A quick way to keep an eye on what is posted to interesting YouTube channels

This quick-tip is about subscribing to a YouTube channel using an RSS feed-reader, like Google Reader

Most bloggers know about other blogs and websites in their niche that they want to keep an eye on, to either know what's going on, or as inspiration for their own posts.

Previously I've explained that RSS was invented to make this simpler: you can get a summary of changes on all interesting websites in the one place (called a feed-reader), rather than having to regularly visit each site individually.

Video is increasingly popular: many bloggers are putting videos in their posts or their posts into videos, and some have even abandoned their blogs and are only publishing new content to a YouTube channel.

I've just found that it's very easy to subscribe to a YouTube user or channel in RSS / Google reader, meaning you can see a list of new videos from you reader, without having to go to the channel in YouTube.

Follow these steps:

• Find the channel or person you want to subscribe to in YouTube

• Right-click on their name or icon, and copy the URL / web-address / link location (the precise name depends on the browser you are using - you want the place that clicking the link takes you to, not the location of the image-file used to make the link)

• Go into your feed-reader, and subscribe to that link (in Google Reader, this is done using a red button near top left corner of the screen labelled "subscribe" - just click it, paste in the link and click the Add button).

The link will be something like  

http://www.youtube.com/user/MariahIsTheQueen  or http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX9_dIohJBxlizx14AozTng

If it has something else after the name (eg   ?feature=watch), then delete that part before you subscribe  you just need a link saying whether it points to a user or channel, and the name of that user channel.

Example of subscribing to a channel about rocket-science in YouTube

Samsung’s 8-Core Exynos 5 Octa Processor vs Exynos 4 Quad: Your Next Phone Will Be Fast

If you had to pick one dominant company at the Consumer Electronics Show 2013, it would have to be Samsung, a Genius tech company from South Korea. Apart from the excited Youm flexible-display technology debuted at CES' closing keynote, Samsung also announces the 8-core Exynos 5 Octa mobile processor. Yes, it has two sets of quad-core processors and was designed with low power mobile devices in mind and uses ARM's big.LITTLE processing technology. It is the first amazing 8-core mobile chip in the world made by Samsung, not from NVIDIA or Qualcomm.

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa:

There are two groups of four cores that can run at any given time with this Exynos 5 Octa processor.  When performance is needed, four Cortex A15 cores can handle the heavy lifting, and when doing more common tasks, you have four Cortex A7 cores to take care of things.

It is thought the first Octa processors will have the Cortex-A15 cores clocked at 1.8GHz, while at the same time the A7 cores will run at 1.2GHz. The on-board GPU has yet to be confirmed, but it is sure to offer a major graphical boost over the Exynos 4. An ARM Mali-T604 quad-core GPU is predicted.

Samsung Exynos 4 Quad:

It's a 32nm, 1.4-1.6 GHz Quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 beast with twice the processing capability of the older Exynos 4 Dual, while consuming 20 percent less power. The processor also sports a full HD 30 fps video hardware codec engine which enables 1080p video recording and playback. No doubt the new Exynos 5 Octa processor must own the same function.

Comparison:

Samsung says the new processor delivers twice the performance of its predecessor, Samsung's Exynos 4 Quad, which now featured in the world’s best-selling phone, the Samsung galaxy s3 and also the phablet Galaxy note 2 (plus improved graphics). That is to say new phones from Samsung are going to be noticeably faster than before.

Samsung also claimed that the enhanced processing power offered by Exynos 5 Octa processor would allow smartphones and tablets “to perform many tasks simultaneously, such as playing a game, watching an HD movie, and searching for a restaurant or business, all without lag”. Samsung also says it provides twice the 3D performance of any previous mobile processor, including the company's Exynos 4 Quad.

For short battery life, a common problem faced by most of the android phone, Samsung says that it could end up using 70% less battery life than current quad-core CPUs on the market now, as well as the dual-core Exynos 5, which currently runs on the Nexus 10. So you can read, watch, play, and write whatever you want, as long as you want.

Although Samsung didn’t reveal exactly when the Exynos 5 Octa will be available, but rumors about that it would be featured in the future high-end Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 is all around the corner. So just be patience. Let’s expect it will make its way into phones and tablets this year.

How to Get Windows 8 Metro-Style Live Tiles on Your Android Device

Windows Phone runs on Windows 8 operating systems have a beauty Metro-Style Live Tiles that nobody can deny. Love the look of Metro's live tiles? Want to Get Windows 8 Metro-Style Live Tiles on Your Android Device instead of buying a new windows 8 phone?

Yes, you don’t have to buy a windows 8 phone in order to experience those sweet live tiles. I have discovered two powerful apps for you, one named Launcher 8 while another new app is called Tile Launcher. Both of the two launcher apps for Android devices that can simulate the Metro interface pretty well. Let’s go to have a look.

Top 1:  Launcher 8, the app which is more mature than the latter, let you experience the brand new style UI on your Android mobile phone. You can easy design look like Windows Phone 8 layout (fake wp8) and show off to your friends!

Features:

• You can add different size tiles;
• You can add a variety of color tile;
• You can save and restore the theme;
• You can edit the start screen layout;
• You can set the current background style;
• You can switch the application list style
• You can add Android widgets in the tiles; 
• You can set the lock screen style;
• You can select more than one hundred kinds of theme colors;
• You can add special features tiles,like time ,pictures and contact photo.

Reminder:

1. shows the live contact needs to read the contact data access permission;
2. add a shortcut when direct dial call authority need the android Permission. CALL_PHONE; 
3. add send SMS shortcut operation message need permission.

You can download Launcher 8 on google play(it's free)or just click the link above.

Top 2:  Tile Launcher, which is in beta for Android 4.0 and above, allows you to style your homescreen with customizable tiles on a horizontal canvas. Everything can be customized to any style.

Features:

• Based on stock Jellybean 4.2 Launcher
• Optimized scrolling
• Completely customize any tile and defaults for new tiles
• Shortcut/widget settings (title, text color, background color, images, transparency)
• Desktop settings, change rows/columns, gap size (access from icon at top right in app drawer)
• Icon pack support
• Wallpaper scrolling options
• Multiple screen (Work in progress - Long click drawer to toggle layouts at the moment)

Note:  Please keep in mind this is a BETA release, so be patient with any issues. Some of the known problems are the tiles moving around when being dragged, overlapping of top left tiles and widget drop causing restart.

You can Tile Launcher Beta on Google Play(it's free) or just click the link above.

CES 2013: Huawei aims for Samsung with world's biggest smartphone-Ascend Mate

The CES Show, which brings us the hottest and newest electronics innovations, is held every year and draws a lot people's attention! This year, If there's one thing that's become quite clear at CES 2013 it's that 5-inch-plus phones are no longer strange.

Samsung launched its Samsung galaxy note 2 with a 5.5 inch display last year, and since then 5-inch or even bigger phones are starting to become common, such as HTC with the 5 inch Droid DNA, Sony’s new flagship phone -Xperia Z, and the world's biggest smartphone-Ascend Mate unveiled by China’s Huawei Technologies on Monday, features a 6.1-inch display.

So today let’s focus on Huawei’s new android phone to take a close look. Is bigger really better?

Ascend Mate runs on android 4.1 jelly bean, and boasts a 720p display. And also it has a Huawei's own Hi-Silicon 1.5 GHz quad-core processor. The highlight on this handset is the phone equipped with a huge 4,050mAh battery, which can provide 48 hours of power, Huawei says, while the Galaxy Note only has a 3100mAh battery. All of these Specs should hypothetically help it approach the snappy performance of the Note II.  Sadly the device has a typical 8MP and 1MP cameras on the rear and front, respectively.

Just like the Nokia Lumia 920, people can wear a glove and still use its capacitive display, called Magic Touch. And also like smartphone giants like Samsung, Huawei adding its own software spin to what Android already offers. These include a map and augmented reality combo called Guiding Wizard to get you places as well as high-speed look-up and word translation through smart reading. The phone also have a Swift Sharing function, which is supposed to let users share files even faster than S Share, offering speeds up to 150 Mbps.

Huawei's consumer business CEO Richard Yu said the company is hoping its latestsmartphones will offer an alternative for people who have to carry around their tabletcomputer, laptop, smartphone and camera all at once. So Huawei may be positioning the Mate at a lower price point.

Details about how much it will cost or how much RAM the phone comes with, Yu didn’t say. But one thing certain is that The Ascend Mate will go on sale in China in February and globally weeks afterwards (Huawei is apparently under discussions with US carriers).