Too. Many. Servers!

Intac.net posted an image of how some of the biggest companies on the web stack up in terms of numbers of servers.   We all know that Google must have a lot of servers to run all of their web services, but it is staggering to see (you might need to keep scrolling) a visual representation of how they compare to other companies. The image can be found here: http://www.intac.net/a-comparison-of-dedicated-servers-by-company_2010-04-13/.  I wonder how they can find them all, let alone keep them running?  Thank Gizmodo.com for sharing the image

How to Google Better

Most of the time, we type what we want in Google, search through a list of results and hope to find what we are looking for.  However, there are times when you might want to be a bit more specific and clarify what you are looking for.

Google has built in features that let you exclude terms, search for exact phrases and even search for items on any web page.  Rather than typing up all of the different features and their descriptions, you can view them all on Google's own tip page found here: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136861.  If you want a good example of how quotations help, search for your first and last name and then search for your first and last name in quotations.  (John Doe v.s "John Doe").  You are much more likely to find material relating to you when you use the quotation marks.  This is because you are searching for your full name and not just the words that make up your name.  It takes a bit more work, but using these techniques can save you time in the long run.

HD and Why I Love Blu-ray

HD is a term that is thrown around a lot these days.  It stands for high definition, but it really does not have a specific definition of its own.  When referring to television and screens, HD means anything that has more rows of pixels than the standard TV signal.  This means anything over  480 horizontal lines to make up the picture on the screen was HD.  While this sounds impressive, my phone has almost double the horizontal rows as the older TV signal.

HD started with two man formats; 720P and 1080i.  These have 720 and 1080 horizontal rows of pixels respectively.  The p stands for progressive scan while the i stands for interlaced.  In progressive scan, each row is redrawn for every frame of the video.  For interlaced signals, every other line is redrawn with each frame.  720p is clearer for fast moving videos like sports due to the progressive scan while 1080i is clearer for slower videos due to the higher resolution.  Both standards were used and most early HDTVs would support either signal.  This was a big step forward and people began to buy into the HD craze.

My Thoughts on the iPad

Being in the technology field, I often get asked about the latest and greatest devices to hit the market.  The newest item to be shown by the media is Apple's iPad.  If you have not yet seen it, the iPad is basically an over-sized version of the iPod touch.  Or, a large iPhone that cannot make calls.  The price starts at $500 and goes up to $830 for the top model.  The iPad goes on sale Saturday at 9:00 AM.

While I have yet to see an iPad, I have followed the pre-launch details very closely.  I am looking forward to trying it at some point, but I would like to offer my predictions and opinions prior to launch.  First off, it will be successful.  Apple has the advantage of a very loyal group of fans and a fantastically successful marketing group.  If they launched a coffee maker, people would line up to buy it.  Expect people to notice them, stars to hold them and stores to sell out of them.  Secondly, it is something new.  While touch screens and even tablet computers have been around for years, this is the first attempt that any company is working to market a device this size solely for the purpose of consumer entertainment.  Because of this, it will recive much attention and analysis.  Lastly, there will be waves of competitors and this will be the first of many options for touchable tablet computers.