The Official Power User Tips, Tricks & Productivity Thread

bnew

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About​

Chris Titus Tech's Windows Utility - Install Programs, Tweaks, Fixes, and Updates


Chris Titus Tech's Windows Utility​

This utility is a compilation of Windows tasks I perform on each Windows system I use. It is meant to streamline installs, debloat with tweaks, troubleshoot with config, and fix Windows updates. I am extremely picky about any contributions to keep this project clean and efficient.



Overview​

  • Install
    • Install Selection: Organize programs by category and facilitate installation by enabling users to select programs and initiate the installation process with a single click.
    • Upgrade All: Upgrade all existing programs to their latest versions, ensuring users have the most up-to-date and feature-rich software.
    • Uninstall Selection: Effortlessly uninstall selected programs, providing users with a streamlined way to remove unwanted software from their system.
    • Get Installed: Retrieve a comprehensive list of installed programs on the system, offering users visibility into the software currently installed on their computer.
    • Import / Export: Enable users to import or export the selection list of programs, allowing them to save their preferred program configurations or share them with others. This feature promotes convenience and flexibility in managing program selections across different systems.
  • Tweaks
    • Recommended Selection: Provides pre-defined templates tailored for desktop, laptop, and minimal configurations, allowing users to select recommended settings and optimizations specific to their system type.
    • Essential Tweaks: Offers a collection of essential tweaks aimed at improving system performance, privacy, and resource utilization. These tweaks include creating a system restore point, disabling telemetry, Wi-Fi Sense, setting services to manual, disabling location tracking, and HomeGroup, among others.
    • Misc. Tweaks: Encompasses a range of various tweaks to further optimize the system. These tweaks include enabling/disabling power throttling, enabling num lock on startup, removing Cortana and Edge, disabling User Account Control (UAC), notification panel, and configuring TPM during updates, among others.
    • Additional Tweaks: Introduces various other tweaks such as enabling dark mode, changing DNS settings, adding an Ultimate Performance mode, and creating shortcuts for WinUtil tools. These tweaks provide users with additional customization options to tailor their system to their preferences.
  • Config
    • Features: Allows users to easily install various essential components and features to enhance their Windows experience. These features include installing .NET Frameworks, enabling Hyper-V virtualization, enabling legacy media support for Windows Media Player and DirectPlay, enabling NFS (Network File System) for network file sharing, and enabling Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) for running Linux applications on Windows.
    • Fixes: Provides a range of helpful fixes to address common issues and improve system stability. This includes setting up autologon for seamless login experiences, resetting Windows updates to resolve update-related problems, performing a system corruption scan to detect and repair corrupted files, and resetting network settings to troubleshoot network connectivity issues.
    • Legacy Windows Panels: Includes access to legacy Windows panels from Windows 7, allowing users to access familiar and powerful tools. These panels include Control Panel for managing system settings, Network Connections for configuring network adapters and connections, Power Panel for adjusting power and sleep settings, Sound Settings for managing audio devices and settings, System Properties for viewing and modifying system information, and User Accounts for managing user profiles and account settings.
  • Updates:
    • Default (Out of Box) Settings: Provides the default settings that come with Windows for updates.
    • Security (Recommended) Settings: Offers recommended settings, including a slight delay of feature updates by 2 years and installation of security updates 4 days after release.
    • Disable All Updates (Not Recommended!): Allows users to disable all Windows updates, but it's not recommended due to potential security risks.
Video and Written Article walkthrough @ The Ultimate Windows Utility
 

bnew

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just found this about 2 hours ago cause i wanted to watch a tv show that got released online but it wasn't uploaded with subtitles. this extension worked on a site hosting a video on Vidplay.




Add subtitles to any video or movie online. Be it on Netflix, Disney+, Youtube or any other online streaming platform.






jMFUF0j.png


8eBmqmO.png
 

bnew

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pinwin - stands for "Pin Windows"​

What?​

I always liked DeskPins windows application, written by Elias Fotinis - very simple and intuitive, it allows you to make any 3rd party window, i.e. that of another application, top most (also known as "always-on-top"), and it will appear on top of other windows at all times, until DeskPins is closed. Below is a screenshot of how it works, self-explanatory:

DeskPins in action

Link for DeskPins direct download
is provided here for your convenience (no ads, using Google Drive).

DeskPins was written in C++ and its source code recently made public (thank you, Elias).

Why?​

If you look at the attached readme file, the original software is not meant to work on Windows Vista and above. However, it kept working all the way until Windows 7, but then unfortunately, stopped working on Windows 8 and higher. So I decided to write one in .NET with support for all OS (hopefully).

How is the progress so far?​

PinWin in action

  • Basic functionality is there, tested on Windows XP, 7, 8.1 and 10.
  • Multi-monitor supported (verified dual extend configuration).
  • High DPI supported (verified 100-200%).
  • Select another window to be top most via CTRL+F11 (same as DeskPins).
  • Make window under cursor top most via CTRL+F12 (save a drag-and-click).
  • User friendly installer with upgrade support.
  • Configurable keyboard shortcuts (select and pin window, pin under cursor).

Known Issues​

  • #17 On Windows 10 if each monitor is using different DPI, screen capture window takes portion of the screen. Workaround is to make sure all your monitors are using the same DPI. PinWin was initially designed to improve productivity on a single monitor, to avoid context switch. With multiple monitors, its usefulness fades.
  • #26 UWP is not currently supported, the pin is placed on top of minimize button. Otherwise it works fine. To fix, requires framework upgrade to 4.6, which breaks XP compatibility. Vote for linked ticket - with enough votes I will create another repo with Windows 7+ OS support level, then it can handle UWP.

Download​

You can download PinWin via GitHub releases, where the most recent version is available (source code, binaries or installer).
 

Heimdall

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I've been contemplating self-hosting using my own credentials using some hacks I saw on GitHub but I also don't wanna give even a sniff of revenue to Musk :lupe:
I had also been considering this, but I was reading through some of the issues and it looks like self-hosting is broken now too. itsover.gif

Though there are a few instances that are still semi-functional, accessible via Redirecting proxy for Nitter (alternative Twitter frontend) ...for now

I also came across Sotwe which lets you view tweets at least, but not replies: Twitter Web Viewer & Trend Analyzer & Downloader

Late edit: Worldwide - Realtime Twitter trending hashtag and topics | Twstalker.com lets you view tweets and replies

😢
 
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bnew

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I just modified a nitter userscript to work with twstalker.com. basically duplicates the twstalker tweet link and creates an alternate nitter and twitter link. theres a copy to clipboard button for each link for easy sharing.

x1p37rS.png


Code:
// ==UserScript==
// @name         twstalker Tweet Date Modification Infinite Scroll 0.1
// @namespace    your_namespace_here
// @description  Duplicate and modify the tweet-date span in twstalker pages
// @include      https://twstalker.com/*
// @version      0.1
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
  'use strict';

  var observer = new MutationObserver(modifyTweetDates);

  function createAlertBox(message) {
    var alertBox = document.createElement('div');
    alertBox.textContent = message;
    alertBox.style.position = 'fixed';
    alertBox.style.bottom = '20px';
    alertBox.style.left = '20px'; // Changed to left
    alertBox.style.backgroundColor = 'lightgray';
    alertBox.style.padding = '10px';
    alertBox.style.borderRadius = '5px';
    document.body.appendChild(alertBox);
    setTimeout(function() {
      alertBox.style.opacity = '0';
      setTimeout(function() {
        document.body.removeChild(alertBox);
      }, 1000);
    }, 3000);
  }

  function createCopyButton(link) {
    var copyButton = document.createElement('button');
    copyButton.innerHTML = '📋'; // Clipboard emoji
    copyButton.style.marginRight = '10px';
    copyButton.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
      navigator.clipboard.writeText(link.getAttribute('href')).then(function() {
        /* clipboard successfully set */
        createAlertBox('Copied!');
      }, function() {
        /* clipboard write failed */
        createAlertBox('Failed to copy text to clipboard');
      });
    });
    return copyButton;
  }

  function modifyTweetDates() {
    // Disconnect the observer
    observer.disconnect();

    var tweetDates = document.querySelectorAll('.user-text3:not(.duplicated)');

    tweetDates.forEach(function(tweetDate) {
      var originalLink = tweetDate.querySelector('a[href*="/status/"]');
      var tweetId = originalLink.getAttribute('href').split('/').pop();
      var username = originalLink.getAttribute('href').split('/')[3]; // Fixed the username extraction

      // Create a new link and set its href attribute
      var sLink = document.createElement('a');
      sLink.setAttribute('href', 'https://nitter.unixfox.eu/' + username + '/status/' + tweetId);
      sLink.textContent = 'nitter';
      sLink.style.marginRight = '20px';

      // Create a duplicate of the original link
      var duplicatedLink = originalLink.cloneNode(true);
      duplicatedLink.setAttribute('href', 'https://twitter.com/' + username + '/status/' + tweetId); // Fixed the href
      duplicatedLink.style.marginRight = '10px';

      // Add a class to indicate this element has been processed
      tweetDate.classList.add('duplicated');

      // Insert the new "nitter" link, the duplicated link, and the copy buttons before the original link
      tweetDate.insertBefore(sLink, tweetDate.firstChild);
      tweetDate.insertBefore(createCopyButton(sLink), tweetDate.firstChild);
      tweetDate.insertBefore(duplicatedLink, tweetDate.firstChild);
      tweetDate.insertBefore(createCopyButton(duplicatedLink), tweetDate.firstChild);
      originalLink.parentNode.insertBefore(createCopyButton(originalLink), originalLink.nextSibling); // Fixed the insertion of the copy button
    });

    // Reconnect the observer
    observer.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true });
  }

  // Run the function once on page load
  modifyTweetDates();

  // Set up a MutationObserver to run the function whenever new tweets are added
  observer.observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true });
})();
 
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Heimdall

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You can modify this userscript to redirect to twstalker.com which... sort of works: Twitter to Nitter

I haven't considered x.com links but I don't know how common they are.
x.com URLs redirect to twitter.com so that's no issue, phew

There's an annoying popunder script that I had to block (https://twstalker.com/popunderufasssssk9.js) - I blocked it using uBO's logger though I guess I could have just added it to My Filters (it showed up under My Rules which I was not expecting)

And in Firefox - but not Edge - some of the videos have a 'Video playback aborted due to a network error' overlay, but still play, e.g. the first video in this tweet :pachaha: Hmm. I think disabling Tracking Protection fixed this.

Appreciate it. Used it in redirector for similar vibes:
jIl9P7R.png
I just realised I'll have to redirect all my historical nitter links too. 😰 I think I'll be better off using Redirector. I hardly use any of the options in LibRedirect these days anyway lol

I just modified a nitter userscript to work with twstalker.com. basically duplicates the twstalker tweet link and creates an alternate nitter and twitter link. theres a copy to clipboard button for each link for easy sharing.

x1p37rS.png
:handshake:

(Unixfox was my favourite instance :mjcry:)
 
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