How to survive the world of the internet

          How to deal with the horrors of the internet. I don't really need to make this post very long but I figure I should touch on this subject... The infamous trolls of the internet. When you're on the internet, especially on a site like youtube you're going to run into people who just want to make life a little more difficult for you, and a little bit more interesting for them. Feedback from the general public as i stated in a previous post is extremely important but don't let it bring you down. There's a lot of people out there who will post vicious, hurtful, or just insulting things just to raise your heat level. Don't take it to heart. Even if someone is being genuine in their reply and it discourages you, remember to just take it with a bit of salt.

          Not everyone on the internet is going to realize how much effort, time, and thought you put into whatever it is that you're trying to post. Take their advice in head, but not in heart. Learn from what they say, because a lot of the time there will be some sort of truth in it. Never let it stop you from contributing. What I've always done in these situations is simply let it feed my desire to post more. I posted on my facebook a few times links to this blog looking for as much feedback as I can get, given the people replying are friends/family but I got a lot of criticism. I'm not letting it discourage me at all. I've updated multiple times simply on the design, layout, banners, anything I can to make it look nicer.

          Essentially... keep on truckin'. There will always be people you can't make happy, and people who will enjoy what you do. Besides if it really disturbed someone enough... why'd they waste their time watching/reading your input.

New Channel

Hey guys, this blog update is going to be short, just coming on to let you know I'm making an additional blog to compliment this one, It's http://youtubealumni2.blogspot.com/ The entire channel is going to be dedicated to helpful, fun, friendly, entertaining, just really good youtube channels where a person/group has just come out with good videos after good videos. I got my first blog up so if you're not too busy check it out guys!

http://youtubealumni2.blogspot.com/

Thanks again
<3
~YoutubeAlumni

How to upload a video

          So how does one become a contributing part of youtube like our good friend Charlie Chaplin? There's many ways to contribute to this community and a lot of people always just think uploading videos. This is probably one of the best ways, but not the only. Simply creating an account (shown in different post) and commenting, viewing, rating, favoriting, you are contributing. I'm going to focus this post more on uploading videos.

          When looking through your youtube account you'll find quite a lot of information regarding uploading videos, the actual process of uploading a video is quite easy, you go to the upload video tab, select to find the video from your computer, hit upload after selecting the video. You proceed to wait depending on how long it takes to upload. Wah-Bam! You're done. This ofcourse is the easiest and final part. You need to start with an idea. You can borrow other peoples ideas, maybe you saw a cool video, heard or a cool story, or even just wanted to try and repeat a subject you learned in school. You can never plagiarize, This is a huge No No! You're stealing someone's idea, you can however, use anyone's work as a muse/inspiration. I for example, was inspired to create this blog from watching cassiopeiaproject videos (http://www.youtube.com/user/cassiopeiaproject?blend=1&ob=5). These videos gave me so much knowledge on evolution, chemistry, physics, relativity, quantum physics, key information I love to carry. I owe this channel so many nights of falling asleep to playlist after playlist. I'll expand more on this youtube channel in a different post.

          So you've found your inspiration, what do I do next. You do need to have some sort of a drive for this but you need to start recording. It doesn't matter if the video turns out terrible, you can always edit. Start recording every chance you get, on your own, with your friends/family. Any footage you can get is key. When you can't record, upload it onto your computer and just look through it, find something that you like, find things you don't like. Keep a little note of parts you want to get rid of, an order to show the footage in, and anything that you like so you can try and hold onto that when you record more. All of these things can help you make a really good video. Try writing a script just from the raw footage that you have, tailoring it to what you liked then simply re-record it all if you need to. Anything to make that video, make you happy.

          Once you have your video uploaded to a style that you like, Post it. You're still not done though, Your opinion isn't the only one that matters, you're going to want feedback, listen to what people post, think to yourself, does he not like the colour red and that's why he's posting that; or is he trying to tell me that red is a terrible colour to be used even if it is crimson because it's makes the text harder to read. Listen to this feedback and try and improve your next video.

          I think that's all for just now, I hope I gave enough information. I'm going to leave a list of some video editing software at the bottom, on a side note. Even though I hate all mac products if you don't have a computer and you're looking for one strictly for video/audio/image editing, mac takes the cake, best on the market. A lot of the main editing software is apple software.

•  Adobe premiere (9)
• Premiere elements
• Premiere pro
• Encore
• After Effects
• Adobe premiere express (flash)
• Roxio
• Windows live movie maker (windows only)

Any of the above software are some good starting software that you can use, feel free to look around and find another one that might make your editing days a little bit easier. If anyone finds another one they'd like me to list let me know and I'll put it up.

What can I teach myself?

          The thing that makes youtube so amazing is the amount of people that contribute. It was recorded in 2009 that youtube received 123 million views in a day. In 2009 it was also recorded that there was over 300 Million youtube accounts. The mass amount of people who use this site is astonishing. The raw data that can be formed into information is unimaginable. Roughly 6% of youtube is educational.

          The first thing you want to figure out is what you're wanting to learn. Obviously there is multiple things you can do with youtube but I'm trying to focus on education. Do you want to learn a language, a trade, a musical instrument, maybe you just want to practice up on your high school math. All of this is possible.

          I like science, a lot! So lets start with that topic. The universe was always this topic I felt I should know about, but I never had many people who were interested in spouting off about what they learning in their astronomy class, let alone friends in an astronomy class. I had so much trouble when I started and it's an easy topic to find information on. So I have a few tips to help everyone along. Try and find a channel, a TV series, or even a famous individual within your chosen field of knowledge. I knew of a show on TV called "The Universe" I had barely caught this show one late night while watching TV. I started off searching on planets in our galaxy not getting towards what I wanted. So i decided to search for this TV show. Straight away I got full episodes, clips, snips, everything I could want. I watched their episodes religiously but still wanted to find more and more. This is where a huge key feature of youtube comes into hand, "related videos". You can trail in so many directions that the knowledge to learn from 1 series increases exponentially. When looking through related videos you find rubbish, and you find geniuses. They come in all shapes and forms, but with trial/error, you get to the right ones. You can learn from images, titles, knowledge learned along the way to decipher.

          Remember to favorite videos you like, repeatedly watch videos to try and get as much information as possible, create a playlist. Anything you can to get this data in your head. I fall asleep almost every night to a different documentary. These little things can get anything stuck in your head.

          How to start off: This will be on the shorter side of my posts, Simply how to get started off with Youtube. Most of the time you can just simply look around search and try to find what you're looking for. Along the way you find a few channels that you can learn from, a few that you find interesting and a few that just make you laugh.

          You need to start off by making an account though, If you start to go into controversial subjects or maybe you're looking into history you're going to run into videos where you need to verify age. Also, I love knowledge and it should be shared, but please don't lie on your age when creating your youtube account. It's only a few more years and you get to watch whatever you want, It's not illegal though, it's simply against youtube's terms and conditions. So create that youtube account, link it to an e-mail address, i'd always say go for g-mail. Best e-mail provider you can get. Create a password unique to you, Don't use your boyfriend or girlfriend's name, don't use your pets name, or your favorite colour. These are easily guessed.

          When I need to create a new password I normally look around whatever room I'm in. Try to find something that I can remember, something that stands out. Then think... what's the first thing I think of when I see this. Make that my password, if you're looking for extra security you can try adding strange capitalizations, numbers, anything to make that password harder to guess. Don't give your password out to anyone, If you must, make sure you trust that person. There's a standard scale system you can use to decide. If they were to hack my youtube acct would i be more upset by that, or the fact that they betrayed me. If I'm more upset by them betraying my trust... I normally can give them my password. Just remember to use good judgement. Only advice i can 100% give... don't give out your password.

          Anytime you see a video that you like, that you learned from, always be generous on youtube, leave a comment, add a like/dislike, favorite something if you really liked it. These things help the creators of the videos, it also gives incentive to create more. I need to head off and cut this short again I do apologize. I'm on vacation at the moment spending some time with people who are important to me.

          I'll see you guys soon, Sorry for such a short topic.
~YoutubeAlumni

Welcome

          I figure for a first post I should just give an introduction into what I'm here for. A long time ago I decided I wanted to educate myself. I've always been obsessed with useless random facts, I hear people say things and I wonder, What does that really mean "going over the top". I look it up and then I have the ability to add more into a conversation, I get the ability to become more sociable, and extend myself as a person. I eventually expanded on this and decided I wanted to learn as much as I possibly can about everything. Youtube was always my greatest tool when it came to this.

          I moved around a lot while growing up, I'm still moving around a lot. I have a few years in college, a few years in university, and a full basic education from lots of different countries. Travelling probably helped me a lot in finding this hobby. I've lived in many states across america, as well as many different places in Europe. Visiting a country with a different language helps you appreciate knowledge even more. Someone who has the ability to communicate with you becomes a friend. Where as someone who has no idea what you're saying is just a passer by. Little things we take for granted.

          Youtube is an amazing knowledge source that you can harness to take you as far as you want to go. However, there is some guide lines, some beginners knowledge you should know. Some rules to follow. Things that I was hoping I could spread around and teach to other people so maybe they didn't go through the same troubles I went through. One of the first things I'd mention is that youtube is not fact. It's user based information. Depending on what you're looking up, what you're trying to learn, and who is posting it. Can change the data to true, false, or sometimes both.

          I'll try to give a few examples: Say you're getting in your car one morning and you see that oil is on the ground, you notice all these different colours, why is it not a solid colour? Why is there a colour? What exactly is going on. We; to the best that scientific knowledge can give, have a reason for this. A reason that is highly undisputed. The oil is never at a constant thickness, The middle of the oil is normally thicker, and the outer ends are thinner, Depending on where the light is coming from, where you are, the angle it's reflecting to get to your eyes, the thickness of the water and the thickness of the oil. All of these change what colour you see. Each thickness is just the right thickness for a certain colour. This is a very layman explanation of why. Now this statement I would consider true. I can provide a source of knowledge and you can verify that, Youtube doesn't have source really. If I were to post that in a video, It could be true, it could be false. There's ways you can test these things out, ways to tell if it's correct. Also just common knowledge to help you through.

          Another thing to keep in mind, is one explanation is maybe not the only accurate one. Best example I can think of would be with languages. Say you just heard about this new band KMFDM(Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid) obviously this name is not in English so you want a translation, or a definition. The german language doesn't work the same as English though, for example it can be Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid, or it can be Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit. Also for a defintion, it can be loosely translated to, No pity for the masses. Or Little pity for the masses. However the actual name is a play on words. It doesn't have an exact translation for English, so there is dozens of seemingly different definitions and knowledge that can be given, while all being right. Things like this can always be very complicating.

          I don't have too much time left so I'm going to cut this short, I'll post again soon though. Just going to give another example really quickly. You also have things that are just completely false. Household hacker posted a video years back with instructions showing you how to make an amazing quality speaker out of headphones, a shiny penny, and a paper plate... It was I believe an April fools joke but was taken seriously by many many people. There's always room to fact check, and again, even though free user based knowledge is the cause of this. It can be the solution as well. Checking comments, video replies. Nothing is certain, so if you're maybe going for some extra studying before a test try and find some source.

          I'm going to head off for a while, I hope this was a good first introduction. i'll come back shortly for a new update.

~Youtube Alumni