Mr. Modem: A lotta bytes add up to a yottabyte

I know you have explained this before, but it never quite sinks in. Can you explain the difference between megabytes and gigabytes? I know that gigabytes are bigger, but that’s about it.

Let’s start with the basics: A bit is the smallest amount of data recognized by a computer and eight bits equal one byte. A byte is one character, such as the letter “a” or the number “6”.

A kilobyte (KB) is made up of 1,024 bytes. Bytes are measured using a binary system, not a decimal system, so the numbers are not technically even. For our purposes, we’ll round the 1,024 to 1,000. What’s a few bytes among mammals?

Each increment within the byte hierarchy represents a difference of 1,000 units, so: 1 megabyte (MB) equals 1,000 kilobytes (KB). 1 gigabyte (GB) equals 1,000 megabytes (MB). 1 terabyte (TB) equals 1,000 gigabytes (GB). Beyond the almighty terabyte, 1 petabyte (PB) equals 1,000 terabytes (TB). 1 exabyte (EB) equals 1,000 petabytes (PB). 1 zettabyte (ZB) equals 1,000 exabytes (EB). 1 yottabyte (YB) equals 1,000 zettabytes (ZB).

To put this into perspective, a yottabyte is 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 bytes, which is also known as 1 reptilian. (A little binary humor there. Actually, it’s a septillion.)

MSN will not allow my computer to remember my password, requiring me to type it in each time. Is there any way around this? It’s really annoying.

All Microsoft email accounts, including MSN, Hotmail and Live Mail, have been combined into Outlook.com (https://office.live.com/start/Outlook.aspx) and the solution to this problem lies therein. Go to Outlook.com and sign in with your MSN username and password. Make sure you check the Keep Me Signed In box. Then click Sign In and you will be taken to your Outlook.com Inbox.

Next, go to MSN.com (www.msn.com). In the upper left-hand corner you will see Outlook.com and a number indicating the number of unread email messages. When you click Outlook.com, you should be taken directly to your Inbox without having to enter a password.

I’ve heard there are templates for documents included within Word 2013. I need to compose a new résumé. Do you know if there is a résumé template and if so, how do I access the templates?

Microsoft Word 2013 does, indeed, include a large number of professionally designed templates that can make your documents look great. One set of templates all job hunters will appreciate is the variety of available résumé formats. To find them, open Word 2013, select New and then click or tap Résumé under the Search box. There you will see choices for dozens of templates. You can scroll through the templates or look to the right side of the page, under Category, where the résumés are — well, categorized by industry and résumé style.

This story was originally published October 6, 2015 at 1:50 PM with the headline "Mr. Modem: A lotta bytes add up to a yottabyte."