Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Bit shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Bit offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Bit at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Bit? Wrong! If the Bit is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Bit then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Bit? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Bit and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Bit wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Bit then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Bit site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Bit, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Bit, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
A
bit is a binary numeral system
numerical digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. For example, the number 10010111 is 8 bits long, or in most cases, one
modern PC
byte. Binary digits are a basic unit of
information computer storage and
transmission (telecommunications) in digital computing and digital
information theory. Information theory also often uses the natural digit, called either a
Nit (unit of information) or a
Nat (information). Quantum computing also uses qubits, a single piece of information with a probability of being true.
The bit is also a unit of measurement, the information capacity of one binary digit. It has the symbol
bit, and less formally
b (see discussion below). The unit is also known as the
Claude Elwood Shannon, with symbol
Sh.
Binary digit
Claude E. Shannon first used the word
bit in a 1948 paper. He attributed its origin to John W. Tukey, who had written a Bell Labs memo on 9 January 1947 in which he contracted "binary digit" to simply "bit". Interestingly,
Vannevar Bush had written in 1936 of "bits of information" that could be stored on the punch cards used in the mechanical computers of that time.
Darwin among the machines: the evolution of global intelligence,
George Dyson (science historian), 1997. ISBN 0-201-40649-7
A bit of storage is like a light switch; it can be either on (1) or off (0). A single bit is a one or a zero, a true or a false, a "flag" which is "on" or "off", or in general, the quantity of information required to distinguish two mutually exclusive equally probable
State (computer science)s from each other.
Gregory Bateson defined a bit as "a difference that makes a difference".
Representation
Bits can be represented in many forms. For example, on the circuitry in most computing devices, bits are represented as
electrical levels. For some devices, a 1 (true value) is represented by a positive voltage, while a 0 (false value) is represented by a negative voltage. For other devices, zero volts is used to represent 0 (false value).
On CD-ROMs, this is represented as "pits" or "grounds". Pits, as the name implies, refers to a small groove on the CD, which reflects away the
laser that reads it. Ground, on the other hand, refers basically to the flat
reflective surface. The light of the reading laser is
reflected back into the laser, which then picks up that light with a sensor. The transition between a pit and a ground means a 1, and a short period of time on the same level is a 0. No more than 11 consequent zeros may occur, because the laser receives no state change during consequent zeros and has to rely on a timer to know the amount of zeros, whose accuracy is limited.
CD-Rs work on the same theory, except that they use dyes instead of pits and ground.
Bits can also be represented magnetically, such as in magnetic tapes and
Compact Cassette.
Unit
It is important to differentiate between the use of "bit" in referring to a discrete storage unit and the use of "bit" in referring to a statistical unit of information. The bit, as a discrete storage unit, can by definition store only 0 or 1. A statistical bit is the amount of information that,
on average, can be stored in a discrete bit. It is thus the amount of information carried by a choice between two equally likely outcomes. One bit corresponds to about 0.693 nat (information)s (ln(2)), or 0.301
ban (information)s (log10(2)).
Consider, for example, a
computer file with 1,000 0s and 1s which can be
lossless data compression to a file of 500 0s and 1s (on average, over all files of that kind). The original file, although having 1,000 bits of storage, has at most 500 bits of information entropy, since information is not destroyed by lossless compression. A file can have no more information theoretical bits than it has storage bits. If these two ideas need to be distinguished, sometimes the name
bit is used when discussing data storage while
shannon is used for the statistical bit. However, most of the time, the meaning is clear from the context.
Abbreviation/symbol
No uniform agreement has been reached yet about what the official unit symbols for bit and
byte should be. One commonly-quoted standard, the International Electrotechnical Commission's IEC 60027, specifies that "bit" should be the unit symbol for the unit bit (e.g. "kbit" for kilobit), but it does not yet define any symbol for the unit byte.
The other commonly-quoted relevant standard, IEEE 1541, specifies "b" to be the unit symbol for bit and "B" to be that for byte. This convention is also widely used in computing, but has so far not been considered acceptable internationally for several reasons:
- both these symbols are already used for other units: "b" for barn (unit) and "B" for decibel;
- "bit" is already short for "binary digit", so there is little reason to abbreviate it any further;
- it is customary to start a unit symbol with an uppercase letter only if the unit was named after a person (see also Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre);
- instead of byte, the term octet (computing) (unit symbol: "o") is used in some fields and in some French-speaking countries, which adds to the difficulty of agreeing on an international symbol;
- "b" is occasionally also used for byte, along with "bit" for bit.
The unit bel is rarely used by itself (only as decibel, "dB"), so the chances of conflict with "B" for byte are quite small, even though both units are very commonly used in the same fields (e.g., telecommunication).
More than one bit
A
byte is a collection of bits, originally variable in size but now almost always eight bits. Eight-bit bytes, also known as
octet (computing)s, can represent 256 values (28 values, 0–255). A four-bit quantity is known as a
nybble, and can represent 16 values (24 values, 0–15). A rarely used term,
crumb, can refer to a two-bit quantity, and can represent 4 values (2² values, 0–3).
"Word (computing)" is a term for a slightly larger group of bits, but it has no standard size. It represents the size of one register in a
Computer-CPU. In the
IA-32 architecture more commonly known as x86-32, 16 bits are called a "word" (with 32 bits being a double word or
Word (computer science)#Dword and Qword), but other architectures have word sizes of 8, 32, 64, 80 or others.
Terms for large quantities of bits can be formed using the standard range of SI prefixes, e.g., kilobit (kbit),
megabit (Mbit) and gigabit (
Gbit). Note that much confusion exists regarding these units and their abbreviations (see above).
When a bit within a group of bits such as a byte or word is to be referred to, it is usually specified by a number from 0 (not 1) upwards corresponding to its position within the byte or word. However, 0 can refer to either the most significant bit or to the least significant bit depending on the context, so the convention being used must be known.
Certain
bitwise operation computer
central processing unit instructions (such as
bit set) operate at the level of manipulating bits rather than manipulating data interpreted as an aggregate of bits.
Telecommunications or
computer network transfer rates are usually described in terms of bits per second (
bps), not to be confused with
baud.
Cultural
Bits has also been adopted in the Art world. With many exhibits and works using them as reference. See the following article Bits as Art and artist work Images Animation.
See also
Notes
A
bit is a
binary numeral system numerical digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. For example, the number 10010111 is 8 bits long, or in most cases, one
modern PC byte. Binary digits are a basic unit of
information computer storage and transmission (telecommunications) in digital computing and digital
information theory. Information theory also often uses the natural digit, called either a
Nit (unit of information) or a
Nat (information).
Quantum computing also uses qubits, a single piece of information with a probability of being true.
The bit is also a unit of measurement, the information capacity of one binary digit. It has the symbol
bit, and less formally
b (see discussion below). The unit is also known as the
Claude Elwood Shannon, with symbol
Sh.
Binary digit
Claude E. Shannon first used the word
bit in a 1948 paper. He attributed its origin to
John W. Tukey, who had written a Bell Labs memo on 9 January 1947 in which he contracted "binary digit" to simply "bit". Interestingly, Vannevar Bush had written in 1936 of "bits of information" that could be stored on the punch cards used in the mechanical computers of that time.
Darwin among the machines: the evolution of global intelligence, George Dyson (science historian), 1997. ISBN 0-201-40649-7
A bit of storage is like a light switch; it can be either on (1) or off (0). A single bit is a one or a zero, a true or a false, a "flag" which is "on" or "off", or in general, the quantity of information required to distinguish two mutually exclusive equally probable
State (computer science)s from each other.
Gregory Bateson defined a bit as "a difference that makes a difference".
Representation
Bits can be represented in many forms. For example, on the circuitry in most computing devices, bits are represented as electrical levels. For some devices, a 1 (true value) is represented by a positive voltage, while a 0 (false value) is represented by a negative voltage. For other devices, zero volts is used to represent 0 (false value).
On CD-ROMs, this is represented as "pits" or "grounds". Pits, as the name implies, refers to a small groove on the CD, which reflects away the
laser that reads it. Ground, on the other hand, refers basically to the flat
reflective surface. The light of the reading laser is reflected back into the laser, which then picks up that light with a sensor. The transition between a pit and a ground means a 1, and a short period of time on the same level is a 0. No more than 11 consequent zeros may occur, because the laser receives no state change during consequent zeros and has to rely on a timer to know the amount of zeros, whose accuracy is limited.
CD-Rs work on the same theory, except that they use
dyes instead of pits and ground.
Bits can also be represented magnetically, such as in magnetic tapes and Compact Cassette.
Unit
It is important to differentiate between the use of "bit" in referring to a discrete storage unit and the use of "bit" in referring to a statistical unit of information. The bit, as a discrete storage unit, can by definition store only 0 or 1. A statistical bit is the amount of information that,
on average, can be stored in a discrete bit. It is thus the amount of information carried by a choice between two equally likely outcomes. One bit corresponds to about 0.693
nat (information)s (ln(2)), or 0.301
ban (information)s (log10(2)).
Consider, for example, a computer file with 1,000 0s and 1s which can be
lossless data compression to a file of 500 0s and 1s (on average, over all files of that kind). The original file, although having 1,000 bits of storage, has at most 500 bits of information entropy, since information is not destroyed by lossless compression. A file can have no more information theoretical bits than it has storage bits. If these two ideas need to be distinguished, sometimes the name
bit is used when discussing data storage while
shannon is used for the statistical bit. However, most of the time, the meaning is clear from the context.
Abbreviation/symbol
No uniform agreement has been reached yet about what the official unit symbols for bit and byte should be. One commonly-quoted standard, the International Electrotechnical Commission's
IEC 60027, specifies that "bit" should be the unit symbol for the unit bit (e.g. "kbit" for kilobit), but it does not yet define any symbol for the unit byte.
The other commonly-quoted relevant standard,
IEEE 1541, specifies "b" to be the unit symbol for bit and "B" to be that for byte. This convention is also widely used in computing, but has so far not been considered acceptable internationally for several reasons:
- both these symbols are already used for other units: "b" for barn (unit) and "B" for decibel;
- "bit" is already short for "binary digit", so there is little reason to abbreviate it any further;
- it is customary to start a unit symbol with an uppercase letter only if the unit was named after a person (see also Claude Émile Jean-Baptiste Litre);
- instead of byte, the term octet (computing) (unit symbol: "o") is used in some fields and in some French-speaking countries, which adds to the difficulty of agreeing on an international symbol;
- "b" is occasionally also used for byte, along with "bit" for bit.
The unit bel is rarely used by itself (only as decibel, "dB"), so the chances of conflict with "B" for byte are quite small, even though both units are very commonly used in the same fields (e.g., telecommunication).
More than one bit
A
byte is a collection of bits, originally variable in size but now almost always eight bits. Eight-bit bytes, also known as
octet (computing)s, can represent 256 values (28 values, 0–255). A four-bit quantity is known as a
nybble, and can represent 16 values (24 values, 0–15). A rarely used term,
crumb, can refer to a two-bit quantity, and can represent 4 values (2² values, 0–3).
"Word (computing)" is a term for a slightly larger group of bits, but it has no standard size. It represents the size of one register in a Computer-CPU. In the
IA-32 architecture more commonly known as x86-32, 16 bits are called a "word" (with 32 bits being a double word or
Word (computer science)#Dword and Qword), but other architectures have word sizes of 8, 32, 64, 80 or others.
Terms for large quantities of bits can be formed using the standard range of SI prefixes, e.g.,
kilobit (kbit), megabit (
Mbit) and gigabit (Gbit). Note that much confusion exists regarding these units and their abbreviations (see above).
When a bit within a group of bits such as a byte or word is to be referred to, it is usually specified by a number from 0 (not 1) upwards corresponding to its position within the byte or word. However, 0 can refer to either the most significant bit or to the least significant bit depending on the context, so the convention being used must be known.
Certain
bitwise operation computer
central processing unit instructions (such as
bit set) operate at the level of manipulating bits rather than manipulating data interpreted as an aggregate of bits.
Telecommunications or
computer network transfer rates are usually described in terms of bits per second (
bps), not to be confused with
baud.
Cultural
Bits has also been adopted in the Art world. With many exhibits and works using them as reference. See the following article Bits as Art and artist work Images Animation.
See also
Notes
Bits Computers in Malvern. Build and Repair Pc's, ISP Services ...
Provides a variety of computing services, including hardware sales, website hosting and design, ISP services, and support contracts.
bit from FOLDOC
bit < unit > (b) binary digit. The unit of information; the amount of information obtained by asking a yes-or-no question; a computational quantity that can take on one of two ...
Bit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. For example, the number 10010111 is 8 bits long, or in most cases, one modern PC byte. Binary digits are a basic unit of ...
BITS - BBSRC IT Shared Service Centre
Bioscience IT Services BBSRC IT Shared Service Centre. ... BBSRC Bioscience IT Services (BITS) is the common service provider of Information Communication Technology (ICT) services ...
Toolstation > Drill Bits
Drill bits, core drills and adapters for cordless, 110V and 240V electric drills including SDS drills.
BBC - CBeebies - Bits and Bobs
Have fun with Bits, Bobs and Trug ... Trug's Matching Game. Help Bits and Bobs guess the objects Trug finds.
Contact Bits Computers Malvern
Bits Computers Malvern. For all your computer needs. Family run business providing new Pc's, repairs, support contracts, broadband, ISP services, Web Hosting and design, Schools ...
Agility Bits dog agility home page
Find help for making equipment, read fun articles on training and handling, and peruse links to useful articles and other agility sites.
bit field from FOLDOC
bit field < data > Part of an item of data, storage location or message, identified as a certain number of contiguous bits starting at a certain bit position within the data.
Screwdriver Bits - Buy quality Screwdriver Bits at Screwfix.com
Order Screwdriver Bits online today at Screwfix.com. Every screwdriver bit you will ever need - we promise! From single bits to sets and selections.
