Friday, January 30, 2009

How to memorize words

Use Mnemonic.

Mnemonics - The ultiamte word memorization tricks


Before sitting for the GRE, I sorted out some techniques to remeber a word, called 'MNEMONICS'. Everyone has their own mnemonics. You have to sort out yours.

These are my mnemonics:

1. Never learn a new word by rote learning, means Memorization by repetition. Rather try to visualize a word in your mind. as example, the word 'copse' means 'A dense growth of bushes', now when u think the word copse, close your eyes and visualize it like the bushes u c in the gardens. And also think that, the "copse" also SOUNDS like bushes. Got it?

2. Always interrelate your ideas and find links to remember. Suppose the word "SPLICE" means "to join or tie". Now the word "SLICE" means "Cut into pieces". See the relation between the words "slice" and "splice". They sound very similar but means opposite. Another similar example is " EXTINCT" an " EXTANT". Try to find linkage between words in your own way. Each person has their different and unique way of thinking. Find and use yours. You can relate with your mother tongue language words too.

3. The best way to memorize a word is by learning the word’s ETYMOLOGY (The study of the sources and development of words). In this way you can learn several words at a time.

Like ‘Philanthropist’ and ‘Philanderer’ have the common root ‘Phil-‘(means ‘Love for something’).
While, the meanings are ‘Philanthropist =Someone who makes charitable donations intended to increase human well-being'
'Philanderer= A man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them'
Again, 'Philanthropist' has another root 'Anthropo-' (means ‘human/mankind’)
Some more words from this root are : Anthropology, Anthropomorphic, Anthropoid.

You can learn more words by this means. Well, you can go to http://www.mnemonicdictionary.com or http://www.thefreedictionary.com for word origins or etymology.

4. Always learn at least two words at a a time. When you larn a new word, learn all its synonyms, at least one. You might not remember them but all at once, but eventually it will help.
For now, Philanthropist= altruist, Philanderer= womanizer
In this way if you memorize 3000 words, it becomes 6000. :D

5. Learn the words by listening to the audio.

6. Also try to larn words through pictures. Larning proper nouns by this system is pretty effective. The link:
http://www.ziddu.com/download/1866674/LarnwordsthroughPictures.zip.html

7. Use WORD WEB dictionary. Go to www.download.com and search it. This software rocks.

8. Finally, Practice is the ultimate goal of success in GRE. Unless you practice nothing's gonna help you. It doesn't really matter how strong is your vocabulary part. Because, practice shows us where we are committing mistakes and what are the notches that needs to be filled. I am repeating the dialog verbatim "There is no other way than practice and revise".

Hope you will ‘eat words, drink words, sleep words and dream words’ till you sit for the exam.

Best of luck.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Difference between HTTP and HTTPs

Http is hyper text transfer protocol which is responsible for transmitting and receiving information across the Internet where as https is secure http, which is used exchanging confidential information with a server, which needs to be secured in order to prevent unauthorized access.

HTTP is Hyper Text Transport Protocol and is transmitted over the wire via PORT 80(TCP). You normally use HTTP when you are browsing the web, its not secure, and so someone can eavesdrop on the conversation between your computer and the web server. HTTP can support the client asking for a particular file to be sent only if it has been updated after a certain date and time. This would be used if the client has already retrieved a copy of a file by that name from that server, but wants to check to see if it has been updated since then. The server responds either with the updated file, with a message to say the file has not been changed, or with a message that the file no longer exists.

HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer or HTTP over SSL) is a Web protocol developed by Netscape and built into its browser that encrypts and decrypts user page requests as well as the pages that are returned by the Web server. HTTPS is really just the use of Netscapes Secure Socket Layer (SSL) as a sub layer under its regular HTTP application layering. (HTTPS uses port 443 instead of HTTP port 80 in its interactions with the lower layer, TCP/IP.) SSL uses a 40-bit key size for the RC4 stream encryption algorithm, new-age browsers use 128-bit key size which is more secure than the former, it is considered an adequate degree of encryption for commercial exchange. HTTPS is normally used in login pages, shopping/commercial sites.