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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Search is on!

So... I know I haven't really been updating my blog this month, but I guess that's what happens when I stay busy...

As a recap, this month I:

  • I finished my T-SQL class...
  • Decided to learn how to use Microsoft One Note and Visio
    • I ended up catching on really quickly... and everyone seems to think I'm the best guy to ask about using those two programs now... 
  • We Redesigned the layout of our lab stations at work to fix an error...
    • It also turns out I'm the only person confident about moving cables around on the back of the beches and on the server rack...
  • I got a free copy of Forza 3
    • Now, I just need to find an Xbox 360...
  • I set up my desktop computer as a Boxee media player... it works great for things like watching Hulu, and Podcasts... plus I have a program that turns my iPod into a remote control...
I'm probably done a ton of other stuff... I think just about everything else I've done was a chore of some sort... or a favor for someone... or something.

Anyway... so... now the idea is to see where I can get a free Xbox 360.  I don't have money for one, but I have a really cool game I want to play.  So... anyway... here I go.  Searching more...

So.  That's about as much of an update as I'm really in the mood to write.

More will come sooner or later...

Later,
     SteveO

Monday, November 2, 2009

Updates... and numbers...

A quick post about something I just read about... Apparently, the NSA just put up a new datacenter, and the scale the NSA is using to measure the capacity of the datacenter's storage is in Yottabytes.  So, the order goes something like 1 Kilobyte is 1,000 bytes... then 1 Megabyte is 1,000 Kilobytes... then it goes Giga... Tera... Peta... Exa... Zetta... and now Yottabytes!

So, what can you store in a Yottabyte?  Well, the answer is somewhere along the lines of the capacity of every civilian hard drive ever purchased... and then some.  It's enough space to store about 166 Terabytes of information for every person on the planet...  or store about 2.38 Million hours of telephone conversations (at 128kbps... which phone could easily be recorded at 64kbps.) for every person on the planet.

And, now for a little speculation... I have a feeling the datacenter can store multiple Yottabytes of information.  Not to mention the datacenter is probably built to allow for expansion.

Here is a table to help visualize the size of a Yottabyte:


1,000 Bytes
= 1 KiloByte
1,000,000 Bytes
= 1 MegaByte
1,000,000,000 Bytes
= 1 GigaByte
1,000,000,000,000 Bytes
= 1 TeraByte
1,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
= 1 PetaByte
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
= 1 ExaByte
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
= 1 ZettaByte
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes
= 1 YottaByte


  Also take note that the milky way galaxy is approximately 95 Yottameters across...

  Anyway... other than just being freaked out by the size of the newest NSA datacenter, I'm doing pretty good.