YouTube Videos With Smartphones Revised:

I saw a video from a friend's YouTube channel today and it was very sad to see it. His computer equipment is failing that he uses to make videos and it's not in his budget to make videos. So I thought I would take the time to do a revised edition of my "Making Videos with Smart Phones" blog post. First the reasoning behind it is because I want to help my friend and secondly, I had a piece of equipment fail on me. It's extremely easy to upload a video in 1080p Full HD without the need of video software and no computer is needed to do so. First you do need a camera app and for those of you with Samsung Galaxy phones, I highly recommend the open camera app seen below. The factory camera app will work but the open camera app is much better and much easier to use than the factory camera app is. I have no clue about the other phones that's available on the market today but there's a 95% chance that it will definitely work on them as well. This app is free and has no ads. Here's the link to this specific app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.sourceforge.opencamera&hl=en :

Now for those whom wish to edit their videos and add photos and such, you are not going to beat Cyberlink by PowerDirctor. There is 1 catch though and that is the limit of HD is only 720p without the subscription but on some phones you will not be able to tell the difference and yes the app itself is free but it also does contains ads to but you can easily skip them. Here's the link to this awesome video editing app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cyberlink.powerdirector.DRA140225_01&hl=en :

^ Both apps can share directly to YouTube with no issues. All you need is an internet connection and you are good to go. For Android based phones this is past being easy. All you do after you record your video is hit the share button seen below:

Next you will see the screen below:

You then simply select the YouTube icon and then type in the name and information/description of your video and follow the on screen instructions and your video is uploading. It takes about an hour or less depending on how long the video is. I usually try to keep my videos around 20 minutes or less and I set the video duration to a maximum of 1 hour recording time. Another thing I highly recommend getting is a Micro SD card which can be seen below:

^ This is not needed unless you plan on making long videos but if you keep your videos to around 20 minutes or less, you don't need it. But it does help if you have long videos. You can find these at Walmart for a reasonable price. For audio I use a simple plug and play lapel microphone that you can find on Amazon for around $10 to $12 dollars and it does make a difference:

^ That's all I use besides a basic magnetic suction cup mount to make YouTube videos and the mount was only $20 dollars which can be found in Walmart as well.

Resoltuion & The Leaf:

Sorry folks, but there won't be a shave video today due to technical difficulties which is extremely annoying to say the least. For today's shave, I needed a Soap Commander fix really bad so I grabbed their resolution scented soap which was a limited edition from last year. The scent is fresh Frasier fir pine scent with a hint of cranberry sweetness that's rounded off with a touch of bitterness from fresh Mistletoe. It's a fresh and clean type of scent. And to finish off this shave, I went with a nice healthy dose of good old Skin Bracer :

The Gillette Wilkinson Sword blade was great but I clearly had the blade in the wrong slots which is why I have a slight touch of razor burn after 2.5 passes. So from now on, I will be using the middle and top slots only with the leaf razor. But other than that, these blades are great and extremely comfortable. Now onto the technical difficulties. For some reason, the open camera app would not record videos over 6 minutes in length. So I got rid of a few apps that I was not using and set the maximum video recording time to 1 hour. I really should shorten it down even further to (30 minutes or less) because it does not take me that long to shave. Before when I was making straight razor honing videos, I had the maximum file set to unlimited and just never got around to resetting it. As you can see below, I got it fixed and performed a test and recorded some footage while I watched a shave video to see if that fixed everything and it did:

^ Having the camera stop recording on you while you are trying to film a shave video is annoying to no end. This was taken after 16 minutes of recording time. I wanted to toss the phone out the dang window but since I'm paying on it still, I better not. When it comes time to upgrade, I am seriously looking at Apple's I Phones with more internal storage. By the way please avoid the Samsung tablets. They suck and don't half work 90% of the time. Even after installing the factory updates and restarting both tablets, we still had issues with them and the apps still wouldn't work. So come November 29th, 2019, those tablets will be removed from my Verizon account.

Gillette Wilkinson Sword On Deck:

This is one blade that I have been wanting to try for a really long time and just never got around to it until now. As far as I can remember, I have never used these blades before in any razor. I even went back and searched my blog to make sure and saw no shave of the day posts with these blades. I have 2 friends that swear by these blades and they are Ken Kirkup (a.k.a. Kensurfs) and my buddy, Anthony Esposito. Anthony is normally a straight razor guy but he does use DE safety razors when he is in a hurry and he will grab these blades before anything else. Ken uses these on a regular basis but does try other blades:

They come from India but they do have the P&G logo on the back and mention that these are a trademark of Gillette U.S.A. They also come single wrapped:

Another thing I noticed is that these blades are extremely thin. They were also much easier to snap in half for the Leaf razor as well which is a very good thing:

I am looking forward to trying these blades mainly because I have never tried them before in anything. I'm certain that this will also be the last Gillette blade that I have not tried before as well. The Gillette Platinum Plus in the DE 89 was one of my favorites with nearly identical results from the Polsilver Iridium blades coming in an extremely close second. So those will definitely be interesting. So will the Gillette Platinum, Astra Greens which I got great results with in other razors. I also plan trying the blades that came with it which will be next after these.

Feather + Leaf = 3 Shaves Max:

The live was great. If you follow Strike Gold Shave on Instagram, you can watch the replay of our shaves. Mine went okay but you can definitely tell that it was time to switch out the blade. So that puts my shave total to 3 multi pass shaves on a Feather DE blade in the Leaf razor. That tells you how tough my beard has gotten over the past 4 years. When I first started in February of 2013, I could get 10 multi pass shaves out of a Feather blade with a mild twist to open razor. Now I'm down to 3 in a mild razor. That is a huge drop in longevity:

The 3rd shave on a Feather blade is usually the most comfortable shave in ANY mild or medium DE safety razor, in this one is fell short in the comfort part of that equation and the blade kept wanting to grab in a few spots. That usually means that it's time for another blade. I've been hearing a lot about these Gillette Wilkinson Sword blades so I will be trying them next:

So this means that the blade search continues. There's not too many more blades left that I've not tried in other razors and only a handful that I have not tried period and this Gillette Wilkinson Sword is one that I have never tried before ever so it will definitely be interesting.