However, the free version means very little beyond using it for testing purposes.  Why bother getting invested with a service (no matter what the features are) if they are going to blow the budget?

While 100 video deployments per month sounds impressive, one video to the top 10 video sites will use up 10% of your quota.  And if you happen to screw up along the way, which is entirely likely, that will chisel away at the monthly quota.  Basically, you can expect to distribute around 9 videos per month at best.

To be fair, their sample free service seems to be pretty good.  I was pleased with it.  Otherwise, I would not have even bothered to ask for the price for the upgraded versions.  Also, TubeMogul has the right to focus in on any market that they choose.  Personally, I think they have cut a large slice of potential customers out simply because of the $500 entry barrier.

The will argue the entry barrier is $0 but I didn’t just fall of the turnip truck yesterday.  Yes, you can try it out for free and get some minimal use but the true entry point is $500.  You should keep that in mind.

Personally, I am looking into other options (which there are).  HeySpread.com has a “pay as you use” model which is interesting but that might get tricky depending on how the math works out.  I am not going to even mention the others until I try it myself.

I know a LOT of people who are willing to pay but most are not going to shell out $500/month for this service.  They will brag about the analytics but that is secondary to me to the time savings.

Once again, I used my favorite digital photo scanning vendor ScanCafe.  They have come a ways since I began using them a couple years ago.  They have gotten better at what they do and more efficient.

I am thrilled once again to experience a time warp visually reliving the moments those photos captured.  In many cases, it is a better experience to view them onscreen in high-resolution than to see them on small paper photos.

I have uploaded all of my digitally-taken and the scanned photos to my favorite online photo hosting service, SmugMug as a backup in case my computers die and/or I lose the photo DVDs.

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Because of my personal distaste and dismay of the Stock Photo industry which started with the Getty Images Extortion Demand Letter, I have taken steps to personally boycott the Stock Photo Industry and advocate not using stock photos altogether. The stock photo industry seems to be rapidly consolidating into two companies: Getty Images and Corbis, as they buy their way into near-monopoly status with them setting outrageous rules, policy, and pricing.

This article will not give you all the information necessary to entirely eliminate the need for stock photos in every situation. However, this article will give you some ideas and strategies to wean yourself and perhaps altogether eliminate your need for stock photos. I firmly believe that if you put your intentions behind the idea, you can make huge strides towards eliminating the need for stock photos altogether.

The very first thing you need to think about is whatever media project you are working on is, do you truly need a photo at all? Chances are that you are working on a website, book, magazine, brochure, news story, banner, or some other media project. Alternatives to photos might be diagrams, cartoons, illustrations, and drawings that you or a graphic artist you hire can create. Can you take your own photo to fit the need?

If you hire a graphic artist to create your own artwork, do not hire anyone in China or India where there is very little respect for intellectual property. They may be inexpensive but you can never be assured that their work is original. There is little recourse for their bad behavior because they are so far away. I recommend hiring graphic artists from the U.S. because as a professional community, they have a greater respect for intellectual property than their Chinese or Indian counterparts. They will think twice before using pirated material.

I would avoid hiring any company that outsources their work to graphic artist worker bees. In other words, I always want to deal and negotiate with a graphic artist professional themselves, not some agent or agency that farms out graphics art work.

If you do want to use and take your own photos, I highly recommend investing in a good digital camera so that you can begin taking your own photos. I also recommend getting to know amateur hobbyist photographers who have access to good cameras and enjoy taking photos. Very often, amateur photographers with good cameras are trying to find a way to justify the costs of their hobby. By hiring them inexpensively, you can get some great looking photos but also help the amateur photographer pay for his hobby. Make sure they understand that you are they are working for hire and that you will have full ownership and rights to the photos.

Professional photographers can be expensive depending on what you want and who you use. For these folks, I recommend bartering with them for exchange of services if you have talents in your profession. I find many professional photographers finicky. They will sometimes not give you full ownership or rights of the photo even though you paid them to take a photo. They are quite protective and their thinking is aligned to many in the stock photo industry. Admittedly, this is a broad generalization and based only on my experience. I am simply not optimistic that you will get good value from a professional photographer but it certainly does not hurt to try and negotiate with them.

Another source of quality photos is product photos from product manufacturers. Often, they are happy to have their products publicized and placed in a positive light and will give you free rights to use their photos. Product companies mostly police and control their photos because they don’t want their photos used in a manner they did not intend or in a way that paints their company or products in a negative light. Many will grant you free usage of their photos if you approach them the right way. However, large companies can be a challenge sometimes because of their size. They may be so large that they may not even get back to you. Again, it never hurts to try. Product companies are in the business selling more of their products, not sue people who use their product photos.

If you choose to take your own photos, invest in a digital camera that can take a resolution of 4 megapixel images or higher. You want to take high-resolution photos as your master copy. You can then “downsize”, crop, and enhance the photos for your websites or other uses. I recommend buying an easy-to-use photo editor such as Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 that allows you to crop and resize photos easily. The photo editor can greatly enhance the quality of the master photos you take. You can also enhance colors and adjust lighting with the software. Special effects such as blurring, stretching, pixelating, framing, adding captions, etc. are included with photo editing software.

I truly believe that with the increasing power and technical capabilities of digital cameras, cell phone cameras, and camcorders, the value of stock photos and stock photo companies will eventually decline. It is going to be a losing business to be in. This whole notion of extorting your way to profitability is distasteful and eventually will fall by the wayside much like what has occurred in the music recording industry. One only has to look to RIAA for that lesson.

Along the “do-it-yourself” philosophy, you should have the mindset that you will fit images or photos you create to your media project, not let your media projects deciding the specific images you need. Stock photo companies are trying to brainwash you the idea that THEY have the “perfect photo” for your particular needs. If you are creative, imaginative, and resourceful enough, you will almost always find an alternative or work-around solution that does not require the use of stock photos.

If you want to show the stock photo industry you don’t need them, the best way is to simply generate more of your own photos to devalue theirs and then use your own. I have published two books recently and have been able to successfully avoid using stock photos of any kind. I used my own photos as well as authorized product photos. I created my own artwork. If more publishers, graphic artists, and graphic designers started doing this, I truly believe the stock photo industry could be brought down to their financial knees very quickly.

Many years ago, people said that we would run out of .com domains available because all the good ones were taken. It is true it has become more challenging to find a good .com domain name. However, I have made it my policy to not deal with any domain speculators or domain squatters. I won’t be extorted into paying thousands of dollars for an available domain I can register for less than $10. And because I have set that restriction and policy for myself, I have always been able to find many suitable .com domain names for my various websites.

It is the same principle here. Think abundantly. Think creatively. Tap into your imagination. There are many ways to implement a visual concept besides a specific photo you might have in mind. There are many ways to implement a concept visually. Do not let the stock photo companies brainwash you into thinking you have to use their particular photos because there are no other ways of finding an image for your particular website, logo, banner, sign, book, magazine, or other product.

The best kept secret that the stock photo industry hates are government websites and their photo collections. Great public domain photos can be found from U.S. government agency websites. “The people” own the photos, not any one individual or organization. USA.gov is a government-operated website that was launched to help U.S. citizens have better access to various government agencies and resources. Specifically, USA.gov has a page called U.S. Government Photos and Images which contains links to government agency websites that have public domain images. The diversity of images available is quite impressive. An off-shoot of that page is the State Photo & Multimedia Galleries which links to public domain images at the State level.

Some of the more notable ones I like and found impressive are listed below:

• NASA Images has space-related photos.
• Our Earth as Art has photos relating to the earth, weather, oceans, and nature.
• U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Digital Library has photos relating to animals, plants, nature, and wildlife.
• NOAA Photo Library has several collections of photos relating to nature, weather, oceans, and wildlife.
• U.S. Department of Defense DefenseLINK has photos relating to the military, war, politics, and the President.
• Library of Congress Geography & Map Reading Room has images relating to historical and current maps.
• National Archives America’s Historical Documents has images relating to history, politics, and historical events.
• National Park Service Digital Image Archives has images relating to nature, history, and national parks around the U.S.

Are you impressed with these websites? I was. It is all free and much of it is available in high-resolution. However, you should realize that not all images from government websites are public domain. You will need to seek out the image usage rights notices on each website. As I said USA.gov is a great starting point to a wealth of high-quality public domain photos.

If there are any other great public domain or government photo sites, please let me know and I will add them. If you have any additional tips to stop using stock photos and boycott the stock photo industry, send them to me and I will incorporate them into this article.

For years, I have been looking for an “affordable” flip phone that I could synchronize my Microsoft Outlook information with my PC.  I also wanted a phone that I could install a memory card to store extra files and a built-in MP3 player to play music or audio recordings I might want to listen to.

The fact that this phone also has built-in Wi-Fi connection is a nice bonus.  I can actually get quite a few extra minutes out of my phone per month by simply using the Wi-Fi connection.  The sound quality is pretty good and I don’t even notice the difference from being on the T-Mobile network.

The phone actually has a lot more goodies like being able to read Microsoft Word and Excel files and play video files.  There is a built-in calculator, stop watch, alarm clock, and all kinds of sound effects to choose from.

Currently, I don’t have the Blackberry service activated to receive emails and I am not sure I want to.  I love technology but I am not sure I want to be THAT connected just yet.

My one small gripe is mostly a cosmetic one.  I wish the edges of the flip screen side had more of a curve on its edge.  It is a bit too “sharp” for my tastes.  No, it won’t cut you if you slide your finger on the edges but I was used to my prior phone which was small, compact, and slid in and out of my pocket really well.

Overall, the Blackberry Pearl 8220 Flip phone is a real winner and a keeper.

Although I did not find dramatic differences, the subtle changes are nice.  I especially like the fact that Windows 7 will be less bloated than Windows Vista.

I have personally been using Windows Vista for a little over a year now and I have grown to like it now that I have an Intel Quad-Core PC that can run it well.  Prior to that, it was not good and it was best to stick to Windows XP.

All indications point to a late 2009 release and I will be ready for it.  If it stays faster than Vista, I am upgrading my desktop and notebook computers.

It looks like I was right on those two issues.  Not only this, Amazon included a whole lot more.  I had been on the fence on the original Kindle.  Ultimately, I decided against getting one for myself since I still prefer books.

However, this time around, I decided to break down and pre-order the newly-announced Kindle 2.  I have more of an open mind because the product seems to be greatly improved.  But more importantly, I am a publisher and, as such, I believe the Kindle will be a force to reckon with.

Whether or not I personally prefer a Kindle to read books, the truth is that I believe the Kindle is here to stay and that means I need to become familiar with it quickly.  I also believe that I will have start publishing my books in the Kindle format.

Whether or not the average consumer base eventually adopts Kindle in a widespread format is unimportant to me.  What is important to me is that the Kindle audience are passionate folks about their Kindle and passionate readers in general.  For someone to spend $360 for a reading device either means they are affluent or simply serious in their reading.  Either way, it would be a mistake for me to not produce books for this audience.

I cannot wait to get my Kindle 2 at the end of this month.

It could be said that I may be reading more into the news releases than is actually there but pictures do not lie.

Steve Jobs looks terrible. Whatever he is going through is pretty serious. Despite Steve’s personality quirks, he has been a major influence in changing our culture and improving the quality of life.

I hate to say it and I absolutely want to be WRONG. But if recent photos of Steve Jobs is any indication, Steve may not be with us for very long.

It may not be politically correct to state this publicly but too many times we say nice things only after someone passes away.

This small blog post may be one of the few that is willing to acknowledge that Steve’s time may be very short. But I am hoping that a Higher Power will step in so that we can all continue to be inspired by Steve Job’s ongoing contributions to the world.

For me, Steve Jobs is a business hero who I have admired for many years. His blend of technological and creative genius is something I have strived to attain.

If he does pass on, I will be deeply saddened. If he does stay with us, you can believe I will be following his work more closely.

What can I say?  I am a guilt gamer.  I love to game but I do it with guilt and I do it with caution.  After all, how does it look for this (hopefully) respected real estate investor, entrepreneur, publisher, and author look to publicly admit he indulges in PC gaming when no one is looking.  Even so, gaming has a way of gobbling precious hours when I should be brainstorming, writing, or some other project.  (There is no shortage of things to work on, let me tell you.)

The trouble is, I can get away with an awful lot if I am not careful.  I got good support people around me and my schedule is very flexible.  Anyhow, enough of this banter.  On to the important topic….  what do I think of the game?

“The Political Machine 2008” is a good and fun game but not a great game.  It builds on the game series that was first launched in 2004.  It manages to keep the fun and humor in the game and leaves out the montonous parts.  Although I did not want an overly complicated and serious political game like others I have previewed, it would not have hurt to “advance the cause” and make it a tad more complex.

Having said all that, I have no regrets despite the cracks and comments from the sales clerk at the local GameSpot store.  After all, it is a $20 game.  I have already spent a couple of good hours on the game and found it a keeper.  Although, a somewhat simple simulation, what keeps the game interesting is that there are so many presidential candidates to play as and play against.  On the Democrat side, you can play as Obama, Clinton (Bill or Hillary), John Edwards, John Kerry, etc.  On the Republican side, you can play as McCain, Bush (W and HW), Romeny, Giuliani, etc.

Funny enough, I chose Bill Clinton to start.  I guess I am just tired of the Republican nonsense and feeling myself being pulled to the Democrats.  (How weird is that?  A businessman and investor that leans Democrat.  Shh… don’t tell anyone.)  I like Bill’s ratings and game specs.  He didn’t disappoint.  I won most of the elections in a campaign that gets increasingly harder as I faced off the various Republican candidates.  Reagan gave me a tough time.  Took me 2 times to take him.  George Washington, on the other hand, has kicked Clinton’s (my) tail.  What a political battle.  I even had a tough time keeping California which is primarily Democrat.

On my PC Notebook, I had to test the game to see how the game would perform without a good graphics card.  And so, I played one game as Obama.  I soundingly defeated with a landslide against Warren Harding (a political wimp).  However, the game was definitely more sluggish because of the basic video card that comes with my HP Intel Centrino Duo Notebook.

All in all, in a politcal year, $20 is pretty inexpensive for a PC game.  I have to say, it remains educational to me.  I know nearly all the “battleground states” that are essential winning an election.  Let me give you some hints, Hawaii, Idaho, and Montana don’t count for much.  If you never set foot in those states, it would not matter much.

I like “The Political Machine 2008“.  It is a keeper and will tie me over until I get overloaded with the presidential election process (live or computer).