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The past 2-3 days, I spent countless hours learning how to use Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro after switching to editing from my Macbook Pro to my PC.

I used to use iMovie and Final Cut Express on my Macbook Pro, but my recently acquired Sony Handycam has built-in software that forces me to import via iMovie, and for some reason my iMovie can’t identify the camcorder, and won’t import .MTS files.

Plus, my PC is quad-core and much more powerful than my laptop, which is useful when editing in 1080p HD resolution.

Anyhow, check out my new video opening in the video below. The 21-second video will most likely be the shortest video you ever see from me:

(Note: You may need to visit the post directly at TylerCruz.com if you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS in order to see it.)

So, no more pre-made iMovie title effects for me!

What do you think? I hope you like it, because it takes too much time and effort to edit and render, heh.

A few days ago, I picked up my newest toy: an awesome camcorder!

It was given to me by my friends over at AmpedMedia in exchange for the sponsorship of my videos. If you haven’t tried running AmpedMedia’s offers yet, you may want to check them out. They’re not on my Recommended Resources page for nothing.

The camcorder is the Sony HDR-PJ10 High Definition Handycam, retailed at $700. It is an extremely nice camcorder, and is a major upgrade from the Flip Mino I had been using previously. It was also the Best of CES 2011 Winner. More details and technical specs of the camcorder are mentioned lower down this post below the videos, along with some photos.

After getting the new camcorder, I decided to pick up a tripod, extra battery, and bag for it as I’ll be heading to the US in a month, so the bag is necessary.

Below is a video (shot on the Flip Mino) of me describing, unboxing, and showing the camera in more detail:

Below is the same footage that I filmed on my Flip Mino near the end of the video above, but filmed on my HDR-PJ10.

Please note that I filmed it on 1080i settings at the time, but uploaded as 1080p. Be sure to check out the insane zoom capabilities at 2:35 – and that wasn’t even at full zoom!

I really like how clear the audio comes out as well.

In the final video below, I film (again on the Flip Mino… ugh… you can really tell the difference) the projector feature of my new camcorder:

My New YouTube Channel

Many moons ago, I used to use YouTube to upload my blog-related videos, but then it got hacked by a chronic spammer which lead to YouTube banning my account.

I then tried several other sources, eventually settling at Viddler and uploading 93 videos there over the past few years. However, they recently contacted me and said I have to pay to keep my account, so I decided to make a new YouTube account and start from scratch again.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I like how my new channel will start with a new camcorder, making all of my forthcoming videos high quality.

Camera Features & Photos

For those who may be interested, here are some of the specs and photos of my new camcorder:

• 1920×1080 Full HD 60p Recording w/3MP still image
• 16GB embedded Flash Memory for up to 6 hours of recording
• Project your videos on the go anywhere, anytime
• Wide Angle G lens to capture everything you want
• 42x Extended Zoom to get even closer to the action
• 3.0-inch touch-screen Clear Photo LCD Plus display (230K)
• Tracking Focus follows selected subjects in/out of the frame
• 5.1ch Surround mic for vivid and dynamic surround sound

Thanks AmpedMedia!

I haven’t made a screencast in quite a while, so I thought I’d take a break from my usual text + photo posts and provide a screencast blog post.

In this screencast, become a fly on the wall as I search through Flippa as a potential buyer and explain my thought process as I go along.

I thought this might make for an interesting and useful resource for those of you who are interested in purchasing an existing website, but aren’t quite sure what to look for.

It is an hour long, so be prepared for its length:

(Note: You may need to visit the post directly at TylerCruz.com if you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS in order to see it.)

If you are interested in learning about flipping (buying and selling for a profit) websites, Zac Johnson recently released his Flip This Web Site e-book which you may be interested in.

I hope you enjoy the screencast!

Last night, I was a panelist alongside John Chow, Zac Johnson, and Matt Mickiewicz (the co-founder of Flippa, Sitepoint, 99 Designs and Learnable) in an online webinar on how to buy and sell websites with Flippa.

It was the first time I was a panelist at a live webinar (or anywhere, for that matter), so it was a great experience and quite fun.

If you missed the live broadcast yesterday, you’re in luck because John recorded the whole 2-hour webinar and uploaded the video which you can see below.

If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, my presentation starts around the 24:20 mark and runs for approximately 25 minutes:

In the second half, we opened up the phone lines for Q&A period.

I am very pleased with how it turned out, and think that we shared a lot of great content and tips.

Did you watch it? What did you think of it? Should I do more of these in the future?

Ever since I started making money by marketing online, I’ve always seen the world in a different perspective. For one, I tend to read a lot more advertisements from everyday life, trying to understand the marketing motive behind the ads.

I am also interested in how local and offline companies market and advertise themselves, and what they do differently from online companies.

Oftentimes, there are some simple yet great methods that offline marketers do that you can apply online. In the video below, I give 3 very simple real-life examples of good marketing and advertising techniques that I found in my mailbox.

Sorry for the low volume in the video – you may want to crank your volume up:

(Note: You may need to visit the post directly at TylerCruz.com if you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS in order to see the video above.)

As mentioned in the video, the name of the two guys that sent me the letter are Mathew Carpenter and Dan Walker, and their website is SofaMoolah.com.

It appears as though they haven’t quite launched their site yet, but you can sign up to their mailing list to become notified of when it does.

As taken from their website:

“Sofa Moolah is a website devoted to teaching you how to make money online.

Run by 18 year old Mathew Carpenter and 20 year old Dan Walker, they bring you articles, resources, interviews and real life case studies that will show you exactly how to start your
journey into making moolah from the comfort of your sofa.”

As I mention in the video, I haven’t read their eBook, but anyone who takes the time to physically send a letter to try to get noticed is okay in my book.

Oftentimes the best ideas are the simplest ones. In the 1-minute video below, you will discover how the creator of the video landed his dream job by spending a total of $6 and what probably took 10-minutes to do.

I first watched this back in May and made a note to myself to post about it, but was backlogged with other posts and didn’t have the opportunity to do so until now.

What’s great is that you can use the simple idea he did as well. The best part, though, is that this is an extremely affordable way to market yourself to certain people. Most of the time you’ll only be spending $0.05, and if you really want to limit the possibility of paying too much, you can set up the target demographic to that of your actual target. For example, instead of running your ad all throughout the United States, just run it in the person’s home city.

Here’s the video below:

(Note: You may need to visit the post directly at TylerCruz.com if you’re reading this via e-mail or RSS in order to see it.)

I was doing a quick browse on the Movie Vault Forums when I saw that one of the oldest members posted the video below.

For some reason I found it hilarious and felt that I needed to post it here.

On a related note, RobotWarz is progressing and I plan to give an update including a video in my next blog post which I hope to be 2-3 days from now.

Anyhow, below is the video:

Male Robot: Hey Roberto, what’s going… on?

Female Robot: I am first in line.

Male Robot: Oh… first in line for what?

Female Robot: I am first in line… to play Tyler Cruz’s new game: RobotWarz. It’s like UFC for robots.

Male Robot: Sounds violent (eyebrows).

Female Robot: I hope… so. I like the violence.

Male Robot: Sheez… How did you hear about this game?

Female Robot: I read about it on TylerCruz.com. He’sMyHero. He makes a lot of money from his websites. He’s a real success story.

Male Robot: I’ve heard of him. He’s some type of web entrepreneur isn’t he?

Female Robot: That’s him. I can’t wait for his game RobotWarz. It should be exciting.

Male Robot: I can’t wait either. Yoo Hoo (throws arms up into the air and pumps them).

10 days ago I let you guys know about a great free program called ZScreen.

In my continued effort to try to work more efficiently and save time, I found another awesome tool for the job a few weeks back. It’s called AutoHotkey and is amazingly powerful for such a simple and small program (Only 2 MB!).

Basically, it’s a free, open-source utility for Windows that allows you to program or script your own hotkeys, macros, actions, and tools. You can seriously do almost anything you can think of with this small program, and can even simply make your own standalone executables (.exe’s).

While I use it mainly for its hotkey and macro features, AutoHotkey is just so cool that it’s going to be one of those tools that I will be using for years now.

Below is an 15-minute screencast of me showing how AutoHotkey works and why it’s useful:

You can download AutoHotkey, completely free, here.