10 Things You Didn’t Know About Microsoft

It really seems impossible that any one of you might not know about the Microsoft, but here is 10 facts you didn’t know about this company.

1. It is impossible to create a folder with the name “Con” or “con” on Microsoft operating systems and in case, you attempt to make one with the name C-o-n, you’ll get an error message saying that the drive name is invalid. The more unusual is the sound it makes when you attempt to create such a folder. Why would any name be invalid?

2. Secondly, when “=rand(200,99)” without quotations is entered or typed into Microsoft Word, something equivalent to (I must say) electronic sneeze occurs. If that line mentioned above is entered and then hit the ‘Enter’ key, the document is instantly filled with over four hundred thousand words. Another interesting fact is that when you scroll down the page, the setting has changed, so that you never scroll past a page break Have you observed it before?

3. Bill Gates, the founder and cornerstone of Microsoft officially left the company. Although, it was Bill Gates, who alongside Paul Allen started the company from the ground up. It was many of Bill Gates’ ideas that pushed Microsoft to be the top software company in the World. Now as Bill Gates left Microsoft, so let us all hope for their sake that some of his genius has worn off on the employees of the company.

4. Google challenges the supremacy of Microsoft by offering FREE software on the web some way behind. Now that Google has entered the competition with their free software and much more, now it seems increasingly difficult for Microsoft to keep its hold on its place in the heats and more importantly, the computers of their loyal customers, as now that Google offers for FREE its products as compared to the fairly expensive products offered by Microsoft. Now its time for a need of Bill Gates and his expertise to tackle the situation and proceed further.

5. Microsoft Windows is currently installed on almost over ninety percent of all computers worldwide. This is close to billions of computers. This is a true testament to the framework set for the company by its founders. Furthermore, Microsoft Office makes up a replica of around ninety percent of all office based software currently used on those same computers worldwide. Because of this, Microsoft has been ordered to pay an antitrust fine of four hundred and ninety seven million euros. This fine was ordered in 2004 and paid in 2007. Apparently not all people find it inspiring that Microsoft done so well.

6. Although everyone knows that Microsoft has created the Xbox game system which has people praising all over the internet. Xbox Gaming system is no doubt one of the best gaming system available today. It is not known to everybody, however, that the old Encarta program that was sold on CD for computer has been reincarnated online by Microsoft. In addition to this, the more popular Microsoft Mouse is also prominent. But above all, in competition with the ever popular Apple’s iPod, the Microsoft Zune is an alternate source for MP3 on the go.

7. MSNBC is a child, so to speak, of Microsoft. Up until they were equal owners in the television network. However, afterwards Microsoft decided that it was in its best interest to quit the partnership keeping its fifty-fifty hold over the MSNBC website which is still running strong.

8. Microsoft has been trading stocks since 1986. Whoever decided to buy stock in such a new company back in 1986 would today be very happy at the decision. Microsoft has the third highest stock market capitalization in the united States at a total of two hundred and seventy billion dollars. This puts them easily above and beyond its competitors like Google, Apple and IBM. It is amazing that the margin between companies with such similar products. Google is making a comeback with their aforementioned free software, but Apple may want to think twice before bragging about their own superiority.

9. Microsoft Corporation opened its first research lab in Redmond, Washington back in 1991. Because of this, it was one of the first computer companies to create its own computer science research organization.

10. The name of the company was at first Micro-Soft and was first conceived in a letter written by Bill Gates and sent to his partner Paul Allen. After it was first mentioned it was deemed to be better as one word and was shortened to what we all know today. The first mention of the name was in 1975 and stuck until it was officially trademarked a year later. It seemed that Bill and Paul liked the single word instead of the hyphenated Micro-Soft.

Where the Dollar Sign Comes From

Today I found out where the dollar sign ($) comes from.

This symbol first showed up in the 1770s, appearing in documents of English-Americans who had business dealings with Spanish-Americans. However, it wasn’t until the very early 1800s that it became popularized, around the same time as the first official U.S. dollars were being minted. Previous to this, the symbol had already been in use as an abbreviation for names of Spanish currency, namely as an abbreviation for the Spanish peso “p”.

So how do you get from a “p” to the dollar sign, “$”? When writing financial documents referring to pesos, it was common to abbreviate the peso, for instance, “1 peso” to “1 p”. However, when pluralized, as in “1000 pesos”, it becomes “p^s“. Now when writing up financial documents and having to write “p^s” numerous times, it started to become common among the English-American colonists to merge the “p” and the super scripted “s” as one. The top half of this symbol then produces something looking very much like a double vertical lined dollar sign. In an even further bout of laziness, it became common among the English-American colonists to write the “p” with just one downward stroke vertically slashing the “s”, thus the ‘$’. In some of the earliest documents containing this short hand, it was common to see both the double slashed version as well as the single slashed version in the same document, referring to the same thing, the Spanish peso.

How then did this symbol that originally denoted pesos spread to also denote the U.S. dollar? Around the same time the U.S. was minting its first dollar coins, in 1792, Spanish currency was extensively circulated in the U.S. and around the world. In large part due to this, the U.S. chose to design the U.S. dollar coins to duplicate the Spanish coins, in terms of matching the material and weight, hence value (at the time, the coins were made of silver and valued after the price of silver). Doing this allowed the U.S. coin to be exchanged for a peso in a 1 to 1 exchange. Thus, it was natural to use the same symbol to denote the U.S. dollar as was used for the Spanish peso.

Bonus Factoids:

• One interesting thing to note here is that it was the English-American colonists who first started merging the “p^s“, which eventually formed the dollar sign. So while the dollar sign was first referring to the peso, it was the English-Americans who “invented” the symbol. This is only noteworthy because it explains why we write dollar based monetary sums as “$10″ instead of “10$”, as the Spanish-Americans would have written it. Having the symbol proceed the numeric value was the common custom with the English pound and thus with the English-American colonists.
• You will also occasionally hear that the dollar sign actually comes from superimposing the “U” and “S” from United States on top of each other, but this is proven false in Cajori’s book, written in 1929, “History of Mathematical Notations Volume 2“; here he references some of the earliest documents containing the “$” symbol, which not only were referring to the peso in terms of the usage in those documents, but preceded the United States, so named, and also preceded the U.S. dollar.
• Yet another popular incorrect theory held by many is that the dollar sign was derived from the “pieces of 8″ in the Spanish currency, with the 8 forming the “S” and the slash through it to denote currency. But once again, the earliest documents using this symbol clearly show that it is derived and used interchangeably with the “p^s“, which denoted pesos, not the smaller coinage “pieces of 8″.
• The name ‘dollar’ derived from the word ‘thaler’ which is an abbreviation for the word “Joachimsthaler”, a coin type from the city of Joachimsthal (Jáchymov) in Bohemia, where some of the first such coins were minted in 1516.

Sources:

• Ask Oxford: Where Does the Dollar Sign Come From?
• A History of Mathematical Notations, Volume II: Notations Mainly in Higher Mathematics by Florian Cajori, Originally published 1929
• Origin of the Dollar Sign
• Thaler

What A.M. and P.M. Stand For

Today I found out what a.m. and p.m. stand for. And no, it’s not, as my first grade teacher told me, “After Midnight” and “Past Midday”. LIES!!! Though, funny enough, not really that far off the translated versions of the Latin words for which a.m. and p.m. actually do stand for.

It turns out, a.m. stands for “ante meridiem”, which is Latin for “Before Midday”; p.m. stands for “Post Meridiem”, which is Latin for “After Midday”.

Interestingly, this finally clears up for me one of the interesting quirks of the 12 hour clock system where time counts from 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. and likewise goes from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., which always seemed odd, but now makes perfect sense given what a.m. and p.m. stand for.

Bragster Joins Guinness Book of World Records

Social video site for the daring, Bragster.com, has been acquired by the Guinness Book of World Records, upping the ante for Bragster participants.

Bragster’s concept revolves around people issuing dares that can be captured on video – for example, a dare to jump over something impossible large – and users then accepting the challenges and videoing themselves fulfilling them. Videos are rated in a contest and the winners are placed on a leaderboard.

Guinness too has been accepting user uploads for their attempts at setting records on their web site. Bragster simply expands the attempts at reaching a wider audience – especially those willing to risk their reputation on a dare which, let’s face it, creates the kind of entertainment we all love.

Bragster has been operating since 2006. It’s expected that Bragster and Guinness will merge sites at some point, but current plans are to leave both as separate entities. [via Mashable]

Also of world record interest: BrewDog Brewery Of Scotland Announces Worlds Strongest Beer, Man Claims World Record for Hugging In — Where Else — Vegas, Is George The Tallest Dog In The World?, 16 Year Old Abby Sunderland Sets Sail On World Record, Video: World’s Longest Basketball Shot By “Dude Perfect”, New World Record Set At British Steam Car Challenge

Read The Full Story: Bragster Joins Guinness Book of World Records – IndyPosted

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