Here’s how to delete the invasive new “Share with Skype” menu item, newly located on your right-click menu in your Windows PC. This has been added without permission by the latest update for desktop Skype, and is a pointless distraction for anyone who just uses Skype for calls.

There appears to be no way to turn it off from within Skype. I can’t get it to show up in any context menu-editor except the Windows Registry Editor.

How to remove it…

1. Go to the Windows Start menu. In the search box type regedit to launch the Windows Registry Editor.

2. The key you want to delete is easily found under…

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell

3. Right-click on the key’s label (shown here highlighted in blue). Delete it.

4. Exit the Registry Editor.

The menu item is gone, but not gone for good. It will return when desktop Skype is next updated, and the key will thus need to be repeatedly deleted.

VideoSubFinder is Windows freeware to auto-detect and extract hard-coded subtitles from videos, saving the results to a series of screen grabs — containing only the subtitle lettering at large size and thus ready for OCR. VideoSubFinder appears to be the best option for occasional use by media archivists, and also publishers and editors who want to extract to text.

It’s been tested by me and is working nicely ‘out of the box’ on an old 17 minute video. It does not appear to have native dependencies other than requiring the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017, which most Windows users will already have installed. Its output does however require Finereader or similar for OCR processing (see below).

The use-case here is: you have an old interview where where the audio is degraded and/or the speaker has heavily accented English, or where the subtitles are translations, which means you can’t just upload it to YouTube and have closed captions automatically generated in a twinkling by eager Googlebots. But you do have good hardcoded English subtitles on the video frames, which someone spent time creating — perhaps decades ago.

Using the software is tricky, despite the simple interface, as there’s no Help. My noted workflow is as follows…

1. Open your video.

2. Scrub the video’s timeline to the desired starting frame. Then on the top menu: Edit | set Beginning Time.

3. Drag down the little sliders (they look like black fly-specks and are easily overlooked) seen in the corners of the video, so as to precisely frame the area where the subtitle line appears.

4. In the lower panel, switch to the OCR tab and press “Create cleared TXT images”. Subtitles should be extracted from the video frames as ‘lettering only’. This should take a while, but less time that actually playing the video. Now might be a good time for a coffee break.

5. Once this process has completed, you then open up the software’s TXTImages folder…

..\VideoSubFinder_4.30_x64\Release_x64\TXTImages

And inside there are a series of large .JPEG images containing the extracted text as large cleaned image-captures, all ready to be OCRd.

So far as I can tell there’s no built in OCR engine with VideoSubFinder, nor any way to plug one in. So now you switch to OCR software such as Finereader.

6. In Finereader, sort the files correctly and then open all the files (Ctrl+A) found in the ..\TXTImages folder. There is no need to resize as Finereader can handle humongous file sizes, unlike the full Adobe Acrobat. Processing should be straightforward and fast, just let it finish. Then save the results out to a single .TXT file and edit.

Apparently, for making new .SRT subtitles, one can then also use this Finereader output file with the “Create Sub From TXT Results” button in VideoSubFinder, and the result should be a timecoded set of subtitles. But for the purposes of an archivist or editor extracting a text interview, this step is not needed.

If you’re going to need to do this sort of thing often and you have a generous boss, then Microsoft Video Indexer is likely to be your friend.

Several years ago I surveyed PDF reader software for desktops, with an eye to: 1) speed of opening, and 2) being a “magazine reader”.

There were only two free ad-free winners, The Windows Reader desktop app and Sumatra PDF. Sumatra won because, unlike MS Reader, you can turn off the “gutter” line for two-page magazine spreads. Being able to do that is a vital feature, for viewing magazines that run pictures across double-page spreads.

I took another look at the range of PDF readers, just now. Surprisingly, no-one has yet produced a dedicated elegant free “PDF magazine reader” for desktops, with a big idiot-proof one-click button for: “two-page spreads + cover-page, no gutter line”. Sumatra PDF is still the closest, with its Book view (Cover + Facing pages) which is found under Settings | Options | Book View. But the gutter line still has to be removed by fiddling in Advanced Settings, to manually change: PageSpacing = 4 4 to PageSpacing = 0 0

I tried a few other free desktop readers, to see if anything had changed and there were any new contenders. I ended up trying the following…

* PDF-XChange Viewer. Painfully slow to render pages, uninstalled. Apparently the whole of CERN is forced to use this, for security. Secure it may be, but fast it is not.

* PDF Architect. The interface looks slick, like MS Office. It’s still available free, but has been superseded by a more advanced paid version. It was a 13Mb download, then it needed to go online to get a “Startup module”. This download stuck at 1% and never completed. Killing the downloader process revealed it was 32-bit anyway, something that was also confirmed by further research. There doesn’t appear to be a standalone version.

* MuPDF, open source… but it’s what Sumatra is built on. Basically it’s Sumatra but without the advanced controls.

* Evince is also open source. Curiously it doesn’t feature on lists of the best Adobe Reader alternatives, or at Major Geeks (now the best freeware directory). Possibly this is because Evince is said to ignore DRM in PDFs, and/or because people think it’s not for Windows. Yet there is Evince for Windows. It’s somewhat fast, but sadly it has a fat ugly gutter on double-page spreads which can’t be removed. Nor can it handle PDFs from Microsoft Publisher, not being able to display semi-transparency correctly. Uninstalled.

* I assume that Adobe Reader is still bloated and also a major security risk.

Thus, as far as I can tell, the only real free / ad-free / nag-free, fast, 64-bit and reasonably secure option for magazines at the start of 2020 is still Sumatra PDF. One can of course send a PDF magazine to your tablet or megavision TV for leisurely sofa-and-chocs browsing, but desktop-based professionals often need a quicker desktop solution for flicking through PDF magazines.

There is a portable version that can run with its own settings file. This can be useful if you need a second installation with a tiny gutter line — to check for slight gutter-overlaps in the output PDF.

Microsoft’s Image Composite Editor 2.0 is free photo stitching software for desktop PCs. (Also backed up at Archive.org). Although it bills itself as yet another panorama-stitching software, if can also stitch hand-held ’tiled’ sequences of images, provided there is overlap. Such as multiple images of a large old poster. The software is the product of Microsoft’s Photosynth years, and both very fast and accurate.

As a test I started with three images from eBay, non-scanned and made with a hand-held camera…

After import the files were automatically arranged by file-name numbering: 1, 2, 3. Then by using the Structured | Layout section it was easy enough to get the three images into a column…

Automatic can be used, but the best results come from jiggling the Structured | Overlap sliders until you have an approximately good fit. It seems the fit doesn’t have to be perfect.

From there you go to the next step, Stitch, and if it’s not done right you go back and adjust the Overlap sliders again. It only took me two tries to get a perfect stitch.

Cropping and export is then very straightforward. As you can see there’s a slight skew at the top and bottom, but further finessing of the Overlap sliders might fix that.

A very nice bit of free software, and so much easier and faster than other possible options. One could, theoretically, use this with screenshots of a public-domain picture trapped inside a tiled viewer, quickly re-combining these into a large whole image.

Problem: Downloading from SourceForge may be impossible from the UK and EU, due to cookie madness. This occurs if your cookie-alert blocker and/or overlay-blocker automatically removes SourceForge’s huge “ACCEPT COOKIES!” blocking screen, which means that the SourceForge download-timer will never start. You never get your file.

Solution: Bypass all that junk, and go straight to the direct download. Do this by simply installing the SourceForge: Direct download links UserScript.

Result: You get a direct download from the Files tab. Right-click on your desired file and then “Save linked content as…” (or whatever your Web browser’s equivalent is of that right-click menu item).

Incidentally, the UK is to opt out of the EU’s questionable new copyright laws, once our glorious Brexit is done, and hopefully we’ll also stomp on the EU’s hated cookie alerts too. Which means that UK users may not need this solution, at some point in the near future.

Following on from my testing of new scripts in recent days, here’s a basic summary list and quick-start on what you’ll need for three column search in Google in 2020. This follows the effective demise of the much-loved GoogleMonkeyR.

First you want a good Chrome-based browser. Opera for Desktop is in use here, at 1920px. Turn off addons and scripts likely to conflict with the new ones listed below.

I assume you already have auto-suggest etc turned off, when formulating search-queries at Google, and are using a widescreen desktop PC.

Core script-management and element-blocking addons:

1. Tampermonkey for installing and running UserScripts.

2. Stylus for installing and using UserStyles.

3. uBlock Origin for blocking, and knowledge of how to use its element picker and how to edit its “My Filters” list. (I suggest that you unsubscribe from the “Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list” after install, due to over-reach. It’s found under Filter Lists | Multipurpose).

UserScripts and UserStyles:

1. Google search in several columns for Tampermonkey.

And then tell it to exclude Google Books, by adding the following lines to the top of the script…

// @exclude http*://xxx.google.*tbm=bks*
// @exclude http*://xxx.google.*.*tbm=bks*

… where xxx = www

You may want to tinker a little with the script’s column-width settings, in certain parts of the script, to better fit your widescreen monitor. If you plan to use Google Search Sidebar (see below) then install that before you start tinkering with these widths.

Update at end of March 2020: script broken by changes at Google Search. Temporary fix.

2. Then let the Stylish script Google Search in columns handle the three columns for Google Books results, having first set the script to three columns when you downloaded it. This script also appears to have the very useful effect of preventing the other UserScript columnising script from splitting an individual search-result across two columns, with a bit awkwardly placed in each column. The two scripts seems to be able to co-exist on Google Search, News etc.

Cosmetic:

1. Re-order the top menu in Google, and remove links to “Shopping”, “Flights” etc, if unwanted.

2. Google Search restore URLs (undo breadcrumbs) + Old Google Search. Together these two place a full URL path, under the link title in your results, like it’s always been. Another script noted below will make the URL path green, like it should be.

3. Google Search Sidebar and its expansion Google Search Various Ranges. This also works with News, and “two weeks” seems a good recent time-point at which the Googlebot has cleared a lot of the robo-spam from Search but results are still fresh.

4. Google Hit Hider by Domain (Search Filter / Block Sites). Dynamically and automatically remove results according to a user’s own URL blocking list. But it leaves a space in the results page, so that the layout is not ruined and the user knows something was removed. Blocking is done by a little “Block” button placed next to each result.

5. Fix Google Images a bit with Google Search – Always Show Image Size.

6. Google Search – Visible Cached + Similar links. Add back the “Cached” link (which still works). Then hack the script to make the Cache links small and also colour-matched to your theme — simply add “font-size: 10px;” and a basic color fix in the /* Actual Link */ section of the script; and then add this wholly new section and tweak its colour chip…

/* li background */
.ab_dropdown {
background: #eaeff7!important;
}

7. Google Search – Classic Links. I’ve adapted mine for use in combination with the above and a preferred coloured background, and it looks like this…

/*** Basic fix of the main links to appear less shouty ***/
#search a h3, #search a.l {
text-decoration: underline !important;
font-size: 16px !important;
color: #3666aa;
/*** Since URLs paths are visible in results, make them green ***/
}
cite.iUh30.bc.iUh30 {
color: darkgreen;
}


Blocking tweaks:

You’ll then need to use the Picker tool in UBlock Origin as you search…

…to block all the spammy ‘suggestions’ panels, massive ‘helper’ panels, nags and suchlike that will appear from time-to-time on your page to clutter up your Google Search.

The following will also be useful for en-masse blocking of images in search results in News and Books, using UBlock. Paste them into your UBlock Origin “My Filters” list, save it, then reload Google.

! Block any page-panel containing the keyword X - here the word is 'videos'
google.com##g-section-with-header:has-text(/Videos/)

! Block all Google Books cover thumbnails en-masse
google.com##*.th

The Google Books cover-thumbnail space cannot be removed, only the thumbnail images that sit on top of that space. The empty space left behind seems to be ineradicable.

That’s it. Enjoy your newly columnar, cleaned and tweaked Google search experience.

Another useful Google UserScript that works in 2020, Fixed Order Google Categories.

This cryptically-named December 2019 script puts the Google top menu-bar into the following order, and prevents Google from pushing items around or pushing sales-oriented items forwards…

Before:

After:

You can then also very easily edit the script to remove “Shopping”, “Flights”, “Finance”, while having “Books” on the main menu. These items are still available if needed, but are hidden under “More” along with a “Books” duplicate.

Custom:

The new addition of “Books” happily passes through the search query as usual. Note that “Jurn” is being added here via my own additional script, and that “Videos” is also gone as I never use it.

So, now Google is fully “fixed up” again for me, following the demise of GoogleMonkeyR. With a slight toning down of the background colour, this is what it looks like for me in January 2020. The gaps being Google Hit Hider in action…

All ‘auto-suggestions’ and ‘quick answers’ panels and similar junk removed, and just the search results left. No images anywhere, except in the search results from “Images”. Robust blocking via Google Hit Hider. Full URL paths, in green below blue links.

Update: I now have a tutorial on how to do this: Google Search in three columns: how to do it in 2020.

Update: Reorder Google Categories