The Raging Tech

How many remotes do you have?

Tags: Logitech, Remote, video, YouTube

Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager

I totally thought I’d written about this before, but I couldn’t find one single post on this blog about Chad Vader, the Day Shift manager. If you like shows like “The Office” or “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” you’ll love this classic YouTube series whose basic premise is - what if Darth Vader’s cousin worked at a grocery store instead of commanding a Death Star?

Tags: Chad Vader, humor, series, Star Wars, YouTube

Download High-Quality YouTube Videos

Did you know that most YouTube videos can be downloaded now as high-quality mp4 (MPEG-4) files? There have been browser and URL hacks to download files previously, and several sites and Firefox extensions would allow you to plug-in an URL to a YouTube video and it would snag the file or give you an URL to download.

Now, you can do the same thing to get the higher-quality videos. Just save the following as a bookmarklet by dragging it up to your bookmarks bar in Firefox or Safari, or right-clicking and making it a Favorite in Internet Explorer:

Download YouTube Video

Clicking on this bookmark creates a new link below the video you are watching that should be to the downloadable video. Instead of left-clicking, you’ll want to right-click and choose “Save As” and name it something with a .mp4 extension.

I ripped-off came upon these instructions from a blog called Google Operating System via a Lifehacker post, and there you can find more information, including a Greasemonkey script for Firefox that takes care of this whole business for you every time you visit YouTube.

Tags: download, Google, greasemonkey, hacks, Lifehacker, mp4, Videos, YouTube

The Art of the Rick Roll

I want to talk about a new(ish) internet phenomena happening on some message boards, Digg.com, Slashdot.org, and other social sites. It’s called the Rick Roll.

What is the “Rick Roll,” you might ask? It’s taking any given opportunity where there’s a lot of interest in a story or subject, such as an article on Digg, to comment and link to something supposedly interesting or related in your comment. Only, the link you give actually takes the person to a YouTube video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The person doing the trickery then proclaims “Rick Roll’d!”

I’m not sure why that particular song is supposed to be such a cruel prank, other than it’s kinda cheesy and funny to watch. But for some reason I can’t explain, it’s hilarious to do this to people. Or if you’re bored, you could just go look at some pornography.

A Word on Shout-Outs

A “Shout-Out,” according to UrbanDictonary.com, is:

1. A message to friends, family, etc. lodged on a radio station, web site, or other popular medium.
2. An inane activity chowing up airwaves, electricity, and bandwidth.

You’ve heard them before. Some douche bag gets fifteen seconds of fame on the television or radio, and the first thing they ask the host is if they can give a “shout-out” to their “homeys” back home in “Who-Gives-a-Crap-ville.” This is one of the stupidest things to plague modern media.

It’s perfectly fine if you’re important or on a game show and the host says “So, is there anyone back home you’d like to say hello to while you’re on television?” You know, as long as your list isn’t more than two or three people. Do not name everyone from the ghetto you’ve ever met.

That being said, I’d like to give quick “shout-out” to my readers from Littleton. I’ve been watching the site stats lately and, even though I’ve never been there or written anything pertaining to Littleton, I seem to be gathering a small following there. So, rock on, Littleton! I hope getting a “shout-out” here makes your day. Be sure and tell all your friends your town got mentioned today on The Raging Tech!