website.
Notice that the verb after the word bother is an ing form.
Why bother going to the movies when you can watch the movie for free here on television?
Al says, I don't want to spend the time or the energy.
Keiko says, let me show you my page.
Check out this background.
Check out means take a look at, investigate.
Background is the large area of a piece of paper or a computer screen behind what you are looking at.
Normally, it's just white, but you could have different colored backgrounds.
The background is what everything else is on, if you will, in this case.
Background has a couple of different meanings, however.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
She says, don't you think it's great?
Don't you think my page is great?
Keiko means, Al says, yeah, it's great.
Can I get back to my book now?
Can I get back to means I want to return to doing what I was doing before.
We often say it when we are trying to indicate to the other person that they are bothering us.
They are taking up our time.
Keiko says, you haven't even looked at my page.
Look at this.
You can add all kinds of graphics and you can use the profile editor to list information about yourself.
Graphics are small pictures or symbols or that are used to make something more interesting looking, a design pattern that also can sometimes make the writing clearer.
It indicates what is going on in the writing part of a piece of paper or a page on the web.
The profile editor is something that you will find in social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter.
That allows you to control the information that other people see about you.
It will allow you to select information that you want to tell other people, and who gets to see that information.
The information on this profile editor, according to Keiko, includes your hometown, your likes and dislikes, your relationship status and your mood.
Your hometown, one word, is the place where you were born, the place where you grew up.
My hometown is St.
Paul, Minnesota.
Your likes and dislikes are obviously the things that you like and the things that you don't like.
Your relationship status is whether you are married, whether you are single, whether you are dating.
You have a boyfriend or a girlfriend.
It could be that you are engaged, you are going to get married.
It could be that you are divorced, you used to be married.
Or it could be that you are widowed, your husband or wife died.
That's your relationship status.
Your mood.
M-O-O-D is the way you feel about.
Keiko says you can link to or upload photos and videos to.
To link to something means to...
Make your web page a part of your web page, such that when you click on it, it takes you to a different page or a different part of a page.
We call these hyperlinks.
Usually they are underlined on a website and often a different color.
Blue is most common.
That is to link to something.
To upload means to put a file, like a picture or a music file, onto another computer called a server, and that server is connected to the internet so that other people can look at or download that file.
Download is the opposite of upload.
Upload, you put it up to a server.
You put it on a server.
To download means you take it off.
You make it part of your own computer.
Keiko says, I even have a custom cursor and this scrolling text across the top.
Something that is custom.
As we learned earlier with the verb, customize is something that is special to you, something that is unlike other things.
A cursor.
C-U-R-S-O-R is a special graphic on your computer screen that tells you where the mouse is or where whatever you may be typing will appear.
Keiko says she has a custom cursor and scrolling text.
Text is just another word for words.
Scrolling is something that moves across the screen or up and down the screen, usually somewhat slowly.
At the end of a movie or a television program, for example, there are what are called credits, the list of names of all the people who worked on that movie or show.
And these usually scroll, meaning they move slowly, especially for a movie.
You see this more often.
The names will go from the bottom of the screen slowly up to the top of the screen, almost as if they were on a wheel turning around.
That's scrolling text.
Al says, yeah, it's all great, but kind of dizzying.
Dizzying, D-I-Z-Z-Y-I-N-G, means something that makes you feel dizzy.
To feel dizzy means that...
Your head is sort of spinning.
You are not exactly sure where you are.
Perhaps if someone hits you on the back of the head or spins you around in a circle, round and around, you may get dizzy.
You won't be able to walk straight, at least for a few minutes.
Here, dizzying means that it's too complicated.
It's too much.
And it is confusing to Al.
Keiko says, you haven't even seen my animated GIFs or GIFs.
The word GIF is actually an acronym.
It is a word that comes from different words, the first letter of three different words.
GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format.
It's pronounced by some people as GIF.
Other people pronounce it GIF.
I think GIF is the original pronunciation.
In any case, it is a small file that is a picture or a photo or a design of some type.
Animated means that it is moving somehow.
There is movement in the little picture.
These were very popular when the web first got started in the 1990s.
I remember in 1993 or 4, when I first started using the Internet, you would see a lot of these.
They're not quite as common, fortunately, anymore.
But that's what Keiko has on her web page.
She says, this funny baby will dance across the page.
Look.
Al says, thanks for the suggestions, but I think I'll stick to a simple, uncluttered page.
To stick to means I'm going to stay with what I have right now, or I am going to only do this.
He's going to stick to an uncluttered page.
Uncluttered means that it isn't messy.
It's the opposite of confusing.
It's the opposite of too much, of disorder.
Uncluttered would be very simple without anything unnecessary on the page.
Al says, how long did it take you to do all of that?
Keiko says, how long?
Maybe a few hours.
Al says, I'd rather spend a few hours reading a good book.
Keiko says, suit yourself, meaning you do what you want to do, if that's what you like.
Maybe that's why you have 22 quote-unquote friends and I have 200.
On Facebook, you can get friends, people who are able to look at your website.
A friend isn't necessarily a friend.
It's often just somebody who knows who you are.
Many people try to get as many friends as they can.
That's often a sign of what we call narcissism, which is the belief that you are the most important thing in the world.
We have a lot of that nowadays.
Anyway, Keiko has 200 friends on her social networking site, probably Facebook, and Al only has 22.
Al says, clearly, your time has been better spent.
Better spent means used in a better way, in a more productive way.
However, Al is being sarcastic.
He's making a joke.
He means the opposite of what he says.
He's saying that Keiko has wasted her time getting these webpages customized and having all of these quote-unquote friends.
When we say quote-unquote friends, we mean in this case that they're not really friends.
Once again, it's the opposite in some ways of what you are saying.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
The layout of your webpage is so lame.
Why don't you customize it?
Why bother?
I don't want to spend the time or the energy.
Let me show you my page Check out this background Don't you think it's great?
Yeah, it's great Can I get back to my book now?
You haven't even looked at my page.
Look at this.
You can add all kinds of graphics and you can use the profile editor to list information about yourself your hometown, your likes and dislikes, your relationship status, your mood, everything.
You can link to or upload photos and videos too.
I even have a custom cursor and the scrolling text across the top.
Yeah, it's all great, but kind of dizzying.
You haven't even seen my animated GIFs.
This funny baby will dance across the page.
Look.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I think I'll stick to a simple, uncluttered page.
How long did it take you to do all of that?
How long?
Maybe a few hours.
I'd rather spend a few hours reading a good book.
Suit yourself.
Maybe that's why you have 22 friends and I have 200.
Clearly your time has been better spent.
Why bother listening to other English podcasts when you have the wonderful scripts by Dr. Lucy Say?
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
