Technology nerdiness (if I can do this, you certainly can) in 8 easy steps

I went to an iPad workshop last night (app recommendations will come after I receive the list via email).  The best part was that I learned something instantly useful.  Often times we find ourselves in a situation where watching a video would be useful (waiting in a doctor's waiting room, for example), but I can't pull one up on YouTube because I have no wireless connection (our iPad doesn't have 3G).  Well, here's the solution!

I learned how to download YouTube videos and save them to your computer (or your iPad/iPhone)----once they're saved, you can watch them anytime, anywhere---no internet required.  Here's how you do it:

1.  Go download Firefox, here


2.  Once Firefox is installed, go to this page and type "YouTube" in the search box.  Then, download the add-on called "Video DownloadHelper".  This one:

3. Once you've installed that add-on, go to YouTube and pull up a video that you'd like to download.  The three little circles will start spinning, here:

4. Click on the little "down arrow" next to the spinning circles to get the drop down menu.

5. Highlight the format that ends in ".mp4", then click "Download".  (Helpful hint: save it to a folder that will be easy to find.)


***If you were just trying to download the video to your computer, you're done!  Now you can watch it whenever you want, with or without an internet connection!  If you would like to move the video to your iPad/iPhone, keep reading . . .


6. Once the download is complete, open iTunes.  Drag the video file over to your iTunes library and then release it.

7. Now, if you click on the "Movies" part of your iTunes library, you will see you new video!

8.  Sync your device with your computer, and you're done.  Magic!