Top Tips For PCB Design Layout

Are you thinking about designing a printed circuit board? PCBs are quite complicated, and you need to make sure that the layout that you choose is going to operate as well as you want it to. For this reason, we have put together some top tips for PCB design layout. Keep reading if you would like to find out more about this.

Top Tips For PCB Design Layout

Leave Enough Space

One of the most important design tips for PCB layout is that you need to make sure that you are leaving enough space between the components. While many people might think that packing components closely is the best route to take, this can cause problems further down the line. This is why we suggest leaving extra space for the wires that will spread. This way, you’ll have the perfect PCB design layout.

Print Out Your Layout

Struggling to find out if your components sizes match? Our next tip is to print out your layout and compare the printed version to your actual components. Datasheets can sometimes come with errors, so it doesn’t hurt to double check the sizes in real life. If you take some time to do this, you can be sure that the sizes will match.

Think About Width Of Line

When you are deciding the width of the lines in your PCB design, you should make sure that you are choosing this based on the current. If you have a larger current flowing through the lines, then you should make sure to adapt your design to suit this. There are some online calculators that you can use to help make this decision.

Talk To Your Manufacturer

If you spend a long time working on your PCB design project before you have spoken to a manufacturer then you might find that you come across some problems. You need to find out about any specifications that they might have that could affect the design of your project. Use their guidelines to create your design and you’ll find things a lot simpler further down the line.

Compare Your Schematic

Our final tip for those who want to improve their PCB design layout is to compare the layout to the original schematic. You have spent time working on your schematic for a reason so make sure to utilise the tools that allow you to directly compare these. This way, you can be sure that your layout matches what you need for this particular project.

Final Verdict

If you are going to be working on PCB design project in the near future, make sure to take on board all of the tips that we have given you in this article. Think about leaving enough space between your components and considering the width of your lines. You should also make sure to talk with your manufacturer about their specifications before going ahead with the project. This way you’ll have a successful design that will help to create a working PCB.

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8 Things Every Design Student Needs To Know To Succeed

Are you an artistic designer but a little lost in your creative processes?

Don’t worry as it happens to all of us so that’s why I decided to write this blog.

If you are just starting out on your design career path or just curious for some extra tips then this should give you some needed help.

8 Things Every Design Student Needs To Know To Succeed 1

Organize Yourself

This is something that all design students should learn to master and take control of their own calendar. If you can prioritize your projects and manage all the different deadlines then this will help in the long run. You will be able to concentrate on being creative and not miss targets later on.

There are many great ways to keep track from getting a simple calendar and marking projects and deadlines on it or downloading an app with reminders straight to your phone. Also, a great tip I picked up at Uni was completing boring writing assignments that were getting in the way of my creative time. EssayPro is an essay writing service that I used to finish off my work and left me more free time to concentrate on more important design projects.

Be the King of Estimation

The biggest skill I learned to develop would be overestimating time frames for projects. The more successful design assignments completed the better at this you will become. Every project requires a different amount of time to complete so being able to allow yourself enough time is vital. If you have more time left over you can always start something new or try to improve the project. This will help you later on with your design career when your boss piles on the workload and being able to manage it effectively.

Find your Niche

There are a lot of good designers out there but you should find your special talent or market that you enjoy doing and appealing to. Throughout your career especially at the start, you will have to undertake more mainstream tasks. This is great, I even still do this sometimes when the price is right. It is important to find your inner strength and what work really makes you happy. Also, stay good friends and network with other designers in different fields. You never know when they can help out with a project or to find new work. Either way, keep connections from University and in the future try to make new ones also.

Make a Portfolio to Impress

This is basically your resume for future work. So as soon as possible you should start adding different projects that show off your talents. Depending on which area of design you specialize in will depend on how it will look, for example, a graphic design student portfolio will look different to a senior art director’s portfolio but still vital. I would recommend having an online copy and also a printed physical copy to take to interviews as it can give that ‘wow’ factor if done well. I got some nice tips from Canva on how to put a portfolio together that can turn some heads. Always try to pursue work that interests you as I think this is really important, but if a job is not what you had hoped do not be scared to leave it. This is all experience that you can use and also put in your portfolio.

8 Things Every Design Student Needs To Know To Succeed 2

Stay Motivated

While studying there will be times you will become frustrated and unmotivated to carry on. So it is important to be passionate in your work and find ways to stay motivated. Remember passion fuels creativity, which is so fundamental to design. I used to ask myself what I love doing in design and then remind myself in difficult times. This will help you complete your studies successfully and happily.

Keep the Creativity Going

There will be times that your creativity will start drop, but there are ways in which you can maintain and improve it. Don’t be scared to come up with new ideas to gain more inspiration. If they are not welcome don’t get disheartened, just keep what you learned and move onto the next project. They are all skills that can come in useful later on.

Make Friends with Criticism

You are a design student to learn, and there will be lots of times a teacher or peer will not agree with your point of view and give negative critique on your creations. All criticism should be met with an open mind and take it on board to improve your work in the future. This is something that is very difficult to do at first, I used to get very defensive about my work. Later on, you will be able to discuss things through and realize you can learn a lot from other people.

Keep up with New Trends

This also may depend on which area of design you are involved in, but the idea is the same. If you are a painter then maybe change the style or technique to what’s popular at the time. This makes sure you will be popular and remain successful. Also trying to predict holiday trends can help stay on top of your game even for senior graphic designers. Keep your self-development ongoing by attending courses related to your design area this will make sure you are not ‘out of touch’ with your clients. The world of visual design is always changing so its important to keep up to date with it.

Most Importantly: Don’t forget to Believe in yourself!

I hope these tips helped you out and you succeed in your chosen path. Hard work will always lead you to success. I would be interested to see what tips you picked up, so leave something in the comments section below even if you just want to say hi. Good luck!

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R vs Python for Machine Learning

There are so many things to learn before to choose which language is good for Machine Learning. We will discuss each and everything about R as well as Python and the situation or problem in which situation we have to use which language. Let’s start

Python and R are the two most Commonly used Programming Languages for Machine Learning and because of the popularity of both the languages Novice or you can say fresher are getting confused, whether they should choose R or Python language to commence their career in the Machine learning domain. Don’t worry guys through this article we will discuss R vs Python for Machine Learning. So, without exaggerating this article let’s get started.

We will start it from the very Basics things or definitions.

R vs Python for Machine Learning

Introduction

R is a programming language made by statisticians and data miners for statistical analysis and graphics supported by R foundation for statistical computing. R also provides high-quality graphics and it also has some popular libraries which help in analytical parts such as R Markdown and shiny.

On the other hand, Python is a simple, easy, fully-fledged and object-oriented high programming language which is used for web development or Software Development made by the very good programmers and the developers’ for the use of general purpose programming. Python is far-flung used in GUI based application’s such of them are games, graphics design, Web applications.

So, guys we can say that R programming language functionality is developed by statisticians’ mind, by thereby give us an advantage in a specific field. While python is often praised for being a general-purpose language with an easy-to-understand.

Speed

Let us start from the very first factor, that is the speed of the language.

R vs Python

When it comes to the speed, python is faster than R only till 1000 iterations but after the 1000 iterations, R starts using the lapply function which increases its speed, in that situation R becomes faster than python. So, both have their own advantages with their limits. let move to the next point i.e code and syntax.

Code and Syntax

In this point, we will discuss the data variables declarations, Data handling capacity with the scatterplot visualization and the clusPlot graphics.

R vs Python 2

Starting with variable declaration. Let’s take the case of string here. As R uses the similar implementation to that of the S programming language, which uses arrow sign in order to initialize the variables which were also present in case of S programming. These arrows can be used from right to left or left to right indicating whom to assign the variables whereas, python uses an assignment operator to initialize the variables.

So, Basically, R developers thought that it would be better to tell the direction of the assignment rather than just using an assignment operator, which could actually confuse any new programmer about which variable is assigned. next thing data handling capability, here we will discuss the case of Scatterplots’, by which you will see the visualizations in R and Python.

R vs Python 3

These are the piece of codes in R and Python and after running  these codes, you will get the very similar plot results in both the cases, if you check the code here, then this shows that how R data science ecosystem has many smaller packages like GGally, which basically is a package that helps ggplot2 and also it is the most-used R plotting package whereas, In Python, matplotlib  is the  primary plotting package, and seaborn is widely used layer over the matplotlib. So, these are plots result we were talking about. Graph results of R and Python are both similar, but the only difference is their visualization. So, based on the graph results we can conclude that R has Many packages supporting different method of doing things whereas there is usually one way to do something in python. Moving to the next thing that is graphics.

So, guys here we will discuss the case plots, we already discussed that R was basically built for statistically analysis, so it has many specific libraries for plotting as well. This is the reasons R come up with beautiful graphs and charts whereas python’s main agenda, not for statistical analysis. So, in the early stages of the python packages for data analysis was an issue, but it has improved a lot.

Deep Learning

As you all know almost the majority of the companies are working on Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Deep Learning is the main part of artificial intelligence. So, when it comes to Deep Learning, Python is more versatile then R as it provides more features to deep learning whereas R is new to Deep Learning.

R vs Python 4

R has newly added APIs like Keras and KerasR which are written in Python. So, guys somewhere in your mind, this question might be floating why Keras? Actually, Keras in Python has the capabilities to run over pythons’ strong APIs like tensorflow or Theano or Microsoft’s CNTK we can say that python has the greater advantage here. Till now we learn both are useful in their own areas or terms.

Percentage Switching

R vs Python 5

In the past years of Research, the percentage of switching people R to Python are more as compared to Python to R. Let’s say if 10% people are switching from Python to R then, 20% are switching from R to Python which is double as compared to the before scenario. Next point this about trend community support and jobs.

Trends

R v Python Google Trend

So, guys lets talk about trend according to the google in last 5 years. The R was more in use but after that, we can see Python is in trend because of its popularity it has overall good support of general purpose programming. If we talk about community support:

R vs Python 6

Python and R support are quite similar to each other because python supports Mailing list, User-contributed code documentation, and Stack-overflow. So, basically it has more adoption from developers and programmers whereas R language support as also found at Mailing list, User-contributed documentation, and Active Stack-overflow members So, basically R has more adoption for researchers, DataScientist and Statisticians.

Job Trend

Now, lets talk about the job trend.

R v Python Jobs Trend

This is the google graph of the job trend of Python and R. So, guys this Job Posting of R and Python in past 5 years worldwide whereas Python is asked more in comparison to R. How it is possible? because of its popularity and easy to understand feature. Since python is a very versatile programming language which can be used for majority of the purpose such as web-development, game development, artificial intelligence, data science, statistical analysis, etc, whereas R language used among statisticians and Data miners for developing statistical software and Data analysis which clear us that’s why more job for python than R.

In the end, I would like to say both the programming languages are important with their uses. But as we discussed in the previous section python is booming over the years.

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Agile Software Development Mistakes to Avoid

According to a survey taken of the Scrum Alliance, approximately 70 percent of all groups handling Agile software development believe there are issues present between various internal departments within the company.

The fact is, Agile groups work at a much faster pace. In order to mark progress, they use various markets, and in some cases, this puts staff members in direct conflict with each other.

The disjunction described above among Agile groups, as well as their peers, is a common mistake in the realm of Agile software development. However, there are a number of other reasons that some Agile projects are unsuccessful as well.

You can learn about some of these issues here, and if you have some problems not listed in the article, you can check out DaniWeb software development forum. Knowing what these mistakes are can help you avoid them.

Agile Software Development Mistakes to Avoid

Not Using Customer Input

There is a large number of groups that don’t pay attention to or use the information that is gathered from their customers when creating project designs. It’s smart to use feedback from customers so that you aren’t creating something that’s completely irrelevant.

Improper Training of the Agile Team

According to the Agile Alliance, up to 30 percent of the people who responded to the study mentioned above stated that they were not provided with sufficient training. Some even claimed that they received minimal training on the methodologies used by the company.

Not Being in Sync with Other Departments

Are you in sync with other departments? If you aren’t, you are going to find it virtually impossible to meet the job approximation objectives. This is especially true if the other departments in question are integral to the success of the job or if they are focused on a timeline that isn’t associated with the development group.

Subpar Estimates

Quickness and velocity are essential when it comes to receiving the proper estimates. As a result, you need to be mindful when you are providing your group with practice time. It’s essential to provide accurate estimates before you give any type of compliance promises.

Inadequate Engagement

The majority of members of a group may be working in a remote location from time to time. This makes it much more challenging to have important conversations about important parts of the project that is going on. With that being said, most remote workers are only going to highlight the things that would still be an issue if everyone was working in the same building – inadequate engagement.

The Inability to Conduct the Retrospectives

If you bypass the retrospective step in the Agile software development methodology, you are not providing your bigger group with the opportunity to assess and to enhance their own productivity. This can lead to negative consequences for the entire group.

Minimal Group Effort and Excessive Orders

You should not work with a top-down methodology. Modern Agile leaders are encouraged to work and lead their group members toward a solution, rather than try to make them complete separate jobs on an individual basis.

The Agile Development isn’t Being Supported by the Company Culture

There are far too many companies that have a conflicting culture to the Agile methodology. This is going to result in subpar results for the entire team.

If you want a successful Agile development process, then it is absolutely imperative that you know about the most common mistakes that are made. When you know what these mistakes are, you can take steps to ensure they don’t occur. In the long run, this is going to lead to a much higher rate of success.

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Difference between Primary Key and Foreign Key

A “key” is one of the most basic and important concepts of the Database Management System (DBMS); the keys helps us work easily with the records and the tables in our database by providing us with the ease of accessing and retrieving the data from the table. A primary key is the first key to be understood as it uniquely identifies the particular record of any table. The primary key and foreign key however, must not be confused with each other as they have a completely different definition as well as usage. Here are the differences between the two.

Difference between Primary Key and Foreign Key

Image Source

Difference between Primary Key and Foreign Key

S.no. Primary key Foreign key
1 The primary key of a particular table is the attribute which uniquely identifies every record and does not contain any null value. The foreign key of a particular table is simply the primary key of some other table which is used as a reference key in the second table.
2 A primary key attribute in a table can never contain a null value. A foreign key attribute may have null values as well.
3 Not more than one primary key is permitted in a table. A table can have one or more than one foreign key for referential purposes.
4 Duplicity is strictly prohibited in the primary key; there cannot be any duplicate values. Duplicity is permitted in the foreign key attribute, hence duplicate values are permitted.
5 Example:

Consider the table student, which keeps record of students in a class:

Here, Id is the primary key which uniquely identifies each record in the table “student”

ID NAME Address
101 ABC x
102 DEF y
103 GHI z
104 JKL w
Now, let us consider the table teacher, which records the teachers in the school:

Here Tid or teacher id is the unique primary key, for each record in the table. This table uses the “ID” attribute which is the primary key of the “student” table as its reference key or foreign key to refer to the student the particular teacher teaches, :

TID NAME TAddress ID
1 Priya P 101
2 Riya R 102
3 Sam S 102
4 Tom T 103

Since one student is taught by more than one teachers, the ID attribute (which is the foreign key in this table), contains duplicate values.

The foreign key of one table although is derived from the primary key of the other table, holds completely different characteristics and these differences are crucial which should be taken care of to avoid any errors.

Comment below if you have queries related to primary key vs foreign key.

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Python Web Scraping Tutorial

In this tutorial, we are going to talk about web scraping using python.

Firstly, we have to discuss about what is web scraping technique? Whenever we need the data (it can be text, images, links and videos) from web to our database. Lets discuss where we should need the web scraping in real world.

  1. Nowadays, we have so many competitors in each and every field for surpassing them we need their data from the website or Blogs to know about products, customers and their facilities.
  2. And Some Admin of Particular website, blogs and youtube channel want the reviews of their customers in database and want to update with this In, this condition they use web scraping

There are many other areas where we need web scraping, we discussed two points for precise this article for readers.

Prerequisites:

You just have basic knowledge of python nothing else so, get ready for learning web scraping.

Which technology we should use to achieve web scraping?

We can do this with JavaScript and python but according to me and most of the peoples, we can do it with python easily just you should know the basic knowledge of python nothing else rest of the things we will learn in this article.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial

1. Retrieving Links and Text from Website and Youtube Channel through Web Scraping

  • In this first point, we will learn how to get the text and the links of any webpage with some methods and classes.

We are going to do this beautiful soup method.

1. Install BS4 and Install lxml parser

  • To install BS4 in windows open your command prompt or windows shell and type: pip install bs4
  • To install lxml in windows open your command prompt or windows shell and type: pip install lxml

Note: “pip is not recognized” if this error occurs, take help from any reference.

To install BS4 in ubuntu open your terminal:

  • If you are using python version 2 type: pip install bs4
  • If you are using python version 3 type: pip3 install bs4  

To install lxml in ubuntu open your terminal

  • If you are using python version 2 type: pip install lxml
  • If you are using python version 3 type: pip3 install lxml

2. Open Pycharm and Import Modules

Import useful modules:

import bs4

import requests

Import useful modules

Then take url of particular website for example http://www.thecrazyprogrammer.com

url= "https://www.thecrazyprogrammer.com/"
data=requests.get(url)
soup=bs4.BeautifulSoup(data.text,'htm.parser')
print(soup.prettify())

And now you will get the html script with the help of these lines of code of particular link you provided to the program. This is the same data which is in the page source of the website webpage you can check it also.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 1Python Web Scraping Tutorial 1

Now we talk about find function() with the help of find function we can get the text, links and many more things from our webpage. We can achieve this thing through the python code which is written below of this line:

We just take one loop in our program and comment the previous line.

for para in soup.find('p')
print(para)

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 2

And we will get the first para of our webpage, you can see the output in the below image. See, this is the original website view and see the output of python code in the below image.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 3

Pycharm Output

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 4

Now, if you want all the paragraph of this webpage you just need to do some changes in this code i.e.

Here, we should use find_all function() instead find function. Let’s do it practically

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 5

You will get all paragraphs of web page.

Now, one problem will occur that is the “<p>” tag will print with the text data for removing the <p> tag we have to again do changes in the code like this:

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 6

We just add “.text” in the print function with para. This will give us only text without any tags. Now see the output there <p> tag has removed with this code.

With the last line we have completed our first point i.e. how we can get the data (text) and the html script of our webpage. In the second point we will learn how we get the hyperlinks from webpage.

2. How to Get All the Links Of Webpage Through Web Scraping

Introduction:

In this, we will learn how we can get the links of the webpage and the youtube channels also or any other web page you want.

All the import modules will be same some changes are there only that changes are:

Take one for loop with the condition of anchor tag ‘a’ and get all the links using href tag and assign them to the object (you can see in the below image) which taken under the for loop and then print the object. Now, you will get all the links of webpage. Practical work:

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 7

You will get all the links with the extra stuff (like “../” and “#” in the starting of the link)

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 8

  • There is only some valid links in this console screen rest of them are also link but because of some extra stuff are not treating like links for removing this bug we have to do change in our python code.
  • We need if and else condition and we will do slicing using python also, “../” if we replace it with our url (you can see the url above images) i.e.  https://www.thecrazyprogrammer.com/, we will get the valid links of the page in output console let see practically in below image.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 9

In the above image we take the if condition where the link or you can say that the string start with the “../” start with 3 position of the string using slice method and the extra stuff like “#” which is unuseful for us that’s why we don’t  include it in our output and we used the len() function also for printing the string to the last and with the prefix of our webpage url are also adding for producing the link.

In your case you can use your own condition according to your output.

Now you can see we get more than one link using if condition. We get so many links but there is also one problem that is we are not getting the links which are starting with “/” for getting these links also we have to do more changes in our code lets see what should we do.

So, we have to add the condition elif also with the condition of “/” and here also we should give “#” condition also otherwise we will get extra stuff again in below image we have done this.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 10

After putting this if and elif condition in our program to finding all the links in our particular webpage We have got the links without any error you can see in below image how we increased our links numbers since the program without the if and elif condition.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 11

In this way we can get all the links the text of our particular page or website you can find the links in same manner of youtube channel also.

Note: If you have any problem to getting the links change the conditions in program as I have done with my problem you can use as your requirement.

So we have done how we can get the links of any webpage or youtube channel page.

3. Log In Facebook Through Web Scraping

Introduction

In this method we can login any account of facebook using Scraping.

Conditions: How we can use this scarping into facebook because the security of Facebook we are unable to do it directly.

So, we can’t login facebook directly we should do change in url of facebook like we should use m.facebook.com or mbasic.facebook.com url instead of http://www.facebook.com because facebook has high security level we can’t scrap data directly.

Let’s start scrapping.

This Is Webpage Of m.facebook.com URL

Let’s start with python. So first import all these modules:

import http.cookiejar

import urllib.request

import requests

import bs4

Then create one object and use cookiejar method which provides you the cookie into your python browser.

Create another object known as opener and assign the request method to it.

Note: do all the things on your risk don’t hack someone id or else.

Cj=http.cookiejar.Cookiejar()
Opener=urllib.request.build_opener(urllib.request.HTTPcookieProcessor)
Urllib.request.install_opener(opener)
Authentication_url=""

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 12

After this code, you have to find the link of particular login id through inspecting the page of m.facebook.com and then put the link into under commas and remove all the text after the login word and add “.php” with login word now type further code.

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 13

payload= {
	'email':"xyz@gmail.com",
	'pass':"(enter the password of id)"
}

After this use get function give one cookie to it.

Data=urllib.parse.urlencode(payload).encode('utf-8')
Req=urllib.request.Request(authentication_url,data)
Resp=urllib.request.urlopen(req)
Contents=resp.read()
Print(contents)

Python Web Scraping Tutorial 14

With this code we will login into facebook and the important thing I have written above also do it all things on your risk and don’t hack someone.

We can’t learn full concept of web scraping through this article only but still I hope you learned the basics of python web scrapping.

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Tips for Secure Programming and Coding

While security has always been a concern for individuals and companies online, today this is more true now than ever. Hacks and data breaches are skyrocketing and hundreds of millions of people are being compromised every year. While this happens to big businesses, it can also happen to small entities or even individuals as well.

As a result, it is more important to ensure the code you or your company is writing remains secure. While it is impossible to avoid every potential attack, hack or data breach, you can try your best to prepare. While things such as testing frequently and using passwords can help, they are far from the only ways to secure your code. With that in mind, this article is going to look at a few tips for secure programming and coding.

Tips for Secure Programming and Coding

Utilize Log Management

Whether you have programmed an app or a piece of software, it is important to monitor it going forward after the initial coding is done. Without any sort of monitoring, you may not be any the wiser if someone hacks you. As a result, using a service or tool like log management and monitoring is important. Logs are a time-stamped documentation of events that are related to a particular system.

Log management allows you to analyze and store these logs and show you trends or events in the system. So if something unexpected occurs within your code or piece of software, you will be able to figure out where that occurred and what happened. As you could imagine, this is very helpful when it comes to both security and compliance.

There are many different log management platforms, tools, and services out there, so be sure to do some research to find the right one. Sites like DNSstuff offer reviews of different tools, so you can decide which is the right one for your needs.

Restrict Access

Restrict Access

While being liberal with handing out access can help ensure no roadblocks are encountered in the future, security is more important. Unfortunately, the more people that have access to your code, the higher the chance that something becomes compromised. This is because most data breaches are actually a result of human error, so be careful with how much access you provide to employees.

Only those who are actively working on the code should have access to it. Give people the smallest amount of access they need to do the job. There are a number of different ways you can control or restrict access. This gives data owners and businesses a lot of flexibility for choosing who they want to provide access to.

Consider Adding Delays to Code

While many people think of a hack or data breach involving a single individual trying to “crack the code,” this isn’t often the case. Oftentimes, these criminals will rely on powerful computers to relentlessly try and access your code, systems or files. They can do this either by continuously posing as a user trying to access or by trying billions of different password combinations.

One thing you can do to combat these efforts is to add some delays to your code. This delay will help slow these bots down to a half, without affecting the experience of actual humans. There are different ways you can do this, such as adding slight delay with each incorrect log-in attempt.

Hopefully, this article has been able to help you learn how to program and code in a more secure manner. Protecting your code and making sure it works and is secure is paramount to being successful in the space.

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OpenVPN vs PPTP vs L2TP – VPN Protocols Comparison

You realize that you need a VPN. The decision that you have to make is if you want to set up a VPN or if you want to use a VPN provider. If you go the provider route, the provider may ask you to choose the protocol you want. Or if you set up a VPN, you need to know which protocol you will use. In this article we are going to take a look at some of the more popular protocol standards to help you get an idea of which one you should consider using.

VPN

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PPTP

This is a popular standard for VPN connections. It’s going to be difficult for you to find a VPN provider that does not offer PPTP connections. PPTP is Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol. This VPN protocol first came on the scene back in 1995, although its development dates back more than a decade before it’s public release.

PPTP was designed based on the previous PPP standard. The PPP standard did not have a safe tunneling feature. When it was first introduced, PPTP was a Windows system protocol. However, it quickly became popular as a VPN protocol being used on a variety of platforms.

As a VPN protocol, PPTP laid out the guidelines that guaranteed that VPN client to VPN server communications were secure and were handled correctly.

With PPTP, the client creates a connection known as the tunnel. All of your online data and online traffic travels through this tunnel where it is secured and encrypted simultaneously. It is able to create a secure server connection with only the server address, password, and username. PPTP works across a number of platforms. It can be used on multiple operating systems and devices. PPTP will use General Routing Encapsulation, IP port 47 and TCP port 1723.

PPTP supports voluntary tunneling as well as compulsory tunneling. Voluntary tunneling is where the tunneling is initiated by the client. This means that ISP bridge support is not needed. Compulsory tunneling is where the tunneling is initiated by the PPTP server. Therefore, network access server support and broader access service support is required.

PPTP

PPTP was considered to be exceptionally secure. That is not the case today. There is documentation to support the fact that agencies working with the US government, including the NSA, have been able to crack PPTP traffic. This, along with other known security vulnerabilities, makes PPTP a prime target for hackers.

PPTP makes it possible to have a fast connection. This allows you to use a VPN without significantly lowering your online speeds. For a simplified explanation of how VPNs work check this.

OpenVPN

OpenVPN

OpenVPN creation stems back to the year 2002. It was initially founded by James Yonan. This protocol has become exceptionally popular because it supports the major operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. It also works well with mobile platforms, including Android and iOS.

The reason why a person wants a VPN security protocol is because they want a high level of security. OpenVPN excels at this. One of the reasons is its 256 bit encryption thanks to OpenSSL. OpenVPN is not only secure, but it is also flexible and works well with third-party software. There are a number of OpenVPN providers that use this protocol to make commercially available VPNs for clients and users.

OpenVPN can take advantage of two different protocols, which are UDP and TCP. TCP, also known as Transmission Control Protocol, is popular and commonly used thanks to its dependability, reliability, and ability to correct errors.

OpenVPN is a protocol that is commonly used to bypass encryption firewalls. One of the great examples of this is the Great Firewall in China. The OpenVPN protocol has been able to circumnavigate DPI, also known as Deep Packet Inspection, which is commonly used in China. DPI is a monitoring technology that is designed to inspect passing traffic in real-time. However, OpenVPN can cloak traffic.

One of the biggest benefits of OpenVPN is the fact that it is open source. Other VPN protocols are owned by mega companies. The OpenVPN protocol is open, freely available for modification, and is backed by a large community that is active in filing bug reports, allowing developers to improve the source code as well as to create regular updates.

L2TP

L2TP

L2TP also known as Layer 2 Tunnel Protocol. It is a VPN protocol that does not have encryption. That’s why you will commonly see it referred to as L2TP/IPsec, with the IPsec providing the encryption. L2TP protocol is built into most desktop operating systems as well as the operating systems of mobile devices. This makes it relatively easy to implement.

A downside is that since it uses UDP port 500, L2TP cannot be disguised on other ports like you can with OpenVPN. As a result, L2TP is a lot easier to block and is not as effective at getting around firewalls as other forms of VPN protocols.

In theory, IPsec should be secure. However, it is rumored that the NSA has weakened this encryption standard. Of course, there’s no way to know for sure. However, you couple this with the fact that L2TP is a slower protocol because the traffic must first be converted into L2TP and then encrypted with IPsec and it is clear to see why this is not the fastest VPN protocol on the market.

Which Option Is Best?

The answer is going to vary depending on why you want to use the VPN. However:

  • OpenVPN is generally considered to be your best bet. This is the same protocol used for most free VPNs. It is fast, secure, and flexible. It is going to work for you regardless of the operating system you use or the platform you use.
  • PPTP is going to be easy for you to set up, and it is going to give you a fast connection. That being said, it is insecure.
  • L2TP/IPSec is an improvement from PPTP. But since it is a two-step process, it is slower and the security of it is questionable.

Which protocol do you use for your VPN? We would love to hear from you. Let us know your thoughts the comment section below.

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Helpful Tips to Make Your New App More Secure

Up to 92 percent of all apps available today have security weaknesses or flaws that can be easily exploited by nefarious cyber-criminals. If you are creating an app or planning to launch one in the near future, then making sure it is secure is a must. After all, there’s no one who wants to use an insecure app.

While using the services of third party service providers, like https://thinkwgroup.com/, is a great start, there are other steps you need to take to achieve a level of true security. Keep reading to learn what you can do to safeguard all the hard work you have done.

Helpful Tips to Make Your New App More Secure

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Ground Up Protection

When it comes to any type of software project, including apps, you need to make sure that security is the main priority from the very first day you begin working on it. However, it is crucial to remember, a native app is extremely different from a web application.

If you have a web application, software and data are found exclusively on a service and the client-side is essentially just an interface. However, with a native app, the code that is found on the device after it has been downloaded makes it much more accessible to individuals who have any type of malicious intent.

There are quite a few vulnerabilities that are present in the source code of the app. However, that isn’t where the majority of businesses focus the security dollars. Data and network security components are both vital elements of the bigger security picture. While this is true, the security has to begin with your actual app.

There is a wide array of reasons that vulnerabilities may occur, ranging from your failure to test your code, a developer error, or that your app has become the target of a hacker.

Back End Security

Cloud servers and servers that your apps APIs are accessing (a third party’s or your own) need to have set security practices in place to provide adequate protection for data and to help and prevent any unauthorized access.

The APIs, along with those who are accessing them, need to be verified. This can help to prevent cases of eavesdropping on ay type of sensitive information that may be passing from the app’s database and server to the client.

Utilize a Smart Encryption Policy for Mobile Device Use

Although it was stated above, it is a good idea to mention it again – much more of an app’s data and code will have to be stored on your device than with a typical web app.

Why?

Because you are now accounting for the often-varying bandwidth, performance, and the quality of the devices being used. With more data being stored locally on devices (regardless of if it is temporarily or permanently), it’s going to be more vulnerable.

A “leaky” app may release your customer’s data without them being aware of the problem. This is done with mobile data points that have been collected or entered in the background, such as usage habits for the device, location, and age.

Security is a Must-Have for Any App

If you want a secure app, you have to take steps to ensure this happens. There are more than a few methods you can use to ensure security but be sure to keep the tips and information here in mind. While the professionals can offer some layer of help, it’s also important that you take your own security steps to minimize the possibility of problems when actual users begin accessing the app that you have created.

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Programming Languages for Students

You do not have to enroll for a Computer Science degree to start doing some programming or coding. As a student, you can learn some programming languages that can help you achieve your dreams while still in school. Students can also make pocket money from coding. In this post, we will talk about the different programming languages that are fit for students.

There are various resources students can use to start their first steps in learning the programming languages of their choice. There is no need for spending more funds to learn coding and programming as a student. If children can learn to program, why not you? By making good use of the free programming courses and classes, you can begin your journey to becoming a sought-after programmer in the future.

However, if you feel that the free resources will not suffice your programming needs, you can go for a paid course. They are more extensive, and if you like, a one-on-one class will help you ask questions whenever you need. You may want to set apart time in the evening or on weekends to take advantage of the one-on-one classes. Regardless of the choice you make, you can learn any programming language you want.

Programming Languages for Students

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Here are some of the programming languages that students can learn:

1. PHP

If I said that PHP is an easy language to learn, people would say it is wrong. And I cannot say it is the best. The aim of learning any given programming language is to meet your needs and solve the problems at hand. As a student, learning PHP will help you in various ways. But as long as you understand simple English, you can easily get along with coding in PHP.

PHP is a robust programming language developers use in creating web apps and websites. As a student, learning PHP will enable you to create WordPress plugins and make money out of it. Freelance web developers also earn good money completing big projects for companies. You can as well tap into the global economy and become a developer once you learn PHP.

2. Python

As a high school or college student, you may want to create a program to help you in completing your homework. Python is relatively simple and fast to learn. It is, however robust enough to run numerous computations and calculations to give you the desired results in the shortest time possible.

If you want to become a future developer, python can also help you learn to create industry-standard websites. Many modern websites rely on frameworks to deliver high-quality content and create solutions for the needs of their visitors. Some of these frameworks (Django, Flask, etc) are built on Python.

You need the skills in Python to create such websites for your personal projects or as a motivation for your future developments. You can also sell your Python skills by developing websites for people and get paid.

3. Java

Java is considered to be difficult by some people. But it all depends on your goals. As a student, you have already started making choices of what you want to achieve in the near future. Learning Java can set you on good ground for you to become an app developer once you are through with high school.

While in school, you can start by creating simple mobile games (Java is compatible with Android). As you advance your skills, you can start developing apps that provide solutions to people who need them. I can still do Java development and write my academic essay without worrying about the time I spend learning the programming language. You can publish the apps on the Play Store and make cash from sales while still studying.

4. SQL

Arguably, SQL is not a programming language. But learning SQL is essential for students. The language is necessary for many goals a student may want to achieve. For instance, it makes searching for a string and storing data simpler and faster.

In college and high school statistics, you may want to use SQL when dealing with various types of data. Instead of keeping spreadsheets, SQL will help you to securely backup your data, structure, and queries in a database for easier retrieval.

SQL is also the backbone of many web apps built on PHP. When developing PHP apps, you may want to run a sequence of events or retrieve information when running the app. SQL will be vital, and without SQL skills, you will find it hard to implement your PHP skills into meaningful projects.

How to Learn the Programming Languages for Students

Students can learn programming languages basics online. Many free tools are available to help you kickstart your learning while in school. Codeacademy is one of the freely available learning resources students can use to learn the languages they need to become programmers. With the pro package, you get the tools to help you reach your goals faster.

About Author

William Stewart is a web developer, building in PHP and Python. He started learning his development skills while doing his high school diploma. Currently, William helps many students learn the beginner steps of becoming developers in the future.

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