The Digitante
Learn to turn your technology on…
Tag Archives: video
TQT: Queue YouTube to a Specific Time…
Ever have a long YouTube video that you want to share with others, but the good part is at the end? Well here is a nice little fix for you.
Since I gave my iPad the boot last week, I thought it was only fitting to demonstrate this technique with a Blendtec video of an iPad getting bent in half, shoved in an industrial blender, and pulverized into a powder.
The link for the video usually looks like this:
If you click that link, you will end up watching entire 1 minute and 40 second clip. It’s very entertaining and you should definitely watch it.
If you want to get straight to the good stuff, you would want to start the video at the 55 second mark. You can easily have YouTube do that for you by adding the following to the end of the link:
#t=0m55s
You can modify the 0 and the 55 to whatever you want. The final link will then look like this:
Bam! iPad demolished!
If you want to watch another cool video starring The Digitante In Action!, check out the video below. If it doesn’t show up, click here to watch it at the YouTube site.
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/JC5Qyqy7Pyg&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b
Friday Night Links (3/19/2010)…
I worked with some spectacular clients this week and got some of their big computer issues put to rest. If you have any computer issues, be sure to contact me from the About The Digitante page. Otherwise, you can just move on to the linkiness to follow:
- Solitary Man in Detroit – When most people talk about living off the grid, it most involves government conspiracies and bunkers in Montana. But if you are Glendale Stewart, all you really need is an RV and a tax auction property in Detroit. He built a little fence, has a bicycle-powered battery that lights his RV, and a bucket under the toilet outlet that gets transported to the sewer when it gets full. He got laid off a few years back and his current situation arose out of necessity. It’s a crazy story, but it certainly points out the resourcefulness of some people out there in the world.
- Spinach Vitamin Boost – Ever wonder if the amount of vitamins in spinach and other greens increases as it gets exposed to light? Me neither. Fortunately, some nerdy scientist guy did and he found that green leafy stuff exposed to supermarket-like conditions actually increases its vitamin content. Buy the older stuff!
- Cubicle Fish – Do you get lonely at work in your cubicle? I know I do. ‘Maybe I need a fish!’ you think to yourself. But the big question is what kind of fish do you get to keep your company? My buddies at Lifehacker tackled this and all the logistics that go along with it: tank, supplies, and of course, the fish.
- Parallel Parking Tutorial – It seems like either people know how to parallel park or they just plain don’t. If you fall in the don’t camp, there are a some instructions and some videos that can teach you how to parallel park like an expert. If you are ready to graduate to All-Pro level, check out the video below to learn the advanced techniques. Click here if it doesn’t show up for you.
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/P7Eqn_BiQus&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b
Friday Night Links (3/12/2010)…
I’ve got a big 4 mile run tomorrow bright and early. It’s the St. Patty’s Day Run and I am actually shocked to realize that St. Patrick’s Day is this week. Wow, time is flying by. Time for the links!
- Edmonton Water Usage (http://thedig.in/ce) – This one is pretty crazy: It’s a consumption map of the water supply for Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The green line is on the day before the Olympic Gold Medal game between the US and Canada and the blue line is the day of the game. That, my friends, is a lot of peeing Canadians. It is really amazing to see graphs like this, showing the pull things like sporting events have on our lives. You know a bunch of people are watching TV, but you don’t really think about how it affects other things like water consumption.
- Visualize the Internet (http://thedig.in/cf) – The internet has come a long ways since Al Gore invented it. The BBC has a nice little move/animation showing the internet spreading like wild fires across the globe. I would be interesting to see a similar animation for other tech like cars, TVs, and electricity. Let me know if you know where to find something like that.
- Milk Origins (http://thedig.in/cg) – If you are concerned about where your food comes from, you should definitely check out this link. You can find out, using the code on your carton of milk, exactly where it came from. This is helpful in finding milk that is produced near by, made by reputable farms, and most importantly, fresh when you get it. Try it out and see how long of a trip your milk takes.
- Complete Popular Science Archives (http://thedig.in/ch) – Alright, I’m a super geek, but anyone who’s even remotely interested in science and technology in general should head over to Popular Science and browse their archive of 137 years of magazines. They even left the period advertisements in there.
Friday Night Links (2/12/2010)…
Just a reminder, if you want to be in the running for one of three $10 Amazon giftcards, fill out my quick little reader survey.
A secondary announcement, if your computer has Windows XP and is having a blue screen pop-up and other problems since installing the most recent updates, Please fill out the form at the bottom of this post to contact me and set up an appointment to fix your computer. This is a known issue and there is a fix.
But for now, let’s get to the links!
- Perfect Grilled Cheese (http://thedig.in/b6) – Do you realize how hard it is to spread butter on a sandwich as it sits on a hot skillet? Bread burnt before the cheese melts? All you need is melted butter and a skillet with lid to fix the two biggest complaints about grilled cheese (or my personal favorite – grilled peanut butter and jelly). Toss in some tomato soup and you may have the perfect meal.
- Amazing Bug and Water Photos (http://thedig.in/b5) – The link shows how to make a laser triggered camera for taking macro stills of bugs and water, however, the real amazement starts when you look at the galleries in the links. The bug ones are cool, but the water ones are downright unbelievable.
- Chat Roulette (http://thedig.in/b3) – The little blurb on this site is pretty funny. Essentially, the author went to a chatroom where you are randomly thrown in a chat with an unknown person. He says the first 18 people who he connected with disconnected immediately. Weird.
- “Music” Video (http://thedig.in/b4) – Warning: the title of the linked blog’s feature is “Stuff we’re diggin'” except worded slightly more crass. However, the video is completely safe for work. It a sound composite that makes up a song. If you don’t know what that means, watch the video and you’ll understand. You can also see the video below:
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/57UvVYW4rFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b
Friday Night Links (2/5/2010)…
Do you like music? Of course you do! Then why aren’t you listening to Evan Roberts? A buddy of mine plays guitar on Evan’s albums and another acquaintance of mine is the producer. You can check out the HD version of the video as well or you can click on the above link to find out if Evan is playing near you. By the way, he does a nice blend of R&B and rock. Pretty cool stuff. (http://thedig.in/aq)
Evan Roberts – “Golden” (Official HD Video) from Anotha One Records on Vimeo.
Do you like videos on your computer? Of course you do! Then why aren’t you saving them from the web? Got that favorite video from YouTube? Take it with you! You can even toss it on your phone. (http://thedig.in/ar)
Do you like Comcast? Of course you don’t! Then why don’t you go ahead and avoid Xfinity? (http://thedig.in/as)
Do you like Canadians? Of course you do! Then why don’t you watch this one talk about pizza pies? (http://thedig.in/at)
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/ZlhU8-nAw2k&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b
CBC Archives: New 50’s Food – Pizza Pie
Do you like being in debt? Of course you don’t! But don’t get delusional that all your troubles go away when you get out of debt. So don’t just sock away your pennies and pay off your credit cards; you also need to work on your relationships, your decision making process, and your priorities. (http://thedig.in/au)
In Action!: Empty a Water Bottle Quickly
Tonight I created and uploaded my first YouTube video. Soon I’m going to write a post about YouTube, but for tonight, you can check out my video that I uploaded.
It is an instructional How-To video on how to empty a water bottle or jug quickly. Let me know what you think in the comments!
Easy Mobile Video Converting…
Maybe you caught your Mom rapping around the kitchen to the latest T-Pain song. Maybe your baby just said her first word. Maybe your buddy is going to attempt to break the world record for quickest injury from skateboarding (seriously, he didn’t even put the board on the ground yet and his arm is already broken!). Regardless, the easiest way to catch these spur of the moment happenings is with your cell phone’s video camera.
The problem you run into is that for some unexplained reason, they decided to use some wacky format for cell phones that is different than what you use on your computer. Fortunately, we are going to find out how to convert that video so you can email to your friends or post it on your website.
First things first
You need to get the video to your computer. Unfortunately, I can’t give instructions that will tell you directly how to do this here. Some phones will be able to send it via multimedia message service (MMS) if the video file is small enough. Other phones may have a cord that will allow it to be hooked directly to a computer. My personal favorite is to email the video to myself since I have an unlimited data plan and a smartphone that can send emails.
If you need help doing this, use the contact information at the top to contact The Digitante and we can work together to figure out the steps to get that video loaded to your computer.
Step two
Once you have the mobile movie file on your computer with the extention .3GP, you need to download and install the converter program from DVD Video Soft. You have two choices:
- Free Studio – This version will convert from almost any video format to a variety of video and audio formats. Additionally, it will download and upload YouTube videos and burn CDs and DVDs. WARNING: It will try to install a tool bar. Make sure you uncheck the box if you don’t want it.
- Free 3GP Video Converter – If you don’t feel like you need all those other features, you can download the barebones version that converts 3GP videos to numerous formats. I grabbed this one for this walk-through.
Installation is a breeze and no configuration is required.
Number three
Once you have the program up and running, you need to do a couple of things.
As you can see, you will need to find the file you pulled off your cell phone. I’ve saved mine to a directory in my Videos folder called “Mobile Videos.” You can also do some simple editing of the video file.
Next you must choose where the video will end up when it is converted. I’ve chosen to output it to my Videos folder with the rest of my videos. You can also choose the naming convention to suit your needs.
Last, you can choose the format your final video ends up in. You can use most any of the presets provided, but please remember that if you have a cell phone with a poor quality video camera, choosing high quality setting is not going to improve your video. It will simply give you a larger file.
One option is to right click on your .3GP video file, select Properties from the menu, and click on the Details tab. This tab will tell you the height and width of your video and its frame rate. Matching these closely with the presets will provide you with the smallest resulting video file while still maintaining the original quality, or lack there of, of the original video. Remember that most cell phones are going to have pretty poor quality to begin with.
I ended up choosing the AVI economy preset.
Final step
Convert!
Here is the result. Its one of my little girls crawling and then eating my phone. To watch the video, please right click and then click “Play”.
[kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”/media/VID 00014.swf” width=”320″ height=”240″ targetclass=”flashmovie” loop=”false” play=”false” menu=”true”]
[/kml_flashembed]
The Digitante 