This assignment is due by the beginning of your discussion section on Wednesday, October 22. The material covered here will appear on the midterm, so you'll want to become comfortable with it by then.

Summary: For this assignment, you will measure information: how much space some object requires, how much it might cost to store it, how long it might take to transmit it. Feel free to use a calculator, spreadsheet, or other tool (such as the "word count" feature of Microsoft Word), and to consult the web references we mention.

Part I. Fill in this table. We suggest completing the first column ("Size in bytes") first, since this may involve a few intermediate data-gathering steps. Bracketed numbers (like "[12]") refer to notes and hints, which appear below the table.

Information packages	Size in bytes (or KB, MB, GB, ...) [5]	How many copies of the information package can you fit on one of the storage media listed below? (Or, how many of the storage media would it take to store one information package?)			How much would it cost to store this information on ZIP disks? [6]	How long would it take to download this information package using:
		Floppy disks (1.4 MB)	ZIP disks (250 MB)	60 GB hard drive		A 56K modem [7]	A 52Mb cable modem
The summary paragraph above	332 bytes
The course syllabus [1]
The text of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina [2]
A bitmap of a black & white drawing, 640 480 pixels
An on-screen color picture, 640 480 pixels, 16 bits/pixel
A high-quality 5 megapixel digital photo, 2593 1944, 32 bits per pixel
A 30-second TV ad at 30 frames per second, each frame 352 240 pixels, 24 bits per pixel [3]
An 85-minute movie at 60 frames per second, each frame 1536 922, 32 bits per pixel, plus stereo sound [4]

[1] Recall that the syllabus is available on line, most easily by following the link from the instructor's home page, http://www.ics.uci.edu/~kay .

[2] Check Project Gutenberg at http://promo.net/pg .

[3] Assume there's no sound involved.

[4] CD-quality stereo sound involves two channels (left and right). Each channel takes 44,100 samples per second, at 16 bits per sample.

[5] Use 1 KB = 1024 bytes, 1 MB = 1000 KB, 1 GB = 1000 MB, and so on.

[6] For the price of a ZIP disk, try http://www.staples.com . ZIP disks come in two sizes, 100 MB and 250 MB. Use the 250 MB size here.

[7] Note that data transmission rates are typically given in bits (or kilobits or megabits) per second.

Part II. How much space is required by the web page you created for Assignment 2? For now, let's just consider the text, and not the images. There are three different ways of measuring it:

(a) The size of the text displayed in the browser. You can get this text size by viewing your page in Navigator or Explorer (not in Composer), selecting all the text, copying it, pasting it into a Word document, and using the Word Count menu item.

(b) The size of the HTML source to your page. You can get this by choosing View Source on your page in the browser, selecting it all, and using the word count in Word as before.

(c) The size of the Composer file that contains your web page. You can get this by checking the size of the file in Windows; ask a classmate or your TA if you don't know how to do this.

Figure out each of these quantities. Which is the largest, which the smallest, and why? (This is something you can discuss with your classmates and TA; there's no single right answer.)

How big are the images on your web page?

For this assignment, turn your answers in on paper.

References:

Units of Measure: http://csd1.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/~pkidd/units.htm

Data Powers of Ten: http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/datapowers.html

Written by David G. Kay, Summer 1999; revised Fall 1999, Fall 2000, Fall 2001, and Fall 2003.

Sunday, October 19, 2003 -- 6:59 PM