PICLYF! :)

Want to share your memories to the world? Then join Piclyf! It is the newest photo sharing + social networking site in one! It is based in Davao City, Philippines. You can also win prizes(like iPad!) just by earning badges and a little bit of luck during the raffle day. It is a much quicker way of photo sharing because you can link your facebook, tumblr, wordpress and other social networking sites and blogging sites to publish your photo in all of your accounts in just one click. It has many more features - but I'll let you discover it for yourself. So join Piclyf now!!

CASE STUDY #3 - TIME-SHARING ENVIRONMENT SECURITY ISSUES

            Just a piece of review, multiprogramming is the allocation of a computer system and its resources to more than one concurrent application, job, or user which is being used in a time-sharing environment where two or more computers can share computer resources to one another. 

Having this type of environment is reasonably normal nowadays due to its benefits which are (1) Resource Sharing Capability, (2) More efficient file sharing, (3) Standard PC hardware can be used by any workstation in the environment gives flexibility, easy maintenance, and cost efficiency, and a lot more. But like any other computer technology, it has various problems especially on security.

            Security of files is one of the main problems in a time-sharing environment. Due to more efficient file sharing capability of the said environment other users can also view, edit, or even erase a file that you saved in folder that is shared in the environment. Yes, you can say that it is a bit clumsy in part of the maker of the file to save it in a shared folder but let us think of it as the person is still a beginner with zero knowledge about the environment. It will be just tolerable if the file does not have much importance like an old assignment or pictures that already were uploaded to different social networking sites because you can easily retrieve those. But what if the files that were accessed are private pictures(no pun intended) or assignments or projects that is to be passed. It would be a big disaster.

            Another security problem that might be encountered in the said environment is the increase of sophisticated hacker attacks. Hackers nowadays shifted from crashing system for fun to professional criminals taking over systems for profit which means additional motivation for them to do this dirty job. Installing security features are not enough. The user himself must be responsible on handling the workstation he is assigned on. But we all know that a trait like that is something that everybody doesn’t have. For example, in a company, where the computers will be most likely in a time-sharing environment and, possibly, are internet connected. One reckless employee curiously clicks a link without minding a possible hacker attack. The user is prompted if he would like to download “name-that-is-not-suspicious.exe”.  The user clicks the “Yes” button downloading what he thought is only the “name-that-is-not-suspicious.exe” but, for the sake of this situation; he also downloaded a malware, software designed to secretly access a computer system without the owner's informed consent. The attack now leads to illegal accessing to the system of the company affecting all the workstations and server/s of the environment which then resulted to modification and loss of data. And finally the hacker smiles in contentment. Of course problems like this can be controlled by proper orientation of employees and better security features but curiosity and fast technological advancement are things that are hard to catch.

            Obviously there is a great difference between the degrees of security in a time-sharing machine as we have in a dedicated machine. Time-sharing machines are more prone to unauthorized or illegal access by its co-machine in the environment or coming from outside of the environment like hackers this is due to it has a bigger parameter than a dedicated machine which makes it more hard to secure.

CASE STUDY #2 - USAGES OF HANDHELD COMPUTERS FOR PROFESSIONALS

It is not to be disregarded that technology has a great influence on any kind of person nowadays. Professionals, for example, rely on fast innovating technology in order to run their businesses or to do their respective jobs efficiently thus making life easier. But not all the time they will be in their offices. For this reason, technology provided them with what we call handheld computers. From the name itself, handheld computers are computers which are portable or can be carried by hand. Some examples of handheld computers are iPod, cellphone, iPhone, PDA and pager.

Hereunder are some usages I theorized for two professionals that I selected.

A delivery person for a courier service

            I know you already know some businesses that provide courier services in the Philippines some of which are LBC, 2GO, and JRS. Their goal is to deliver packages depending on what kind of service you availed from one place to another. One of the services that you may avail is the door-to-door courier delivery service which the protagonists are the delivery persons. Common problem among these actors of the scene are the addresses of the letters or packages they need to deliver for the fact that some of them are elusive. This is the time where handheld computers come in handy. Expectedly, the handheld computer should have a GPS on it where with proper application you can view where you are and where your destination is. Moreover, it can also show to the delivery person the shortest path from where he is to where the package or letter will be delivered with consideration to traffic and other blockages thus making the delivery faster and safer. 

MANAGER IN A SUPERMARKET

            We all know that being a manager requires great responsibility especially if you are running a big supermarket. There are many aspects that should be given importance like the prices, expiration dates, and number of products depending on the demand-supply rate, the required workforce, financial statements, and security. All of these should be closely monitored by the manager in order to be called a good administrator of the business. This is where technology comes in again. Handheld computers, with proper software, can facilitate these entire jobs making the life of the manager easier.

            With access to the database of the supermarket, the manager, wherever he may be, can use a handheld computer to keep an eye on the available stocks with each product rather than going to a bulk of files to see each available stock of a particular product which takes time and effort. Furthermore, he can also check and sort the products according to the details like expiration date, price, weight, manufacturer, and the like. Moreover, to be an excellent manager you must know your employees. Not only their names but how good they are in work to scrutinize who deserves a promotion and who deserves a demotion. You can check this by checking the attendance and performance rate of each employee that can be also provided by your handheld computer, with proper application and resources of course, anywhere you like. In addition, you can also supervise or review the transactions that have been made. Last but not the least the chance to check the supermarket by getting access to the security cameras using the handheld computer which is currently being used in some businesses in Japan.

Basically, with our current technology now you can do office works in a café or in your house or wherever you want. 

we are GEEKS!

The 2nd ICEAN CONGRESS was another successful event for the Society of Information Technology Students (SITS) and the League of Mayors of the Institute of Computing held at the University of Southeastern Philippines' Social Hall last November 26, 2010(yesterday).

Here is the program

8:00 - 8:30	Attendance
8:00 - 9:00	Opening Ceremonies
9:00 - 9:30	Getting jobs the AWESOME way - Eric Su
9:30 - 10:00	Photoshop Seminar - Milvene Mineses
10:00 - 11:30	Resume Writing - Offsourcing Inc.
11:30 - 1:00	Lunch Break
1:00 - 1:30	Registration(DevCon in ICEAN Congress)
1:30 - 2:00	Opening Program Opening Remarks: Engr. Val A. Quimno Intro to DevCon: Mark Magalona
2:00 - 2:20	Keynote Speaker - Edmund Lee
2:20 - 3:200	Lightning Talk -Veniza Joy Macaraeg on "IC on Tour" -Tina Ortiz on "Turning a passion into a career" -Jong Jison on "Umbraco" (Open Cource ASP.NET CMS) Eric Su on "PicLyf" -Rodney C. Jao on Igniting Developers for Windows Phone 7
3:20 - 3:30	Intermission
3:30 - 4:30	BOF (Birds of a Feather) - Internet Browser
4:30 - 5:30	Hackathon
5:30 - 6:00	Closing Program

But the schedule was not properly implemented due to certain problems.


It was very fun and informative especially the different events handled by the DevCon (Developer's Connect): Lightning Talk, Birds of a Feather. and Hackathon(which I had the opportunity to join).


Hackathon is somewhat(or is) like a programming contest. When we knew that our co-competitors will be three groups of higher years(which includes the smartest of their batch), we said to ourselves, "wa na ta ani bay!". But we still tried to solve the given problem. The problem was to create a Flickr search interface that will accept input then show to the user the pictures that relates to the input of the user coming from the Flickr website using Flickr's API. We tried really hard - but we failed :( We were stuck on the interface only. We didn't know how to use the API to retrieve the photos. The higher years used PHP language that we did not learn yet.  But it was okay!! :) the experience itself was already a great reward.


Here are some of the pictures during the event:(credits to Ms. Sherry Ann Marie Casal)
The pictures are in no particular order.

Some "FIRST"s in this semester....

We had our first activity in our Arts class and our first chapter test in our Database 1 class but before that let me tell you what happened to me during the start of the day... :))

I decided to set my alarm 1:30 am to study for our quizzes in CSO(but we found out that it was only a false alarm) and in DB 1. I set it up early because I attended my aunt's birthday party yesterday so i didn't have time to study. Expectedly, my alarm rang at exactly 1:30 am(obviously...) but I was too sleepy to study or even stand so I pressed the snooze button. I repeated that every time my alarm rang without minding what time it is. After I heard my younger brother getting fixed to go to school, I immediately woke up and when I checked my alarm, it was already 6:30 am!! I said to myself "Whoa!... I snoozed my alarm from 1:30 am to 6:30 am. That's the FIRST."  So I started getting ready to go to school even though our first class for today was scheduled 10:00 am I have to get ready because I still have a 1-hour ride to go to school.

I arrived early so I grabbed the chance to study. After a few minutes, we had our FIRST activity of our Arts class and It was to draw a symbol to represent the first year commemoration of the Maguindanao Massacre. It was a difficult task for me because I am not good in drawing. But I have no choice. I still have to pass something. I drew a hand going out from the soil reaching for the word "JUSTICE". I made it simple. I only used black coloring pencil and black pastel to color it. And that was basically it!

After Arts class was our CSO class, but, as you read above, the quiz was just only a false alarm!! My reaction was a mixture of "WHAT! I already studied hard..." and "YEHEY! no quiz !". We just discussed how to convert decimal to any base n.

After that we took our lunch, and it was the time for our Database 1 FIRST chapter test. The test was divided into three parts: First, arrange the items in chronological order [it was the easiest]. Second, match  the item to where it belongs [it was the trickiest part of the test!!!]. Lastly, Define the word "Meta-data"[I'm already familiar with it because we used it last semester but I'm not quite sure if I did defined it correctly]. Well, lesson learned! I should have studied harder! But it's not something to grieve about. It was only the  FIRST chapter test and there are still more and when they come I will be more prepared!

And thats about it! Thank you for reading..! 

P.S.

I almost forgot!!! It's also my FIRST time to post about myself!!! Sorry for the typographical and grammatical errors!! I'm still new with this blogging thing :P Constructive criticisms  are accepted just comment it here!

CASE STUDY #1 - EXAMPLE OF EACH CATEGORY OF AN OPERATING SYSTEM

Batch System OS Example

The IBM System/360 mainframe

BOS/360 (Basic Operating System/360) was an early IBM operating system that was made only for the IBM/360. It came in 2 versions, 4K BOS and 8K BOS.

The operating system disk contained a source language library, a macro library and a core image library. The macro library included all the options for the supervisor, which was assembled by the 360 assembly language compiler, the only language available at the time, although RPG came a little later. The other crucial component was the Job Controller, which was fed by punched cards using JCL (Job Control Language). Most BOS users upgraded to DOS and added more core, typically to 32K or even a gargantuan (for the time) 64K. DOS was the first System/360 operating system to introduce multi-programming. It could be configured with 2 foreground partitions, typically used for spooling while the main JOB Stream ran in the background.

Interactive System OS Example

CDC 6000

KRONOS is an operating system with time-sharing capabilities, written by Control Data Corporation in the 1970s. KRONOS ran on the 60-bit CDC 6000 series mainframe computers and their successors. CDC replaced KRONOS with the NOS operating system in the late 1970s, which were succeeded by the NOS/VE operating system in the mid-1980s.

The MACE operating system and APEX were forerunners to KRONOS. It was written by Control Data systems programmer Greg Mansfield, Dave Cahlander, Tate and 3 others.

Real-Time System OS Example

QNX (pronounced either Q-N-X or Q-nix) is a commercial POSIX-compliant Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. As of September 12 2007, the source of the QNX kernel has been released for non-commercial use.

QNX default desktop

The QNX kernel contains only CPU scheduling, interprocess communication, interrupt redirection and timers. Everything else runs as a user process, including a special process known as proc which performs process creation, and memory management by operating in conjunction with the microkernel. This is made possible by two key mechanisms – subroutine-call type interprocess communication, and a boot loader which can load an image containing not only the kernel but any desired collection of user programs and shared libraries. Message handling is prioritized by thread priority.

Hybrid System OS Example

Screenshot of Windows XP

Windows XP is an operating system that was produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, and media centers. It was first released in August 2001, and is the most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base. The name "XP" is short for "eXPerience".

Windows XP was eventually released for two additional architectures, Windows XP 64-bit Edition for IA-64 (Itanium) processors and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition forx86-64.            

Embedded System OS Example

Screenshot of Windows XP Embedded Evaluation

 running several Windows components.

Windows XP Embedded, commonly abbreviated "XPe", is a componentized version of the Professional edition of Windows XP. An original equipment manufacturer is free to choose only the components needed thereby reducing operating system footprint and also reducing attack area as compared with XP Professional. Unlike Windows CE, Microsoft's operating system for portable devices and consumer electronics, XP Embedded provides the full Windows API, and support for the full range of applications and device drivers written for Microsoft Windows. The system requirements state that XPe can run on devices with at least 32 MB Compact Flash, 32 MB RAM and a P-200 microprocessor. XPe was released on November 28, 2001. As of October 2008, the newest release is Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 3.

The devices targeted for XPe have included automatic teller machines, arcade games, slot machines, cash registers, industrial robotics, thin clients, set-top boxes, network attached storage(NAS), time clocks, navigation devices, railroad locomotives, etc. Custom versions of the OS can be deployed onto anything but a full-fledged PC; even though XPe supports the same hardware that XP Professional supports (x86 architecture), licensing restrictions prevent it from being deployed on to standard PCs. However, Microsoft has made some exceptions to this rule, allowing XPe alongside a standard OEM install of Windows. Some Dell notebooks contain an embedded XP installation as part of the MediaDirect 2.0 feature, and they were also found on some Acer ones as well as the Samsung Q1.