in retrospect…

While reading up for my upcoming class, the third installment of the OSS Elective, I came upon a word, which, not too many of us may have heard before, or will ever hear.

The word googol is a number which has 100 zeroes in it, and the googolplex is a number with a googol of zeroes… funny, ain’t it….

And while we’re on the subject, from http://straightdope.com/mailbag/mgazilli.html, we are given the following:

# Billion has 9 zeros
# Trillion has 12 zeros
# Quadrillion has 15 zeros
# Quintillion has 18 zeros
# Sextillion has 21 zeros
# Septillion has 24 zeros
# Octillion has 27 zeros
# Nonillion has 30 zeros
# Decillion has 33 zeros
# Undecillion has 36 zeros
# Duodecillion has 39 zeros
# Tredecillion has 42 zeros
# Quattuordecillion has 45 zeros
# Quindecillion has 48 zeros
# Sexdecillion has 51 zeros
# Septendecillion has 54 zeros
# Octodecillion has 57 zeros
# Novemdecillion has 60 zeros
# Vigintillion has 63 zeros
# Googol has 100 zeros.
# Centillion has 303 zeros (except in Britain, where it has 600 zeros)
# Googolplex has a googol of zeros

And one last thing, if you are talking to an American and you describe a billion, he will understand you. But if you are talking to a Brit (from Britain, dummy) or a Kraut (sorry, guys, can’t help myself – a German), a billion is equal to 1,000,000,000,000 [or 1 Trillion to us]. Here’s what Doctor Math has to say: “In the English speaking world, at least, there’s already disagreement about what the word “billion” means. In the United States, it means 109; in Great Britain, it means 1012. The Brits add 6 zeroes per step up, and we add 3. So a British “trillion” is 1018. In a sense, the British system makes more sense–billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc., indicate 2, 3, and 4 from the roots of the names. If you think of them as meaning 2, 3, and 4 groups of 6 zeroes, everything makes good sense–and it makes no sense in the U.S. system.”

Ciao, baby… 8-)

Microsoft agrees to remove XP activation http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11058

This one is for the books of weird.

In a move to stop the Thai governemnt from selling PCs bundled with Linux to its citizenry for a very cheap price, Microsoft entered into an agreement with the Thai government to slash their pricetag down to $39 for both Windows XP and Office. Wow! Only $39? What’s more, they (M$) also agreed to do away with product activation for the XP!!!

This move certainly shows that M$ is already trying out ways to beat Linux, at whatever cost. For all we know, soon, M$ will just simply give out Windows/Office away and just earn from its support…

I love the GPL!

Ciao, baby… 8-)

Well, all the reports are in…

The MSBLAST virus (aka Lovsan, Blaster, and Posa) really did our job for us Linux advocates. The MSBLAST virus hit the streets yesterday morning, and before the day ended, I received several calls inquiring about the viability of Linux being on their desktops.

And this is both good and bad news for us.

Good in such a way that people are already taking notice of the fact that M$ is not as secure as it purports to be, and that there are still risks in using this, either on the desktop or the server. And they are also starting to take stock of what they are willing to lose (aside from their money) if they continue using M$. And that is where Linux will eventually come in. Good news? You bet you sweet, fat, errrr, heart on it!!!

And it is also bad news for us. Why? Let’s look at it this way. Although the GUI environment in Linux is already mature enough to be on the desktop, the fact that some of it’s commands are still cryptic (for me, at least), it is still not yet primed for widespread use. Probably in a very small and controlled environment (like my laboratory), it is. But in an environment of hundreds of users, system administrators would be hard-pressed to support all of them. Because it still is a fact that they would need support, one way or the other. This is where education and training will come in (yaayyyy! more money for us!).

The education sector has been using Linux for over 4-5 years now, and we already know the ins and outs of either KDE or GNOME – as well as other WMs like openbox, fluxbox, blackbox, etc – that we can roll out training materials for these, and start training people. Yes! We can already do this, right now!

The only problem is: the people who will listen to us blab about it… we are willing though…

And, one more virus outbreak like this, and that will dfinitely be the straw (okay, the penguin) that will break the camel’s [M$] back.

Ciao, baby… 8-)

Yaaayyyy!!!

For this term’s NETADDR (that is Net Addressing), I deviated from the norm. Instead of teaching IPv4 to my students, I instead tried to teach the newest version of the Internet Protocol, v6, or simply, IPv6.

Though not all applications (in Linux and otherwise) still allow for an IPv6 implementation, there are some which are, at least the important ones. I have students who are studying DNS, DHCP, Proxy, and Apache (httpd) implementations of IPv6. Will be posting links of packages as well as the configuration (conf) files of each of these applicaitons, so watch out for it.

Now, you will ask what is so important about IPv6? For one, once all devices require IP addresses (like PDAs, phones, cars, refrigerators, etc), the remaining IPv4 addresses will all be consumed. And the fact that the version 4 is already 20 years old!

By the way (highway), IPv6 has around 32 octillion addresses (please see above for a basic definition of numbers http://www.haravata.net/blog/index.php?p=24…

That’s it for now…

Ciao, baby… 8-)

Sheeshh!

Somebody told me that I really need to update this blog of mine…

Sabi, kahit daw alang kwenta ung sasabihin ko e, okay lang, – because nobody is really reading this. The important thing is that I have a daily (at least) digest of what I was doing…

Ano nga kaya??? Hmmmm…. we’ll see…

Ciao, baby… 8-)