Should I Host My Videos on Youtube or Stream Them From My Own Site?

If you want to use video to help get more business, the simplest way to do it might seem like Youtube. You're almost certainly familiar with it already and quite possibly you've used it to upload your own personal video files to share with friends and family.

All you have to do is upload the video and use the helpful embed code provided to copy and paste it into your own web pages.
 
But there are pros and cons.

The Youtube pros are:

• It's quick and easy to upload videos and you can edit them via your web browser
• They could get found in a Youtube search as well as a Google search
• The video streaming technology is fast and effective
• People might post positive and supportive comments that will boost your credibility
• If your videos are really popular, you could earn some money

The Youtube cons are:

• People might post negative comments
• Youtube may promote competitors alongside your video(s)
• You can't customise the playback controls or remove the link to the Youtube website
• You must have a Google+ account and accept Google's various terms and conditions

You can get around the risk of people posting negative comments by posting your video privately, which means that people will only find out about it if you share the link with them or if it's embedded in a web page, like a blog post or Linkedin. Of course, if you take this route, it won't be in the Youtube search index, so you lose one of the benefits along with one of the drawbacks.

If you want to go a different way, here are a handful of links you might find useful.

viewbix - "add interactive apps to your videos that engage viewers and drive calls to action"

vimeo - proving there is an alternative to Youtube

jplayer - jQuery HTML5 Audio / Video Library

suave - "elegant HTML5 videos (how they should have been)"

firefogg - use your Firefox browser quickly convert video to web-ready Ogg Theora and WebM

handbrake - open source (free download) video transcoder

What to do when the System Administrator says the size limit of XXXMB for mailbox [email protected] has been exceeded

If you've received an email from the System Administrator saying something like...

the size limit of XXXMB for mailbox [email protected] has been exceeded

...then  you will need to take action to get your email back on track by deleting some old email from your mailbox.

The problem here is that  your POP3 mailbox is not designed to store email permanently. It's meant to be a temporary repository so you can access your email when it arrives.

These days of course everyone wants easy access to their email from multiple mobile devices as well as their office desktop computer, but that doesn't mean you need to leave six month-old correspondence on the server. Sooner or later, you'll have to download it and archive it somewhere.

This will require some changes to your email software.

If you're using Outlook - and I've found that pretty much every one of my clients does these days - then here are some tips on what to do about it.

1. Begin by creating an "Archive" in Outlook.

Archives are kept on your computer, not on the mail server, so they do not count towards your mail quota.

Here's a video on Youtube that explains how to do it in Outlook 2010. If you have a different version of Outlook, you can find several similar how-to videos by searching Youtube.



2. Then you will need to configure Outlook so that it deletes old email from the server after a certain period of time (for example 60 or 90 days). I just did a bit of Googling and found this helpful page which gives instructions for different versions of Outlook (it doesn't include Outlook 2013, but you should be able to work it out easily enough from the Outlook 2010 instructions).

The bit you're interested in is where it says "Remove from server after..."

 I found this Youtube video that demonstrates how it's done in Outlook 2010. There's no sound and you'll probably need to view it full-screen to get a good view of what's going on, but if you follow these instructions you'll be okay...