ESL Podcast 909 - Buying Electronic Books
e-book reader - a small electronic device that can be held in one's hands and that displays the content of books electronically on a screen
How can I clean the fingerprints off of this e-book reader so that the text is easier to see?
to download - to transfer information from the Internet to a computer or a memory stick
Does your bank let you download account statements from 10 years ago?
old school - old-fashioned, preferring older technology over new technology, liking the way things were done a long time ago
Alberto has very old school manners, but they're charming.
printed - with text or images displayed on a physical piece of paper, not electronically
Should we buy printed business cards, even though all our contact information is at the bottom of our email messages?
to store - to keep something for future use, not deleting it or throwing it away
The weather is getting warmer, so it's time to store our winter clothes and boots in the basement.
digital - electronic and stored on a computer or memory stick, not physically printed
We have thousands of digital photos, but we hardly ever look at them. We should print out the best ones and put them in a photo album.
portable - easily moved from one to another, not too big or heavy
Modern smart phones are more like portable computers than simple telephones.
incompatible format - for the way a computer file is encoded (stored) to not be able to work together on two devices or technologies
We can't open these files because they're in an incompatible format with this computer.
to edge out - to compete against someone and win; to push someone else out of a competition or out of a leading position
Patents help inventors edge out people who want to copy their great ideas.
the dust settles - a description of the point in time when things calm down and a situation becomes more stable, no longer changing very quickly
Clara is really upset with her boyfriend right now, but I think she'll forgive him once the dust settles.
to convert - to transform something from one type to another
Could you please convert this photograph from color to black-and-white?
text - written words
The text in the manual was confused and difficult to understand.
faded - with faint colors that are not as bright as they once were and that are more difficult to see, usually because they have been exposed to bright sunlight for a long period of time
How do museums prevent important artwork from becoming faded?
yellowed - having changed in color from white to a slightly yellow color, usually as a result of aging or exposure to cigarette smoke
Karina's teeth are yellowed, probably because she drinks so much coffee.
text size - the size of letters on a screen or on a piece of paper, especially when generated by a computer
How can you read such a tiny text size without a magnifying glass?
font - the style of letters generated by a computer, such as Times New Roman, Arial, and Courier
A font like Comic Sans looks playful, but it is more difficult to read than traditional fonts like Times New Roman.
line spacing - the distance between each line of text in a document
Editors prefer for manuscripts to have a lot of line spacing so that they have room to write down their comments and edits.
out-of-print - no longer being produced or sold by a publisher, making it more difficult to find a copy of something
There's a used bookstore downtown that specializes in finding copies of out-of- print books.
low-tech - with simple, unsophisticated technology; not new or cutting-edge
Why would I want a robot to clean my floors when I could just use a low-tech broom?