Monday Morning Quickie – Seminar TODAY From EquestrianProfessional.com

Equestrian Professional (EP) is a good organization for the horse industry – they offer quality resources and information for improving your equine operation, ranging from ‘best practices’ to legal issues, with advice from a range of equine industry experts.

TODAY (Monday May 3rd) they’re having a teleseminar/webinar on finding your next equestrian sponsor, whether for students, events, or yourself.

There’s an open portion of the teleseminar that’s available at no charge to non-member horse professionals, but following that segment there’s a members-only Q&A, allowing members to ask questions of the guest speaker. Members also have access to replays of the teleseminars.

Sign-up is required for attendance, so EP can line up the technology needed to handle the caller volume.

I listened to a recent teleseminar on legal issues that was great. If you haven’t yet checked out Equestrian Professional, might be worth a look!

2010 Derby Week Coverage

It’s Kentucky Derby Week! At the moment, the official Kentucky Derby Web site countdown clock says 5 days, 6 hours, and 45 minutes til the race. Who do you like?

I’ll be doing Derby Week articles all week at The Equine Chronicle’s Web site – I hope you’ll check back to see what I think are some cool resources and info about the culture and community surrounding the world-famous Run for the Roses!

Here’s Kentucky Derby article #1, Your Passport To 2010 Derby Coverage – it’s got some great links, including the Kentucky Derby archive of race info all the way back to 1875, and even video clips for many of the races. Enjoy!

Monday Morning Quickie – Video Webinar from ReelSEO

To continue the ‘theme’ of using video as a marketing tool for your horse business, I thought I’d share this resource I came across on Twitter (thanks, @themarketingguy!) – it’s a free webinar on how to optimize your video for the Web, on May 5, 2010.

I’m not affiliated with any of the companies or individuals involved; I’m signed up as an attendee just like you would be. That said, I recently participated in a completely unrelated webinar using the same GoToWebinar technology, and it was slick! So, I’m looking forward to this webinar on video. The minimum system requirements are below.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees: Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000
Macintosh®-based attendees: Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

On an interesting side note: Of all my entries about the Flip video camera, the one that got the most traffic was what NOT to do with your Flip! Hmmmmmm…..

Have a great week!

What NOT To Do With Your Flip Video Camera

While I love many things about my new little Flip UltraHD video camera, I had a minor tech crisis this past weekend. I’m sharing it here so hopefully you can avoid the same issue.

I tend to not use ‘canned’ software that comes with tech gadgets on my computer as I find it’s often designed for ‘the general consumer’ and doesn’t always do what I want, or else it does things I don’t want.

Flip video cameras come pre-loaded with FlipShare, a proprietary downloading, editing, archiving, and sharing software that’s both PC and Mac compatible.

Although the Flip has its own program, when I went to move some video files from the camera over to my Mac, I thought I’d just ‘drag & drop’ the files from the camera folder into my external drive folder on my laptop – WRONG!

While it did transfer the files, the camera failed to reset its counter, even though it showed the files were no longer on the camera. WHAT?! A minor panic attack ensued, with a quick call to the Best Buy Geek Squad (the rep was polite, but ultimately unhelpful). And, I didn’t have Internet access in order to check for a fix online.

How I solved it – After trying a few things that didn’t work, I ultimately corrected the issue by recording several new clips, and then downloading them using the ‘right way.’ Thankfully, the camera then reset itself.

Lesson learned – just use the video file download program that comes prepackaged on the Flip camera.

On The Flip Side – Pros & Cons Of The Flip Video Camera

No piece of equipment is perfect; you have to get what works best for your needs, and find ways to live with the rest. That said, there are some very nice features on the Flip UltraHD video camera I recently bought, and a few things I feel are ‘less than’ or missing….

The good stuff:

• Small, convenient, and easy to use
• Great video image quality in high definition (HD) format
• Easy-to-use download and common MP4 format
• Download & edit software that’s built in to the camera
• Screw-in mount on the underside for a tripod or monopod

The downside:

• The zoom isn’t great
• Audio can be a problem, since there’s not an input for a external mic
• They don’t include much for the price – would be nice to have a USB connector cord and a plug-in charger for the battery, instead of having to buy those things a la carte (I even bought a better camera bag than the one that comes in the box)

If you’re considering buying a Flip or similar mini video camera – there are lots of great reviews out there, and I encourage you to do a Google search on your own and go to stores to try them out.

You must keep in mind what these cameras were designed for – the average consumer who wants to take videos and upload them to YouTube for sharing with family/friends, and to do it at a low cost. Because of that, going outside those design specs might require some creative ‘work arounds’ to get the best results. These cameras are NOT designed to compete with high-end professional video cameras, even though they shoot in HD.

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No piece of equipment is perfect; be sure to research your options!

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If you’ve decided you ‘gotta’ have one, here are a few NEW options from Flip for you to think about:

• There’s a new Flip camera, the SlideHD, which has FOUR hours of recording time (just in time for your jaunt to Lexington for WEG!)
• If you order your Flip through their homepage store, you can customize your Flip using either some standard designs, a custom-design generator, or even upload a design of your own! How cool would that be, to put your horse’s picture on your camera, or the logo of your business, farm, or stable?!
• The Flip cameras are designed to connect to your computer via a built-in USB connector. It would be nice to have a USB patch cord in the package, but you’ve got to buy that separately. However, from now through June 30, 2010, you can get a free accessory (up to $24.99 value) with your Flip purchase, and USB cords are among the accessory  options, as are tripods and power adapters/chargers.

Watch for video clips coming soon, now that I’ve flipped over my own Flip, and tips and ideas on how to use video for marketing and promoting your equine biz.