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Codebase Memory MCP Hands-On: Turning Your Repository into a Queryable Knowledge Graph for AI Agents
Codebase Memory MCP is a local code intelligence engine that turns a repository into a knowledge graph for AI coding agents. This hands-on guide covers installation, indexing, the 3D Graph UI, and practical CLI queries.
Deskreen Same-Network Temporary Screen Sharing Hands-On: View Your Screen from a Phone or Another Computer
Deskreen lets you share your computer screen with a phone, tablet, or another computer on the same local network. This article records the actual workflow, suitable use cases, and notes about private IP addresses and privacy.
RustDesk Open-Source Remote Desktop Test: Controlling macOS from Windows
RustDesk is an open-source remote desktop tool that can control computers across platforms and also supports self-hosted servers. This article records my hands-on flow: downloading from GitHub, logging in, enabling permissions, setting a fixed password, and accepting the first connection.
HandBrake Hands-on: This Long-running Open-source Video Compression Tool Is Still Very Steady
HandBrake is a long-running open-source video transcoding and compression tool. I did a quick test this time with a 4K video: the original 106.1 MB file was compressed to 16.6 MB, and the image quality held up better than I expected. This post records my basic workflow and notes on choosing presets.
SmartSub 妙幕 Hands-on: The Least Fussy Local Video Subtitle Translation Tool I’ve Used So Far
SmartSub 妙幕 is a local-first desktop subtitle tool that can transcribe videos, translate subtitles, create bilingual subtitles, and burn subtitles into video. This article records my tests with DeepSeek translation, faster-whisper, CUDA acceleration, and how it differs from VideoLingo.
Kando Hands-On: My Favorite Cross-Platform Open Source Pie Menu Lately
Kando is a free, open source Pie Menu tool for macOS/Windows/Linux. You can bring up a radial menu with Ctrl + Space, then use mouse gestures to quickly open apps, websites, files, hotkeys, and macros. This post shares my actual experience using it and how I set it up.
Testing Horizon: Letting Codex Automatically Organize Daily AI News
I wired Horizon into my blog news workflow so it handles collecting sources, then hands them to Codex to write a daily AI news summary. This article records the installation method, basic usage flow, and what I thought after actually testing it.
Maccy Hands-On: A Lightweight, Keyboard-First Open-Source Clipboard Manager for macOS
When I organize information or develop on macOS, the issue I run into most often is window switching caused by frequent copy and paste. This article tests the open-source Maccy clipboard tool and shares my actual experience with shortcut activation, fast search, security filtering, and more.
Stirling PDF Hands-On: An Offline Open-Source PDF Tool That Handles 50+ Tasks Without Uploading to the Cloud
I recently tested Stirling PDF, an open-source PDF editing platform that runs entirely locally. It supports merging, compression, signing, and over 50 other operations — no need to worry about sensitive documents being uploaded to third-party cloud servers.
AeroSpace Hands-On: Bringing Tiling Window Management to macOS
A look at AeroSpace, a tiling window manager, and how I use keyboard shortcuts to deal with messy macOS windows.
Microsoft PowerToys Hands-On: 4 Windows Productivity Tools I Would Not Want to Give Up
The Windows workflow issues I run into most often are the lack of macOS-like preview and quick launcher features. This article tests four useful tools in Microsoft's official PowerToys: spacebar preview with Peek, quick screenshot OCR copy, always-on-top windows, and a quick search launcher, with notes from my actual usage.
Codex Record & Replay Hands-On: Demo It Once, Teach AI Your Local Workflow
OpenAI Codex recently added Record & Replay. I tested how, in a local environment, you can demo a workflow once and have Codex record and automatically run script-based workflows like video compression.
Recordly Hands-On: Open-Source Screen Recording and Auto Zoom-In Editor (macOS/Windows/Linux)
I recently tested the open-source Recordly. It combines recording and post-production, automatically generates zoom suggestions based on mouse activity, and includes polish features like cursor smoothing, shadows, and borders, which saves a lot of time when making software demo videos.
CodexBar Hands-On: Monitor Quotas for 53 AI Coding Services from the macOS Menu Bar
CodexBar is an open-source macOS menu bar tool that tracks usage windows, credit balances, and reset countdowns for AI coding services such as Codex, Claude, Cursor, and Copilot in real time. This article walks through the installation flow, permissions, and provider setup based on hands-on testing.
optimizerDuck Hands-on: An Open-source Windows Performance and Privacy Optimization Tool That Blocks Unneeded Background Telemetry
optimizerDuck is an open-source Windows system optimization tool built with .NET 10 and WPF. This article tests its performance tuning, privacy telemetry blocking, GPU power optimization, and other features, and also provides steps for resolving Windows SmartScreen blocking warnings plus a Traditional Chinese language setup guide.
Hands-on with Handy Offline Voice Input: Paired with Breeze ASR 25, a Chinese-English Mixed Input Setup Built for Taiwanese Users
Handy is a free, open-source desktop voice input tool that runs fully offline. In this article, I test installation and configuration on macOS/Windows/Linux, paired with the Breeze ASR 25 model optimized for everyday Chinese-English mixed speech in Taiwan, to build a privacy-focused voice input experience.
Gemini 3.5 Live Translate Hands-On: New Two-Way Real-Time Voice Translation and Live API Developer Guide
Google has released the new Gemini 3.5 Live Translate model, supporting low-latency two-way real-time voice translation across more than 70 languages. This article walks through a hands-on test of the Google AI Studio web experience, explains how it works, and provides Live API development examples and WebSocket connection setup.
Map3D Hands-On: One-Click 3D City Maps and GLB Export Guide
Want to quickly get 3D building and road models of real cities? Built on React-Three-Fiber and OpenStreetMap, Map3D lets you select an area in the browser and export GLB directly, making 3D terrain modeling surprisingly simple.
LocalSend Cross-Platform Open-Source LAN File Transfer Tool: No-Setup Usage Guide
Transfer files quickly and securely over HTTPS on a local network between macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, with no internet connection or account registration required.
LLM Wiki Hands-on: Building a Personal Offline Knowledge Base That Large Models Can Organize and Update Automatically
Do your notes always feel tedious to organize? LLM Wiki is a personal knowledge base tool built around ideas from Andrej Karpathy. It can automatically read documents, run a two-stage chain-of-thought analysis, generate interconnected Wiki pages, and work well with Obsidian and local AI models.
Vibe Review: A Cross-Platform Offline AI Speech-to-Text Tool for Beginners — Clean, Intuitive, One-Click
Dread the Whisper command line or find other tools too complicated to set up? Vibe is a minimal, hassle-free offline speech-to-subtitle tool. The feature set is simple, but the interface is clean and easy to pick up — a solid choice for less technical users.
Text-To-Lottie Tested: Using an AI Agent to Generate and Preview Lottie Animations Locally
This article shows how to use Skia CanvasKit (Skottie) with a React and shadcn/ui control interface, letting a local AI agent write lottie.json directly and preview the animation through hot reload in the dev server.
Nous Hermes Desktop Native Installation and Setup Guide: Hands-On Test of a Cross-Platform AI Assistant and Unified Memory
Nous Research’s Hermes agent has moved from the terminal to a GUI. This article walks through a hands-on test of the native desktop app across three platforms, covering one-click migration for existing users, API provider setup, and connecting Telegram and Line to build a personal AI assistant.
MinerU Hands-on: Open-Source PDF and Multi-Format Document Parsing on macOS/Windows/Linux
When dealing with complex layouts, scanned documents, or formulas, traditional PDF-to-text tools often fall short. The open-source framework MinerU combines layout analysis with vision-language models (VLM) to convert PDFs, images, and Office files into accurate Markdown, tables, and LaTeX formulas in one step. This article tests both the online Web version and local CLI/API deployment workflow.
Headroom Hands-On: A Context Compression Layer for AI Agents That Cuts Token Costs by 60–95%
Headroom is an open source context optimization tool built for AI Agents. It combines multiple compression algorithms, supports local reversible decompression (CCR), and can sharply reduce LLM compute costs while improving response speed.
Tegaki Handwriting Animation Library: Install & Test — Easy Hand-Drawn Text Effects for the Web
Want to add natural, fluid handwriting animations to your web pages? Tegaki is a lightweight, easy-to-use JavaScript library that converts any font into stroke-by-stroke handwriting animation.
CC Switch Extended Use: Testing Phone Remote Control for Your Computer and Codex Enhanced Mode
How can you use the exclusive features in CC Switch v3.16.1+ to keep Codex's official mobile login state and remote-control capability, while routing the actual model requests to third-party APIs such as DeepSeek? This hands-on guide walks you through an AI Agent setup where your phone controls your computer.
CC Switch Hands-On: A Local Routing Tool for Switching AI CLI Models with Your Own API Key in One Click
When using Claude Code or Codex in the terminal, how can you freely switch models, bring your own API key, or use DeepSeek? This hands-on article tests the CC Switch routing tool and walks through how to proxy AI CLIs while managing costs and MCP.
Removerized: An Offline Browser-Based AI Background Removal and Image Enhancement Tool
Removerized lets you handle background removal, upscaling, and batch processing directly in the browser, without uploading data to the cloud, balancing speed and privacy.
Open Design Hands-On: Quickly Building a Portfolio Homepage with a Local CLI
This time I handed most of my portfolio homepage UI over to Open Design. From choosing a local Coding Agent, picking a design system, and entering the brief, to generating the mockup and handing it off to VS Code, the whole flow was smoother than I expected.
Pot (派了個萌的翻譯器) Hands-On: A Solid Cross-Platform Selection Translation and OCR Tool
Looking for a smooth translation tool that does not interrupt your workflow? Pot supports side-by-side comparison across multiple translations, accurate screenshot OCR, and a wide range of translation and LLM integrations, making it a practical efficiency tool for macOS, Windows, and Linux users.
RTK Terminal Token Reducer Installation and Hands-on Test: Cut Claude Code Costs by Over 70%
RTK (Rust Token Killer) is a high-performance Rust-based CLI proxy tool that automatically filters and compresses terminal output, saving 60-90% of token usage for AI-assisted development.
How to Apply for a Free Digiplat DNS Subdomain and Configure Cloudflare DNS
Want to deploy a personal project or test site without paying for a domain? This article shows you how to use Digiplat to apply for free subdomains with suffixes such as .US.KG, .DPDNS.ORG, and more.
Installing and Testing Modly, a Local AI Image-to-3D Mesh Generation Tool
Want to quickly turn 2D images into high-detail 3D models without paying or uploading private work to the cloud? Modly lets you run AI 3D generation directly on your local GPU.
OpenVid Tutorial: Browser-Based Product Demo Recording and 3D Camera Post-Production Without Installation
Want to record polished demo videos for your product? OpenVid lets you apply 3D camera angles, zooms, and clean backgrounds directly in the browser, then export a high-quality demo video with one click.
Hands-on with OmniVoice Studio, a Local AI Video Dubbing Tool, plus a macOS Installation Pitfall Guide
I recently tested OmniVoice Studio, an open-source alternative to ElevenLabs + HeyGen. It supports 646 languages, runs automatic local video dubbing, and even works on a Mac mini. This article covers my hands-on notes, how to bypass macOS quarantine, and a voice comparison between Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese input.
Shannon AI Pentest Agent Installation and Hands-on Testing Guide (macOS/Linux)
I used 10 AI agents to attack my own website. Two hours later, they handed me a full security report. Shannon was more mature than I expected.
Optimizing Pretext, an Efficient Multi-line Text Canvas Layout Library, and Avoiding DOM Repaints
Want to calculate paragraph height precisely and build more flexible text layouts without constantly touching getBoundingClientRect? Pretext offers a clever path.
AltSendme Cross-Platform P2P File Transfer Tool: Serverless Setup Guide
No cloud, no signup. Transfer directly between Windows and macOS.
Hands-On Deck.gl: Large-Scale 3D Geospatial Data Visualization with MapLibre
Want to render tens of thousands of data points on the web while keeping smooth 3D interaction? Deck.gl is a solid choice for geospatial data visualization.
Antigravity Manager Setup Guide: Real-Time Monitoring for Multiple Accounts and Token Quotas
If you only care about two things: seeing quotas clearly and switching accounts quickly, Antigravity Manager is actually worth installing.
VideoLingo Local AI Video Subtitle Translation & Chinese Dubbing Deployment Guide
I tested VideoLingo, from raw video to Chinese subtitles and Chinese-dubbed video, all automated. This post covers features, actual results, and my recommended model settings.
Installing Arnis, a Geographic GIS Data Conversion Tool, and Hands-on Minecraft 3D Real-World Map Generation
If you have ever wanted to generate your hometown, city, or even an entire landscape directly inside Minecraft, Arnis is pretty wild.
Custom Configuration and Practical Deployment of the Open-Source log-lottery Web Raffle System for Year-End Events
An open-source raffle tool that supports custom participant lists, prizes, images, backgrounds, and music. I also put together a Traditional Chinese version, so after deployment you can open it in a browser and use it directly.
Hermes Agent x HyperFrames Hands-On: A Guide to Automatically Generating an AI Assistant Self-Intro Video
I asked Hermes to make its own self-introduction video. From copywriting and HTML animation to rendering an MP4, the whole process was automated. What is HyperFrames? Why is it a better fit for AI Agents than Remotion?
DeepSeek V4 Pro x Hermes Agent: Self-Written Intro Review and Deployment Guide
I asked Hermes to write this itself. 1M context, $0.87 per million tokens, cross-platform deployment, autonomous screenshots, writing, and git push. This article was handled by AI from research to publishing.
Barkod Studio Installation and Design Guide for Personalized Barcodes and Invoice Carrier Graphics
A full web version with no installation required and polished custom styles. Pull out a shark- or poop-shaped carrier at checkout and you will definitely get noticed.
Stacher: Install the Universal Media Downloader & Configure the yt-dlp GUI
Ditch the command line. A polished GUI for yt-dlp — download 4K videos and music with one click.
Petdex Bitmap Desktop Pet Installation Guide: Make Your Dev Environment More Fun
Install it instantly with one npx command, with no registration or login, and bring developers a surprising amount of peace of mind.
Cobe Lightweight WebGL Globe Setup Tutorial and Vue Project Integration Guide
Want to add a cool 3D globe to your webpage without loading the heavy Three.js? COBE is a great choice.
SuperCmd Open-Source Mac Quick Launcher: Install & Custom Command Setup Guide
Raycast extensions, voice dictation, and an AI assistant rolled into one open-source tool — could this be your new daily driver?
OpenStock Open-Source Stock Market Backtesting System Installation and AI Strategy Integration Guide
OpenStock is a community-driven open-source stock platform, an alternative to expensive market tools.
World Monitor: Local Deployment of a Global Real-Time Intelligence Monitoring System with AI Analysis Integration
An in-depth look at World Monitor — from quick local deployment to integrating AI analysis. Learn how to build a real-time monitoring platform covering geopolitics, military, finance, and infrastructure.
Pi Coding Agent: Installing and Using a Lightweight Terminal AI Assistant
If you feel like most AI development tools are too heavy, or they force you to change your habits, Pi is worth trying because you stay in control.
Warp Terminal: Installing the Next-Gen IDE-Grade Smart Terminal and Optimizing Dev Workflow
From visual autocomplete and mouse editing to Blocks output, Warp is overhauling the old clunky terminal experience that everyone just put up with.
Installing Voicebox: A Local AI Voice Studio Guide
A developer-oriented guide to Voicebox — from macOS/Windows installation to voice cloning, and how to make your AI agent speak via MCP.
NVIDIA NIM Free DeepSeek-V4-Pro API Application and Multi-Framework Integration Guide
No credit card required, no trial period! This guide shows you how to connect to the newly released DeepSeek-V4-Pro and Flash models through NVIDIA NIM with minimal friction.