通信的需求和计算机性能的戏剧性的增长引发了软件商品根本上的改变。

Large database and other business applications, which formerly executed on a mainframe connected to terminals, are now distributed over smaller, less expensive machines.

大型数据库和其它商业应用等当初需要在一个与终端连接的主框架中运行的程序现在已经运行在分布式的更小、更便宜的机器上了。

Terminals have given way to desktop workstations with graphical user interfaces and multimedia capabilities.

终端为桌面工作站提供了GUI和多媒体性能。

At the other end of the spectrum, standalone personal computer applications have evolved to use network communication. For example, a spreadsheet application is no longer an isolated program supporting a single user because an update of the spreadsheet may cause an automatic update of other linked applications. These could graph the data or perform sales projections.

另外，独立的个人电脑的应用已经进化为可以使用网络通信的了。例如，一个电子数据表应用已经不再是孤立的支持单个用户的程序了。因为电子数据表的一个更新可能引起其它关联应用的一次自动更新。这些关联应用可以绘制数据的曲线图或是放映销售投影。(红色的不懂)

Applications such as cooperative editing, conferencing and common whiteboards facilitate group work and interactions.

像协作编辑、会议和公告板等应用促进了团队内部的协作与交流。

Computing applications are evolving through sophisticated data sharing, realtime interaction, intelligent graphical user interfaces and complex data streams that include audio and video as well as text.

计算机应用通过综合“数据共享”、“实时交流”、“智能GUI”和“包含声音和影像的复杂数据流”得到了进化。

These developments in technology rely on communication, concurrency and asynchronous operation within software applications.

以上这些技术的发展都要依靠通信及应用程序内部的同/异步操作。

这周，在我们的外国学生系列的第九部分，我们来谈一谈取得赴美留学签证的话题。

Just getting accepted to an American college or university does not guarantee that you will get a visa. And getting a visa just lets you arrive in the United States. It does not guarantee that an immigration officer will permit you to enter the country.

只是得到美国大学的同意并不能保证你会得到签证。而得到签证也只是让你可以到达美国，并不能保证入国管理局允许你进入该国。

Travel documents come from the Department of State. But immigration is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security.The State Department has a Web site with all the rules for getting a visa. The address is unitedstatesvisas.gov. Unitedstatesvisas is all one word.

旅游文档来自于美国国务院。但(批准)入境需要由(申请人)本国安全部门负责。美国国务院有一个网站介绍了取得签证的全过程。网址是“unitedstatesvisas.gov”。(注意)unitedstatesvisas是一个词。

If you are requesting a visa for the first time, you will probably have to go to an American embassy or consulate. You will need to bring a government form sent to you by your American school that shows you have been accepted.

若你是第一次申请签证，你大概必须得去美国大使馆或领事馆。你得带上美国学校给你的政府表格，用来证明你得到了学校的许可。

You will also need banking and tax records that show you have enough money to pay for your education. And be prepared to provide evidence that you will return to your home country after your studies end.

你还需要带上很行证明和交税的记录来证明你有足够的钱交学费。还得准备提供你完成学业后会回到祖国的证据。

全国公务员考试报考人数创新高

There are still a record number of applicants taking the nationwide government recruitment exam even though around 26 percent who signed up, dropped out.

全国公务员考试的26%的低通过率仍是一项记录。

775,000 people will take written examinations on Nov. 30. That's 130,000 more applicants than last year, Yang Shiqiu, Vice Minister of the Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) said on Tuesday.

775000人将于11月30日参加笔试。这比往年的应试人数多出了13万人。人事部兼社会保障部副部长杨Shiqiu周二说。

Graduates say it's harder to find a job now as a college education is nearly universal among students in China and a university degree is no longer a privilege when job-hunting.

Graduates说，在中国大学教育已经普及，找工作变得更困难了。竞聘时本科生程度已经不再有优势。

Yang said the ministry would take measures to ensure the fairness of the exam, including keeping test papers confidential, using computers to score multiple choice questions and assigning at least two people to go over answers to essay questions.

杨说，部里面将会确定衡量标准以保证考试的公正。这包括保持试卷的机密性，使用计算机对多选题进行评分，以及最少安排两个人审阅作文题。

The recruitment procedure for civil service jobs will be completed before June, 2009.

招募公务员的程序将于2006年6月前完成。

原文：　http://safari.informit.com/0130424110/part01

Chapter 1. Technology's Impact on Programs
This chapter introduces the ideas of communication, concurrency and asynchronous operation at the operating system level and at the application level. Handling such program constructs incorrectly can lead to failures with no apparent cause, even for input that previously seemed to work perfectly. Besides their added complexity, many of today's applications run for weeks or months, so they must properly release resources to avoid waste (so-called leaks of resources). Applications must also cope with outrageously malicious user input, and they must recover from errors and continue running. The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) standard is an important step toward producing reliable applications. Programmers who write for POSIX-compliant systems no longer need to contend with small but critical variations in the behavior of library functions across platforms. Most popular UNIX versions (including Linux and Mac OS X) are rapidly moving to support the base POSIX standard and various levels of its extensions.

第一章　编程受到的技术冲击
这一章介绍(公共)社区的想法，操作系统和应用程序级别的同步及异步操作。错误地把握这种程序结构会引发深层次的错误，即使对于先前看起来工作得非常完美的输入也一样。它们不但增加了复杂性，今天的许多应用程序都需要持续工作数周甚至数月，因此它们必须适当地释放资源来避免浪费(也称作资源泄露)。应用程序同样必须应付恶意的用户输入。它们必须处理错误并继续运行。可移植操作系统接口(POSIX)标准是迈向进程安全应用的重要的一步。在符合POSIX标准的系统下做开发的程序员不再需要与平台库函数中很小但又很微妙的变化做斗争。大多数流行的UNIX版本(包括Linux和Mac)正迅速地转向支持基本的POSIX标准和它的多层扩展。