In my case that is. I have cheated on myself the last 2 days and I feel rotten for it. I have felt physically bad.

Back in July, I traveled to San Antonio, Texas to help a friend of mine produce a corporate video. Before I left, I went to buy a new pair of khaki slacks because in some cases I would need to dress appropriately while shooting. The problem I discovered once in the dressing room, I had to move up from 34″ waist to 36″ waist and even then, there was no room to spare. I hate it when the clothes manufacturers cannot get their sizes right.

Long story short, I ate well and drank well while in Texas to further create a problem for myself. When I returned, I made some drastic changes immediately to my diet.

Unfortunately, to complicate my plan, I have been nursing a problem with my right knee and I could not combine cardio workouts with a proper diet the way I usually do. I have had to rely pretty much strictly on my diet to be able to fit back into my pants.

Since mid-July I have reduced my calories and basically eat one meal a day which is supper. I know what works for me and I drink a lot of coffee during the day and this keeps my energy level high. I eat a decent meal at night. Over time, I lose weight and fit back into my pants. If I can get my knee fixed, I can get some serious workouts in and reach my goal much quicker.

This week I was weak. I’m helping my friend again produce another video. I went out for a pizza lunch and then out again that night for burgers, wings & beer. The following day I went out for a fried fish lunch. To make matters worse, the pizza is from a new place about 5 minutes from my house and it’s some of the best pizza I have ever eaten. I didn’t know that Satan would open a pizza restaurant so close to me.

I have been miserable since the pizza. I’m writing this post right now with sweat running down my face because I just returned home from the gym and the sauna. I wanted to publicly shame myself for doing something that I knew was wrong and totally against the goal I set for myself.

Change may be good for some but in my case, change is bad.

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I didn’t realize just how bad my yard sucks this summer until yesterday when I walked outside to shoot some practice video. Looking through the viewfinder of a camera really tells a truth that you can’t deny. Actually, I did realize it but this summer I have refused to face the bitter truth. I admit that this is probably the worst year I have ever had at yard maintenance. Partly due to circumstances and partly due to the fact that I have been lazy. I offer proof that my yard sucks with the video below. My yard has taken a back seat to everything else this summer. Luckily, from the street it looks ok, but it is awful for the most part. I promised my yard yesterday that I would do better. BTW, nothing in the video was staged. I shot it as it was. That’s why it’s so pathetic.

Yes, the yard looks like crap but this post is about testing out some video settings and just practicing for fun. No reason to waste footage, right?

I went outside to shoot some video clips for practice and to try different settings on my video camera. Recently, I upgraded my video editing software from Final Cut Express to Final Cut Pro. It’s time for me to take video production more seriously than just a hobby. I want to pursue more video work and possibly some professional and “paying” editing work. Final Cut Pro opens a new world to those who edit video. The interface is the same as FCE but FCP is professional software with only a zillion more options and features. More Hollywood motion pictures and TV shows are now being edited on Final Cut Pro. The same software is available to all of us for under $1000.

I wanted some new footage to drop into Final Cut Pro. For the geeky types, here are the technical details from yesterday’s “Ugly Yard” shoot.

Video camera settings used:
I shot the video with my Canon XH A1 . The XH A1 shoots on mini DV tapes.
I shot in 16:9 (widescreen), High Definition, 24f (frames/sec).
Color preset, VIVIDRGB by Stephen Dempsey.
Here is a video on Vimeo that shows many different color presets that can be used on the Canon XH A1 camcorder. There are a lot of very talented people out there who build Canon XH A1 presets and freely allow others to download and use them. Many thanks to these people.
My tripod is a Davis & Sanford Provista 75XB.
Video was shot in manual, in the AV mode. I used auto-focus in a couple of the zoom shots.

Final Cut Pro workflow details:
Straight editing. Nothing fancy.
No color correction at all. Video is straight out of the camera using the preset.
Once edited, I saved the video as a PNG (lossless), 1280 x 720HD. This will save your video with no loss and it will be a large .mov file. It takes a while and this video was 6.14 gigs before compression. High definition video creates very large files. A lot of people think that just saving a non-compressed Quicktime Movie file will save your original project. In my experience, this is incorrect. Quicktime will definitely compress your original files, PNG format does not.

Preparing video for the web:
Obviously, the file was much too large for the web. It must be compressed into a smaller file, all the while trying to preserve the quality of the original. I dropped the video into my favorite compression software called DV Kitchen. I love this software and it’s only $79. You can download a free trial at the link I gave you. i think the free trial is good for 20 days. I promise, you will buy DV Kitchen it if you try it out. It does much more than only compressing video.

Take a look at the 2 Ugly Yard videos below, both videos are identical, only 2 different formats. One is in quicktime movie and the other is in flash. Can you tell a difference? Which one looks and plays the best on your computer? Note: I am hosting both of these videos on my own Amazon S3 Account.

Ugly Yard Video #1.

Ugly Yard Video #2.

General Fuzz is the artist of the music, if you would like to download it and use it, click here…reasonableability.mp3.

Remember when I said that DV Kitchen was more than just video compression software? It’s also an excellent tool to capture professional quality still photos from your videos. Below are stills from the video I captured using the DV Kitchen timefreezer option.

Well, I gotta go and cut some grass now. Have a great week.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

It finally happened. My best technology related friend died. My internet surfing buddy died yesterday. My fledgling internet marketing partner croaked and left me without even saying goodbye to all of the good times we have had these last 3 years since we met. It was love at first sight back in November of 2007. When we touched for the first time, I knew he/she would change my life in such a way that I would never look back. Yep, my Apple MacBookPro hard drive died on me yesterday, leaving me helpless, sad and angry all at the same time.

My MacBookPro is the best piece of equipment I have ever used. I’m one of those Apple people who sing the praises and I absolutely hate most everything that is Windows related. I just like things to work, and for 3 years, my MacBook has worked flawlessly even though I have run it through the mill with everything I do on it.

The good and the bad of Apple
The first thing I did was to call my local Apple Store. I could not even get an appointment to take it in to visit a technician for 2 days! C’mon Mr. Jobs, this is totally unacceptable and sucks a big one. I could not even drop it off, I was told. I have a dead laptop and I could not be seen for 2 days. This is customer service at it’s worst.

Never Deal With People Who Sport New Age Names
I mention that I have spent a ton at the store and recently bought an iMac. It does me no good. I was not a VIP in their eyes. I felt like I might be in a little trouble when the girl I was speaking of told me her name was “Ocean”. I thought that if I told her my name was Rainbow, that we might connect on a different level but she asked me for my account info and she could easily see that I have the most common name ever given to a male born in the 50’s & 60’s. Just a regular ol’ Steve.

The Bad News
I tell Ocean that I have my receipts and that I bought a 3 year warranty for $349. I can hear her typing something and she confirms that I did buy a warranty, but gives me the bad news that I didn’t register the warranty online. She offers no additional help or advice. I’m getting pissed but I can’t raise my voice to someone named Ocean, it’s not in my nature. If it had been a dude named Solar, that would be a different story.

I called a friend of mine in South Carolina who takes his computers to an authorized Apple Service company and always speaks highly of them. He makes a call and tells me they would be happy to look at it today! Woo Hoo! I hop in my car and drive 100 miles and drop off my laptop.

The Good News
The technician at this company tells me to call Apple and try to register my warranty with someone. I felt like it was hopeless because I obviously did not follow the rules. I’ve never followed rules my entire life and it usually costs me way more than $349. I reluctantly call the number and a sweet little girl answers me with a heavy, but cute accent. I can barely understand her and I repeatedly ask her to repeat herself. This aggravates me to no end usually but she sounded so sweet, I felt she had to be a hottie on the other end and I just put up with it. That’s right, us guys put up with crap from attractive women or those we feel might be attractive on the other end of a phone line. Don’t blame us, God made us that way.

The End Of The Story
A guy comes on the phone with a normal run of the mill name of Jeff, and tells me that since I had never registered the warranty, he will give me a full refund or he will register it. Miss Ocean at the store, never mentioned this. I opted for the refund since the warranty runs out in November. Bottom line is that my repairs will cost me $60 out of pocket and I upgraded to a 500 gig hard drive. My faith in Apple was restored in a simple phone call. I did have to drive a couple hundred miles but I didn’t mind because I got to visit a friend I don’t see that often.

Morals of the story

• If someone with a new age name answers the phone when you are calling for service, hang up and keep calling back until someone with a conventional name answers.
• If she has a cute accent but you can’t understand her, just ask her to keep repeating herself while you imagine she’s a real hottie on the line. Eventually, she will give up and let someone else handle the call.
• Since I’m not an A-List Blogger, I can’t really tell you what puffy, pie in the sky lessons that are to be learned here. However, I do expect you to re-tweet this post 279 times.
• Mr. Jobs, please fix your stores.

I was nice, persistent and I never gave up even when I thought it was hopeless. I’ve called the Apple Store 3 times this morning to cancel my appointment and the line has been busy 3 times. I ate 2 fast food meals yesterday on the road. I had a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken sandwich for supper and I paid for it with a night of indigestion. That’s ok though, me and my MacBook got a thing going on.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

Would you like to add a new element of excitement and capture more viewer interest in your videos? Try using a green screen effect in your next video. If you do, here is what you will quickly discover…it’s quite easy to add new visually captivating effects to your videos by using a green screen background. It’s a lot of fun also. If you are involved in web video production at all, I think your mind will be filled with new creative ideas and how you can apply this technique. Today, I want to show you how I have used the green screen effect in the video below and give you some ideas on how to use a green screen for your own videos.

My Confession
My confession is that this is the first time I have ever used green screen myself. I’m always looking for ways to improve my online video production. Once you see what the green screen effect can have on your videos, I think you will want to give it a try. If I must say so myself, I think the video review below turned out pretty decent actually since it was my first attempt. If I can do it, so can you. Green screen can have so many uses in your videos. I believe that one of the main uses that I will be using green screen in the future is for product reviews. After viewing the video, what kind of ideas do you have for adding the green screen effect in your videos?

What is a green screen?
A green screen is simply a large piece of green fabric. That’s it, nothing special. Shoot your video by standing in front of a green screen and then when editing, replace the green behind you with whatever video element that you desire. You can place videos, special effects, or still photos in the background. The removal of the green is done with your video editing software.

Chromakey Green Screen
This is a fancy term for removing the green in the video. Once the green is gone, all that is left is a transparent, black background, ready for you to insert what ever element you wish. Most video editing programs will have a video filter that will allow you to remove the green screen background and replace it with your own images. I use final cut express to edit my videos. In final cut express, once your video is in the time line, just drop the chromakey filter on top of your video. Use the settings to fine tune and remove the green from all around you. It’s a very simple process that is all software based. Do it once, and you will become a pro. Chances are, the video editing program you are using now already contains green screen software.

Using a green screen
In one word, simple. My setup is very simple and you will be able to see it in the video. I give you several examples where I am standing in front of the green screen fabric and I replace the green with still photos and videos.

A professional green screen setup is surprisingly affordable. Good chroma key lighting, often referred as green screen lighting is essential. I set mine up in my office on a wall as you will see in the video.

In the video, I mention Allyn Hane from bloggerillustrated.net. He is my favorite video blogger and he recently did a series of videos on internet marketing where he used the green screen effect to teach his methods. You definitely want to visit his site to get more ideas and to learn about internet marketing from a Pro.

This featured green screen from amazon.com and light kit is a perfect setup for your home or studio. It features 2 7′ light stands with umbrellas. 2 light kits are important because if you use one light in front of you and one light to the side, it will eliminate shadows on the green screen and make it much easier for you to chromakey the green out of your video.

This affordable green screen kit also includes:
* Stands Extend to 8 feet height/Opens up to 10 ft wide
* 2 x 7ft light stands/2 x 105w daylight bulb
* 2 x AC light umbrella holders/2 x 32″ white umbrellas
* 3 x sectional cross bars/2 x 8 ft supporting stands with carrying case
* FREE carrying case for the background stand/1 x 10 X 20 ft Chroma Key green Muslin Backdrop

2010 Bloggerlens.com

Tomorrow marks yet another milestone in my life. I believe that we only have so many that are truly milestones and this is a biggy for me. My 22 year old son gets married. Kind of makes you feel old, happy, reflective and sad all at the same time. My little buddy is taking a wife…unreal sort of.

Truly, he is the son every Father dreams of and I’ve never understood why I was so blessed. He was never any trouble in his youth (like I was). We did everything together. I coached him through years of baseball and soccer. I showed him how to fish when he was little and he took it from there and became more skilled and knowledgeable than I ever was. He feared nothing, not even 50 mile trips in the ocean we took on our boat King Mackerel fishing. When he fished by himself, I always got a phone call and a cell phone pic of every catch. One evening he fought a large fish from the beach for more than an hour on light tackle. He kept me updated by cell phone. Turns out to be a 6′ shark and a huge crowd gathered and watched the fight. Guess who got the call and pics from the cell phone.

He just graduated last month from East Carolina University. His plan now is to attend Seminary this fall at Wake Forest. For the past 4 years, he has helped to build a small church from the ground up. To watch him turn into the man he has become is truly inspiring.

Tomorrow he takes a wife and I cross over yet another milestone. I hope he takes his time but I’m really looking forward to him giving me a new fishing buddy in the future.

This is a product review and video of the Switronix TL-50 video camera light. Lighting is such a crucial aspect of good video especially when you are shooting in low light situations. This light is currently on my wish list but I was so impressed with it, I wanted to share it with you now. I’m sure you will be impressed with this light after you watch the video.

This camcorder light is not a cheap accessory but how can one put a value on the video you shoot. Many moons ago I would shoot video of my children in low light situations because I didn’t know any better. I treasure those old videos now. When I watch them now, I’m disappointed in myself because some are quite grainy because of the low light. Technology has fixed that for us today. The TL 50 is an accessory that we can carry with us in our camera bag and always be ready to produce great quality video.

You can use this video light kit on cameras or video cameras. It is powered by it’s own power source and the LED’s can last for hours on a single charge.

2010 Switronix TL 50 Review

I made this video review of the Apple Mighty Mouse because it’s my all time favorite mouse and laptop accessory. I recommend the Mighty Mouse to everyone if they happen to use a bluetooth mouse. Let me say right now that you can use the mighty mouse if you use Mac or Windows. It’s not about the operating system, it’s about your equipments bluetooth capability. I have replaced all mouses that I use with the wireless mighty mouse and I will never go back to using the old ones. That’s good news for everyone, it’s mighty mouse for PC also.

I recently bought an iMac and it came with a wireless apple keyboard and the Apple Mighty Mouse. Once I put it into my hands, I was sold. When I fired up my iMac for the first time, the computer found it immediately and I started using it. The first thing I noticed was how well the mighty mouse fit in my hand. It was as if it were made for my hand. Apple engineers are brilliant. They make stuff that looks nice, works perfect and feels natural.

The second feature that I love is how this mouse scrolls. There are no roller balls, only a flat smooth surface that you gently stroke with your finger. The screen will scroll according to the speed in which you move your finger. Apple gives you a setup menu which allows you to perfectly customize how your mighty mouse works and responds to your input.

Battery power has not been an issue with me. I mostly use rechargeable batteries and this mighty mouse does not consume much battery power at all. You will not need any sort of a mouse pad to use this macintosh mouse. I simply lay mine directly on my desk. I certainly can’t recommend the mighty mouse without recommending the Apple Wireless Keyboard also.

This would make an awesome gift for Dad or a student getting ready to go off to college. Anyone who uses a mouse would be grateful to you if you made one of these a present.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

I love my Brother 6490 Wireless Printer. I love it enough to do a video review of the 6490 for sure. I have used many different brands of printers throughout my lifetime and I doubt that I will ever change brands again. Brother multifunction printers just plain work and they work outstanding. I first used a Brother laser printer a couple of years ago and it was one of the larger models. The only problem, I didn’t own it. When it came time to buy a new home office computer, I searched Amazon for one brand and decided upon the 6490 CW. This review is for the Brother 6490 inkjet.

I’ve owned this printer for almost a year and I have had zero problems with it. My first requirement is that it was wireless so that I could print to it from anywhere in my house. The wireless setup on the 6490 was a breeze and works perfect. You can set it up for multiple computers and it works Mac & Windows. Because I work with some graphics programs, I wanted a computer that printed in 11 x 17 and the 6490CW prints the larger size paper perfectly. The ink cartridges are super easy to replace and the cartridges are affordable.

I make a lot of photo slideshows and it requires me to scan a lot of old photos. One of the cool features of this printer is I can pull up the scan screen on my laptop and crop the picture before I scan it. This saves me an immeasurable amount of time and was a HUGE selling point to me. You can do the same if you need to scan photos for any reason. The 6490 is a very stylish printer also and looks great in my office. When the video finishes, there’s a link where you can check it out. I’m sure it will make a wonderful addition to your home or office.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

I spend a lot of time sitting at a desk while I try to make my living online. Anyone who has a job where they are not physically active must find the time to get in regular workouts. I’ve been using the Perfect Pushup for a long time and I sneak in very effective workouts every day in between my work. I can say that with authority. I’m an active person. I like to workout. I lift weights and go to the gym. I also like to ride my mountain bike. It’s not always convenient to get in a decent workout while at home. I found the answer a long time ago and I thought I would share what I do.

When I need to take a break and clear my head a little during the day, I just get in a quick workout with a set of perfect pushups. The blood gets flowing quickly and I usually get re-energized to keep working. I’ve been known to come up with some new fresh ideas after a few sets. You also can do these workouts almost anywhere, even at work. Now, there are no excuses.

If you need to tighten up a few things on your body, these are perfect and affordable. Guys, you want bigger arms and chest? These will help tremendously. Ladies, do you want to just firm up your arms and make them look sleek without building muscle? These are perfect for doing just that. Being able to get in a good workout at home is important to me. I accomplished that a long time ago when I purchased a set of Perfect Pushups. Because I am no stranger to exercise, I could definitely see the benefit when I watched the commercials on TV. I purchased a set and I’ve been very happy I did. The pushup is nearly the perfect upper body exercise and most anyone can perform one pushup. How about 100 pushups? You certainly can with these following the workout guidelines. In no time using the perfect pushup workout, your upper body will gain strength and I promise that you will start to look better in a shirt, man or woman. If you want to look sexy and not cost a lot, these are for you.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

I want to continue today talking about Local SEO and a few local marketing tips that can help you gain rankings in your local area and make a good first impression to possible clients for your business. Everything that I will describe can be done for free and it only takes a little time and effort on your part. You will get out of it what you put into it.

Do not be afraid. Anyone can follow these tips and implement them on your own site. You do not have to be a technical coding geek to do this. So, breathe easy and keep reading.

For this example, I’m going to use a friend of mine’s chimney sweep website, HomeSaverChimneySweeps.com. His name is Mark Ferraiolo and we have been friends for many, many years. He lives in Pennsylvania now and has allowed me to use his website to illustrate a few examples that one could use to make their sites better in the eyes of the search engines.

Mark has done a pretty good job listing his site on Google local. Below is the screenshot of how it appears.

At first glance at his Google local listing, I would recommend that Mark ask more of his customers to write reviews about his business. He is only showing 1 review. I know for a fact that Mark has many satisfied customers and he should be asking each customer to go online and write a review. Word of mouth and testimonials are very powerful.

Here is what I observe and what I think Mark should do to his listing:

• Be more descriptive about what your business does. Mark only has 2 sentences describing his business.
• Post more photos showing your work. Google allows up to 10 photos to be posted.
• Post youtube videos of his chimney sweep work. Google allows up to 5 videos to be posted for the listing.
• Add coupons to his listing. The coupons will appear with his business listing on Google maps.

Wrist slap #1
Here is where I’m going to fuss a little bit at Mark and slap his wrist. When I visit HomeSaverChimneySweeps.com, Mark does not have a blog on his site. As we all know, the search engines love fresh content.

Wrist slap #2
Add video to your site Mark. You and I have discussed this in detail. Start a youtube channel. Youtube is the #2 search engine in the world next to Google and unfortunately, Mark is not taking advantage of this.

There is no evidence of any social media presence for Home Saver Chimney Sweeps such as Facebook & Twitter. Do you think that Mark could benefit from using Social Media in his chimney sweep business?

Google Insights:
The next thing I would do if I were Mark, is to visit Google Insights to search for the top terms I could use to help customers find me. I searched for the term “chimney” and used the filter of the state of Pennsylvania and all metros.

A quick search using Insights turned up a ton of useful information that Mark could use. The screen shot below shows regional interest for the search term “chimney.”

The screenshot below is the pot of gold for Mark. Google Insight shows all of the top searches related to “chimney” for the entire state of Pennsylvania. It also show the top rising searches for the term.

What should Mark do with this information? It’s simple. He should be incorporating these terms into his site. There are many other things that Mark can do also. Start posting youtube video and tagging his videos with these search terms. Posting photos on his site using “alt tags” with these terms.

Add a blog to his site and write specific articles about each search term. Mark should start building links to his site using these terms as anchor text for the links. I only see 15 links pointing to his site using the Yahoo Link Domain tool.

If Mark could start to rank in the search engines for these individual terms, combined with youtube videos of his work and customer testimonials, I believe Mark, my good friend, would have more chimney sweep work in Catawissa, PA than he could handle. Actually, I don’t think it…I know it.

Of course, this is not everything that Mark could do to help himself. These tips are quick and simple that he could start to implement today. What are some recommendations that you would give to Mark to improve his local SEO? Feel free to join in and leave your tips.

2010 Bloggerlens.com