15 Fun Facts: Hilarious Computer Trivia

by sandiegopchelp | Sep 1, 2010 | Advice & Tips, Misc |

The following computer trivia fun facts were compiled by our technicians here at San
Diego PC Help (weve been fixing laptops, tablets, etc. since 1999 so we know a thing
or two about computers.) Enjoy the list! Also be sure to check out the humorous 6
things you can do with your computer other than the obvious and, on an important note,
our introduction to Net Neutrality!
1. It took the radio 38 years and the television only 13, but the internet reached 50
million users in only 4 years.
2. The computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in 1963. It was made out of
wood (weird, huh).
3. In 2009 the average number of Internet transactionsper second was 2,000. The
total number of goods sold was worth $60 billion.
4. Early hard disks in personal computers held only 20 MB of data and cost around
$800. In 2010 you could get a 2 GB flash drive for around $8. This implies that there is a
100-fold reduction in the price and a 100-fold increase in storage capacity.
5. Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, the first female admiral in the US Navy is also known
in the computer world for creating the popular programming language COBOL. She also
came up with the term debugging after removing a moth from a computer.
6. The computing power in todays cell phones is much higher than the processing
power of all the computers in the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander that put 2 men on the moon.
7. The two main components in IT (Information Technology) are hardware and
software. But there is also a lesser known grey component. This is the software that is
stored in hardware and cannot be modified easily. It is known as firmware.
8. There are over 20 billion web pages on the internet, and that number is rapidly
growing every day. Also, there are over 2 billion internet users worldwide at present.
9. RIM (the BlackBerry operating system company) co-CEO and cofounder Mike
Lazaridis dropped out of college to start his own company. He did so after reading
Microsofts founder, Bill Gates, book.
10. The first hard disk drive was created in 1979 by Seagate. Its capacity was a
whopping (not) 5 MB.

11. HP, Google, Microsoft, and Apple have one thing in common apart from the
obvious that they are IT companies. They were all started in garages.
12. The 12 engineers at IBM that developed the IBM PC had a code name The Dirty
Dozen.
13. The first and still the oldest domain name to be registered is Symbolics.com, it
was created on March 15th, 1985.
14. Most Central Processing Units (CPUs) are sold as a bit slower than they actually
run. By over-clocking them you can get them to run faster for free.
15. The first micro-processor was the 4004, Intel had originally designed it for a
calculator and no one had any idea to what it would lead.

The Internet Is Free And Neutral, For Now

by sandiegopchelp | Dec 22, 2010 | Internet | 0 comments

Ok, we all woke up one day and there was this brouhaha about net neutrality, how
freedom was lost (or gained according to some). All the headlines, yes, to geeks ALL
headlines, were abuzz about how freedom of the internet was won or lost depending on
which side of the corporate firewall the geek was on. It seems the Federal
Communication Commission (FCC) was given the badge to monitor traffic regulations.

Saving The Internet As We Know It

And while the geeks were standing in a corner arguing about solving problems that
didnt exist and there goes the one existing tool of freedom of speech the masses were
sidestepping them:
A. Looking confused and wondering who went to jail. Or
B. With a panicky look they flocked to their own corner and held their own commune
about whom the geeks on the other side of the room were going to bust out of jail. Or
C. Just had no idea of what happened, and continued in their stupor.

Heres What Happened

The internet that you have been accessing, and are doing so right now, has been
allowed to be traffic policed by the Federal Communications Commission FCC. You see
the argument that was put forward was that, if the internet was left alone to grow (Ahem!
. as it had been allowed to grow for the past 20 odd years, by the way allowing for
tech geniuses to freely add to it on the way) nobody knows what monstrosity it could
turn into. So, in order to curb that feeling of hopelessness and the great fear that some
corporations could prefer a certain type of client to be allowed premium traffic, and the
black sheep sites be relegated to dial-up hell, well just in case it might happen, the FCC

was allowed to patrol it! Mind you, its just in case. It hasnt happened before, but it
might happen tomorrow. Weve only been online for 20 years, so we dont know much.
Jumping over to the other bench there were the opposing forces saying that, a little
competition hurt no one. After all that was the basics of capitalism, wasnt it? Questions
like Why are we creeping over to the side that we said we really hated China, where
the internet is so regulated that the news of the update of a website traveled faster by
word of mouth than on Twitter? and Why does it look like youre holding a solution
looking for a problem? were thrown around. They presented an argument stating that
like telephone company plan subscriptions, people would make or break the telephone
company depending on the choice of plans that were presented by it; a consumer could
always drop the service provider that tried to curb his access, so who needs a
governing body to tell the service providing companies who or what they should cater
to?

Both Sides Of The Story

Everyone has an opinion and is entitled to it. But the one thing that is patting down
ruffled feathers is the mere fact that the final decision could be tangled in legal vines as
the law passes through the jungle of courthouses, and that it will be around five years
before it sees the light of day. So, Keep your cables crossed! is something that makes
sane sense in these times.

Dont Panic!
So, that was what happened you can stop panicking. Now stop staring at the geeks
and get back to work they have got five more years of arguing to do.