As transcribed from my video: https://youtu.be/aDiDzkPpsd0
“What kind of selfie stick should you purchase in order to get better video? And why would we do that? We call that the shaky cam effect where you’re doing a self-recording of a video and you are hand holding the camera which is shaking a bit.
Options For Avoiding Shaky Cameras
There are stabilized selfie sticks. One name brand is called the DJI Osmo. The DJI Osmo version 2 is the latest version and there are many other equipment manufacture (OEM) no-name brands of selfie sticks that you can buy again on Amazon for under a hundred dollars. The DJI costs a little bit more.
The way it works is you put your phone in, you clamp it down and as soon as I power it on, you’re going to see that it’s going to level itself out. No matter what I do with the selfie stick, it’s keeping the phone level. I can go like this and it will be a very smooth video experience that it is recording of me. I can even move it with my thumb to control what direction I would like the camera to go. This enhances the video watching experience regarding a video that you quickly recorded.
You should also have solid audio. I have an explanation of audio in a separate video.
Another option that you can consider are little flexible tripods, mini tripods, that are easy to travel with. Maybe you don’t want to spend a $100 to $200 on a stabilized selfie stick but rather want to place down your phone at some location. This one you can see is very tiny and this other is more heavy duty. The reasoning behind that is the weight they can hold. If I put my phone on here, it might crumble because of the weight. The beauty of these is that you can wrap it around a post, a guard rail, a tree branch. You can put it on a picnic table, you can put it on a beach or a rock, you can go and put it on the table in front of you, and it is a great way so that you don’t have to carry a full-size tripod with you, but you can achieve very stable video being recorded of yourself.
Remember the goal behind all of this is to avoid you handholding your phone otherwise you get the shaky cam effect.
These flexible mini tripods are very inexpensive. One brand is the Joby GorillaPods and there’s many other OEM versions of this. They even have even heavier duty versions that can hold a full DSLR camera with a microphone on it. Pretty cool to look at if you want shop around, but I would recommend something very simple like this if you’re traveling and you want be able to have stable video recording yourself.”
As transcribed from my video: https://youtu.be/_43ytWh_mxM
“I get asked frequently about the security and safety of using credit cards for payment. There’s physical payments, where you’re actually in person making a purchase, and then online payments.
Is It Safe To Use Your Credit Card
Let’s talk about physical payments. Is it safe to use tap versus putting the card in and having to type in my pin? My recommendation is anytime you have the opportunity to tap, that you tap your credit card, because no camera or person shoulder surfing, or cashier watching, or a little pin pad recorders, are all going to be not possible if you’re just tapping your credit card, and no, your pin code is not transmitted when you do a tap, it’s only the credit card number for doing the payment. You’re not giving away that confidential piece of information so that somebody could compromise.
Now let’s talk about online payments. Very different. Do you use your credit card online to make a payment? My recommendation is, I avoid it at all cost if I can. Unless it’s a very trusted source and I know that I am making a very secure connection. I’m not doing this in any internet cafes, and I’m not doing it over public WiFi sitting at Starbucks, Second Cup, or Tim Hortons, or some other coffee shop. What I’m doing is making sure that I am using a VPN connection. It’s a secured encrypted tunnel. I have a video on that if you want to go and look at my recommendations on VPN providers that you should use for virtual private networks. I’m also making sure that there’s that little lock symbol on my web browser. It says https and it says secure, to make sure that the information between my web browser and the web server at the other end is encrypted, and if I have a choice, I am not putting in my credit card number into that form.
What am I doing? I’m using some kind of tokenized payment system, like PayPal. That’s why I like PayPal because PayPal has the ability to do a one-time authorization of a payment to a vendor. They don’t get your credit card information. They cannot go and charge it again for other charges, unless of course, the vendor that you went and subscribed to has you doing a recurring payment by PayPal, and that’ll be very obvious to you. It’ll come up on the screen, and it’ll say, “Are you sure that you want to authorize a recurring payment for the current payment and future payments?” No, you want to make sure that you’re doing a one-time payment. If by chance you did a recurring payment on PayPal, you can go into your settings of your PayPal account, review all of the recurring payment merchants that have access to your account, and you can disable them. I do that very frequently. Probably once every month or two. I review everything on there, and I disable anything that is set for authorized access to my account, because, I want to make sure that I know and have control when I give out money from my account and make online payments.
Another idea to use gift cards, to use anything online where you’re not giving out your information of your card. That’s what bothers me is that credit cards are too easy to use and share. Once you know the credit card number, and you know the expiry date, generally speaking that’s enough, in a lot of cases, to go and make online purchases. The black market for credit card numbers is quite prevalent, and you want to make sure that you have enabled credit card alerts on your credit card as well, so that any time a charge goes through from your credit card that you get notified right away by email or text notification. Most credit cards allow this ability. I have enabled it on all my credit cards, and it tells me immediately. I could be sitting at a cashier right, and using my credit card and immediately I get an alert. It’s very quick. The reasoning that it’s good is because if something bad has happened, then you can immediately shut it down or call your credit card company and say that’s an unauthorized charge.
Another tip, use a second credit card for your online purchases. If you actually need to use a credit card, and you can’t tap it, and you can’t go and use something like PayPal or some other token based payment system, I would recommend that you have a second credit card with a low limit. The purpose behind that is if that credit card gets compromised, they can’t do much with it. It has a low limit. 500 or 1,000 dollars. Also, if you cancel that card, because it got compromised and you need to get another one, it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to affect you going and contacting all of your accounts that have preauthorized purchases. Also perhaps you’re traveling. When you travel and you need to use a credit card for payment, which I would be very careful with when you’re in a country that is unknown to you, again, you could use your second online credit card for those purchases that are questionable because, again, if it gets compromised, it’s not your main credit card that has all your preauthorized payments associated with it.
These are some tips that you can use if you are doing physical, in-person credit card payments or online purchases or you’re traveling in another country, or if it’s unknown to you because you want to make sure that you safeguard yourself against the inconveniences of dealing with a compromised credit card.”
Lak provides his thoughts on recruiting solutions and the tools that make his work and life better, as well as some of the things that he looks forward to one day!
Lak’s Toolbox mentioned in this video:
→ Bullhorn www.bullhorn.com
→ Glip www.glip.com
→ Indeed www.Indeed.com
→ Monster www.Monster.com
→ RingCental www.ringcentral.ca
→ Google www.google.com
→ Gmail www.gmail.com
As transcribed from my video: https://youtu.be/2DA3m3Axa98
“One question I get asked frequently is about audio.
We’ve all heard that the built-in microphones on most phones don’t quite sound as dialed in as they should be. The video is quite great on a lot of smartphones, for quality. But on that note, it is very confusing in order to figure out what kind of microphone you should be purchasing. I think for most people going on Amazon and purchasing a wired lav mic is the best way to go. I’m wearing one right now and that’s how I’m recording this.
We have different options. Here at the very cheapest is a $3 one that I picked up. Just clips right on and it’s got an end here. Now, here’s the gotcha. I’m going show you two different wired lav mics. But they both actually appear to have a similar connector. It’s called a 3.5mm connector. But they’re actually different. And what you’ll observe is that this one only has two black lines on it, this one has three. We call this a TRS connector and this one is called a TRRS connector.
The difference between that and if you wanna get into the technical acronyms, it’s tip, ring, ring and sleeve. There is a difference between TRS and TRRS. And the reason is, when you go to plug it into your phone, if your phone has the ability to connect something in, Apple has gotten rid of the headphone jack as a lot of people have known. And now it’s lightning connector only. If you’re on an Android, possibly it will still work. But if you’re an iPhone user you need another adapter. A lot if the iPhones that you purchase now will have this little cable that you use to go to traditional headphones out. Lightning on one end, and one on the other end. What it is expecting for a microphone jack to work is a TRRS. A tip, ring, ring, sleeve.
It’s got three black lines on it and then you would plug that in, that would go into your phone and then you would be able to talk to it. If you don’t have that, believe it or not, there are adapter cables that you can purchase called a TRS to TRRS adapter or vice versa. That is what I would recommend you pick-up for better audio quality on anything that you do for video. Go and pick up a cheap wired lavaliere but to be aware that if you plug it in and it doesn’t work, you might need an adapter.
Hopefully, these extra acronyms that I’ve tossed your way will help point you in the right direction on how to solve your problem on why your mic is not working.”
As transcribed from my video: https://youtu.be/HP_Ta0YCDQY
“I’ve been asked many times by people what kind of equipment that I use when I go out and I make presentations. I used to carry a Windows laptop, and that was a mistake. You’d go and you be ready for a presentation. You’d be going, and then all of a sudden, it would force those updates on you, and you’d be embarrassed. You’re sitting in front of this crowd, this computer is updating, it needs to do several reboots, and you’re just stuck.
The next thing I started doing was carrying around a MacBook laptop, which was a much more positive experience. It was fantastic, but it was still a laptop that you had to power it on, and it still had some updates that wanted to occur with Microsoft Office if you’re using PowerPoint. It had to boot up, you had to synchronize files.
By far, the quickest and most convenient presentations that I give now are using just a tablet or my phone. So with a phone, there is Microsoft Office applications on there. Again, it depends on if you’re using Prezi or you’re using some other presentation software, like KeyNotes. I like using PowerPoint. That’s just what I’m used to, and I like embedding videos in PowerPoint that have audio on them. PowerPoint now is supported on iPhones, iPads, and other tablets and other devices.
If you pick up an adapter, which is this, it’s called an AV adapter, audio visual adapter, and it’s got a lightning connector on the end, you can plug it into your phone or your tablet. On the end of it is an HDMI connection. I have a very long HDMI connection that I carry. It’s not that thick, a great portable one to have. And on the end I also have what’s called an HDMI coupler, and the reason for that is because sometimes there’s an HDMI cable, and you just need to reach a little bit longer in order to connect into the projection system with your device, whether it’s your phone or your tablet.
If you want to be charging your phone or your tablet because it’s a long presentation, this AV adapter also has a pass-through power charger. It’s a lightening connector that you can connect into it. So maybe you have a typical powerbank that you go and you connect into this as well, and now what ends up happening is that it’s charging the phone or the tablet, and you’re also still passing out HDMI.
Now, the thing with HDMI, and here’s the problem. When you’re using embedded videos in your presentation is that the audio signal is being sent over the HDMI cable. Now, HDMI going to a projector is not going to typically work when you’re in a large venue because that’s not the house audio system. The projector typically doesn’t have speakers on it, or if it does, they’re very weak. So you need to have an extractor for that. I use, and there are many of them that you can pick up on Amazon. I picked up this one. It’s called an HDMI converter, which goes to HDMI to HDMI plus audio, meaning that it’s passing through the HDMI signal. It goes on this side. I connect my other cable into the other side here, and then out of this comes the video going to the projector but also audio, that’s the key. So in this case, it has the RCA left and right, traditional, but you can also convert that because there’s cables that go to a typical 3.5 millimeter audio connection. That’s very common when you’re going into house audio systems because this is kind of what they expect when you’re plugging into your laptop. And again, I like to carry a coupler. So, and the reason for that is because maybe the end that they’re giving me is another male audio end that I need to plug into this, or again, you need to extend it. So always handy to have couplers on hand, the HDMI couplers and an audio coupler. Again, very inexpensive to buy on Amazon.
Now the next problem I ran into is I was starting to do presentations, and the projector is either old school and only VGA, which is a slightly different connection than HDMI. You can buy from StarTech an adapter that basically takes HDMI in and sends VGA out. And that reason is that you could go and connect to a different projector. I’ve even had projectors where they had HDMI and VGA on them, and for some reason the HDMI just wouldn’t work. It wasn’t picking up the signal properly. There was an issue, a compatibility issue maybe between the adapter that I’d have, this one here, going from my phone or tablet out to the projector. I don’t know, but in any case, it was handy to be able to go to VGA, which is a different video signal. So I’d now carry this little adapter with me as well. It’s very handy, and so you can now convert to either HDMI or VGA for your video signal.
You can go to an audio signal on the house board of either RCA or 3.5 millimeter audio, which is very common, it’s the most common, and connect to that. And so therefore, now you can have presentations in iPads, on a tablet, or on a phone, like an iPhone, that have embedded videos in them with an audio signal. Last but not least, you can get a remote for those. It took me awhile, but I actually found one. It’s a Bluetooth multimedia remote called Sateshi, and all of these links are gonna be in the video description down below for these parts. This remote actually works with PowerPoint on the iPad or your phone, so your tablet or your smartphone, which is super convenient. You’re up there, you’re on stage, you’re doing a presentation, and your phone is just off to the side, connected to the projection system, wherever that might be, on the podium or whatever. You can walk around with your clicker so that you can forward the slides on your slide deck or back, blank out the screen. It even has a laser pointer on it, very handy as well.
These are kind of the pieces that I like to carry around in my toolkit. It looks like a lot, but it’s not. It’s actually very light. I also carry a speaker with me. This is a portable speaker, it’s Bluetooth, but it also supports an audio jack on it. And the reason for that is I’ve been in a number of rooms where the house audio just wasn’t working. We had a problem. They did not have the right cable, and this bails me out because this, at least you can hear the audio signal from your embedded presentations that you might have, your videos and whatnot. You don’t actually miss out on the whole experience. It’s always good to be equipped for yourself to have what you need.
All of these pieces together fit together in basically a Ziplock bag. It doesn’t take that much room. It’s much more portable now to be able to walk in and do a presentation. You know it’s gonna work. You know it’s instantly on. Last but not least, just to make sure that I always have access to all of my presentations, Microsoft PowerPoint on the iPad or smartphone on an iPhone, it can connect to different sources, like Microsoft OneDrive. In my case, I use Dropbox. I have a folder that I keep all of my presentations in there called Presentations, and it’s synchronized automatically so that no matter where I am, I can get access to the latest version of any of my presentations, start it, maybe there’s another one, you have a different time, you wanna go to a different version, whatever it might be, but you’ve got it at your fingertips. Everything is available here, ready to go.
You’re not going to get interrupted by any ridiculous updates that take and seize control of your laptop and force you to wait through it while you’re embarrassed and trying to make up time and talking to the crowd. These are some components that you should consider having in your toolkit, and then you’re not lugging around and bringing a heavy laptop with you as well. I just think it’s very easy to travel light, be able to go there, and maybe you’ve got a little bit of extra room for some prizes or business cards or handouts or whatever it is that you bring with yourself. Look down below in the video in the description so that you can find links to all the parts that I talked about, and hopefully there’s something here that you haven’t thought about. Perhaps it’s opened up the possibility for going out and doing presentations with your tablet or your phone now instead of carrying a laptop.”