Anyways, here’s a cool little Christmas-related youtube-video-slash-poem I thought I’d share with everyone. NPR (National Public Radio) has been broadcasting it this time of year for the past 20-odd years, and its rather witty.

Ode to Christmas

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACv9udPqjnA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ4ZYFxoq2s

The popular first person shooter, Team Fortress 2, often releases videos for each of the game’s charater types. The videos previously released have been ones like “Meet the Heavy,” “Meet the Engineer,” and “Meet the Scout.” Recently, months have flown by with n’ere a video in sight. However, as of the 16th, a legitimate video was leaked on Youtube (as shown above); Meet the Spy is now unofficially public. Nothing has been said about the video on Steampowered.com, Valve’s gaming community, leading me to believe that the video was leaked before its actual release date. Thank God for the internet.

Now then, if you want to download a copy of the video, you can do so here:

Download

]]> http://technoheads.org/2009/05/meet-the-spy/feed/ 1 http://technoheads.org/2009/05/the-new-webnotes-screencast-done-by-a-friend-of-mine/ http://technoheads.org/2009/05/the-new-webnotes-screencast-done-by-a-friend-of-mine/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 03:41:46 +0000 Salem http://technoheads.org/?p=586 WebNotes, a website I previously promoted (by giving out beta keys) has released a new screencast done by a good friend of mine, Mike Boylan. I think its really, really professionally done, and its worth watching. It also showcases all of WebNotes’ juicy features. Just go to www.webnotes.net and click the big “Play” button. You can’t miss it.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, WebNotes is an online tool that allows you to take notes directly on other websites (and PDF’s, if you pay for a Pro account). I use it a lot for blogging; its a great way for me to keep track of sites I’ve visited. Stop by their website, hit the “Demo” button, and look at everything it can do. Pretty fantastic, actually.

A little more on my friend: Mike Boylan has a blog, www.mikeboylan.com, and a twitter account, @mboylan. Check his stuff out; he’s incredibly talented when it comes to computers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBDkJwCAD-0

This is interesting, and clearly has nowhere near the amount of hits it deserves. Its a cellist and a beatboxing flute (the latter of which I’ve seen more and more of recently) playing in the Union Square metro station. Its interesting, so check it out. Here’s a link to most of their videos strung together in a playlist.

Its good, I promise.

This being said,

Here is the video, with the new audio.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z17xS9xRb8

It has gotten about 500 hits since it was re-accepted yesterday, which is a good sign. I’m thinking of making a new one to fix all the mistakes in it and to give links to more recent software. 

On top of that, I’ll be putting a typed-out tutorial of this video on my website, for those who have slower connections orwho prefer to read it. Thanks to everyone who’s sent me comments on the video!

Escape from City 17 - Part 1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1UPMEmCqZo

The “Purchase Brothers,” a direcing duo, made a really, really good looking short film based on Half Life 2, Valve‘s immensely popular videogame. The general idea of the game is that in the future, nazi aliens come and turn the world as we know it into a sort of dystopian totalitarian society, and you play as this messianic resistance leader. Enough about the game.

The video was done on a fairly low budget. According to Escapist Magazine:

Amazingly, the first two episodes were created on a budget of $500. Maybe Uwe Boll should give these guys a call.

Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. Only part 1 is out right now, but part 2 should be out shortly. I should warn you that the content of the video is somewhat graphic, with blood and mild violence. You can watch the video in HD on youtube, or you can watch it directly on their website.  5 stars, guys. Really impressive.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY

To be honest, I’ve never seen stop animation quite like this.

Let me know what you guys think. I personally have never heard of this artist before, but he looks like he’s worth investigating. You can check out his myspace here, and his iTunes page here.

For the record, the video above is in high quality, so the song plays better (trust me, its worth letting it load). If you’re anxious, view the original quality version here.

Sadly, this morning, I received an email from Youtube that the audio for the video I made was copyright-protected by WMG. The message was this;

Your video, How to control your computer with your iPod touch, may have audio content from Reset by Mutemath that is owned or licensed by WMG.

As a result, your video is blocked worldwide.

What should I do?

Use AudioSwap to replace the audio in your video with a track from our library of prelicensed songs. After you swap, your video will be available globally.

Under certain circumstances, you may dispute the copyright claim from WMG. These may be any of the following:

• the content is mistakenly identified and is actually completely your original creation;
• you believe your use does not infringe copyright (e.g. it is fair use under US law);
• you are actually licensed by the owner to use this content.

*sigh*

Of course, I didn’t make the song. Now, I have to dig through Audioswap, Youtube’s nearly-useless free music library, and find a song thats about as long as my video, or no one will see it ever again.

This really frustrates me, because I would have much rather heard about this, say, a year ago when it first went up. Now that my video has actually been circulated, I can’t simply take it down and post a new one (which I’d much rather do). 

If anyone has any oppinions to this predicament, let me know. A silent video is a boring one, but a video with bad music can be even worse.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=97cwxxEs6mY

Many of the new macbooks come equiped with built-in sensors that detect if your laptop suddenly starts moving, determining things like if it had been dropped off a table, bumped off a shelf, or defenestrated. This is a video of one of my friends from Youtube named “SeanthaBomb,” and I really liked it.

I know a lot of laptop companies use sudden motion sensors, including IBM and Acer. I wonder if any practical (iphone-like) applications will spring from software like this. I mean, come on. Super Monkey Ball on my laptop?

‘Nuff said.