Take
a byte out of cryme.
Understanding
bits and bytes
You're a bright,
curious, even intelligent sort who doesn't want to
get taken by Internet con artists, or any other thief
for that matter.
Especially in
the world of technology, you need to educate yourself
so you don't get taken by the guy
who would sell you a 450 megabyte hard drive and tell
you it's a 4 gigabyte drive. Let me explain.
Let's say you're
familiar with hard drive sizes, say, in the gigabyte
range. Well, at least you've heard of them, right?
Your computer may have come with a 20 gigabyte hard
drive. What's it all mean?
It means you can
store 20 billion bytes worth of data. What's a byte?
It's 8 bits worth of data. And what's a bit? It's the
smallest piece of data known to computer science. At
least is was when I went to school!
Nerds shame one
another by referencing their cranial space with the
term "bit head."
None of this really
matters until you start to run out of storage space.
Or until you begin to wonder how much room you have
left on the hard disk. Hard drive, hard disk, hard
disk drive. Whatever. It's all the same thing.
Now, maybe you're
curious about how fast that new modem is really
flinging data across the wires and cables that
criss-cross the orb we gravitate to. What does a
"56K" modem do? It sends and receives data,
that's what. And it can do it (theoretically) by
sucking in 56 thousands bits of info every minute and
delivering it to your hard drive.
Just in case you
were wondering, here's a breakdown of the
numbers for you:
| Name |
Size |
| Bit |
1
bit (A zero or a one) |
| Byte |
8
bits |
| Kilobyte |
One
thousand bytes |
| Megabyte |
One
million bytes |
| Gigabyte |
One
billion bytes |
| Terabyte |
One
trillion bytes |
So now you know. Be
careful, and don't let your knowledge get you into
trouble. You really will need more than a computer
nerd to help you out then!
Oh, what about the
cryme? We think it's a downright sin to buy computer
stuff if you don't have a grasp of what you're
talking about. Trust the sales dude if you want. But
go armed with knowledge. That's the best way!
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