A major site redesign has been a long time coming for YouTube. Let’s be honest here… the way things looked in recent months was nothing short of confusing and just plain “icky”. YouTube rolled out the changes across the board yesterday with a simplified look – and added functionality on the viewer page. When describing the changes on the official blog, YouTube stated that “this redesign is about going “back to basics,” focusing attention on the reason why you came to YouTube in the first place — the video — and all the ways you engage with content and creators”.

Many of the changes appear to be good ones. For instance, information about a video is now grouped together in one place, and there’s a consistent way to get more detail when you need it. If something isn’t really useful to you it will no longer clutter up your page. There’s a new playlist interface, with the next video in the list appearing in the top right. The site is also boasting a streamlined presentation for sharing, flagging, and embedding controls.

As I said, this all “appears” to be positive. However, the reaction thus far hasn’t been so positive. There have been hundreds of comments left on the official announcement post, and a heck of a lot of people are complaining. Do they not like change at all, or do they only hate these particular changes?

So far, I actually enjoy the new design. I’ve had a few small glitches, such as when trying to block a user who has left a rude comment. I’m hopeful that those little kinks will be worked out soon. Have you played around on the site since the changes took effect? What are your thoughts?

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YouTube Goes Back to the Basics

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My finger is very secure! It’s attached to my body. However, PC PitStop community member Bob isn’t so sure his fingers are secure. He wrote in to ask about fingerprint sensor on his laptop. He’s been having trouble with them since updating from Vista to Windows 7.

Hopefully Bob ran Microsoft’s Upgrade Advisor. That will tell you whether or not a driver is avaiable for the fingerprint scanner to work inside of Windows 7. Just because it ran fine on Vista doesn’t mean it will run on Windows 7. Sometimes, drivers are poorly written – or not updated at all.

The bottom line is that Bob will need to contact the laptop manufacturer and find out where he can get an updated driver for his fingerprint scanner. If there isn’t one available, he may have to roll back to Windows Vista (*shudder*) if he really wants to use the fingerprint scanner.

Sadly, there’s no magic answer here. Bob needs a driver. The hardware worked perfectly in Vista, but stopped as soon as he upgraded the operating system. To me, that points a big red arrow right to the drivers.

Bob, check with the manufacturer of your laptop. You can even log on to their website, and look for drivers there, without having to call them. Most reputable manufacturers will have a section devoted to the most up-to-date drivers that are available.

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<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5aI852rAZeI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5aI852rAZeI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

Fingerprint Problems in Windows

http://live.pirillo.com/ – QuadForLife asks: would you recommend having a fingerprint scanner for a laptop?

Yes and no.

For ease of use, it's pretty convenient: swipe your thumb and you're in without having to enter a username or password.

Ss for security we don't recommend using it. Grabbing fingerprints to use for nefarious reasons is pretty simplistic (your thumbprint is available on everything you touch), plus fooling some of these scanners is pretty easy.

For now, fingerprint scanners are a nice toy or a convenient way to log into your computer, beyond that they're not ready for end-user security.

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Fingerprint Scanners