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When looking to build a new website, choosing the right domain can make all the difference. Picking something short and catchy can leave you with a real marketing gem. If you can get your hands on good one, it can be extremely easy to brand, easy for people to remember and easy to create a viral following. Just think of how well it worked for Twitter, YouTube, Google and EBay.

Unfortunately, a lot of the single word domains are already in use or purchased by someone looking to make a hefty profit. So unless you have an established brand or business name that will be easy to market online and easy for your consumers to remember, you may want to consider a domain name that has your keywords in it instead.

Keyword Rich Domain Names

Not only do search engines, like Google and Yahoo, give preference to domains with keywords, but so do people when their choosing which link in the results to click on. Both search engines and people searching tend to assume that if the keywords are in the domain name, it must be relevant.

It can also help with off-site search engine optimization. One of the most important factors search engines use in determining which sites rank high for which keywords is incoming links. If your keywords are your domain name, then whether people link to you with anchor text or just your web address, your keywords are still showing up in the link, giving you a nice rankings boost.

If you decide to use a keyword rich domain name, here are a few tips for picking a good one that search engines will like and people will remember.

• Try not to pick anything that’s too long
• It’s best if it’s all one word (no hyphens or dashes)

But if you do separate out your keywords…

• Use only one hyphen at most! Any more than one and you run the risk of being flagged as spam by search engines. It’s also a lot harder to remember and verbally pass on to other people.
• Also, don’t use underscores; they are hard to see and don’t always show_up_if_you_underline_words (which is common practice for links).

Before you get your heart set on a particular domain name or keyword phrase, check out a site like Whois,  Web Hosting Search or even Go Daddy and make sure it’s available. These will also let you lookup registration data for them, search by keyword and through previously registered domains that are now available. So good luck and hopefully you’ll find a good one!

In my first two posts on building an editing workstation, I covered the motherboard / processor and memory and video cards. In this last post, I want to cover the other really crucial component of any workstation, the hard drive.

Hard Drive

The hard drives you throw into your system and their configuration can have quite an impact on performance. The hard drive affects how long it takes to load your software and affects how fast your computer reads and writes those large video files. Since there are so many variables here, I’ll spend the most time discussing this topic.

First, let’s talk about the drives themselves.

Currently, hard drives are incredibly inexpensive. It’s common to find 1TB 7200-rpm 32MB cache drives for under $100. If you have some extra cash to spend, Western Digital has the Velociraptor 10,000-rpm drives. The latest technology is the solid state drives (SSD), but they’re extremely expensive and I wouldn’t recommend them…yet.

Now let’s talk about configuring your drives.

The configuration of your hard drives and manner in which they work with your system can be just as important, if not more important than the drives themselves. The first rule of thumb is to use more than one hard drive. You want to have one hard drive for your operating system and software with your data (i.e. video files) on separate drives. The reasoning for this is simple. If your computer gets a virus, your data is not affected and it’s easy to wipe the drive and reinstall your software. It also increases performance because your computer isn’t reading and writing to the same hard drive simultaneously.

The next common configuration that many people will recommend is to RAID your drives. There are many configurations of RAID, but the one that most people refer to (in terms of video performance) is what’s called striping, or RAID 0. With RAID 0, two hard drives are used together to create one logical drive.

For example, two 500GB drives would be striped together to create one 1TB drive. This increases the performance substantially, allowing data to be read and written faster, since the drives are working together. In the case of an editing workstation, if RAID 0 were to be used, a minimum of four drives would be required – two drives for the operating system and two drives for video storage.

Some users would go as far as using six drives in the RAID, using two drives for the operating system/software, two drives for captured video, and two drives for rendered video. Now while there is a substantial performance increase in running a RAID 0 configuration, there are also a couple of disadvantages.

The first and most obvious downside is that more drives are required - twice as many to be exact.  The second and biggest disadvantage to running a RAID 0 configuration is the risk involved. With RAID 0, if one of the two drives fails, the data is lost from both drives. This means that if one of the two 500GB drives goes bad, you lose your entire 1TB of data, regardless of if the other drive was in perfect working order. For this reason alone, many users choose to not use RAID 0.

For myself, I use three separate drives in my system. One drive contains my operating system and software. Another drive is used only for captured video and pre-rendered items. This is my “read” drive. The last drive is used only for rending projects. This is my “write” drive. This works quite well with only one drive being read from while another drive is only used to write files to. Although this configuration isn’t quite as fast as a RAID 0, I don’t have to worry about as many drives failing and losing more data.

Conclusion

I’m going to end this here since these are the most crucial components for any workstation. Although this blog is probably already outdated, I do think many of the concepts here still (and will continue to) hold true. I tried to keep this as objective as possible and for that reason I didn’t give too many specifics. With that in mind, feel free to use this as merely a guideline when building your next video editing workstation. Good luck and happy rendering!

P.S. For those of you wondering, these are the specs of my latest workstation.

Processor:     Intel Core i7 920
Memory:        6GB DDR3 1600mhz
Video:            Radeon HD 4830
Hard Drives:  1.5TB WD Black 7200rpm 32mb cache
Seagate 1TB 7200rpm 32Mb cache (x2)
O/S:               Windows 7 RC

Now that you’ve got your motherboard and processor (covered in Building an Editing Workstation Part 1), let’s take a look at memory and video cards.

Memory

This is the one area that you can splurge on without spending a whole lot. I’d recommend throwing at least 4GB of memory into your workstation. By today’s standards 4-8GB is a good place to be, especially if you’ve got a quad-core setup.

In video editing, memory is most often used while previewing video. If you use Adobe After Effects, you know what I’m talking about.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you’re using an Intel setup, you may want to shoot for 6GB since many Intel motherboards support triple channel memory. Currently, as I’m writing this, AMD motherboards don’t appear to offer support for triple channel memory, but that’ll probably change soon.

The key here is that you really can’t have too much memory when it comes to video.

Video Card

Ironically, the video card isn’t very crucial here. Well, let me correct myself – it isn’t AS crucial here.

Unless you do a fair amount of 3D modeling and animation, you really don’t need to concern yourself with spending too much on a graphics card. I recommend getting something middle of the road, spending somewhere around $70-$150.

Keep in mind that you’ll want to find something that has at least dual monitor support. The video card I use has two monitor ports as well as an HDMI out. This way I can use both of my monitors, while also outputting the preview to my 32” LCD TV. Features like these can sometimes be more important than the processing power of the card alone.

Now, I should make mention that the new version of Adobe After Effects does take advantage of some OpenGL graphics cards. You can see a list of the supported cards on their website. The list is quite large and many of the cards fall into the midrange I just spoke of. I’m not sure how much of a performance leap you’re really going to see by spending a boatload on one of the more expensive cards supported. Chances are you’d be better off putting that extra cash into more memory and/or a better processor.

And that will do it for Part 2. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of Building an Editing Workstation later this week when I cover the hard drive. And hopefully that will leave you a nice guideline when building your next workstation.

The best thing about technology is that the more it advances, the less it costs.

Today you can get a 1TB 7200-rpm hard drive for under a hundred bucks. Ten years ago, that might’ve gotten you a 10GB hard drive. The same goes for memory. Today you can get 6GB of DDR3 RAM for about what 32MB of EDO RAM went for about 15 years ago. It’s incredible.

So what does this mean in terms of video production? In simple terms, video editing has not only gotten far more powerful, but it’s also become much more affordable.

So you’ve got some money to spend on a workstation. Let’s take a look at what’s out there. For the sake of things, I’m going to assume that you’re not a stockbroker or looking to break the bank. We’ll say you’re looking to spend $800-$1200. Obviously, if you’re a MAC person, this blog isn’t for you.

Motherboard/Processor

The first thing you need to do is decide if you want to build an Intel or AMD system. Generally, Intel systems cost a bit more to build. Decent AMD motherboards start around $70-$80, whereas decent Intel motherboards can start around $200.  Similarly, Intel processors tend to be a bit more than AMD processors. On the other side of things, it’s important to note that when it comes to multimedia, Intel systems have a track record of performing better than AMD systems.

Most benchmarks clearly show Intel systems outperforming AMD systems by a substantial margin. Whether or not this performance gain is worth the price difference is up to you, the buyer. You’ll definitely want to do some research before making your decision, and remember that this blog should only be used as a guideline.

Not much has changed in terms of building a solid editing workstation. You still want to put as much money into the processor and memory as possible, since that’s what editing software harnesses the most. Now when it comes to processors, quad-cores are where it’s at.

Most of the major NLEs (non-linear editors) take advance of multi-core processors, allowing for much faster render times and faster, higher quality previewing. With prices as affordable as they are, quad-core processors are really the way to go and that’s where the future is headed. You really don’t want to cut any corners here as the processor is really the heart of the workstation.

For example, the processor will directly affect render times, as well as the speed of encoding and decoding video. If you do any amount of compositing along using multiple effects, you’ll definitely see a difference here.

I recommend taking the fastest processor that’s at the top of the line, and buying the one that’s a couple steps below it. Usually that’s where the best price point is at. If you’re going for AMD, check out the Phenom II processors. For Intel, the Core i7 processors are fantastic.

That’s it for Part 1. If you can hold out for a week or so, in my next few posts I’ll cover memory, video cards and hard drives. By then end, you’ll have an overview of most crucial components for any editing workstation. So until next time…

As snow has already begun to fly in the middle of this lovely October, it is inevitable that one’s mind drifts towards the holiday season. Now you may not be ready to start thinking about the holidays, but it’s never to early to start planning your seasonal marketing strategy.

Developing a seasonal marketing strategy for this time of year can be extremely effective. Even though we are currently in an economic downturn, we all know that people will still increase their spending around the holidays. You should make sure to grab some of that market, so here are some helpful tips on what can be effective.

Since people are already determined to buy products, you may have an easier time convincing them that they should be buying your products. One way to appeal to your customer is through their emotions. Seasons are linked heavily with memories of holidays past and loved ones, so don’t be afraid to use these in your advertisements.

During this time, people want to buy because they are in a festive mood, and often, they don’t even think of it as making a purchase at all but more as an act of making others happy. So another idea might be to donate a portion of their purchase’s profits to charity.

With most consumers shopping on a budget this year, be prepared for more comparison shopping as they try to scope out the best deals before making a purchase. And an increased focus on practical gifts is also likely.

Lastly, keep in mind that seasonal marketing is applicable for more than just the holiday season. Halloween is actually another big purchasing time, although it might be a little late to scrape together a seasonal marketing strategy for it now!

Using advertisements that fit in with the time of year can be very effective no matter what it is. For example, a car repair shop could advertise a “Back to School Special” in August by emphasizing the importance of being able to pick up your kids from school. This could inspire parents to get their car in for a tune up before the hectic fall season starts.

Although snow is unexpected this early in the season, it offers a perfect opportunity to reflect on how seasonal marketing can help you! There is an urgency to buy up through New Year’s, so don’t hesitate to make a marketing plan that appeals to your customer, making it your product that they are buying!