Tag: YouTube

Smoking Beef Ribs on my Traeger Ironwood 885

A little while ago I was discussing the meat that I smoke to my work colleagues and some suggested to do a YouTube video as they wanted to see the entire process. I would normally just show them the before and after photos, but a video was a neat idea (even though there are plenty of videos out there that show how to smoke meat – much better than me I might add too).

With some help of my family I was able to capture the entire process as I don’t have a camera other than my phone to capture everything and I don’t have a stand to hold my phone up. From trimming the fat off the meat (the video was on beef ribs) through the entire smoking process I tried my best to show everything. The one part that I unfortunately did not capture (thanks mom – I should have double checked before I went in front of the camera) was the rub that I made and how I seasoned the meat and what binder I used. I did do an after the fact part when I realized the rub portion was not captured. But other than that the process was captured and uploaded on YouTube.

So if you are a fan of beef ribs, smoking meat or just want to see the process of how to smoke some meat on a smoker then please check out the video – link below and if you do enjoy the video then it would be great if you could like and comment on the video. I will be doing more of these in the future too which will cover brisket and pork butt for example, so if you want to watch more smoking meat videos then consider subscribing. I don’t have a set plan or release schedule. It really all depends on when I can smoke the meat, the weather and if I can get good quality meat as I don’t buy my meat from the supermarket.

I hope you enjoy the video and maybe it will inspire you to smoke some meat too 🙂

Microsoft Edge and Paid YouTube Content

This evening I decided I wanted to watch some YouTube content on my PC using Microsoft Edge. I have a decent list of purchased movies and TV series through the Google Play Store. After looking over the list of paid content I settled on a movie and I clicked on it ready to watch on my second monitor while I was doing some other stuff on my primary monitor. To my surprise I was greeted by a playback error. To be exact I got the following error message in the video player (I have blacked out some content that I deem not relevant).

YouTube Paid Content Playback Error

The exact message reads, “An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: MLeXgYpv05LH1Uhq)“.

I decided to click the “Learn More” link which would hopefully provide some informative information as to why I got this error. But in typical Google fashion I have found it was little to no use. I decided to try their troubleshooting steps.

YouTube Paid Content Playback Error Troubleshooting Page

I first closed every tab that I had open except the YouTube tab and tried again. No luck got the same error message, a different Playback ID error code was presented though. The next step was to restart my router, did that and still no luck. I restarted my computer to see if that would help like it said, again the same error message. The second last option was to verify that I was using the latest version of my browser; there was no Windows updates and I am unaware of any other way to update Microsoft Edge (if there is please let me know). The absolute last resort is to use Google Chrome. I’m sorry Google but this isn’t going to happen and really is not a troubleshooting step.

Curiously I decided to try some videos from some of my subscribers and those videos played absolutely fine with no issue on Microsoft Edge. In fact I am watching one of my favourite YouTubers playing XCOM 2: War of the Chosen as I write this. So clearly there appears to be an issue trying to stream paid content through YouTube on Microsoft Edge. I quickly tried my Android phone and using the official YouTube app I had no issue playing the same video (so it was not a licensing issue) and the video plays absolutely fine on my Xbox One X using the YouTube app.

Finally I decide to try Google Chrome. Low and behold the video starts with no issue. I tried again on Microsoft Edge and I get an error message. To me it seems that Google is doing something in back that is restricting content being played on Microsoft Edge or Microsoft has something in Edge that Google does not like, blocking paid content from being played. Perhaps being paid and licensed content I thought maybe there was a setting that was causing issues, but Netflix on Microsoft Edge had no issues playing. Has anyone else had the same issue? If so did you get it resolved or does the problem persist? Generally I have found Google to be near useless when it comes to any support and their response to issues is down right abysmal (the only other company to be close or worse is Valve and Steam Support). Looks like when I am on my PC or laptop I won’t be streaming any paid content from YouTube until this is fixed.

Intrusive and Abusive Website Ads

Many consider this to be a controversial topic and there are generally only two camps that most people fall into. There is the “content creators live off the ad revenue they receive and the ads are not that bad” and then there is the “ads are ruining my browsing experience, so they are going to have to go when I browse“.

My position on the ads that are shown on websites has changed over the years. At first I was extremely annoyed by them (no matter the type of ad) so when the various ad blocking extensions arrived for Google Chrome I jumped right on them. Later on I took the position where the ads were not too annoying so I did not use any ad blocker. Now I have come back into the camp where ads on sites are just plain intrusive, in your face and annoying, that ruin your browsing and content consumption experience. If I was a major content provider I would make sure that the ads that I was offering were non-intrusive.

The type of ads that I don’t mind are the ones that sit in the background, don’t play any audio or video, and absolutely do not change the way that the website is presented; YouTube ads obviously are a different story and because I subscribe to YouTube Red I don’t see YouTube ads. What I found while not using an ad blocker extension recently was that there are more and more ads being shown on the various sites that I visit that completely rearrange the website’s content and either have intrusive audio playing or banners popping up. The worst experience that I have had was on mobile where the page’s content would load and then all the ads would load which rearranges the content or there is a pop up that has a difficult close button to press.

If content creators were so concerned about the ad blockers being used then maybe the ads that they show should not be so intrusive. A good example of intrusive website ads from a couple of weeks ago was on the video gaming site IGN and there was a promotion running. Not only was the home page of the site littered with ads for the promotion (banners on the top and both sides), but a large pop up ad was shown that played a video with muted audio. If you did close the pop up and started scrolling a small banner would follow that detailed the same promotion. This situation right there is intrusive and in my opinion should not be allowed. It ruined my browsing experience, slowed the site down, and also made actually viewing the content much more difficult. With the ad blocker on the page loaded significantly faster, there was no banner ads and the annoying pop up ad was gone.

As long as these types of practices for ads being displayed on websites continue then people are going to use ad blockers. I am fine with the top and side banners displaying the ads as it did not take away from the content itself and they did not ruin the experience. Having an ad pop up play a muted video and then have a banner ad follow you as you scrolled through the page is not consumer friendly and intrusive. So for the foreseeable future if websites continue to provide these intrusive ads then I am going to continue to use block the ads. If a site however is providing consumer friendly ads then I will white list the site and allow the ads to be shown. What are your experiences with ads on certain sites? And do you use an ad blocker while you browse the Internet?

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