Tools

Nonsense

Behold my little smörgåsbord of simple solutions, useful utilities and nerdish delights.

As a great man once wrote, If it it ain't broke, tweak it. Just don't tell the wife. So grab hold of your tools, and bring those dreams to life. Ah, men!

Stuff

Help and forums

• Techist Forums - A cornucopia of IT related tips and tricks.

Standalone web pages

The following webpages are standalone HTML files with no external dependencies. For optimal security, they should be saved locally and used exclusively in a secure offline environment.

• PassGen - A random password generator. Created by the Rev. Illusion.
• BIP-39 Tool - Ian Coleman's BIP-39 mnemonic code converter.
• Coinomi BIP-39 Tool - Coinomi's BIP-39 mnemonic code converter.

Online tools

Online tools are quick and convenient. Just remember that certain files (such as digital photographs) may contain metadata, such as your unique device ID and GPS co-ordinates. Be careful when sharing files containing sensitive information.

Images

• WEBP → JPG - Convert WEBP images to JPG format (and more) with Convertio.co.
• PNG → ICO - Convert PNG images to ICO icons with Convertico.com.
• Crop & Resize - Quickly crop and resize JPG, PNG and GIF files.

Web design

• W3 Schools: References - HTML, CSS, and JavaScript references (and more).
• Colours - Look up RGB and hex colour codes.
• Why No Padlock? - Identify and fix HTTPS (SSL/TLS) issues.
• ZeroSSL - Free SSL certificates.

Web code validators

• W3C: HTML validator - The official HTML validator from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
• W3C: Nu HTML Checker - An ongoing experiment in better HTML checking from the W3C.
• W3C: CSS Validation Service - The W3C's CSS checker.
• W3C: other validators - A selection of additional web code validators from the W3C.
• CSS Lint - Identify and fix CSS errors. (Not perfect, but still useful.).
• WAVE - The Web Accessibility Evaluator. Optimise your website for inclusive accessibility.
• JSHint - A simple JavaScript checker.

Security

• Virus Total - Analyse files to detect malware.
• haveibeenpwned - Check if your email address has been exposed in in a data breach.
• ToS; DR - Review privacy issues in the Terms of Service of popular services.

Shopping

• CamelCamelCamel - Check historic prices of items on Amazon.
• PC Part Picker - Compare components to design and build a new PC.

Applications

Audio and video

• Audacity - Audio file editor.
• Exact Audio Copy (EAC) - Rip CDs in the best possible quality. Recover even physically damaged and otherwise unplayable CDs. Windows only.
• Mp3tag - Edit metadata tags for AV files (MP3, MP4, OGG, FLAC, etc.). Windows only.
• Shotcut - Powerful yet beginner-friendly video editor.

System utilities

• GParted - The Gnome Partition Editor. Available as a USB boot image.
• Balena Etcher - Flash OS images to USB sticks.
• FreeFileSync - Compare and synchronise files and folders. Useful for simple backups.

Windows desktop

• X-Mouse Button Control - Remap your mouse buttons.

Command line utilities

• ffmpeg - A reliable, standards-compliant transcoder for many file types.
• exiftool - Remove metadata from many files.

Transcode audio

• Extract an AAC audio stream from an MP4 container (and remove the stream's metadata):

  ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -acodec copy -map_metadata -1 output.aac

• Create a new MP4 audio (.M4A) container with a single AAC stream:

  ffmpeg -i input.aac -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc -map_metadata -1 output.m4a

Convert/resize images

• Convert a WebP image to a JPEG:

  ffmpeg -i input.webp output.jpg

• Resize a WebP image:

  ffmpeg -i input.webp -vf scale=800:600 output.webp

• To resize without changing the aspect ratio, set the width or height to -1:

  ffmpeg -i input.webp -vf scale=800:-1 output.webp

Remove metadata

• To remove metadata from a file or container:

  exiftool -all= image.jpg