Capturing everyday life and sharing it on YouTube

When looking from a multimedia perspective, one could easily say we're living in an era of YouTube. I have to admit I was sort of a late adopter to YouTube. Back then I only used it when a friend sent me some funny home video and stuff like that. Today it's totally different. If you saw a cool TV ad, heard some nice song or found out that a trailer has been released for some interesting movie, it's YouTube you turn to for help. It's like the Wikipedia of multimedia.

All modern smartphones tend to have high-definition video recording capabilities, most of the "dumbphones" and point-and-shoot cameras also sport some sort of video recording these days. The possibility to capture quality video (and to take good photos) was one of the key requirements for me when I was switching from an iPhone 3G to something new.


Nokia's Lumia 800 hasn't let me down in the tasks I have bought it for. Sure the autofocus is a bit too eager when shooting video and there are some bugs when taking photos, but otherwise I'm loving the possibility to capture everyday moments, even if they come across unexpectedly. Let it be a brother's dog going mad about digging snow or capturing the full beauty of downtown Dubai area, it's there, stored on your mind and camera's memory.

Once you've captured stuff, YouTube makes it darn easy to share. I only had a few, many years old videos on my YouTube channel before getting the Lumia, but nowadays I upload videos there every now and then. It's thanks to the user-friendly interface plus the very easy but extremely useful edit tools, which I just recently discovered. My videos might not be of spectacular quality, but things like correcting color balance conveniently on YouTube is much appreciated.

Doing little editing and fixing on your videos is easy on YouTube.

Even if you wouldn't consider yourself to be the Steven Spielberg of mobile filming, you should still join YouTube. You can be there without trying to become an internet phenomena with millions of viewers, but just to share videos privately with your family for example. It's a really nice service. Thanks Google for keeping up YouTube!

You can check out some of my random videos on my YouTube channel.

Bungie t-shirts - a nerdy fashion report

A week ago I finally received a Bungie branded t-shirt all the way from the USA! It's good quality, simplistically stylish and has a bit of kick-ass attitude. Bungie is the company behind the now much popular Halo game series. Its Myth II was one of the last games I liked to play on computer until a decade of pause from video games. Then, Bungie's Halo 3 brought me back into gaming, this time on Xbox 360.

The new shirt will join my collection of two t-shirts from Bungie that date back all the way to the late 90's, when I was in my golden nerd years, so to speak. Back then Bungie games like Marathon and Myth were my top favorites because of their great storytelling and throughout quality.

The Bungie t-shirt would've been even cooler if they had put their slogan in Latin, as they did in their old coat of arms stickies "Non facete nobis calcitrare vestrum perineum" (I love Latin stuff because I studied the language myself in high school). On the back of Marathon 2 shirt there's this hilarious, perhaps bit naughty pic of the AI controlled friendly BOB units of the Marathon games.

I got the Marathon 2 shirt with Marathon Trilogy Box set (one of the greatest product packings too, imho) and Myth II shirt along with Myth II. Sadly though those shirts are XL-sized so I haven't wore them much. The new Bungie t-shirt, however, is my size S and fits perfectly! Can't wait for the summer to arrive so I can wear the shirt with pride. I honestly think Americans produce great everyday clothes. In addition to the Bungie shirts, I've got a couple of Hawaii shirts that may be unfashionable, but excellent in quality =)

Back in mid-late 90's I actually had my first penpal/internet-friend working at Bungie, who sent me all sorts of cool Bungie collectibles and even the autograph of then-Bungie-CEO Alex Seropian. But that's another story to tell!

For a funny closing here's a pic from the days of glory:

Me (on the left) and two of my friends holding Myth products circa 1997. Notice: I also wear Chicago Bulls cap (Bungie was founded in Chicago) and the cap has a Myth stickie attached to it as well =D

PS. Sorry I didn't iron the Marathon 2 and Myth II shirts for their photoshoots!

Battery saving tips for Nokia Lumia 800

One of the main problems of smartphones today seems to be the rather poor battery life - thanks to the amount of sensors, components and big screens. It's also one of the downsides of Nokia's Lumia 800, but here's a few tips for a little longer battery life based on my own experiences:

• Turn off  background tasks on as many apps as possible (Settings -> applications -> background tasks). You should also check out applications' own settings since many have multiple options for using network data and push notifications (e.g. the Facebook app)
• Reduce push email frequency (Settings -> email+accounts -> select account -> Download new content)
• Turn off 3G if you don't surf the web much (Settings -> mobile network -> Highest connection speed). This has had surprisingly big impact on the battery life, especially on days when I don't use the phone much.
• Turn off Wi-Fi if you don't have wireless networks at home or work (Settings -> WiFi). Otherwise I like to keep it on, since I haven't noticed it wasting huge amounts of battery charge (might depend heavily on the amount of surfing and downloading, though).
• Turn on Flight mode during the night (if you don't expect or WANT to receive calls) =) This has been the most effective power saver (guess it's basically the same as built-in battery saver mode, except you can turn on Wi-Fi etc. while on Flight mode)

Nokia Care (@NokiaHelps via Twitter) also hinted that I should make a backup of my phone and then reinstall it. I did that and ever since the phone has performed better than before and hasn't had any of those sudden deaths, e.g. battery dying overnight. So that is something you might also want to try if Nokia's own firmware updates via Zune or Windows Phone Connector on Mac haven't helped on battery life oddities.

LEGO phone camera rack

I had a boring Sunday and came up with a fun idea of using LEGOs to build a camera rack for my phone. Nokia Lumia 800 can stand vertically by itself, but for horizontal photos (e.g. photo timer for portraits) it needs some help. This simple rack is made out of LEGO Technic blocks from the Space Shuttle model and features adjustable vertical tilt and a lock system to keep the tilt.

Here's a few photos of the thing I built. I must say that LEGOs are so fun and I couldn't imagine more useful and creative toys  for anyone, from children to adults =)