ASCII image generator

Recently, I’m having fun playing with ASCII image generator. It is quite cool to convert your favorite image to ASCII version and see what’s it might looks like 1960s mainframe computers.

There are so many websites that offer to convert your image to ASCII version. So far I’ve used TEXT-IMAGE.com and found it quite cool.

When Gmail will reach 3 GB?

I just found this article very interesting. This blogger point out that Google is just playing number game.

The current rate of increase is at an average of 4 bytes per second

Now, we’re ready to do some basic math:

4 bytes / sec => 240 bytes / min => 14400 bytes / hr => 345600 bytes / day

If our goal is 3 GB and we’re going at a rate of 345600 bytes / day, it would take:
X days = 3,221,225,472 / 345,600 bytes
~ 9320 days => 25 years to go from 1 byte to 3 gigabytes

Ok, now we’re already at 2,693,144,200 bytes as of 4:30 PST, Feb 9, 2006. We’re now 528,081,272 bytes (503 MB) away from our 3 GB goal. So, let’s count how many days are left for GMail to become 3 GB.
X days = 528,081,272 / 345,600 bytes = 1528 days => 4 years

Because of counter running at Gmail website, we all think that we will get 3 GB soon, but in reality, it would take 4 years to come. Yes, that’s true 4 years.

Opera Lab will launch on tuesday

Watch out! Google won’t be alone anymore. Opera will also be launching it labs website on Tuesday. In their debut, it will make Opera 9 preview beta 2 version available for download. As with most Betas, Opera 9 might not be bug free. Opera 9 final version will release around June 2006.

Google.cn being blocked by China’s government

Google’s China news can’t stop at the moment. Since Google’s controversial decision to launch Google.cn with results being filter, news are being pop up day after day.

If this news is true, this might be a big crush between Google and China Goverment.

Tests on a Shanghai-based trace-route server, located at http://www.linkwan.com/vr2/, indicated that the site was being blocked at the government-operated backbone server. The analysis from the trace route said ‘IP packets are being lost past network CHINANET backbone network at hop 4.’

The same message is displayed when the test is run on websites that are blocked by the government, such as the BBC’s news website. A trace route could not be conducted from Beijing, although attempts to load the site in an internet cafe resulted in ‘time out’ errors.

Source : Forbes.com