Friday, July 30, 2010

How to writing an Journal Article Summary

  1. Read the article.

  2. Re-read the article. Underline important ideas. Circle key terms. Find the main point of the article. Divide the article into sections or stages of thought, and label each section or stage of thought in the margins. Note the main idea of each paragraph if the article is short.

  3. Write brief summaries of each stage of thought or if appropriate each paragraph. Use a separate piece of paper for this step. This should be a
    brief outline
    of the article.

  4. Write the main point of the article. Use your own words. This should be a sentence that expresses the central idea of the article as you have determined it the from steps above.

  5. Write your rough draft of the summary. Combine the information from the first four steps into paragraphs.

    bullet

    NOTE: Include all the important ideas.

    bullet

    Use the author's key words.

    bullet

    Follow the original organization where possible.

    bullet

    Include any important data.

    bullet

    Include any important conclusions.

  6. Edit your version. Be concise. Eliminate needless words and repetitions.
    (Avoid using "the author says...," "the author argues...," etc.)

  7. Compare your version to the original.

    bullet

    Do not use quotations, but if you use them be sure to quote
    correctly. Indicate quotations with quotation marks. Cite each
    quotation correctly (give the page number).

    bullet

    Do not plagiarize. Cite any paraphrases by citing the page number
    the information appears on. Avoid paraphrasing whenever possible.
    Use your own words to state the ideas presented in the article.

    (Adapted from Writing Across the Curriculum 4th edition, L. Behrens and L. Rosen, eds., 1991, Harper/Collins, pp. 6-7.)

In the summary, you should include only the information your readers need.

  1. State the main point first.

  2. Use a lower level of technicality than the authors of the original article use. Do not write a summary your readers cannot understand.

  3. Make the summary clear and understandable to someone who has not read the original article. Your summary should stand on its own.

  4. Write a summary rather than a table of contents.
    Wrong: This article covers point X. Then the article covers point Y.
    Right: Glacial advances have been rapid as shown by x, y, and z.
    (see sample)

  5. Add no new data and none of your own ideas.

  6. Use a simple organization:

    bullet

    main point

    bullet

    main results: give the main results See sample

    bullet

    conclusions/recommendations

  7. Unless the examples in the article are essential, do not include the examples in your summary. If you include them, remember to explain them.

Here is an easy way to begin a summary: In "[name of article]" [author] states . . . . [State the main point of the article first.] For example: In "Computer Chess"* Hans Berliner states that the CYBER 170 series computer can perform well in a chess tournament.

Cite the source with correct bibliographic form.
*Berliner, H.J. (1981). Computer Chess. Nature, 274(567), 745-748.
[ author. article title. journal title. vol(number)/month: pages. ]

So when you write a summary:

  1. State the main point first.
  2. Emphasize the main stages of though.
  3. State the article’s conclusion.
  4. Summarize rather than give a table of contents.

    Example:
    Wrong:
    This article covers the topic of measuring the extent of global deforestation. The article discusses reasons for concern, the technique, the results, and the project’s current goal.
    Right:
    According to the author of “Seeing the Forest,” the extent of global deforestation was difficult to measure until satellite remote sensing techniques were applied. Measuring the extent of global deforestation is important because of concerns about global warming and species extinctions. The technique compares old infrared LANDSAT images with new images. The authors conclude the method is accurate and cost effective.

  5. Keep summary short: 3 to 7 sentences.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Procedure: Reset FreeBSD root user password

Step # 1: Start FreeBSD server/workstation

Step # 2: Press Enter key at boot loader

At Welcome to FreeBSD! boot menu press spacebar key to pause default booting

Type number 4 key (type 4 number) to boot into single user mode

(click to enlarge)

Next you will see following prompt from system:
When prompted Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:

Press Enter key to boot into single user mode. Next, you will be immediately dropped into a single user mode without a root password.

You need to remount / (root) file system in read and write mode with mount command, type following two commands:
# mount -u /
# mount -a

Setup a new password with passwd command:
# passwd

Next type exit command to boot FreeBSD into multi-user mode environment:
# exit
OR You can just reboot the system:
# sync;sync
# reboot

For more information read man pages of passwd and mount command.

Monday, July 26, 2010

The 4GB Windows Memory Limit: What does it really mean?

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the industry about what's commonly called the Windows “4GB memory limit.” When talking about performance tuning and server sizing, people are quick to mention the fact that an application on a 32-bit Windows system can only access 4GB of memory. But what exactly does this mean?

By definition, a 32-bit processor uses 32 bits to refer to the location of each byte of memory. 2^32 = 4.2 billion, which means a memory address that's 32 bits long can only refer to 4.2 billion unique locations (i.e. 4 GB).

In the 32-bit Windows world, each application has its own “virtual” 4GB memory space. (This means that each application functions as if it has a flat 4GB of memory, and the system's memory manager keeps track of memory mapping, which applications are using which memory, page file management, and so on.)

This 4GB space is evenly divided into two parts, with 2GB dedicated for kernel usage, and 2GB left for application usage. Each application gets its own 2GB, but all applications have to share the same 2GB kernel space.

This can cause problems in Terminal Server environments. On Terminal Servers with a lot of users running a lot of applications, quite a bit of information from all the users has to be crammed into the shared 2GB of kernel memory. In fact, this is why no Windows 2000-based Terminal Server can support more than about 200 users—the 2GB of kernel memory gets full—even if the server has 16GB of memory and eight 3GHz processors. This is simply an architectural limitation of 32-bit Windows.

Windows 2003 is a little bit better in that it allows you to more finely tune how the 2GB kernel memory space is used. However, you still can't escape the fact that the thousands of processes from hundreds of users will all have to share the common 2GB kernel space.

Using the /3GB (for Windows 2000) or the /4GT (for Windows 2003) boot.ini switches is even worse in Terminal Server environments because those switches change the partition between the application memory space and kernel memory space. These switches gives each application 3GB of memory, which in turn only leaves 1GB for the kernel—a disaster in Terminal Server environments!

People who are unfamiliar with the real meaning behind the 4GB Windows memory limit often point out that certain versions of Windows (such as Enterprise or Datacenter editions) can actually support more than 4GB of physical memory. However, adding more than 4GB of physical memory to a server still doesn't change the fact that it's a 32-bit processor accessing a 32-bit memory space. Even when more than 4GB of memory is present, each process still has the normal 2GB virtual address space, and the kernel address space is still 2GB, just as on a normal non-PAE system.

However, systems booted /PAE can support up to 64GB physical memory. A 32-bit process can "use" large amounts of memory via AWE (address windowing extension) functions. This means that they must map views of the physical memory they allocate into their 2GB virtual address space. Essentially, they can only use 2GB of memory at a time.

Here are more details about what booting /PAE means from Chapter 7 of the book "Inside Windows 2000," by David Solomon and Mark Russinovich.

All of the Intel x86 family processors since the Pentium Pro include a memory-mapping mode called Physical Address Extension (PAE). With the proper chipset, the PAE mode allows access to up to 64 GB of physical memory. When the x86 executes in PAE mode, the memory management unit (MMU) divides virtual addresses into four fields.

The MMU still implements page directories and page tables, but a third level, the page directory pointer table, exists above them. PAE mode can address more memory than the standard translation mode not because of the extra level of translation but because PDEs and PTEs are 64-bits wide rather than 32-bits. The system represents physical addresses internally with 24 bits, which gives the x86 the ability to support a maximum of 2^(24+12) bytes, or 64 GB, of memory.

As explained in Chapter 2 , there is a special version of the core kernel image (Ntoskrnl.exe) with support for PAE called Ntkrnlpa.exe. (The multiprocessor version is called Ntkrpamp.exe.) To select this PAE-enabled kernel, you must boot with the /PAE switch in Boot.ini.

This special version of the kernel image is installed on all Windows 2000 systems, even Windows 2000 Professional systems with small memory. The reason for this is to facilitate testing. Because the PAE kernel presents 64-bit addresses to device drivers and other system code, booting /PAE even on a small memory system allows a device driver developer to test parts of their drivers with large addresses. The other relevant Boot.ini switch is /NOLOWMEM, which discards memory below 4 GB and relocates device drivers above this range, thus guaranteeing that these drivers will be presented with physical addresses greater than 32 bits.

Only Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server are required to support more than 4 GB of physical memory. (See Table 2-2.) Using the AWE Win32 functions, 32bit user processes can allocate and control large amounts of physical memory on these systems.

by Brian Madden

Sunday, July 25, 2010

How to WebDAV on Ubuntu 9.04 Server

WebDAV is a file manager that running on web server. You can access it like on your desktop. Easy and enjoyable.

Install Ubuntu 9.04 server as usual and select LAMP and OpenSSH when asked for choice. You can also install vsFTPd if you want to but it is optional.

Step 1 :

sudo a2enmod dav_fs
sudo a2enmod dav
sudo a2enmod dav_lock

sudo a2dissite default

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Step 2 :

To create a virtual host for the WebDAV.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/webdav
chown www-data /var/www/webdav

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/webdav

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/webdav

Make the a portion of the file as the following :


....
DocumentRoot /var/www/webdav

   Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
   AllowOverride None
   Order allow,deny
   allow from all


   DAV On
   AuthType Basic
   AuthName "webdav"
   AuthUserFile /var/www/.passwd.dav
   Require valid-user
   DavMinTimeout 600
   
      Require valid-user
   


....

Step 3 :

sudo htpasswd -c /var/www/.passwd.dav samiux

chown root:www-data /var/www/.passwd.dav
chmod 640 /var/www/.passwd.dav

suod chmod -R 0777 /var/www/webdav
sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www/webdav

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Step 4 :

To test if WebDAV works or not.

sudo apt-get install cadaver

sudo cadaver http://localhost/

If you got “dav:/” prompt, enter “quit” to quit. Otherwises, fix the problem.

Step 5 (Windows only) :

Download NetDrive at http://www.netdrive.net/ and set it accordingly. The port should be 80.

Now you can access your WebDAV server from Windows.

Step 6 (Ubuntu only) :

Go to “Place” > “Connect to Server“. Select “WebDAV (HTTP)“. Enter the IP of your WebDAV server and then press “Connect“. Submit the username and password. An icon will be displayed on your desktop. Double click it and go.

Now you can access your WebDAV server from Ubuntu.


OpenOffice
If you open the OpenOffice files on the WebDAV by clicking, you can only open it in read only mode. However, there is method to overcome this problem. You open OpenOffice Write (for example), click the “Open file” and at the “Name of file” enter the following :

vnd.sun.star.webdav://192.168.0.100/openoffice_readonly_on_webdav.odt

Now you can edit and save it on WebDAV.

Limitation of WebDAV

You can paste a file onto WebDAV directly but there is a file size limitation, that is, the file should be less than 1GB. If you want to paste a file larger than 1GB, I suggest to use FTP instead.

Make sure to change the ownership of the files that you have uploaded by FTP.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/webdav


Enjoy ubuntu... ;)

Friday, July 23, 2010

GSM-cracking software may help hackers spy on mobile phone calls

The Global System for Mobile Communications technology used by the majority of the world's mobile phones will get some scrutiny at next week's Black Hat security conference, and what the security researchers there have to say isn't pretty. On Friday, an open source developers had released a GSM-cracking software that breaks the A5/1 encryption algorithm used by some GSM networks. Called Kraken, this software uses new, very efficient, encryption cracking tables that allow it to break A5/1 encryption much faster than before.

The software is key step toward eavesdropping on mobile phone conversations over GSM networks. Since GSM networks are the backbone of 3G, they also provide attackers with an avenue into the new generation of handsets.

Read this full article at Tech World

kunkun-laptop .... ;)