Desktop Vibes

How to Skip Youtube Ads with Your Voice

Everybody finds Youtube video ads annoying especially if they happen at a crucial moment in the video you are actually trying to watch. If you don’t want to pay for a premium ad-free Youtube subscription, you could try one of several browser extensions that are available which attempt to block Youtube Ads altogether. Unfortunately, all of these extensions tend to work only to varying degrees for varying lengths of time and it is a safe bet to say that none are or remain 100% effective. One of the major reasons for this is that Youtube itself is likely actively trying to prevent such extensions from working properly. After all, Youtube makes its money from showing you ads or from selling you a subscription to go ad-free. So an ad-blocking extension that might be working today may not work tomorrow as an endless game of cat and mouse plays out between Youtube and the ad-blocking browser extension developers.

In today's world of exponential data growth, digital storage space always seems to be in short supply. This is most often true in the home where technical resources are usually more limited. Add to that the rise in prevalence of the Solid State Drive (SSD), a more expensive technology than the traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) meaning smaller storage drives for the same price, and the amount of free digital storage space available to the home user is at constant risk of being overwhelmed.

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Building a computer for gaming can be a daunting task especially for those new to the field. With all the different parts of a computer to understand and the wide variety of individual components to choose from, this can make the task of building an ultimate gaming machine challenging to say the least. In this article, I take a look at the central component of any computer, the motherboard. With an eye to what is available on the market right now and in layman's terms as much as possible, I go into what you should know about the different elements of a motherboard in order to help you choose the best one for your next PC build.

Inateck 2-bay Hard Drive Docking Station FD2002

In this age of digital data proliferation, digital storage is almost always in short supply. To accommodate this thirst for digital storage space, many of us resort to buying multiple external hard disk drives (HDDs) each with its own USB or similar connection hardware and each with its own power adapter. In addition, as we upgrade our computers over the years, many of us are left with a trail of old laptop and desktop computers that are too slow to deal with today's fast moving digital pace but still have usable hard drives inside if only they were more accessible.

To address these problems, electronics manufacturers have come up with the hard drive docking station that effectively turns all your spare hard drives and solid state drives (SSDs) into hot-swappable storage units not unlike the old magnetic cassette tapes of yesteryear.

Hard drive docking stations come in several flavours from those that handle a single HDD or SSD to other more professional HDD docks that can handle an array of drives. Since here at DeskTopVibes.com we are focused on consumer computing hardware, we favour the 2-bay or dual hard drive docking station for its balance between technical flexibility and yet still reasonable price. To find the best dual HDD docking station, one needs to first know what technical specifications to look for before then choosing a reputable manufacturer.

If you run a website on an Apache server, then you have undoubtedly come across the .htaccess file. You probably already know that, with it, you can change the way your website behaves, such as redirecting users to the www version of your website or denying access for certain IP addresses. For most people, if they need to modify the .htaccess file, they will look up the code snippet required and add it to their own .htaccess file. However, most of us will not fully comprehend the actual code contained within that snippet, potentially leading to errors and other problems. Wouldn't it be nice to understand what each line of code actually does? This article will give you the power to interpret and use common .htaccess code correctly and with confidence.

One Google-recommended method for getting your website to load faster is to display its images in webp format. Images converted to this less well-known format almost always have a smaller file size compared to their more popular jpg or png equivalents. This reduces website loading times and provides the website users with a better overall experience.

There are a number of different ways to implement this webp format, the most popular of which is to use a plugin (eg. EWWW Image Optimizer or Jetpack) or an external service. However, an alternative method is for website content creators to generate their own webp images themselves on their computer before uploading them.

Anyone managing multiple local WordPress websites using MAMP can attest to the amount of time and effort it takes to keep them all up to date using the WordPress admin interface. WordPress plugins, themes and the WordPress core itself are all continuously being developed resulting in an endless stream of updates that need to be applied to each website. This update regimen can be a time-consuming process as each website needs to be logged into individually before applying each type of update separately! Wouldn't it be nice if there was a more automated way to apply all those plugin, theme and core updates in one go? Well, there is and it is called WP-CLI, the command line interface for WordPress. In fact, WP-CLI can not only take care of these updates, but it can also perform a whole range of other website management tasks as well with little interaction required from the user.

When building a gaming or high-end desktop (HEDT) PC, a crucial component one cannot do without is permanent storage, usually in the form of a hard drive or solid-state drive (SSD). Today, the SSD is fast supplanting the hard drive as the main form of storage media in both laptops and desktops, as SSD storage capacity has increased while prices have come down.

Deciding on the best SSD for your particular PC build is not as difficult a task as choosing some of the other components that make up an HEDT computer. However, there are still some SSD specifications to be aware of before picking an SSD to fit your needs.

In this overview of SSDs, we focus our attention primarily on the latest type of solid-state drive, the M.2 NVMe SSD. We identify the important characteristics to look at when buying this advanced SSD technology, while at the same time, comparing some of the popular SSD choices available on the market today.

Website content creators often put together new content on a staged copy of their website hosted on a local computer. However, once the new post or page is ready to be published, they often face the challenge of how best to efficiently transfer that content to the live website. One solution to this problem, discussed in a previous article, comes in the form of the Local Sync application from ManageWP. However, Local Sync remains in experimental form and suffers from some serious application-breaking errors.

Another, more developed solution comes in the form of the WordPress plugin WP Migrate DB Pro from Delicious Brains. When set up appropriately, WP Migrate DB Pro can be made to work for publishing the majority of post and page data to a live WordPress website.

The WordPress migration plugin WP Migrate DB

As alluded to in a previous article about the Local Sync application from ManageWP, website content creators often first put together their content within a staging environment. And only once they are happy with it is the finished post or page pushed to the live website.

One popular type of staging environment consists of a copy of the website hosted on a local computer in the form of a MAMP, XAMPP, or other local web server instance. This local copy is then typically used to refine the new post or page, keeping the unfinished content isolated from the wider internet until it is ready for publication.

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How to Skip Youtube Ads with Your Voice

Hot swappable drive bay cases

How to Choose a Motherboard for Gaming

External Hard Drive Docking Station Reviews: What is the best dual hard drive dock?

Understanding the .htaccess file

Make your own application to convert images to the webp format

Using WP-CLI to manage multiple MAMP websites

Choosing an M.2 NVMe SSD for your Gaming PC

Migrating TablePress Tables with WP Migrate DB Pro

Using WP Migrate DB Pro to Publish Your Content