Top500.org recently released updated statistics about the fastest supercomputers in the world. They do this twice per year, and every time the reports make computing enthusiasts drool with mind-boggling performance numbers. You think your souped-up server or gaming rig is fast? Think again.

We cherry-picked some of the more interesting numbers, and made a few additional calculations for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.

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The web browser market is an ever-changing landscape. It can sometimes be rocky ground for web designers and web developers trying to make their websites and services work for all the various browser versions available out there. It’s challenging work, to say the least.

That’s why it pays to be aware of what the web browser market looks like, and stay up to date. How many are using the various browsers out there? How many are using the latest versions? Which versions are the most common? How big an audience may you be annoying if your site isn’t perfect in a specific browser version?

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Internet Explorer 9 launched on March 14 this year, a full three months ago. It’s free software. It’s clearly a better web browser than previous IE versions. Yet only 13% of IE users have adopted IE9 so far. In other words, IE9 adoption is going… kinda slowly.

Compare that with the adoption of Firefox 4. It was launched on March 22, just over a week after IE9, yet 56% of Firefox users are already running Firefox 4. It’s been downloaded more than 200 million times and counting (the current count is 218 million).

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First there was the Mac line of computers, then Apple added the iPod, then the iPhone, and little over a year ago, the iPad. Over the past 10 years, Apple has gone from being a computer company to being a true consumer brand.

This can be easily illustrated by looking at search trends, in this case the overall interest in Apple’s various product lines over the years (courtesy of Google Trends).

Read on for a very revealing chart…

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We posted this in the Pingdom blog but thought that you regular readers of Royal Pingdom might also enjoy it, so here it is, a sneak preview of our up-and-coming, super-designed office:

We’re about to enter a new phase in Pingdom’s history. Over the next few months, we’ll be hiring even more people, and our current office is starting to feel a bit small.

That’s why we’ll soon be upgrading to “Pingdom Office 2.0.” We’ve already picked the office space, signed the lease, and the plan is to move in at the beginning of 2012. Before we move in, the whole office will have been rebuilt and custom designed for us, and will rival some of the coolest offices out there. We’re aiming for awesomeness.

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Microsoft is one of the largest and most profitable tech companies in the world, but sometimes we can’t help but feel a bit sorry for them.

Why? Because the online community won’t cut them any slack whatsoever. There is so little love shown that it’s scary. If there’s even the slightest chance that something can be blamed on Microsoft, it will.

Whatever the exact opposite of goodwill is, Microsoft has plenty of it.

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