RARE HISTORICAL PHOTOS

You all know by now that I am a fan of history and, if you don't know that... why haven't you been paying attention?  I feel like I mean nothing to you!

Even if you are inattentive and don't really deserve my affections, you should know that the part of history that fascinates me the most are the alternative points of view to it... those photos and descriptions that tell us what it was like to be there and, perhaps, surprise us with something we didn't know and haven't seen.

A boxing match on board the USS Oregon in 1897. Albert Einstein looking fabulous. Here's his report card! Samurai taken between 1860 and 1880. A shell shocked reindeer looks on as World War II planes drop bombs on Russia in 1941 Roy O. and Walt Disney on the day they opened Disney Studios. Che Guevara. The Microsoft staff in 1978. The last known Tasmanian Tiger photographed in 1933.  The species is now extinct. A different angle taken of "Tank Man," the man who stood against a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square. He is standing in the street between the tree trunk and the fleeing man. You can see the tanks approaching from the right. Winston Churchill out for a swim. The London sky following a bombing and dogfight between British and German planes in 1940. Martin Luther King, Jr removes a burned cross from his yard in 1960. The boy is his son. Google begins. Nagasaki, 20 minutes after the atomic bombing in 1945. A Native American overlooking the newly completed transcontinental railroad in 1868. The Great San Francisco Fire and Earthquake of 1906. A Japanese plane is shot down during the Battle of Saipan in 1944. The original Ronald McDonald -- played by Willard Scott! Hitler in Paris. Grounded aircraft on September 11, 2001 await orders. British SAS back from a three month long patrol of North Africa, January 18, 1943. Disneyland employee cafeteria in 1961. The first McDonalds. Fidel Castro lays a wreath at the Lincoln Memorial. California lumberjacks work on Redwoods. Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife on the day they were assassinated in 1914, an event that helped spark World War I. The 1912 World Series. Bill and Hillary Clinton playing volleyball in 1975. Elvis in the Army. The first photo following the discovery of Machu Pichu in 1912. Child laborers in 1880. New York's Times Square in 1911. Construction of Christ the Redeemer in Rio da Janeiro, Brazil. Steamboats on the Mississippi River in 1907. Leo Tolstoy tells a story to his grandchildren in 1909. The Beatles meet Muhammad Ali. The construction of Disneyland. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the day he received his American citizenship. Fourteen year-old Osama bin Laden.  He's second from the right. Construction of the Statue of Liberty in 1884. Albert Einstein's office, photographed on the day of his death. Charles Godefroy flies his biplane through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on August 7th, 1919. A liberated Jew holds a Nazi at gunpoint. Construction of the Manhattan Bridge in 1908. Construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1888. Construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. Titanic leaves port in 1912. An actual Titanic boarding pass. This is believed to be the last picture taken of Titanic before her sinking. Adolf Hitler's pants after the failed assassination attempt at Wolf's Lair in 1944. The ENIAC, the first computer ever built. John F. Kennedy has a tea party with his daughter, Caroline. Brighton Swimming Club in 1863.  I'm assuming the top hats are not part of their everyday swimwear. Ferdinand Porsche (yes, THAT Porsche) showcasing the Volkswagen Beetle to Adolf Hitler in 1935. The unbroken seal on King Tut's tomb. The headquarters of Benito Musolini and the Italian Fascist party taken in Rome in 1930. Apollo 16 astronaut Charles Duke’s family photo left behind on the moon in 1972. The crew of Apollo 1 rehearsing their water landing in 1966. Sadly, all three astronauts were killed on the launch pad in a fire. The first Wal-Mart. Neil Armstrong Buzz Aldrin after walking on the moon's surface. Mount Rushmore as it appeared in its more natural state. Stalin goofing around. Henry Ford (the founder of Ford Motor Co.), Thomas Edison (inventor of the phonograph, motion picture camera and the practical light bulb), Warren G. Harding (29th president of USA) and Harvey Samuel Firestone (founder of Firestone Tire and Rubber Co.) lounging together. Eleven year-old Adolf Hitler. A view of Boston in 1860 taken from a hot air balloon. Pope Pio XII meets with Hitler. Hitler's bunker. The cast and creator of Star Trek stand in front of the first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, in 1979. Bread and soup during the Great Depression. The only photograph of a living Quagga from 1870.  This species is now extinct. German air raid on Moscow in 1941. A crash on board an aircraft carrier sometime during World War II. Dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The first photo taken in space from 1946. An airman being captured by Vietnamese civilians in Truc Bach Lake, Hanoi in 1967 The airman is John McCain. George S. Patton's dog mourning his lost master on this day of his death. General Custer and his men during the American Civil War. Manfred von Richthofen, aka “The Red Baron”, petting his dog on an airfield. Souce: http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2013/march/rare_historical_photos.htm

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How to Solve (your computer is low on memory)

Methods to fix low virtual memory on Windows computer:

1. Close documents and apps currently unused.

If you open a lot of documents and applications in the meantime, there will be not enough memory for you to run other programs in the computer. Consequently, close the documents and apps which are unused currently and you probably can go on execute the task stopped by low virtual memory.

2. Restart the computer.

The memory resources occupied by some programs may not be returned to the computer system after the programs were exited. Therefore, you have to restart your PC to release the system resources, and run a program or the interrupted task after restarting.

3. Delete the program and reinstall it.

If other programs can run normally in the computer except for the program you are using, you may consider that this program is damaged. So you can remove the program and reinstall it, then run it again in your computer to see whether it works without problem.

4. Adjust system configuration when there are many programs running automatically.

The concrete method is to set Normal startup in System Configuration, which can be finished by the 3 steps below.

Step 1: Open Run dialog box by pressing WIN key and R key in the meantime, type msconfig in the empty box and tap OK to open System Configuration window.

Step 2: In General, select Normal startup and click OK, as shown in the following screen shot.

Step 3: Tap Restart in the following interface.

5. Set Automatically manage paging file size for all drives in System Properties.

If you manually set virtual memory or disable virtual memory in your computer, you may also get the error message. In this case, you can let the system automatically manage paging file size for all drives through the following steps.

Step 1: Open System Properties.

Step 2: As the System Properties window appears, in Advanced options, click Settings in Performance.

Step 3: In the next interface, select Advanced and tap Change under Virtual memory.

Step 4: Check the box before Automatically manage paging file size for all drives and click OK.

Step 5: Tap OK to restart the computer.

6. Increase the available disk space.

Suppose there is not enough space on the hard drives where the virtual memory paging files are, the error message may also emerge. Therefore, increasing the available disk space is another way to solve the problem. As for how to increase disk space, you can use the methods below.

Method 1: Empty the Recycle Bin.

You can right-click Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin in the context menu.

Method 2: Delete files which are never used.

Method 3: Remove the expired files and those have been archived in all the disks.

Method 4: Use Disk Cleanup to delete unnecessary files, temporary files and so on.

You can refer to the following steps.

Step 1: Open Computer/ My Computer.

Step 2: Right-click a hard drive and select Properties.

Step 3: In General, tap Disk Cleanup button, as the following picture exhibits.

Step 4: Wait for the Disk Cleanup to calculate the space to be released.

Step 5: After the Disk Cleanup window turns up, check the boxes before the files you want to delete and clickOK to move on.

Step 6: In the next window, tap Delete Files button to permanently delete the files selected.

7. Remove computer virus.

When the computer is affected by computer viruses, the error message mentioned at the beginning may turn up. So, you need to apply the latest and effective antivirus software to remove computer viruses as soon as possible.

8. Use memory optimization software.

This kind of software can be applied to automatically clear clipboard, release the memory occupied by some closed programs, reorganize virtual memory file, etc.

To make a conclusion, if your windows 8 computer is low on virtual memory, the above methods enable you to settle the problem quickly and effectively.

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Top Best Blogging Platforms

Blogging, as an online activity has witnessed tremendous surge in the past few years and it still holds a bright outlook for the future. Blogging has put power into the hands of online users to publish their skills, expertise and thoughts on the web. Although the rise of social media has seen blogging to fall a bit out of fashion, it still remains an essential part of online communication and manages to engage and educate the online masses. Blogging is still one of the world’s most top online activity.

While online blogging is still considered to be technically demanding, it doesn’t require technical skills in abundance. The presence of multiple online blogging platforms have made the act an easy and undemanding one. You would be requiring just the basic operating skills and little to no cash to get started on your blogging and online publishing journey.

Here we will be covering the best blogging platforms and comparing WordPress vs Blogspot vs Tumblr vs Quora Vs Medium to let you decide which one is for you.

What are blogging platforms and why you’d need one?

Blogging on the web from scratch would require some deeper understanding of HTML/CSS, Javascript and much more, which could simply be worked around with the use of a blogging platform. Blogging platforms provide you with the essential set of tools and functionalities that let you publish your content online, with little to no coding skills. These platforms provide minimum to a lot of customization options to let your blog reflect your ideas and content. You would be needing the assistance of such blogging platforms to let you worry less about that line of CSS messing the website layout, to concentrate more on your content, educating your audience and building a strong online brand.

These blogging platforms are in use by over thousands of online brands and Fortune 500 companies. Having your own space on the internet means a lot and it lets you empower the world with your skills, experience and knowledge. You might be needing one if you own a small business, want to build your online presence or to just dive into blogging and put your first few words on the internet for others to read. Whatever your case might be, having a powerful blogging platform handy will cut down your time tinkering with the website, and let you concentrate on what you’re writing.

The rise of Blogging Platforms

Below screenshot sheds some light on the rise of the popularity of online blogging platforms over time. From what is seen below, Tumblr has quickly picked up pace in 2009’s and has never looked back since then, beating WordPress and Blogspot by a fair margin. After Tumblr was sold to Yahoo for $1.1 Billion to Yahoo, the network has seen some ups-and-downs, but still owns a fair share of the market.

This rise in Blogging platforms has been fairly due to the trust and dependence of online readers on their fellow online counterparts with some experience and knowledge on the subject. 81% of customers in US trust the advice and information from blogs and it simply puts forth how valued blogs are among internet users.

Now that we’ve established the impetus of blogging in the internet age, below we will be taking a look at the Top 5 Best Blogging platform to get started in 2015.

WordPress

WordPress is arguably one of the most popular online blogging platforms, first released in 2003. Powering more than 60 Million online websites, 23.3% of the top 10 Million blogs are powered by WordPress. WordPress.org offers a free script that can be installed on your online server, although most of the online hosting providers come pre-installed with a variant of WordPress. For others who prefer it clean and simple, but with less customization options could opt for WordPress.com. This is a clean and free web-based network. With a plethora of developers and designers readily available for this service, WordPress community is one of the largest ones for your online blogging requirements.

Tons of functionalities come binding with its original installation, although it can be moulded as per personal requirements with the available plugins, themes, widgets and much more. WordPress offers a powerful scalable solution ranging from a single person blog to a major media outlet. WordPress is best suited for both individual bloggers and professional mainstream media publications with hundreds of authors and thousands of blog posts. Everyone including the internet marketer, social media guru, a small business and individuals requiring an online presence can make the most of this free service.

WordPress.org requires you to have some basic understanding of how the web servers and the installation process works. Although you can set one up under 5 minutes, WordPress.org self-hosted blog demands some technical skill requiring uploading of files to a web server using FTP and such. WordPress.com doesn’t require much technical skill from you and you can get started right away with a simple registration.

Pros

• Completely customizable
• Scalable  (up-to a certain extent)
• Huge community support
• Tons of Plugins and Themes

Cons

• Becomes highly complicated once scaled

WordPress is best suited for

• Individual bloggers
• Publishers
• Businesses
• Sophisticated websites

Blogspot

Blogger, formerly Blogpost is Google’s own publishing platform, bought from Pyra Labs back in 2003. One of the earliest blogging platforms, Blogger only requires your Google account credentials to get started on your free online blog. You can start your online blog on Blogger for free, even without a domain name, by hosting on their  free (.blogspot.com) domain. The simplicity of the setup and scalability of the network makes Blogspot rank consistently top among online blogging platforms. With easy integration of AdSense into your Blogspot account, you can quickly get started on even generating some side income through your writings.

Blogspot is best suited for individual and lifestlye bloggers, although it should just do well enough for all other online bloggers. Many authors make use of Blogspot for their online presence and it is justifiable. This platform requires no previous coding knowledge and their drag-and-drop functionality lets you to customize your blog the way you feel, without messing with the code. Blogspot blogs are mainly focused for individuals and they can’t be treated as a business entities, meaning you can’t sell or resell them legally on the web.

Although a little popular in this era, it is still preferred by users for its hardwired cool features of Google and its products like AdSense and Analytics.

Pros

• Easy to get started
• Plain interface
• Hardwired with Google AdSense and Analytics

Cons

• Not suited for full-fledged websites
• Everything owned by Google
• Can’t sell or resell the blog

Blogspot is best suited for

• Individual bloggers
• Authors
• First time online publishers

Tumblr

Tumblr is a widely popular online blogging platform that appeals to the younger masses. Powering over 220 Million blogs and over 100 Billion blog posts, Tumblr takes less than a minute to let you get started on your online blogging journey. Tumblr is a fusion between a full-fledged blog and Twitter. Tumblr is more about micro-blogging, the blogging of short form and frequent updates, multiple times in a day.

Tumblr is well suited to online users who aren’t looking for a long-term commitment into the time-consuming blogging industry. Tumblr is widely popular among the youth and they are the ones this network is best suited for. Tumblr is a must have weapon in your blogging arsenal, if you cater to the younger generations. Combined with notes and favorites, Tumblr is a powerful micro-blogging platform that will help you get  started on one within a few minutes. With a strong social following and a decent mobile app to accompany it, Tumblr is a great free tool to get started on micro-blogging and see for yourselves if blogging is for you.

Pros

• Micro-blogging fusion of Twitter and full-fledged blog
• Simple interface and easy to get started

Cons

• Owned by Yahoo, ads might be on their way
• Not good for long article blogging
• 
  

Tumblr is best suited for

• Young bloggers
• Micro-bloggers
• Image and short-text centered writers or bloggers.

Medium

Medium is a fairly new blogging platform, started in 2012 by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Medium is a social journalism platform that doesn’t offer much customizations. The platform provides a full-featured WYSIWYG text editor to write your content and post it online. Posts can also be up-voted or Favorited just like in Digg and Reddit. Cleanliness and minimalism are widely appreciated on the web these days and less clutter and more readable content is what Blogs are quickly morphing into to catch the attention of their readers. Medium is based on just all of those features, enabling your readers to read your content on their beautiful minimalistic platform.

The community interactions, in-built analytics, great SEO and beautiful layout make Medium one of the most powerful online blogging platforms for you to make use of in 2015.  Its lack of customization is the only drawback, rest all place this network among the top blogging platforms. Medium is a great platform for individual bloggers who want to get their content read by as many people as possible. With support for long form articles, you can publish your content at Medium without any painful pop-ups, widgets and advertisements.

You would be needing no technical skills to get started on Medium and the registration will get you quickly to your editor for submitting a new post. If you are one of those bloggers who doesn’t prefer distractions to their readers, Medium is a great platform to try out your online blogging skills before self-hosting one.

Pros

• Clean and minimalistic interface
• Easy-to-read and Write layout
• Great social community
• Potentially very large audience

Cons

• No customizations
• Poor content discovery feature

Medium is best suited for

• As a secondary blog for Writers
• Freelance writers and authors
• Industry professionals

Quora

Quora is one of the widely popular question and answer website and it had started online user blogs back in January 2012. Quora is a popular website among the industry professionals and knowledgeable and experienced people. This network is best suited for the above mentioned people, who already possess some amount of authority in their respective industry. The average Quora writer witnesses over 30,000 monthly views and this is a great platform to establish and online audience using your expertise and authority. With over 300,000 topics to choose from, you can get started on any one of your choice and make it discover-able by using tags.

Quora has a string of interesting questions and answers and its vaguely qualified users have answers to all sort of your questions. Quora’s blogging platform does not allow much customizations, so it isn’t entirely your space on the web. You can use this network primarily for establishing or expanding your online presence and reach. Well suited as a secondary blog, Quora is a free blogging platform mainly useful for influencers to increase their online presence.

Pros

• Strong and active community
• Interesting content

Cons

• Lack of customization
• Not suited for personal blogging

Quora as a blogging platform is best suited for

• Industry professionals
• People with some established authority
• As a secondary blog for influencers

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OnePlus 3 Everything you need to know

The OnePlus 3 has officially launched. We now know all of the major details about the new handset so here’s the full list of OnePlus 3 specs:

• 5.5-inch screen
• 1,920 x 1,080 pixel display (401ppi)
• Dimensions: 152.7 x 74.7 x 7.4mm
• Weight: 158 grams
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor
• Adreno 530 GPU
• 6GB RAM
• 64GB storage (32GB variant may be offered in some markets)
• 16MP main camera
• 8MP selfie camera
• USB-C port (Dash Charge 5V/4A)
• 3,000mAh battery
• Fingerprint scanner
• NFC
• Dual-SIM
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Oxygen OS (Android 6.0.1)

ONEPLUS 3 SPECS

The OnePlus 3 comes a robust 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. In terms of processing power, the new handset packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chip – the same processor that can be found in many top-end handsets, including US versions of the Galaxy S7. That should ensure some seriously speedy performance, especially in combination with the 6GB of RAM.

And when it comes to the display, there's lots to be excited about. Although OnePlus has kept the resolution at 1080p, the 5.5-inch screen is now made using AMOLED technology. That means each individual pixel emits its own light, as opposed to LCD, which uses a backlight to illuminate the pixels. It should result in deeper blacks, more vibrant colours, and better energy efficiency.

The 5.5-inch screen is the same form factor as the iPhone 6S Plus, which means it’s near the top-end of what most people are willing to hold. Unfortunately, the Full HD display won’t be as VR-capable as QHD rivals, like the Galaxy S7.

Still, it's great to see OLED tech finally make it to the OnePlus series and the Full HD display and 401ppi density is going to offer more than enough sharpness for the average user.

ONEPLUS 3 – CAMERA

OnePlus has also loaded its new handset with a 16-megapixel rear camera. That's more than the Galaxy S7 but, as we've seen with several phones this year, more pixels doesn't always mean better photos. We'll have to wait until we get our hands on a review model to see how the OnePlus 3 camera stacks up against others on the market.

The new sensor also features optical image stabilisation (OIS), which should make for sharper shots.

We've seen a number of official camera samples from OnePlus in the run up to the OnePlus 3 launch. Bear in mind that these images may have been taken on pre-production models, and thus aren't necessarily representative of the final product

On the front of the OnePlus 3 you'll find an 8MP selfie shooter, which, again, is more megapixels than you'll find on top-end handsets such as the S7, but as always, we'll have to wait until we can put the sensor through its paces to see what that amounts to in practice.

ONEPLUS 3 SOFTWARE – ANDROID 6.0, CERTAINLY NOT ANDROID N

The OnePlus 3 is going to run Android 6.0.1 with OnePlus' Oxygen OS skin overlaid. Thankfully OnePlus has always done this well in the past, adding just enough new software tweaks to keep it fresh without taking away from what makes Android great.

The release comes far too soon for Android N, which is set to be the next version of Google’s OS. You can install N on a bunch of Nexus device right now, but it’s very much a beta and won’t hit consumer devices until later in 2016.

ONEPLUS 3 – BATTERY LIFE

The OnePlus 2 offered a formidable day-and-a-half of usage between charges, which is par for the course with flagship phones.

That was thanks to a 3,300mAh battery, paired with reasonably efficient components like a Full HD display and the Snapdragon 810. The OnePlus 3 has a slightly smaller 3,000mAh battery, but seeing as it hasn't made the jump to a QHD or 4K panel, we’d expect to see similar battery life once again.

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Websites to Download Free Textures & Patterns

As a creative designer, I feel the need myself. Skimming through tens of hundreds of textures from various sources every time when I need specific textures is repetitive. So, today I have collected 11 best websites where I can download quality texture resources and can go back to them when I need any specific textures  I hope this collection will also be useful to you.

There are also several design blogs that offer free texture packs, for example you can see our textures and backgrounds section where you’ll find a number of high quality textures.

Importantly, each website / blog listed below has its own terms of use. So, you are requested to check their license carefully before downloading and using their textures / patterns in your designs and prints.

Lost and Taken

Lost and taken is a blog dedicated to free textures. Run by Caleb Kimbrough, the blog offers various textures in the categories of paper, grunge, wood, scratched, metal and more.

BittBox

Bittbox offers royalty free textures that can be used for both personal and commercial projects. It also provides occasional articles and giveaways.

Subtle Patterns

Curated by Atle Mo, Subtle Patterns provides high quality tilable textured patterns free for use by designers and developers.

Texture King

Texture King is another website providing high quality free stock textures.

Deviant Art

Deviant Art is a popular design community where there are a number of design resources available for free. In addition to showcasing and selling their works, various designers and artists from across the world share their free textures and patterns to the members and non-members all the world over.

Grunge Textures

This site provides high quality background textures for photographers, digital arts and creative designers. Free textures are available in 900×600 px size, and higher resolution textures can be purchased for a small fee. They also sell texture bundles for a discounted price.

Mayang Textures

Their texture library has over 4350 free to download, high-resolution textures. Also, you can buy every texture on this website for $33.

Texture Mate

TextureMate is run by Bill Scott, a photography hobbyist who photographs textures and release them free on this site. The site also features free bundles of patterns and brushes. Nice collection!

CG Textures

This site has a large number of textures. However, before you download the textures, you should carefully read their FAQ and License pages.

Free Stock Textures

They have hundreds of category-wise textures. They also have colors option where you have find textures based on colors.

Background Labs

Background Labs specializes in a variety of free background tilable patterns. You can browse patterns by colors and categories.

Free Seamless Textures

This site has a growing collection of seamless textures, backgrounds and patterns for your web and graphic design projects.

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How To Make An Impressive User Interface with Qualities

User interface is that thing, which makes the interaction between the user and the application or a website. So making it perfectly is very important for every software designer. There are some important facts in this regard. You will have to remember that creating a perfect user interface does not depend on how the interface looks. The main thing about the user interface is it should be friendly with the user. There will be no complication. More over the look should also have a good look. There are seven simple ways to make a user interface perfect. You will have to follow the instructions to create a perfect interface.



These instructions are given below that will help you to create an awesome user interface :

1. Make it simple:
The user interface you are making should have to be simple. You will have to make the interface clear. There will be no unnecessary button in the interface. You will have to make sure that the user will not need any manual to use it. The interface should have visual clarity and simplicity.

2. No unnecessary data
There will be no unnecessary data in the interface. You will have to make the interface user friendly, but that do not mean that you will keep everything open on the interface. In that case, it will be disgusting for the user. So simplify it, but do not make it simplest.

3. Proper communication with the user
Communication with the user is very necessary. Those who will be using the interface for the first time will not know everything about it. So the buttons you will use in the interface will have to be familiar. You will have to those kinds of buttons, which make the user feel that this button is only for navigation or menu.

4. Make it speedy
Another very important thing about the interface that ot should have proper processing speed. If it takes, too much time for processing the commands, then it will not be welcomed by the users. So the user interface should have to be the speed to make everything in time. If the speed is not good enough, then the users will be boarded at the time of using it.

5. Easy to understand
There will be no complication in the interface. It should be created in such a way that the user will be able to understand everything, if he use only a few minutes for it. You will have to use the same type of interface in every part of the same application. If the interface is different in different places, then it will make the users angry. So try to avoid these types of problems.

6. Make the interface enjoyable
Making the interface good looking is not so important. You will have to make it is such way, which will make the user excited about the application as well as the interface.

7. Data recovery system
There is one saying that “to err is human”. So it is very common making mistakes at the time of using the interface. So you will have to keep systems for recovering data. The deleting system of the interface should have the system of restoring that data. So you will have to create something like the recycle bin in your application. Otherwise recovering data will not be possible for the users.
If you follow all of these, then you will be able to create a great interface. This will make all the users happy and your product famous. The glory will be all yours. Among these instructions, some of those can make clash with the others. You will have to solve those problems and make it perfect and that is the one and only requirements to be a software designer.

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What is the Dark Web and Deep Web?

What is the Dark Web?

The Dark Web is a term that refers specifically to a collection of websites that are publicly visible, but hide the IP addresses of the servers that run them. Thus they can be visited by any web user, but it is very difficult to work out who is behind the sites. And you cannot find these sites using search engines.

Almost all sites on the so-called Dark Web hide their identity using the Tor encryption tool. You may know Tor for its end-user-hiding properties. You can use Tor to hide your identity, and spoof your location. When a website is run through Tor it has much the same effect.

Indeed, it multiplies the effect. To visit a site on the Dark Web that is using Tor encryption, the web user needs to be using Tor. Just as the end user's IP is bounced through several layers of encryption to appear to be at another IP address on the Tor network, so is that of the website. So there are several layers of magnitude more secrecy than the already secret act of using Tor to visit a website on the open internet - for both parties.

Not all Dark Web sites use Tor. Some use similar services such as I2P - indeed the all new Silk Road Reloaded uses this service. But the principle remains the same. The visitor has to use the same encryption tool as the site and - crucially - know where to find the site, in order to type in the URL and visit.

Infamous examples of Dark Web sites include the Silk Road and its offspring. The Silk Road was (and maybe still is) a website for the buying and selling of recreational drugs. But there are legitimate uses for the Dark Web. People operating within closed, totalitarian societies can use the Dark Web to communicate with the outside world. And given recent revelations about US- and UK government snooping on web use.

Dark Web or Deep Web? (Or Deepnet, Invisible Web, or Hidden Web?)

Although all of these terms tend to be used interchangeably, they don't refer to exactly the same thing. An element of nuance is required. The 'Deep Web' refers to all web pages that search engines cannot find. Thus the 'Deep Web' includes the 'Dark Web', but also includes all user databases, webmail pages, registration-required web forums, and pages behind paywalls. There are huge numbers of such pages, and most exist for mundane reasons.

We have a staging version of all of our websites that is blocked from being indexed by search engines, so we can check stories before we set them live. Thus for every page publicly available on this website (and there are literally millions), there is another on the Deep Web. The content management system into which I am typing this article is on the Deep Web. So that is another page for every page that is on the live site. Meanwhile our work intranet is hidden from search engines, and requires a password. It has been live for nearly 20 years, so there are plenty of pages there.
Use an online bank account? The password-protected bits are on the Deep Web. And when you consider how many pages just one Gmail account will create, you understand the sheer size of the Deep Web.

This scale is why newspapers and mainstream news outlets regularly trott out scare stories about '90 percent of the internet' consisting of the Dark Web. They are confusing the generally dodgy Dark Web with the much bigger and generally more benign Deep Web. Mixung up the act of delibarately hiding things, with that of necessarily keeping pages away from search engines for  reasons of security or user experience. 

Wait, what about the 'Dark Internet'?

Confusingly, 'Dark Internet' is also a term sometimes used to describe further examples of networks, databases or even websites that cannot be reached over the internet. In this case either for technical reasons, or because the properties contain niche information that few people will want, or in some cases because the data is private.

A basic rule of thumb is that the phrases 'Dark Web' or 'Deep Web' are typically used by tabloid newspapers to refer to dangerous secret online worlds, the 'Dark Internet' is a boring place where scientists store raw data for research. The Deep Web is a catch-all term for all web pages that are not indexed for search, the others refer to specific things.

How to access the Dark Web

Technically, this is not a difficult process. You simply need to install and use Tor. Go to www.torproject.org and download the Tor Browser Bundle, which contains all the required tools. Run the downloaded file, choose an extraction location, then open the folder and click Start Tor Browser. That's it. The Vidalia Control Panel will automatically handle the randomised network setup and, when Tor is ready, the browser will open; just close it again to disconnect from the network.

Depending on what you intend to do on the Dark Web, some users recommend placing tape over your laptop's webcam to prevent prying eyes watching you. A tinfoil hat is also an option.
The difficult thing is knowing where to look. There, reader, we leave you to your own devices and wish you good luck and safe surfing. And a warning before you go any further. Once you get into the Dark Web, you *will* be able to access those sites to which the tabloids refer. This means that you could be a click away from sites selling drugs and guns, and - frankly - even worse things.

Aggregation sites such as Reddit offer lists of links, as do several Wikis, including http://thehiddenwiki.org/  - a list that offers access to some very bad places. Have a quick look by all means, but please don't take our linking to it as an endorsement.
Also, Dark Web sites do go down from time to time, due to their dark nature. But if you want good customer service, stay out of the dark!


And do heed our warning: this article is intended as a guide to what is the Dark Web - not an endorsement or encouragement for you to start behaving in illegal or immoral behaviour.

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