Tips and secrets number 3

How to compress Windows 10 and free up space. The most convenient audio and video transceiver for Windows, Mac and Linux. Analog GitHub for Internal Use

How to compress Windows 10
In July 2016, Microsoft released for Windows 10 a new Compact OS compression engine for the command-line utility compact.exe , which compresses the files of the operating system directly during its operation. The new compression mechanism has many other interesting features, but in general it is similar to the work of the WIMBoot program in Windows 8.1 Update 1.

Compact OS frees up at least 2 GB of disk space. Not so much, but on small SSD drives this is noticeable.

The program runs from the command line with administrator privileges. This means that after running cmd.exe , press the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

Before you start compressing Windows 10, it makes sense to find out whether this procedure will produce a result other than zero. The system may already be in a compressed state, so no additional procedures are required. To determine the current state of OS binaries, run the following command:
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• compact.exe / q

The command will show information about the current state: how many files are compressed or not compressed, the level of compression, how many bytes are in the compressed files container. If the compression level is close to 1.0, then the use of the program will be effective.

Under certain conditions, the system in a compressed state may slightly reduce performance, but on most computers this will not be noticeable. Keep in mind that it is always possible to return files to their normal state if you notice any performance problems. In any case, it is recommended to make a backup before compressing the system files.

To perform the procedure, you need to run the following command:

• compact.exe / CompactOS: always

Compressing all files should take a few minutes, although on some systems it can take 20 minutes or more. On the last Insider Build, more than 2 GB is released.

To return the system to its original state:

• compact.exe / CompactOS: never

The reverse procedure is somewhat faster.

Convenient and free program that converts audio and video files in different formats
There are several programs that meet the main requirements:

• open source;
• free use;
• support for many file formats;
• cross-platform;
• lightness

Perhaps the most convenient of them are two: Handbrake and ffmpeg (for example, with a WinFF GUI ). For example, the popular free video player VLC can also convert files, but in most cases it is more convenient to use a specialized program.

Handbrake runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest version for Windows is currently 0.10.5.

Almost any media file (or file folder), a DVD or BlueRay disc is taken as the source material if there is no copy protection.

Target File Formats

• Containers : .MP4 (.M4V) and .MKV
• Video encoders : H.265 (x265 and QuickSync), H.264 (x264 and QuickSync), H.265 MPEG-4 and MPEG-2, VP8, Theora
• Audio Coders : AAC / HE-AAC, MP3, Flac, AC3, Vorbis
• Audio end-to-end : AC-3, E-AC3, DTS, DTS-HD, TrueHD, AAC, MP3 tracks

The program is convenient to use to transcode DVD or downloaded file for viewing on a device other than a PC. Handbrake has embedded coding profiles for the following devices:

• iPod
• iPhone and iPod touch
• iPad
• AppleTV
• AppleTV 2
• AppleTV 3
• Android
• Android Tablet
• Windows Phone 8

The program has many additional features.

• Fragment selection (parts of the source file for encoding)
• Batch processing and queue requests
• Chapter markers
• Subtitles (VobSub, Closed Captions CEA-608, SSA, SRT)
• Constant bit rate or constant quality (variable bit rate)
• Support VFR, CFR and VFR
• Video filters for transcoding: Deinterlacing, Decomb, Denoise, Detelecine, Deblock, Grayscale, Cropping, Scaling
• Live Preview

Most Handbrake source code is distributed under the free GNU GPL license, version 2. Some parts are under BSD 3 Clause.

Similar functionality is provided by another free WinFF program, which seems to be aimed at Linux users (see the list of distributions ), although there are versions for Windows from Windows 95 to Windows 8. Interfaces in Russian, Ukrainian, and many other languages ​​have been developed for it.



How to choose a free VPN
For anonymous work on the Internet and bypassing state censorship (blocking sites) it is convenient to use a free VPN. One of the most popular options is FreeOpenVPN (via the OpenVPN client application).

By the way, on July 31, 2016, Kaspersky Internet Security 2017 (a popular antivirus in Russia) was released, which included a VPN client. In the free mode, it works only through servers in Russia and allows you to transfer 200 MB per day. Of course, this is a rather poor offer, but if you already have KIS 2017 installed, then this option should be kept in mind. Only KIS users should not activate the function of paid VPN in the program, because there are many free alternatives.

GitHub alternative for own hosting
A great choice for self-hosted GitHub is GitLab . Joint development in own working collective, on own server. Supported version control system Git, SSH-access, differentiation of access rights, pull-requests, working with tickets (opening, commenting, closing), search, etc. Excellent web interface through which the repositories are administered.

Demo


GitLab is a reasonable offer for companies that don’t want to share the source code in the public domain during the development process.