You notice?
YouTube... at least in my case... out of the blue... and I am sure for those dedicated enough there is a site or email list thaqt shares these types of things coming down the pipelines- it is Alphabet after all. Most of their doings have been documented with documentation ontop of documentation documenting all the changes, fixes, improvements and general design.
It isn't very often that things get shaken up too much.
A slight change in orientation of ellements or a bit of a stye tweek. No this time.
YouTube has Changed
YouTube has been changed- in someone's eye's an "update"- I consider it a down grade. Many of the features that were once availlable to all are now behind their subscription plan"(s). Damn it. Sure, i've heard many 'power users' of the platform say that it is worth it. To pay that small bit to get videos uninterrupted. I guess now, also having the many features that made things just that touh better also.
I log into my YouTube account the other week.and start que'ing up a playlist- at least they haven't taken that away from us...at least not on PC- they have on mobile- guess too many users were creating music video feeds? Maybe? I got my videos going and I sit back and have them playing in the background as I tinker away at 1 of many plethora iof project I have on my mind. A video commes up- grat content/ subject matter...except... It's illing me how slow the narrative is fowing- tyhink Charlie Brown...The Teacher at school(i may have refrenced this also in the 'YouTube Hacks or was it YouTube Speed Hacks..something on those like that... it is a number of blog posts ago). We all have those moments, just holding back that big ol' yawn. Wanna watch, but the cadene the content is being presented at is SO SLOW.
The Speed Hack- Gone!
There is a solution. At least there was... At the bottom right corner, the gear icon, clicking it gives us a nice set of options and features. I'd thought my browser rendered the site wrong at first...didn't load a bloc of code? Searching desperatley now for the 1 feature I use as often as I can... the Speed optio- the abillity to icrasespeed down the videos... great for studying or cramming in as much as 1 can or to make sure you don't miss a thing by slowing the video down. A ferw times I couldm't understand what was beingt said..slowed it down and got it. But, where is it?
A remenence is there- a tease. To remind you of how good thing had been. A siren of the oceans luring the exploring sailor in with their beauty and song...Clicking the one slider triggers a pop up message- the speed adjustment feature is now behind a subscription plan!
Quiky update to add on to that initial post I shared the SD Formatter...
Original post: https://zkitszo.blogspot.com/2025/10/sd-card-formatter-thats-all.html
I'd been working on some projects and had to load a ..."flash".. sorry... an image of Pi OS onto an SD card of mine. I messed up somewheres with the setup durring boot so I required a new image flashed... but, wait! My SD card now 50mb.. when... it is suppossed to be 256gb. What. Gives?
I am not going to tollerate such a loss of storage space. I didn't dig greatly into exactly the going on's and why the card now shows this pathetic amount of storage.. I can't even flash the image I want if that is the case.
Here's where this simple SD Formatter comes in handy dandy... I am going out on a whim that the boot proscess creates a/ or some partitions when going through the initial settup of the Pi... hence the miss match is storage space- I am sure that's the case.. and tghere are programns to confirm this but I just want to get bac going on my way here and not dilly daddle... Take that SD and the SD Formatter that I had previoussly posted about- the one from the official SD Card site... other formatters don't have this going for them. Find your SD from the drop down... select quick flash(for now, you can do whattever you like another time.) and then there is another button, "Option"... there you see the abillity to chnge the format style... leave it on quick. Juyst under that you have "Format Size Adjustment". Set that to "On". Click ok and go ahead and format. The SD Card's original storage size willl be back. How cool is that? Pretty damn cool, i'd say- no fumblin' round in a partition manager, risking ruining the SD or worse... some other drive... C drive.
A tool I use more often than I should. Mostly due to the sheer number of tabs and Chrome windows that I have going simultaneously. At times mylaptop will grind to a halt, the fan on full blast, a continuos struggle to click on "wait" when I get the "this page is not responding" pop up message.
And... all of a sudden, I am in desperatate need for computer resourccces... there's a task that came to mind that desperatelly requires attention this instance. Windows are freezing up... other programs grind to a halt... every thing is at 110%.
I used to click the ol' ctr, alt, delete, trusty, giving my fingers a yoga exercise- the Task Manager, 1 by 1 go through, "end proscess"... 1 after the other. Shutting down anything and everythig to give me back any 'semblancd of what used to be my computer. Eventually freeing up enough resources to complette whattever itr was that needed my attention this very moment- more importantly, I've now freed up more virtual memory for more tabs- back to cruising the net..
This proscess, "prosces" of shutting down.....proscesses... was incredibly tedious...took some time. And, since it was at moments where the computer wasn't at its best- many frustrating moments.
May I introduce to you a fine peice of software, "Kill Em All", as in, kill all the proscesses... and much more.
Now, I can designate important proscesses from the not so... on openning the program.. all those unneccessary proscesses gone- poof- killed. Can even set firewall rules, blocking programs from network access. Need to do some sneaky activations (old school Photo Shop i'm looking at you_) or stop Apple from constantly sending data through iTunes "Helper". Blocked. No network for you.
Also provides the abillity to uninstal those pesky applications you can't traditional way(s).
For those that dare... there is a CMD line version... also a portable version, so you can just have it run off a USB stick, no need to have it take up space on your computer.
Here you have it.... your resoursce cleaner-upper-killemall https://www.d7xtech.com/killemall/
A blog or 2 ago, I'd mention some gems of sites, blogs... selfless acts of sharing exclusive resoursces- Well, if you are intrested in anything "Networing" (not the "hi, my name is.." type of networking done at confrences and such...Computer Networking.) this is an extensive page of software that covers it all. Bluetooth? Yup. Check you IP? Yes. See all computers/ devices on your network? MMM hmmm. Monitor tghe traffic comming ang going from your computer. Shure thing. Capture packets? Yah huh. Get info on the adapters connected to your PC? Uh huh. See tghe IP addresses that are comunicating with eachother over your internet connection in real time, with detailled info regarding these IPs. Yes.
You get what I am putting down. YThis is the full meal deal. And, whsat many software charge you some big bucks to accomplish...this does for free... whgat a resoursce. Serious. You don't come by a treasure trove of amazing such as this often. Yet here you are.
Even if you aren't into any of this networ analysis biz.. it's cool to chec out and try out/ explore. Maybe you'll catch something- like a hidden security camera or the fact that your neighbours are leaching your WIFI- and downloading some really questionable content while they are at it. They may thin they are ninjas now, call them out on it and cut them them off. See how they squirm. Try running a speed test on your WIFI channels.. maybe there's some hidden performance to be gainned.
One thing before you go crazy with downloading these...some do register as being tghat of a virus- not sure if it is just thge nature of the program or may truelly contain a virus within.. they are old programs/ someone could have hacked the resoursce, swapping the programs... but, I doubt it. I believe it is just the nature of what the program does which is being miss interpretted as being mallicious(use thee ethically, since thgey are powerfull and could be used in a manner that isn't so...ethical.).
https://www.nirsoft.net/network_tools.html
The good kind- hacking, "Hacking" in general ... when people hear that H word.. they think, some kid or malicious group fueled by energy drinks within RGB ambiance, sitting there mashing away at their keyboards dawning a hoodie.
Sure, that may be a sub group of individuals...
...but, hacking is ...
Well, have you ever taken something apart, curious of how it works? Or used your mouse and right clicked on a web site to inspect its "page source"? As a kid, have you ever dismantled something? Maybe took your action figures and switched a feature from one to the other? Added the shield off of Master Splinter and attached it to Jedi Sith- in your mind it made that figure better or solved some problem you dreamt up of. I myself took the blades off of (i forgot the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enemy) and attached them to Leonardo, my favorite Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle. Made him look vicious and unstoppable... added some missile launchers to his back and other armor. I hacked my toys, you hacked your toiys.., you are a hacker.
Hacking isn't always negative- it's just a way of changing soimething, adapting something to meet a certain outconme/ a desired outcome- maybe to get data out of sonmething- maybe to make something better- maybe just to see how something just works...
The following are tools to use to do just that; to see how something 'ticks'..
https://signalens.com/signalsdrpro/
https://www.crowdsupply.com/newae/chipwhisperer-husky
Many more items found here
There was(Is? Will be...) a moment in internet times where a transition from AOL, GEO Cities, the many chat rooms transitioned to exciting platforms such as Blogger.. and now there were far greater avenues of generating income from the information once "just shared". People flocked to these publishing services and gave us the goods. So many gems!
It didn't take long for things to get over saturated- the gems buried, and the many cookie cutter sites just turning into click farms/ click bait... and instead of value... leaned more towards entertaining. I myself dabbled in the Adsense days- know many that made some serious $. There was money to be had... The payouts got smaller, content worse, advertisers not impressed, those publishing not putting in the effort they'd once did.
Still, there is this time where a type of content was shared, and shared without the pay walls...or subscriptions or any expectation of monetary reward in exchange- the "street cred" was the high- having fame for being the one who shared the information was what drove this.
It is a reason that instead of some robust content management platform, I use a service that many may have thought died off. Instead of WordPress... it is Blogger. It's a homage to an era where Blog started to be a thing and Blogger/ BlogSpot was where it's at. I find the best hidden internet secrets deep within' personal sites published on BlogSpot.
M any applications, which still run, little programs.. those "ah ha" moments that they experienced shared to the world- just waiting for someone like myself, yourself to stumble upon and spark our curiosities, drive our hunger for more. I love finding these hidden gems.
I leave this post with a gem found last week- a program written many moons ago, surprisingly having some more recent updates- a powerful analysis tool- for signals, SDR, audio... Spectrum Lab. And look at that site! Nothing fancy. Just the meat and potatoes.. let us not overlook the many little links and resources to further expand the program- like the ability to create virtual com ports. How cool is that? You can really shuffle around those inbound signals, with a visual depiction of the ports to customize how things are linked. Something like this would have been an expensive addon or having to pay further licensing fees. But no, here it's just end users trying to utilize the software t o the fullest and help others do the same. Thank you!
There's many sites lie this hidden away- where some knowledge full individual shares their journey- whatever it may be.
If you know of any "Gems" yourself, please do share in the comments- I'll make a post about them if you do.
And, I leave you with the link I came across for Spectrum Lab- dig around for the other items i'd mentioned!
The link:
https://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html#fft_filter_plugins
Spectrum Lab
https://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html
Serial MLonitor- Com Sniffer
SerialTool - COM Sniffer & Serial Port Monitor for RS232/RS485 Debugging
