Xmas Competition

So. People have been wondering where I get my ideas for Computer Terms Illustrated. The simple answer is that they just pop into my head fully-formed, and sometimes that answer is true. But more often it's like this: I'll read or hear a word, write it down and then turn it over in my head for a few seconds days until an apt illustration suggests itself.

Like "blade" - you must have seen IBM's TV ads for this piece of electronic wizardry. I still have no.fooking.idea what they mean by that word, but I know exactly what it means to me:

Kate "Babushka" Bush


Lucy "Xena" Lawless


That bloke off Lord of the Rings


However.

There are a few terms whose "true"¹ meaning still eludes me. And that's where you come in, dear reader. All you have to do to win a FANTASTIC PRIZE² is to submit a half-decent picture to illustrate any or all of the following pooter-based expressions:-

• Dark Fibre


• Data Mining


• Vapourware


• Spoofing


• Password


• Blue Screen of Death


• Bit Map³


• Anything I haven't already done, really

Rules
Multiple entries accepted. Pictures can be emailed to MrFarty at blueyonder dot co dot uk or posted on your own blog with a link. Or stolen off the intertubes, in a pinch⁴. In the highly unlikely event that more than three or four entries are received, there will be a fight to the death to decide the winner. Or a poll or something. I haven't thought that far ahead. Closing date November-ish.

Update: Fer feck's sake! Anybody? Christ. Right. If you have an idea but can't draw, take photographs or be arsed to surf the intertubes for a picture, just TELL me your idea. Like the inestimable Señor Goth (thanks S).

¹ For a given value of true.

² Ok, it's a Scottish calendar.

³ Like I say, they just come to me like *click* that! Better hurry up.

Hob-bit Map


⁴ Not that I would ever drop to that level. *cough*