Hot Koehl

I was reviewing the data storage requirements for a project recently which had me talking in terabytes, and thinking long-term in petabytes. For those of you who don’t know, tera- and peta- are the binary prefixes for measuring units of digital information that come after giga- (as in “gigabyte”).

The list of prefixes, which most people started using with the term “kilobyte,” are collectively called the SI Prefixes. SI prefixes are defined under the International System of Units (“SI” for short), which is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.

But there’s a problem; currently the list has 5 more prefixes past giga: tera, peta, exa, zetta, and yotta. Translation: we’re out of prefixes in just a few more generations, probably faster if Moore’s Law has anything to say about it. Indeed, you may have noticed how much quicker the public dialog went from megabyte to gigabyte than it did to make the same transition from kilobyte to megabyte. What to do?

One answer is to draw from existing lists of unofficial prefixes, currently used mostly by theoretical mathematicians. But given the speed at which we are advancing, it is safe to assume that we’re going to speed through individual prefixes quickly, resulting in more terminology overlap in common vernacular. For example, data centers are already discussing their capacity in the petabyte and exabyte range, and we haven’t even seen those hit mainstream yet.

Therefore I posit that it’s worth considering using a system that has inherent ordering, i.e. an existing list that we can repurpose. This speeds adoption, eliminates confusion, and solidifies the naming convention for a much longer period with minimal effort.

Looking at the problem in this light, I quickly identified the Greek Alphabet as very viable candidate:

• Current SI prefixes match mnemonically with Greek letters (you can hear the similarity between “gigabyte” and “thetabyte”).
• The list is universal, eliminating the need to debate on future prefix selection and ordering. Anyone who’s suffered “death by committee” knows what I’m talking about.
• It can instantly extend the SI prefix list another 24 levels.
• The Greeks themselves attached numerical values to each letter.
• There is some precedent: The National Weather Service names tropical storms after Greek letters once the A-Z naming list is exhausted.

Best of all, the doomsayers of the future might point to the Omegabyte as a sign of the end times. I think I know what the Mayan’s were thinking:

Additional reading and sources:

• Wikipedia: SI prefix list
• Wikipedia: Greek Alphabet
• Wikipedia: Non-SI unit prefixes
• NOAA Worldwide Tropical Cyclone Names

Want to look like a badass hacker in front of your friends?

Head over hackertyper.com and just start pushing buttons.

As long as you avoid mashing your palms against the keyboard, your non-techie friends will look at you like this.

I’m not much of a sports guy, but this sack celebration by Eagles’ Linebacker Brian Rolle in last night’s game against the Giants has to be one of the best defensive celebrations I’ve ever seen.

Equal parts hilarious and badass!

(Apologies for the gif format, the NFL gestapo makes it hard to find real video clips.)

Earlier today I installed what I thought was an update to the Xvid codec in order to watch a video. I should have been more careful with the source, as their installer proceeded to modify my Firefox installation, adding some junk toolbar called “Start Now” and changing my default search engine to Bing.

(Sidebar: they can plead ignorance all they want, I’m certain the MS overlords are using every back-alley approach they can find to break the Google stranglehold.)

The toolbar was easy enough to remove, find it in the addons and push the “Remove” button. Changing my keyword search engine back proved a little more difficult.

A little background: the keyword search engine is the site that comes up when you type a word or phrase (not a URL) into the address bar (not the search bar). For example, if you open Firefox, enter “hot koehl”, and click go, you’ll likely end up on a Google search results page. I disable the search box entirely and use this method for almost all my searching. Very handy.

These asshats modified the Firefox configuration to send me to Bing without any warning or consent. To change it back, open a new tab and type about:config in the address bar. Enter the phrase keyword.url in the search bar that appears near the top.

The default is Google, so we can simply reset it by right-clicking the line and choosing the “Reset” option. Restart your browser and you should be good to go.

This type of adware typically modifies the search bar as well, so you should have a look at the config settings for browser.search while you’re at it. Config entries appear in bold if they’ve been modified from the default value.

Further reading on Firefox’s keyword functionality found over at mozillaZine.

My I was trotting along the tubes today with my trusty steed StumbleUpon, when I came across a new iPhone app called Word Lens. I could try to explain how they use the camera to translate signs and display the translation as video right on your phone in real time, but it wouldn’t do justice to their awesome demo:

Mobile apps now officially amaze me.

I had the great fortune of being interviewed by the guys over at MO.com earlier this month, discussing Fwd:Vault and what I’ve learned about starting a business in general. Who’s MO.com? From their website…

MO.com interviews entrepreneurs from all walks, across all industries, and from around the world. We focus on their habits and methods; what makes them tick. The primary focus of MO.com is entrepreneurship.

M.O. is the abbreviation for Modus Operandi or Method of Operating and we interview entrepreneurs to learn about their methods and to share their strategies and business philosophies with our readers.

The interview is pretty in-depth, which is cool in and of itself. However when you look at the company I’m keeping — the likes of Luncinda Holt (CEO of ClickEquations), Aaron Wall (Founder of SEO Book), and Neil Patel (Founder of KISS Metrics and Crazy Egg) — I’m pretty flattered that they talked to me!

My favorite pull-quote:

Fwd:Vault is all about simplicity and access, so this is something we work on every day. When you build and run any kind of web service, user feedback is absolutely key. A single user can find more bugs, usability snags, and other problems in a single visit than you as the author could find with a week of dedicated review. Most developers fear and loathe dealing with customer support, however those phone calls and emails are a treasure trove of potential improvements, fixes, and new ideas.

Read the full article.

Fwd:Vault’s been listed on the startup review site Discovering Startups, which is cool in and of itself. However they also run a monthly contest for most popular startup, and the winner gets front page facetime on their site. All you have to do is click the badge below to visit our review, then click the “Vote” button in the upper righthand corner. No site registrations necessary.

And tell your friends to hit the site as well! It only takes a second, and you’ll be helping out the little guy!

Update: We’re out to an early lead! Make sure you vote from work and home!

In my off-hours, I tutor a very talented young man on computers, programming, and IT. Our work is usually short exercises, but every now and then we drum up something that might be of use. The download today is one of those unique pieces. It started by simply playing around with installers, which by design create and delete files. In the process we found the hooks for file metadata, and played around with those. It eventually turned into a nice GUI on the file properties window, which we wrapped up in an installer.

FileTime allows you to edit the Created, Modified, and Last Accessed date/time for any file on a Windows system. After running the installer, right click on any file, choose “Properties,” then click the “FileTime” tab.

It’s pretty straightforward from there…

It’s definitely one of those programs that is worthless to the vast majority, but pure gold to the one with a specific need. I honestly have no idea if this would be useful to anyone, but have been doing this way too long to assume that it wouldn’t be useful to someone, somewhere.

FileTime has only been tested on Windows XP. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users are on your own.

Download FileTime installer
Download FileTime DLL (advanced users only)

…but I totally called it.

When the new and often unexpected come around the corner at me, fear never dominates my reaction, because change presents opportunity.

Anytime things change — at work, at home, in society at large — some part of the board that is your life gets reset. The pieces all go back to starting positions, the scoreboard gets reset to zero. For a brief time, you are on equal footing with everyone else who experiences that change.

For a brief time.

What you do with that starting period determines how that change will affect your life going forward. Some people hole up, deny what’s happening in front of them, and whine about who moved their cheese. These people get left behind, usually left to moan about how the change ruined their life.

I take stock of what I lost due to the change, then quickly proceed to consider as many new routes as I can, because whatever I might have lost is overshadowed by the limitless possibilities of the new game. Figure out what you can do, make a decision, and start moving.

This world moves really fast. You have to learn to embrace, not fear, change. It’s going to come at you whether you like it or not, so get comfortable with it. Once you’ve done that, you must learn how to quickly adapt to the newness, make it work in your favor as much as possible. Use that brief realignment time to get as much of a headstart on everyone else as you possibly can.

I’ve only recently crystallized this process in my own life, and I’ve learned that it helps eliminate fear and stress of change while setting yourself up for wild new success. Once you experience this “success as a result of change” for yourself, you’ll actually embrace change, go looking for more of it. Think about how far ahead of the pack you could get when you’re making turns that others don’t even see yet.

I’ll give you an example wrapped in a prediction. We’re going through a pretty lousy recession right now, and a student of history can see that the government is making many of the same mistakes it did that caused the Great Depression. Things will probably get worse before they get better. Don’t be surprised to find old standby brands replaced with young bloods who handle this torrent of change more effectively. Take a look at the history of these companies around 1930: General Motors, Sears, General Electric, Proctor and Gamble, and Wal-mart.

Change is an inevitable part of life. Accept it, then leverage it, then you win.