Patrick's Personal Home Page

• Learned a lot about YouTube Studio (and all that entails) during the brief 4 months of uploading church videos during the pandemic lockdown. YouTube API has since been significantly limited for free users. I was lucky to have had access before those were implemented. But eventually, my access would be limited too due to dormancy. It's no problem as I don't need to upload videos in bulk anymore. In other news, youtube-dl got a DMCA takedown on their development repo in GitHub. Thanks RIAA. Well, they'll never learn. Long live FOSS!
• Google's "hum-to-search song" feature has been launched and I was able to put it to use right away. There's this song's melody I've had stuck in my head for so long that I just couldn't find. I didn't know the lyrics except for the oh-ohs because I first heard it when I was still a small kid. After just two tries of humming in Google's app, I found it! It's Ken Laszlo's Tonight. Soundcloud hadn't been successful in finding it for me so thanks Google. And that signals the the end of mystery earworms for all music lovers around the world. Though the repercussions to copyright law enforcement because of this technology still remains to be seen.
• Updated my Maloja install and wow, the images now finally show up!
• Pi-hole is the greatest invention for the Internet. Perhaps only second to YouTube and RSS. Memes are great too. But certainly not social media. In fact, after much internal debate, I've now even added Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Reddit to the blacklist. The cons simply outweigh the pros to keep them. Reddit is vast so I disable the restriction only when necessary and that's rare. Grudgingly, I keep Facebook but I don't really use it. Just Messenger. These platforms have reached that critical limit when it ceases to be healthy and humane. There are far better sources for news and entertainment.
• I've returned to reading magazines again. I think we're past the point of this pandemic when we need to be kept abreast of daily news. Slow news is better for mental health and emotional well-being. World Mission Magazine is one I've been reading for years. Linux Format keeps me up-to-date about the open-source world. There's plenty more good reads in Magzter where I'm subscribed. (They've been generous with giving me free credits.) The magazines are better when I'm feeling swamped by the feeds in my Tiny Tiny RSS reader.

Blinkist is one of those services that I've always wanted to use more often but keep on neglecting. People are divided by the idea of book summaries like this but I say it has its place in this modern age of reading. I've read quite a few of their summaries …

• Lunescope Android app is awesome and thank God for the Apollo 11 sale
• I wish Philippine libraries provided services like Kanopy, Hoopla, Libby, cloudLibrary, PressReader, RBdigital, etc.
• Finally (nervously) rooted an Android phone. Downgraded the firmware first because the latest disables fastboot. Used Magisk. Thankfully the full backup works. I won't be needing custom recovery on this one (yet).
• Managing cloud storage with FX File Explorer Android app
• Setup three WiFi networks at home again using the PLDT router, that old Linksys and TP-Link AC750. Channel 5 for main and channel 13 for the other two. Picked these channels based on recommendations by WiFi Overview 360 and WiFi Analyzer. I would have used channel 13 entirely if Roku would use it! Had to install CommView for WiFi drivers just to get Windows 10 to detect channel 13. System regional settings are being ignored by the network adapter it seems.
• VPN Hotspot from XDA Labs is a godsend.
• Did a ton of work on my first Raspberry Pi 3 B+.