WEBVTT - Tech Glossary: From PCB to SaaS 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.480 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer for I Heart Radio 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.479 and I love all things tech end. Hey, we're back 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:25.680 with our tech Glossary series. We've made it up to 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.800 acronyms and initialisms that start with the letter P. This 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.360 is part five. So if you're joining me now and saying, hey, 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:36.560 the alphabet doesn't start with the letter P, that means 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.519 you should probably go back, you know, several episodes to 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.800 listen to the beginning of this series. So we're taking 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.760 lots of popular groupings of letters that you typically see 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.360 in tech, and we're explaining what those actually means. So 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.520 when you come across them, you'll say, oh, I know 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.440 what that stands for, and I know what it's for, 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.200 so let's get back to it. First up is pc B. 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.440 This means printed circuit board. Alright, So a circuit is 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.399 essentially a path for transmitting electric current, and you know, 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.600 typically we make circuits so that we can have electric 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.479 current do work for us in some way. For example, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.760 a circuit might include a path that leads to a 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.560 light bulb that has an incandescent filament inside it. The 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:28.679 current flows through the path, flows into the light bulb 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.040 goes through that filament, causing it to heat up and 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.959 incandesce or give off light, and then the current continues 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.600 through to the end of the circuit, which is pretty simple. Now, 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.119 in the early days of circuitry, you would use conductive 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.480 wire to connect all the elements of your circuits. But 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.360 wires take up space, they can get tangled, they can 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.560 get disconnected. Uh, you would have to solder things. If 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.480 we could only depend upon the types of circuits that 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.680 you can build with like bread boards and stuff where 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.640 you're just learning, all of our electronics would be much 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.600 much larger, and again you would have to sauder stuff. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.560 That's a very slow and painstaking process, especially when you 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.280 first start and you're not too sure of yourself, and 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.680 if you make a mistake, it really slows you down 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:19.040 even more. Then, in nine a guy named Charles Ducas 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.240 filed a patent for a design that served as a 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.320 foundation for modern circuits. What he did was he took 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.799 a wooden board and he used a stencil, and he 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.160 laid the stencil against the wooden board, and then he 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:36.239 attached conductive materials onto the board itself. Through this stincil. 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.080 The conductive materials served the same purpose as wires, but 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.160 it laid flat against the boards, which saved a lot 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.600 of space and hassle. Move forward a little more than 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.000 a decade, and in nineteen thirty six you had an 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.560 Austrian inventor named Paul Eisler who made the first actual 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:58.080 printed circuit board. While Ducas had stenciled conductive material to 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:02.560 a board, Eisler had experience with industrial printers that were 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.240 used in the publishing world, and he theorized that he 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.080 could use that same sort of technology to print a 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:14.360 circuit directly to a non conductive base. That's really important, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:16.320 you know, do costed the same thing he used a 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:20.160 wooden board. Wood is non conductive. The material that the 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.720 circuit is built on top of has to be non conductive, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.480 or else you can't channel where the current is supposed 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:28.760 to go. It'll just flow through all the conductive material. 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:33.559 So with modern PCBs we call this base the substrate. 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.080 Printing a circuit board solved tons of problems. For one thing, 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.080 as long as you design your circuit properly on the 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.160 front end, and as long as the printing equipment was 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.000 working as intended. You could print and reproduce your circuit 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:51.640 without having to be fussed about making a mistake. You 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.040 weren't in danger of soldering a wire to the wrong 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:58.120 contact or anything like that, so that was a huge 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.400 benefit to this approach. Paul Eisler's story is a really 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.280 dramatic one. There are a lot of trials and tribulations 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.040 and tragedy and triumphlets of alliteration there, and I may 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.160 have to dedicate a full episode to him in the 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:16.080 future because it's a pretty fascinating story. These days, PCBs 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.039 tend to be made by taking a non conductive substrate 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:24.160 then laminating a thin layer of copper foil to the surface. Now, 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.800 copper is conductive, so you might wonder, well, what gives 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.200 if you completely coat the surface with a copper coding 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.680 and well there's a following step which involves using chemicals 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.600 to etch the copper away. So what you do is 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.240 you coat the bits of copper you want to keep, 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.800 you know, the stuff that's actually going to serve as 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.440 the connective channels for your circuit components. So all the 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.599 circuit tree parts, you cote that with a protective chemical 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.080 you leave the rest of the copper uncovered. Then when 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.560 you introduced the chemicals to the circuit board, the chemicals 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.640 are only able to eat the exposed copper away. They 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.279 leave behind all the stuff that you've protected, and voila, 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.160 you've got your printed circuit board. You can also make 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.240 circuit boards with much smaller channels this way, using the 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.280 etching method, and you'll find PCBs in all sorts of 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:21.920 modern electronics. Computer motherboards are a type of PCB. Smartphones, radios, 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:26.320 DVD players, game consoles, cars, systems, tons of stuff have 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:29.960 printed circuit boards in them. It's pretty nifty. Okay. Moving 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.240 on p d A. Now, in tech this does not 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.320 refer to public displays of affection. And I'm not going 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.799 to make some sort of you know, crew joke about 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:42.480 how tech nerds don't have experience with that type of 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.599 p d A because that joke is old and tired 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:50.919 and not accurate, thank you very much. It's in fact 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:52.960 so old and tired that it's even more old and 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.320 tired than I am. And that's saying something. But no, 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.320 a p d A in this context is a personal 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.839 digital assistant, which is more or less just a handheld computer. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.479 These devices predated the smartphone. One way to describe a 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.520 traditional p d A is to say it was kind 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:14.120 of like a smartphone without the phone part. In the 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.359 old days, you would have your p d A and 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.960 you would use a cable or a docking station to 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:23.039 sinc the pd A to a computer, and software running 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.800 on your computer would interact with the doct p d 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.799 A and transfer over information like contacts, new email documents, 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:32.640 et cetera. This could go both ways. The p d 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.440 A could end up adding new context to your database 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.520 on your computer, and that way you would have access 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.200 to this information on the go while your computer remained 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.480 packed up or back at the office. They were really 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.720 just an electronic version of the old pen and paper 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.560 schedulers and appointment calendars that you know, organized people relied upon. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.799 While you could make a decent argument that the nineteen 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:01.520 four British made handheld computer called the Ion Organizer counts 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.120 as a p d A, I think most folks would 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.520 really point to the early nineteen nineties when talking about 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:09.960 the earliest p d A s and we get the 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:14.440 term personal digital assistant from Apple and the infamous Apple 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:21.200 Newton in Two Apples. Then CEO John Scully, someone who 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.760 is frequently reviled in the history of Apple, revealed the 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.000 Newton at C E S and yeah, back in the day, 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.760 way back in the day, Apple would actually attend C 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.360 E S. How how times have changed. The Newton was 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.760 to have handwriting recognition technology, and it would allow people 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.840 to write notes down on a digital screen using a 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:45.280 special stylus, and the Newton would then, in theory, convert 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.920 the handwritten stuff you put on the screen into text 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.280 and you would have an electronic copy of your notes. Now, 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.600 some technical shortcomings gave Newton a bad name early on, 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.600 though Apple would continue to work on the technology and 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:02.160 improve it. However, our first impressions are really hard to shake, 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.280 and generally speaking, the Apple Newton became something of a joke, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.920 literally in the case of a Simpsons episode. But many 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.120 other companies introduced PDAs over the years. One of the 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.320 big ones was Palm, and over time companies would build 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.040 in capabilities to allow PDAs to connect directly to the Internet, 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.000 removing the necessity to dock a p d A with 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.760 a computer to transfer information to the p d A. 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.840 For the most part, smartphones have replaced p d A s. 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.760 As you know smartphone apps replicate the various functions found 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.400 in those old devices. But it was a pretty darn 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.080 good run. It's just a short one, and I've heard 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.839 some folks, including myself, use p d A to refer 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.880 to stuff like Sirie, Google Assistant, and Alexa. But I 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.680 suspect this is not super accurate and that I am 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.960 guilty of perpetuating a misunderstanding, for which I apologize. I 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.200 think the generally accepted terms for those kind of things 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:04.040 are smart assistant or virtual assistant, and sometimes just personal assistant, 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.720 So I will try to remember not to use personal 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.319 digital assistant when referring to stuff like Siri. Next up 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:17.800 p d F. This stands for Portable Document Format. So 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:22.720 the company Adobe developed the PDF format to address a problem. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.400 Let's say that you are working on electronic document and 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.319 a word processing program on a PC, and that this 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:31.719 is back in the early nineties, and you want to 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:34.800 send this document to someone else for them to review it. 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.800 But that person uses a Mac computer and the Mac 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.559 computer is not compatible with the file formats that your 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:45.600 PC based word processing program generates. So what do you do? 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.720 Adobe solution was creating a file type that isn't tied 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.960 to a specific operating system or a type of hardware, 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.800 or a type of word processing or you know, productivity software. 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:01.360 It was, however, proprietary to Adobe nearly two decades before 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.760 the company released it as an open standard in two 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.199 thousand eight. The original concept was that you would create 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.440 a document with whichever software you were reliant upon and 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.800 on whatever type of computer you happen to own. Then 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:19.000 you would convert that document to the PDF format, which 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:23.680 effectively captured the document in its final state. Then you 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.480 could send that BDF to whomever you needed to and 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:28.839 they would be able to view it on whatever type 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.200 of machine they used. However, you did need a special 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.640 PDF viewer to look at those documents, at least initially. 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.840 The file sizes could get quite big as well, uh 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.520 larger than the native file formats you were working with. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.080 So let's say you were making a word document then 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.000 you converted it to PDF. You would see that the 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.240 PDF file might be much larger than the word file, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.240 and they weren't meant to be edited, so making changes 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.120 to a PDF file wasn't really meant to be a thing. 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.640 A b DF is kind of more like an image 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.800 than a document file. It's more like a picture of 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:07.000 a document. It is possible to edit them these days, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.599 either directly using Adobe products or using software like Microsoft 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.120 Word or the cloud based Google Drive suite. And when 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.240 creating PDFs, you can make some fields interactive, which allows 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.920 people to place digital signatures on files and that kind 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.079 of thing, or you know, check boxes in a checklist. 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.000 But one thing that I think is important to remember 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.839 is that PDF files can sometimes also be hosts to malware. 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.520 Because PDFs can hold embedded code, including hyperlinks or those 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:41.520 interactive fields, it is possible to embed malware within a 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.520 PDF itself, so it's always good to keep your antivirus 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.760 software up to date. It's also a good idea to 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.480 scan your files if you aren't confident that they came 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.960 from a safe source, or just not open them at 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.440 all if you aren't you know, sure of where they 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.400 came from. This is a good rule in general. Next, 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.800 we've U P HP and originally this initialism stood for 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:08.720 personal home page, but now it doesn't. It's kind of 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.920 like how MTV used to stand for Music Television but 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.000 now it's just MTV, or how AMC used to be 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.800 American Movie Classics, but now it's just a MC p 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:22.319 HP is a type of scripting language used in web development. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.840 It's an open source language and it can be embedded 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:30.160 into HTML, which is hypertext markup language. We covered that 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.439 in a previous episode in this series. PHP code executes 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.880 on the server side of things, and it can be 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.120 used to make dynamic web content, meaning content that actually 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.280 changes either because of an interaction that happens on a 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.040 web page or it just is able to change over time. 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.439 This is a good time for us to kind of 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:52.920 reflect and remember the old old days of the web. 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.240 So back when the World Wide Web was very young, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.800 it took a pretty good amount of work to make 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.600 a web page. You might use a document program. For instance, 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.480 I used just a very simple text editor program to 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.880 build out a page in HTML before then uploading the 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.959 code to a server. Then you would hop on over 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.200 onto a web browser and see what the results were 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.360 of your hard work and whether or not you laid 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.360 out your page correctly or if in fact you were 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:24.720 going to have to go back into that text editor 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.600 and make some changes to your HTML code. It was 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.400 a fairly slow process and because of that, and because 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:37.360 HTML initially didn't really support dynamic elements, it would mean 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.440 that most web pages you encountered would be static. That is, 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.360 each web page was sort of a stable document and 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.320 it didn't change. So if you visited someone's web page, 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.880 there wasn't real really much point in visiting it again. 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.280 I mean, it's just it's going to be the same page. 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:55.680 You could click on links and stuff and go to 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.440 other you know, web pages or documents or whatever, but 0:13:58.520 --> 0:13:59.839 what you saw on the web page was going to 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.439 remain the same over time. PHP is one of the 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.440 scripting languages that allows developers to create web pages that 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.720 are not static, but they can update or change in 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:14.400 real time. Dynamic scripting allows for stuff like posting comments 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.200 on a page and having them show up. That's one 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:20.560 of the simplest versions I could think of. Dynamic elements 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.960 allow for stuff like e commerce. Without it, businesses web 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.400 page might be nothing more than the electronic equivalent of 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:32.360 an advertising flyer, you know, maybe giving a perspective customer 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.760 and email address to write to or a phone number 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.960 to call. As I record this. PHP version eight point 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:43.080 one point oh Alpha two is in early testing. It 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.280 is not yet ready for production, but it is a 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:51.080 scripting language that continues to receive updates, so that's kind 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.280 of cool. Okay, we've got a lot more letters of 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.080 the alphabet to get through. Let's take a quick break, 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.680 all right. Next up, we've got p n G, or 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:13.360 portable network Graphics. Some people pronounce it as ping, which 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.360 is somewhat confusing because ping is something else. A ping 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.360 in tech typically is when you're talking about a signal 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.120 that's sent from a client to a server to wait 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.840 for a response and find out how much latency there 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.000 is between the two connections, so you know how much 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.400 of a delay there is between the two. That's not 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.880 what this gonna ping is. P n G is a 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.680 graphics file format that supports lossless data compression, So that 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.720 means it uses a method to compress file sizes that 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.480 does not discard information about the file itself. When you 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.440 view the image, you get all the information from the original. 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.120 This makes it similar to the GIF file format or 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.280 or jeff if you insist on being wrong. Uh. And 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.760 this is in contrast with the JPEG format. Jpeg uses 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.960 a lossy form of compression. Now, the PM format can 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:08.120 compress down further than a GIFT can, and that means 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.160 that many of the images on the web these days 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:15.560 are actually PM files not GIF files. Greater compression means 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.200 you get smaller file sizes. That means faster loading times 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.840 when you're visiting a web page. It also means less 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.360 bandwidth usage, so there are a lot of benefits to it. 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.080 The group that developed PNG aimed to create a format 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.320 that would allow for better color recreation, and also to 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.000 make a format that wouldn't be covered under a patent. 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:36.720 That would mean that people and companies would actually be 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.120 able to use this new format without having to apply 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.680 for a license from a patent holder in order to 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:47.560 do so. The format also allows control of opacity and transparency, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:49.960 which is quite handy. This is what allows people to 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.920 make images that lay right on top of a background 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:56.480 without having that irritating block of white around the image, 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.480 you know, kind of like a canvas or frame. And 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.760 with aacity control, it's possible to make parts of the 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.560 image transparent and parts of it opaque. That could come 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.200 in pretty handy depending upon what effect you're striving for. 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:15.040 Moving on, we've got raid. It's not a not an 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.240 insect aside in this case, here's an acronym that actually 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.879 has two similar full names and they both mean the 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.440 same thing. So another example of this in this series 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.840 was digital versatile disc and digital video disc. Both of 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.000 those mean DVD. They're both for the same thing. It's 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.040 just that digital versatile disc is the quote unquote official 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:39.320 name for it. Anyway. A RAID is either a redundant 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:46.040 array of independent discs or a redundant array of inexpensive discs. 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.959 And it's a very practical solution to some pretty common problems. 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:55.360 Problem no one technology breaks and I'm sure we've all 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:59.919 experienced this. Maybe your computer keeps crashing, maybe your car 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.520 are won't start, maybe the washing machine starts making this weird, 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.159 high pitched sound and then it just gives up. The 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.800 ghost stuff breaks down thanks a lot in tropy stupid 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.040 laws of the universe. But what if you happen to 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:19.160 be reliant on digital information, like that's the basis of 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:24.040 your business or some endeavor you're pursuing, and if access 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.639 to the digital information went away, you would be up 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:32.200 the proverbial poopy creek without a paddle. That would be 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.600 what we call in the tech business, a bad thing. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:39.280 So you'd probably want to store the information in a 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.080 couple of different places so that if one of those 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:46.360 things fails, you would still have it somewhere else. In fact, 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:48.440 some of us do this in our day to day 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:51.719 lives without even having it ever touched tech. I know 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.199 I have written down the same thing a few times 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:57.800 in different places so that I can make sure I 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:02.280 had access to it. This is called redundancy, the practice 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.919 of having backups so that you're not at a loss 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.199 if your primary system should fail. And then there's the 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.320 word inexpensive. That's also important. Sure, you could create a 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.119 system in which you were using the top of the 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.000 line equipment with the fastest processors and all of that 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.760 kind of stuff. But if what you're really just trying 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.879 to do is store some information, then going with that 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.439 sort of bleeding edge technology would be a really big waste. 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.359 It would just be throwing way too much hardware at 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.359 something that didn't need that as a solution. What you 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.760 really need is something that's reliable, but it doesn't have 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:40.480 to be the best of the best. You just need 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:42.760 something that's going to work when you need it to. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.560 And even then you can start tweaking these settings a 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:48.439 little bit, right Like, you can think of this like 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:53.240 sliders on a control board. Maybe you've got one slider 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:55.800 that's labeled cost and you've got a second slider that's 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.359 labeled reliability, and their linked to each other. And the 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.800 more rely will the tech, the more expensive it is. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:04.480 And in fact, the cost might increase faster than the 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:09.240 reliability does. So maybe when you're at you know, level three, 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.800 cost is three and reliability is three. But if you 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.080 move reliability up to five, suddenly cost is six and 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.199 reliability is five. Move reliability up to seven, cost is ten. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.280 You see what I'm saying, Like, costs can get higher 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:27.359 faster than you actually see an increased reliability. But maybe 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:31.200 you find a sweet spot somewhere that because the cost 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.800 is at a certain level, you can have several redundant 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.919 systems to support each service, and yeah they're not the 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.680 most reliable, but the reliable enough you might see some failures, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.840 but you would save money on the far end of 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:51.000 it because the cheaper systems work well enough that you 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.359 didn't have to shell out the big, big bucks for 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.840 the more expensive ones. So it becomes this sort of 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.960 risk analysis kind of thing. You figure out, well, how 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.200 likely is any system to go down at any given time, 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:04.720 how many backups do I need to make sure that 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.640 that is not a problem, and how expensive will it be, 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.040 and generally speaking, you can go for some pretty cheap stuff. 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.919 Big data centers use RAID servers to handle data through virtualization. 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.280 Now that refers to using computer software to build out 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.960 a virtual machine that relies on actual physical hardware but 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.520 isn't necessarily tied to a single device. You can have 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:32.000 a computer running one or more virtual machines, or you 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.480 can have virtual machines that are kind of distributed across 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:40.840 multiple computers. Using virtualization and RAID architecture, companies can have 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:44.880 high performance, reliable systems and not freak out should part 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.520 of it go down. And I'm pretty sure just about 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:51.600 every cloud service out there relies on RAID implementations. There 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:54.639 are different ways to handle the redundancy aspect, but the 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.080 goal is always the same to provide a way to 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.320 ensure service is not going to get interrupted even in 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:04.280 the event of a catastrophic failure of one system. Like 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.120 let's say that a server just breaks down entirely, maybe 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.240 it's power supply goes bad. Others can then end up 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:14.760 taking on the load because they are redundant systems. Now, 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.240 there there are other things that can go wrong and 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:21.400 they can interrupt service, like if the communication lines out 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.720 to the general Internet are broken. Well, it doesn't matter 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:27.359 how many redundant systems you have, right if your communication 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:31.640 channel is cut, then you don't have any way of communicating. 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:33.760 So there are other things that can go wrong, but 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.600 at least on this particular end of the system, you 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.840 have some failsafe measures. There's a lot more that could 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:42.119 be said about RAID systems. I could go into a 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.080 lot more detail, but I'm gonna save that for a 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:47.359 full episode in the future at some point. Next up, 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.800 we got RAM and DRAM and stram and RAM, or 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.639 rather r A M d R A M S d 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.879 R A M v R A M, etcetera. So welcome 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:01.720 to the many flavors of random access memory. That's what 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:06.040 RAMS stands for. I would call it random access memories, 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.160 but that's a daft punk album, which is awesome of course, 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:11.879 But that's not what I need to cover today. First, 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:15.120 let's talk about computer memory in general. So computers, when 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:18.800 you boil them down, uh, but you know, don't boil 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:22.600 them down. That will invalidate your warranty anyway. Computers are 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:27.400 machines that take data, they perform some type of operation 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:30.960 on that data, and they produce output based on the 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.920 outcome of that process. Now, the data needs to come 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.960 from somewhere. It could come directly from input, like you know, 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:41.520