Like me, many of you probably carry around a USB stick
that's filled to the brim with your favorite utilities.
You know, just in case.
But technology changes, newer, better tools come along
and sometimes the older ones aren't as effective
or even stop working altogether.
And realistically, who's got the time to keep up with
all the latest cool side projects
from development with kids who haven't discovered girls yet?
Have no fear, because we've got you covered
with some improvements to tools
you might already know about,
some awesome utilities that you might not know about,
and a sneaky solution to a problem
that pops up at the worst of times.
We've also got this completely unexpected segue
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You probably spend a ton of time
at your PC wearing headphones.
So what if there was something you could do
to improve your audio quality
regardless of how much you spent on them?
Equalizer APO does exactly that,
adding powerful graphic and parametric equalization
to your Windows PC.
You can tweak the EQ curve system-wide
for a more personalized listening experience
or per device to boost key frequencies
so you catch those footsteps sneaking up behind you
before it's too late.
It's even customizable with add-ons
that can enhance it with power functionality
like audio device routing, surround virtualization,
and even recommended EQ curves
for some of the most popular headphones.
By the way, if yours were overlooked,
you can check out autoeq.app,
a database of even more downloadable EQ curves.
We're gonna have links to every tool we talk about today
in the description below.
The only downside,
you might have to come back to this video
and click that link again
if a Windows update messes with the sound subsystem
and borks your custom setup.
Now, if tweaking frequencies isn't your thing
and you just want a way to route your audio
so that your stream viewers
don't hear your Discord buddies inventing new cuss words,
then VoiceMeeter is the tool for you.
I can't believe we've never talked about this thing
because VoiceMeeter is amazing.
It's a virtual audio mixer that comes in three sizes,
each giving you more virtual channels
and control over more hardware than the last.
We installed the middle of the road banana version
for our demo of what VoiceMeeter might look like
configured for a two player streaming session.
We've got audio coming in from our capture card
and our two headset mics.
Then using these various A and B buttons
on each input channel,
we can control where that input audio goes.
The A outputs are hardware
and we've set those up to be each of our headphones
and the system speakers
and the B outputs are virtual.
So we've got those routing to Discord
and to OBS for streaming.
Once it's all set up,
both players can hear themselves,
the game and the Discord audio
and the stream viewers hear only the player mics
and the game audio.
Oh, side note by the way,
VoiceMeeter also happens to be just about the best
and fastest way to clone your audio output
to multiple devices.
I had a bug a while back
where my VR audio mirroring wasn't working
which made it impossible to play one of my kids'
favorite party games
and VoiceMeeter took care of this for me
in about three minutes.
Let's get away from audio for a bit though.
I'd wager that most of you are familiar with Ninite
which lets you install and update popular software
without all the next, next, next finish.
Well, if you've ever been disappointed
with the selection of applications
that are available in Ninite,
then Chocolaty might be for you.
Chocolaty is a command line package manager for Windows
that has more than 10,000 unique packages available.
If you've ever used apt or yum
to manage software on Linux,
you're gonna know exactly what I'm talking about.
And if you haven't,
let me demonstrate why you do care about this.
On our system here, we've already got Chocolaty installed.
So we just go to a prompt
and type in choco install paint.net and hit enter.
Chocolaty downloads and installs paint.net for us
and all we have to do is say yes
when it asks it for sure.
And we don't even have to do that
if we just add a dash y to the end of our command.
We can even string together dozens of packages
and have our new machine just set itself up
while we go out and wash the car.
And like Ninite, Chocolaty can also be used
to keep your installed programs up to date
or specifically to not.
If there's something you don't wanna upgrade,
you can lock in a particular version.
There are paid plans available
that offer some extra features for business use,
but even in its free community supported form,
this is a must have tool.
And if the command line is a little too daunting for you,
you don't need it.
Just make sure the first thing you install
is Chocolaty GUI
and you can manage everything graphically after that.
Here, how about I use Chocolaty
to show you guys another cool tool.
Winderstat has been a staple of technicians USB keys
since its first release back in 2003,
allowing us to easily identify
what is eating up all of that precious hard drive space.
But these days you might prefer Wiztree
from antibody software.
The interface is immediately familiar,
but unlike Winderstat, it's fast.
Like I'm talking seconds instead of minutes
and it even handles gotchas like hard link files
significantly more accurately.
Furthermore, unlike Winderstat,
Wiztree is still in active development
and gets bug fixes, updates,
and new features periodically,
which by the way,
you can get automatically by creating a scheduled task
to run the update command in Chocolaty.
Changing gears, our next tool
is only in the Microsoft store.
Sorry, Chocolaty users,
but it might be worth checking out anyway.
You've probably heard of Windows Powertoys,
but have you heard of WinToys?
This utility gathers program and service management tools
along with frequently used windows settings,
tweaks and fixes,
and puts them all in one place
so you don't have to go digging
through the various settings apps and control panels
trying to figure out where the devil Microsoft
has moved things this week.
Speaking of losing track of things,
I'm sure we've all been there looking for
that bootable thumb drive that you know you have.
You know, the one with that ISO on it.
Well, no more.
While it's long been possible
to have multiple bootable utilities on a single thumb stick,
our favorite method these days is Ventoy.
So cool.
After a quick installation to your drive,
all you've got to do is just copy any ISO
or any disc image file you want
and Ventoy will automatically detect it
and add it to a menu at boot.
No more manually updating menus
or requiring the installer software
to add or update your tools.
This has already been a time-saver for me
on multiple occasions.
Oh, and while you're adding images to your new Ventoy drive,
be sure to include one of the tiny images
from netboot.xyz which uses PXE booting
to let you launch your choice
of more than 80 operating system installers,
live operating systems and utility images
all downloaded on demand over the internet.
It can even boot Windows installers
though you will need to do a bit of fancy work
to host the installer files in a Windows PE environment
somewhere on your network.
If you'd rather someone else do all the heavy lifting
and gather your utilities for you,
kind of like Hiren's boot CD back in the day,
you can check out MediCat USB.
This massive 20 plus gigabyte collection of tools
is wrapped up in a customized Ventoy menu system
and includes a wide selection of bootable tools
along with a Windows PE environment
with an enormous collection of portable apps.
Now, obviously collections like these exist
in the legally dubious, excuse me, zone,
but the reality is that if you've ever worked
at a tech shop, you've probably touched one at some point.
So we would be naive to imagine
that everyone is just going to pretend they don't exist.
So we installed MediCat to a 32 gigabyte thumb drive
and actually ended up with only a couple of gigs free.
So if you're gonna wanna add any additional ISOs or tools,
you're gonna probably wanna start with a bigger device.
We should also note by the way,
that our antivirus lost its flip in mind
when we first tried to install this collection
and classified many of the utilities as hacking tools,
which feels a little unfair because it is chock full
of legitimately useful repair and diagnostic tools.
And I think we need to look at them
through the lens of the good that they can do
rather than the harm, like a screwdriver from LTT store.
It could be used as a shiv,
but it's a lot more useful for screwing
and unscrewing things.
Oh yeah, while I'm annoyed by the way,
why is it so hard sometimes to move files
between devices?
We run into this all the time
when we're away from the studio
and trying to copy scripts from our windows laptops
to the iPhones that we use as teleprompters.
It wastes a lot of time and never needs to happen again,
thanks to simple HTTP server from GitHub user, TheWaWar.
Running this program in a folder will launch as advertised,
a simple HTTP server that offers up the contents
of that folder to the network.
That means any machine on the network
that has a web browser can then navigate
to that IP address and download the file they need.
Easy peasy, only one thing,
just remember to turn off the server when you're done
because otherwise pretty obvious security issues.
Oh, and on that note, don't try to run this utility
on your company's corporate network
because I'm sure it's gonna send IT running.
Hopefully we've introduced you
to at least a couple of cool new tools
that you're already downloading to your thumb drives.
And if you've got a suggestion for a must have
that we haven't brought up before,
let us know in the comments down below.
Ideally, you could maybe give us one
that generates marginally wittier segues to our sponsor.
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If you liked this video,
why not check out the return of Handytech under a hundred
where we discovered some must have physical gadgets
rather than software tools.