Very cold files!

Got a blast from the past today, a colleague forwarded an old email I wrote on 6 June 2006 at 1:28 pm! Wow. I said …

…pointed out recently we’ve been being naughty using KB for kilobytes, when it should be kB. k for kilo is the standard (it’s still M for mega, G for giga) and although bits/bytes aren’t standardised b (bit) and B (byte) are in common use and thus recommended.

It came up as the team there were debating whether to use KB or kB (not KiB? nobody loves kibibytes it seems). I guess it doesn’t really matter, people tend to understand in either case, and I reckon file sizes should probably be rounded up anyway, so long as they give an approximate guide to downloading. But I can’t help thinking — everytime I see “32 KB” — my, that’s a cold, cold file! (K is for Kelvin in SI units). KB is also my sister’s initials. But I don’t think she’ll mind too much if you use it on your websites!

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