A mid-January 2012 Update

I have been away for a while. So I thought I would check in again. It has been a snowy week here in Washington State. Much of the state from Seattle to Eastern Washington has been hit by snowstorms this week. The snow can really disrupt things in this state, especially around Seattle.

I should mention that my NATHANROADINWA YouTube Channel videos have recently passed the 50,000 total views mark. So I still feel good about getting 100,000 total views by the end of this year.

As for the rumored final firmware update to the WDTV Live Plus from Western Digital that was mentioned as being planned for early 2012, it has not happened yet which is no surprise because Western Digital has a long history of making you wait months instead of days for a new firmware. Like I have said before, it is highly unlikely I will purchase another Western Digital media streamer again because of the lack of updates. For a company like Western Digital to announce that they are not likely going to release another firmware update to a product like the WDTV Family less than 24 months after being released is totally unacceptable. They need to create products that can be easily upgradable without forcing you to buy a new media streamer every 24 months or so just to get a device that has current support.

As for those wondering when my next YouTube video on my NATHANROADINWA Channel is coming out, I will most likely put out another video by sometime in February at the latest. I just have been rather busy lately with other activities.

So that is my update for now. I will be back rather soon probably.

Possibly some good news about the AMAZON.COM App Store!

In my video review that I did last year for the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet, I mentioned that a credit card WAS required to download even the free apps on their Apps Store. Well this morning I decided to try once again to verify that this was still the case. I tried to purchase a free app. I just selected a free Solitaire game app to purchase. And it worked! I was able to purchase the app for free even though I still had not entered any debit/credit card info. I tried to purchase another one. That time I chose the Sudoku Free app. And it also downloaded fine without any payment information!

Before you get excited and try it yourself, I should warn people that I had told Amazon.COM about the problem of the Credit Card being required for free apps and the Amazon.COM person said they would look into it. So they might have made an exception just for me. If you have had the same problem with getting free apps without entering a credit card, please let us know if my experience is an isolated one or if Amazon.COM has indeed changed their payment policy for all users.

2012 is here, but is that a good thing?

I want to start out by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. Now that 2012 is here, maybe things will improve. But there is a good chance they will not improve. Some of the bad things that happened in 2011 include:

Postal Service debates about cutbacks in service.

Postal Service is still cutting back processing centers and still threatening longer mailing times as we speak.

Western Digital continued to be slow to update their WDTV Live family machines.

There is a new firmware finally coming out any day now for the discontinued 2010 Plus model, but it is rumored to be the last. Western Digital will unlikely fix any more bugs or update the services supported on this model. This means if you bought the Plus model like I did, you are probably regretting the purchase of it now.

YouTube view count bug came back around December 2011 and appears to be still giving inaccurate view counts as of early 2012.

YouTube had listed the same view counts on several of my videos at the exact same number for days until a couple of days ago. But it appears that the view counts are still not updating right away which makes it hard for me to judge how well my videos are being received since I get very few comments or ratings on my videos.

2012 GOALS FOR NATHANROADINWA YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Now I want to talk about my 2012 goals for my NATHANROADINWA YouTube Channel.

Hit the 10,000 views milestone for a single video for the first time.

This one I am almost certain will happen this year.

Hit the 100,000 views milestone for my total views.

This one seems in reach as long as I continue to get views at the rate that I was getting during the 4th Quarter of 2011.

Finally the most important one which is to be more successful on YouTube.

YouTube is a tricky platform for someone with my video making style. I have seen videos similar to mine that are shot with absolutely no preparation on a low resolution webcam and get way more views than mine even though I try to research the topics thoroughly and make the information much more organized. Unfortunately, YouTube continues to be dominated by people who make funny videos and by celebrity videos or those with subscribers it seems. I don't really encourage subscribing on YouTube since it takes your attention away from videos made by other individuals who upload an interesting video on a rare occasion.

So hopefully I will be able to make the needed adjustments to my videos to accomplish the third goal. We will find out sometime this year.