YouTube… When will you learn?

Okay, so I’m an avid YouTube user. I go on it every day watch 10-50 videos a day and use the site a lot. BUT it sucks. And it aggravates me so much that YouTube which is owned and operated by THE biggest and richest Internet corporation (Google) in the world, STILL has a site with “features” which don’t work, are unwanted or are just plain crap. For instance, the blog feature which should enable me to “easily” post a video and text to my blog right from YouTube, which would probably mean i would end up posting tons of videos which i want to share. But no. It simply doesn’t work, from what i read on the support forums – it’s not just me. From other peoples comments it seams this brilliant feature strangely works perfectly find for Blogger (The site OWNED by Google… who also own YouTube) but not so well for others, I was trying to get it working with this blog and also a blog i set up for the Five Awesome Web Geeks (http://geeks.dansgalaxy.co.uk) but neither seems to work. Of course the best part of this story is how its not just one little feature, its all the features, there isn’t much on YouTube which works perfectly, which hasn’t been there since before google brought them out… Another example of the simply rubbish site that is YouTube is the message system. For some reason YouTube just doesn’t want to show me the nice messages telling me that it has failed to post the video and message to my blog for and “Unknown” reason. This just bugs me so much because it is Google, the best and I expect a much much higher standard from this kind of corporation – Google CAN and SHOULD do better and are letting their users down – BADLY! There is so much which i could rant about YouTube at the moment, from the time i walked in on YouTube changing…      This was mid change when they played around with the time/title display for videos…     … Now me personally, i would have thought YouTube is template based… So why did i see this?! Surly the new template/style should have been done and then a single setting change and its all done?           For me the bottom line is YouTube is making a basic mistake, they aren’t testing their features. Is it really that hard for YouTube (like BBC iPlayer and many many other sites) to have a beta option? I mean what would it take for them to set up beta.youtube.com, which had a version of YouTube which included all the latest features, which would allow the users to play and test and then provide feedback and discuss the changes in a decent forum… No google groups is NOT a decent forum, vBulletin is a decent forum and if google got the feedback from its users and its beta testing right everything would improve. Users would get a better experience from properly tested features which have been proven to be WANTED by users, and of course from a publicity point of view YouTube wouldn’t have people like me moaning about the poor service.

Rant Over… You May Resume Normality.

EDIT (31/12/08):

Just had a thought as to the message and possibly other problems, could it be poor co-location techniques? For instance most geeks should know that YouTube is obviously not hosted on one server (in fact is uses Google HUGE server farms on many continents in many countries), and now as soon as you type in Youtube.com you get directed to the local version for me that’s uk.YouTube.com, but even then i know that its not one server for the whole UK, and now i am thinking i need to make my point because i am waffling. My point is that the messages do (eventually) appear in my inbox, usually about 4 hours plus after it tells me i have new messages, so could it be that the site gets the new message information from one server while the messages have not yet been synced to the server i connect to to view the message page?

Personally i think its unlikely, as i would have thought google wouldn’t have this issue… then again some of the bits i pointed out above suggest they may not be running things as best as possible…

P.s thanks for the comment Mike

Tags: blog, fail, features, youtube

Twitter

Okay now i have to admit, i was kind of wanting to not release yet another blog post about twitter into the void of bits and bytes which make up the Internet, Twitter or a twitter related site or app seems to be mentioned daily on TechCrunch, and well its just over publicised. Of course part of it is the programmer in me screaming… ITS SO FREAKIN’ SIMPLE!!!!!!! in reality almost any reasonable web developer can create a basic form of twitter with a click of their fingers.

Before i go off on a huge discussion (yes a discussion with myself) just a brief overview of what twitter actually is…

 It’s a service which allows you to update whatever you’re doing, whenever you’re doing it.  

[ Quote lovingly borrowed from a friend -> http://gd-comic.com ]

I think the main cause of the huge success of twitter is the extremally easy to use APIs which enable developers to create apps, sites, gadgets and well ANYTHING which can do anything on twitter, which has lead to the explosion of websites which all use twitter.

Personally I use a twitter sidebar gadget for vista, which is okay, but sucks quite a bit  from a user friendly point of view and well it does my head in sometimes, which is why i started to redevelop it, and will hopefully end up with my own version. which i will of course release if its any good.

I think that twitter is a great service and would hate to see the day when google or Microsoft realise this and decide to buy it for an unbelievable amount of money. While generally I’m not a google basher, we need more standalone things like this keeps the Internet special

As you might have guessed, I’m a twitter user and some days it seems to be all i do, which is strange as usually i do something and then tweet about it…

So stalk me – http://twitter.com/dansgalaxy

Tags: twitter

Hmm… Life good.. and bad and down right complicated sometimes.

Okay first off, YAY Christmas… well not yay, it kinda sucks if i am honest, its cold boring and you have to put up with family members you don’t really like. But still, i got my nice new laptop which i am currently typing on in bed.. so i am quite happy with that

YouTube:

Okay so my plan was, get laptop, install software start making Internet videos… But alas no… i get laptop i install software i click record i do a little dance, i click stop i click done i go… What f’ing read error?!! .. it seems (even after 3 re-installs) the software doesn’t like me and doesn’t want to save my recording, which is a little bit of a pain i have to admit =/

Okay, the above was done in bed, its the afternoon now, and the web cam problem is really annoyed me I having a look and even the movie software which came with the laptop (vaio movie story) doesn’t recognise the built in motion eye cam, and neither does windows movie maker… although i did just come across Web Cam companion2 which was able to record and save without throwing up errors… and now as i type i have just discovered all the failed recording DID save in my documents :/ very strange… so it turns out i can record but i have to put up with the capture program giving errors and crashing, and then have to manually import the files into the software to be edited? Wow doesn’t that sound like an efficient piece of software…

Also been some debating about the name of the new geek channel, and exactly how it will work, i first registered fiveawesomewebgeeks because the whole five awesome… was pretty cool and unfortunately some douche has registered fiveawesomegeeks and the account has been deleted and i still couldn’t register the name… So the other day while thinking up cool YouTube channel names (notice how i use the term “cool”  loosely) and i now registered awesomegeeks, awesomewebgeeks, 5awesomewebgeeks so hopefully we will be on one of those channels in the new year! so watch this space.

Also on the note of the Five Awesome Web Geeks (5awg) i think i might have found the 5th geek so *yay* but i guess we shall see, so there are 3 days left to new year and i guess i should start dishing out the login details, and crossing my fingers and hoping the guys who said they would make videos… actually do make videos lol all fun i think Hayley, Lew (the new guy) and I will probably be the main people, particularly as Lew (http://uk.youtube.com/user/papplemanger) seems to already be into making some weird and wacky videos… so yay cant wait.

I also ordered Alan (from five awesome guys) YouTube book from amazon, which i should be getting between Jan 5th and 9th.

So go check it out – http://youtube.com/fiveawesomewebgeeks

 Radio:

 Hmm okay, so i have mentioned before i am involved with a local community radio station, and i keep changing my mind about where i think its going; one minute I’m thinking ah this is futile give in and get on with all the other awesome projects im working on, and then again i think no this could be a lot of fun given the chance just a shame that some illogical people are … yea im gonna choose not to finish this sentence.

But yes, i am writing a long wordy email to the station manager, see if anything changes and it starts to be worth my time, as at the moment it isn’t, and I’m not doing what i was told i would be doing in the beginning… and i really don’t like feeling like i have been lied to… So i have decided, i will finish this email, and send it off, if things change and i get to do more of what i love then we are all happy they get to use my array of skills and i get to have a bit of fun, if not i guess i will be making more Internet videos and working on my other projects… yea the ones which will probs make me some money in the end! lol

Hmm just started watching the five awesome teens on YouTube… hmm looks fun now watching them from the beginning lol.

I really should be blogging and vlogging more now i have my laptop, i uploaded 3 videos i did with hayley the other day so check it out -> http://youtube.com/dansgalaxy

I do too much… almost everything i am doing.

Did anyone else watch a program called bernards watch or something like that, basically kid has an old watch which he clicks and it stops time. I WANT ONE OF THOSE!!

Not enough hours in the day… Really isnt

Christmas in just 8 days and i cant wait, not because its Christmas I’m quite cynical now and about the only thing i like about Christmas is the music.. well the older Christmas songs cant beat 70/80’s Xmas rock! (Give me Slade – Merry Xmas everybody!  any day!) and of course its nice to get something, this year I’m getting a laptop, and no I’m not spoilt, i had to pay half towards it; I having a laptop (which is just as good if not better than my desktop which is pretty good compared to most!) will help boost me as a blogger and vlogger.

As i have mentioned before i will be launching the Five Awesome Web Geeks Channel on YouTube in new year, which currently consists of myself, one of my best friends Hayley, another great friend Cal who’s a little strange but hey your reading my blog so you might like him! another friend Mike who i have known online for a while now and who if im honest is probably a head of me in some of the ways of the geek. I am sure the more astute readers will have spotted that there’s currently only 4 web geeks in the Five Awesome Web Geeks… and well to be honest I’m kinda regretting restricting myself to 5 but that’s the aim at least, if we cant pick up another geek before new years hopefully we can get some after we started making some videos

New word press?

Woah, I’m shocked i have to admit i am writing this in word press version 2.7 and woah the admin is SOO different, cant decide if i like it or not, the menus seem both cool but also rather annoying something seem easier some seem a pain, and they have chosen to go with a almost all grey colours, and it looks rather boring and white washed.

Any thoughts on the new wordpress please do pop them below, same if you fancy being a geek!

Now of course another burden i have at the moment is college, lots and lots of work, some is well easy because i know what im talking about and other stuff… well that just does my head in, and often it seems its not that i “don’t get it” its just i don’t understand what I’m getting… yea that makes no sense to me either… going to have great fun Wednesday (well today by the time i post as I’m offline now so this will be posted when i wake up!) as going to see tutor and see if he can point me in right direction and knock some more out before the deadline… 5pm

One thing which is also quite frustrating if i am honest is, everyone keeps saying how on the Internet your unique and no one knows you, but it seems i have got to the point where that simply isn’t true, everyone i know both online and off know my handle (dansgalaxy) and can all quite easily find this blog, so i always feel i can never “let rip” and bitch about people (and believe me i could!) but i know if i do eventually someone will read it, and it will either be the person I’m ranting about or its someone who knows them… and i have heard a few stories of people blogging things, and it didn’t work out for them because of well… the kind of people they (and i would) rant about on a blog!!

This is another thing (o god yep… i have just started going into a rant… sorry guys might take a while but do read i can be amusing when i rant.. so i am told) there are loooads of people which just frustrate me at the moment, and its bugging me because i cant help thinking, if these people would drop the bull and open up, be honest and try and help people understand instead of being defensive, controlling, and well ignorant and foolish the world would be a much better place, but i am learning fast this is not the case, and im sure i will have the mis-fortune of coming into contact with a lot of people like this (particularly management types)…

But no, this is not it this is not everything i am doing! there’s more!

Of course i am still running XDnet Web Services (Xdnet.co.uk) where I’m selling a range of products, and will hopefully be trying to sell more of my design & web coding skills, as i need the money to try and get some saved for driving lessons… and who knows eventually i might be able to afford to go to university without someone having to die first, or for me to be in 20 thousand pound of debt by 25.

Driving, well this has been something i have been off and on about a lot, one minute i am thinking no i will wait no point, once i have money i will get it and then of course i think of all the fun i can have with a car and being able to go pretty much anywhere i like… o the fun but now i think i have changed my mind (again!) and will be trying to save and start getting some lessons after my birthday and maybe eventually i can afford to get the car… and insurance… and tax and everything else which is needed to run a car.

Projects, as i have mentioned a lot on this blog, i am always doing a lot of different projects, i will be doing a NewCollege project after new year which will be a training booking program thingy for tutors, which could be interesting although… we shall see.

I also need to find a heck of a lot of time to revisit the Calm Charity website as i need to give that another overhaul and add a lot more to that, as really i need to bring it all up to a decent CMS which i can enable the other committee members to use and update content and hopefully take some of the burden off moi, but again not enough time!

And then there’s my newest potential venture, while i don’t really want to talk in detail about exactly what it is for various reasons, it will be a lot of work, and if we can get it right it could be big, and hopefully make a nice profit. So i will be working on this company with couple of friends and often very random people – Johnny Robinson (Jonks) – who i have been known to say is “a stoner with out the dope” but in a good way of course, he is one of those interesting people who comes out with weird and wacky ideas, but can be great fun to chat to, and the third person is Rich who while can be equally “interesting” is a little more subtle the Jonks, and often has a wicked sarcasm. So that could be fun if i can help get this project off the ground tech wise.

Stand Up comedy for comic relief!

That’s right, and no I’m not doing a stand up… at the moment although its still possible, i might be preforming a sketch idea me and my mate Tom came up with in the good ole’ days in Greendown, God and Allah or a version of that at least, think Mac Parody with religion and some wicked humor. but back on topic, i will hopefully be head tech organising his comedy event where Cal who is will be sorting out the funny, and who’s idea this was will be performing with others some stand up comedy in aid of Comic Relief, so far i believe we have Newcollege, Cirencester College, Highworth School, The Swindon Arts centre and probably a few more in swindon booked to take this event around swindon and raise some cash! I plan to also be streaming and recording the event(s) and getting them online and possibly selling DVD’s after so its all fun, and have the full backing of the Newcollege principal and i need to be talking to John the tech guy at newcollege today so great fun

And me being… me there’s much more but most of that I’m not gonna tell you! or indeed there’s a lot i wont even tell my best friends… not yet at least keep them waiting…

Blog now on Dansgalaxy.co.uk!

Okay, so since i wasnt using Dansgalaxy.co.uk for anything for anything i have been meaning to move the blog over from blog.dansgalaxy.co.uk to the proper domain for a while now, and i finally found the time!

So now its a shorter domain to get to my blog

And no i didnt forget, i added the htaccess permenant redirect so all old links and everything should still work fine lol

After christmas, once i got my new laptop i will hopefully be launching the Five Awesome Web Geeks channel on youtube -> http://youtube.com/fiveawesomewebgeeks so hopefully you can find me and some other awesome geeks being geeky, and no doubt funny and random… so go and subscribe… even though there isnt any er videos er… yea im gonna get on that soon

Also been twittering alot and seem to have people i dont even know following me now so join in stalk follow me -> http://twitter.com/dansgalaxy

Dan

Tags: dansgalaxy, fiveawesomewebgeeks, new domain, twitter, youtube