A comprehensive guide to bits (and bytes)

Many people have asked what the difference is between a bit and a byte. So here is my attempt at creating a guide.
Firstly, we have to understand what a bit is. According to Wikipedia, a bit is a binary digit, taking a value of either 0 or 1. This means the number 111000 is 6 bits long.
When something is 8 bits long, it is called a "byte". for example, the number 11110000 is 1 byte, or 1B. The capital "B" is what tells us that we are dealing with a byte. A bit, on the other hand, is represented by a lower-case "b". This is a little known fact that can make quite a difference. Advertisers often use this to make their product seem faster, for example if you see an ad that says:

"Buy our internet service, it's 1mb per second!!!!!!!!!Super fast!!!!!"

You would really be buying a service that is 125,000 bytes per second, since 1mb=1000000 bits and 1000000 divided by 8 equals 125,000. If you are confused by all this talk of "mb", read on.
Since it would get annoying to say "Oh... my file is 2,000,000 bits", prefixes can be added before the word bit or byte that add certain amounts of zero's after the one. Here are the most common prefixes:

• Kilo - This prefix adds 3 zero's, so 1 kilobit is 1,000 bits. And 1 kilobyte is 8,000 bits (or 1,000 bytes)
  
• Mega - This is probably most common. "Mega" adds 6 zeros, so 1 megabit is equal to 1,000,000 bits, and 1 megabyte is equal to 8,000,000 bits (or 1,000,000bytes). Photos usually are a few megabytes, so are songs and most programs.
• Giga - This prefix adds 9 zeros. Hard drives are usually a certain amount of gigabytes. But very few other things are.
• Tera - One trillion bits, this is a bizarre amount of storage space some hard drives now have.
  
• Peta - Not even worth mentioning, 15 zeros...... maybe in the future.