Sam's Teach Yourself YouTube in 10 Minutes

The book, Sam’s Teach Yourself YouTube in 10 Minutes by Michael Miller, is about learning YouTube, as you probably could have guessed. There are 26 lessons to be read, which deal with various aspects both on, and off YouTube. 

            The first thing that I noticed about the book, was that it started off at the basics, as if the reader knows nothing about YouTube. That is good for anyone who has not had any experience at all with YouTube, but for many the book will start slow because of that. The first few lessons comprise of tutorials on customizing YouTube to your liking, creating an account, how to search for videos, and how to watch a video. These are necessary fundamentals, but if you already know these fundamentals, you can likely skip ahead a few lessons. The next thing that I notice was the ease of use and fluidity of the steps when a process is given. Many pictures are given so that the reader can visually see what they are supposed to do at times, and the results that they should be receiving.

            This book does not deal with just beginner level topics though. Lessons teach you what various features do, and how to get full use out of them. There are lessons that teach the reader about how to use playlists, saving favorite videos, email videos, embedding videos in a website, posting a video to your blog, and much more. None of these are required to use YouTube, but many of them will help the user get the most enjoyment out of their YouTube experience.

            YouTube is not just about watching videos, but about uploading new videos as well. This book teaches the reader about uploading their videos to YouTube. I must say though that the examples are more geared towards business product advertisements, but all of the lessons will be useful to almost anybody looking to upload a video. The book teaches not just about uploading the file to YouTube, but tips and tricks to capturing the video footage itself. Some of the tips teach the reader about adding light sources, the rule of thirds, and background selections. The book also discusses how cameras and their specifications will affect the resulting video. Transferring the video to your computer and uploading it to YouTube is also discussed. All of these tutorials are in an easy to follow, step-by-step format.

            Much like the subject of Web 2.0, YouTube is always changing and evolving. That means that books written on a subject dealing with Web 2.0 become outdate rapidly. Unfortunately, this is the case with this book. Most of the information is still up-to-date and accurate, but parts of earlier lessons are slightly outdated. Because YouTube underwent a style redesign on their video player and menus recently, many of the pictures will not match up. Most of the instructions and procedures are still relevant and correct, but on a few procedures the reader may need to figure out where the option or menu has been moved to. 

            If you are a beginner, this book will teach you everything you need to know to use YouTube, but because YouTube is changing frequently, some of the instructions may seem outdated. Even if you feel you know everything about YouTube, you still may learn a thing or two. Overall, this is a good book for everyone to read who wants to know anything about YouTube. It is easy to follow, easy to understand, and divided into clear concise sections.

Fallout: New Vegas

A title called Fallout: New Vegas was released earlier this week. As you can probably tell, it takes place in and around Las Vegas. Not Las Vegas as we know it though, a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. The Fallout series is based on a post-apocalyptic world.

I only have about 12 hours invested in the game so far, but I am enjoying the game so far. It does not feel as fun and complete as Fallout 3 did (another great game by the way). The game looks great, if your machine can handle it. Even on amazing machines, you may get horrible amounts of lag constantly. Fallout 3 had the problem of crashing a log, this one has the problem of lagging a lot. You may get lucky and have a setup that is not vulnerable to large amounts of lag.

The voice acting is quite good, but not amazing. The dialogue from some people in the game is quite hilarious. Finding a lot of the funny characters in the world is an adventure in itself. Since this is Fallout, the main path of the story does not lead you to everything you can possibly do. You will have to do some old-fashioned exploring to uncover all of the hidden gems in the world.

I recommend this game if you enjoy a good FPS with a lot of adventuring on your own. Steam is required to play this game.

The Orange Box

The Orange Box was a group of games released in the same package on October 10th, 2007. It comprised of five games: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The last three of which were new releases at the time. The first two were released at earlier times, but were bundled with the new three to create The Orange Box.

When The Orange Box came out, it was $50, just like most PC game releases. Now, it can be bought on Steam for $30. The package offers something for everyone who likes First Person Shooters (FPS). A great single player story in Half-Life 2 and both of the episodes. Playing the first Half-Life game is not completely necessary to understand the story, but it is also a great game. The Orange Box also offers a fun puzzle game in Portal and a brilliantly replayable and quirky multiplayer game in Team Fortress 2.

I believe that those five games for just $30 is a steal. Even all five of those games for the $50 it was when it was released was a steal. Each game can be purchased alone for even less than The Orange Box as a package.

Powered by Steam

With the improvement over the years in high speed Internet connections to the mass market, comes the ability to pay for and receive digital copies of video games. The digital download service Steam ( http://www.steampowered.com ) is for just that purpose. Steam is a leading platform for the distribution of digital games. The steam platform gives you quite a bit of information on games that it offers for sale.

Steam also has more sales on games then you can possibly imagine. It is common for there to be a sale on certain games every week, and a different sale for the weekend. It is also common for big blowout sales for special events of the year like Christmas and the December holidays.

As Internet speeds and popularity continue to improve, digital distribution will continue to become more popular. Allowing for the ability to purchase and play at our fingertips, Steam will continue to deliver PC games to anyone willing to play them.

Final Fantasy XIV - A challenger to World of Warcraft?

It has been a week now since the official release of Final Fantasy XIV, although if you preordered the collectors edition, you could have begun playing on September 22nd. Many games have been toted as competition to WoW's now 12 million subscribers. ( http://pc.ign.com/articles/112/1126366p1.html ) Games such as Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and Aion come to mind, but none came close to denting WoW's stranglehold on the MMORPG market. Can Square Enix's second attempt at an MMORPG do it?

From what I have seen, and played, I do not think it will. The controls feel amazingly stiff and clunky. There is very little direction for new players telling them what they should do, or what they can do. The minimalist user interface lets the player see a large amount of the screen, but does not allow for fast retrieval of needed information, like party members' health points.

Not everything is bad though. For one, the game looks great if you have a computer that can handle turning up the graphics. The class system is great and eliminates the need to make alternate characters if the player wants to play a different class. The character customization is also quite impressive.

What it comes down to is how fun is the game. By yourself, the game is more frustrating than it is fun, but if you have friends to play with, I'm sure fun can be had. I would say to pass on this game. WoW's next expansion, Cataclysm, releasing December 7th, 2010, will surely bring back a lot of players that left to give Final Fantasy XIV a chance.

Welcome to Civilization

Civilization V just came out on September 21st, 2010. The Civilization series is pretty much the poster-child for turn-based strategy games. The Civilization series is probably best known for its ability to eat hours of your day, without you even realizing how many hours have gone by.

In the Civilization series, you build an empire and progress through all of the eras of human civilization. You do not have to conquer the rest of the world to win though. Victory by diplomacy can also count as a win.

The main problem that I had with Civilization III back in the day, was the speed and difficulty of learning the game. Thanks to a free demo on steam (a free digital game distribution platform for the PC: www.steampowered.com ) that allows you to play for 100 turns, I am thinking of buying this game and giving the series another shot. I had a lot of fun playing the demo, and believe that I have a lot more patience and understanding for strategy games than I did way back in the days of Civilization III.