Programs + Products I Use For FemmeHead

I love learning about different programs and products other creators use, and I’ve found so many helpful things because of that. So, today I wanted to share what I use to keep this ship sailing smoothly. 

DIGITAL PROGRAMS:

Evernote — I learned about this during my senior year in college, but didn’t really start using it until FemmeHead came along. But now, it is my everything! It’s where I write everything, make lists, you name it. It all starts in Evernote. It is a place to write and organize text documents. Like Word but so much better in my opinion. 

Squarespace — In college I made websites with Wordpress, but since discovering and using Squarespace for FemmeHead I can’t imagine going back. It made creating a website that was simple and aesthetically appealing so so easy. 

Gmail — You’ve all heard of this, but I didn’t start using it until this past year. I know, what was I doing with my life!? I love that I can have all of my emails from three different accounts in one place. I have my old personal email, my new personal email, and my FemmeHead email. And having it all in one place makes it so much easier to keep up with. 

MailChimp — This is how I send out my weekly email to everyone and how I send out my email courses as well. Another must-have. 

GumRoad — This is the program I use to sell my courses and coaching. They take care of the payment processing and everything. 

Zapier — This is one of those middleman programs, and learning about it made life so much easier. So, when someone goes from my site to GumRoad to register for a course, Zapier is what connects that registrant back to my MailChimp account so they can receive the lessons when the course starts. And while I just use it to connect my GumRoad to my Mailchimp it can act as the connector between all sorts ofother programs and apps. 

Unsplash — This is where I get all of the images for my website. I almost don’t want to share it because it’s that good. 

Hootsuite — This is what I use to schedule social media posts on Facebook and Twitter. I had a lot of troubles with using it for Instagram because Instagram won’t other programs post automatically to your account for you. So for Instagram, I post manually still. 

Canva — I’m learning the Adobe editing programs, but I discovered Canva at the start of FemmeHead when I was trying to create a header in the correct size for my YouTube channel. And now I use it for all my editing needs. I create thumbnails, social media posts, green screen overlays for my videos, everything. 

iMovie — This is what I have always edited my videos on. It’s simple, easy and because I’ve been using it for so many years I can edit my videos in my sleep. 

YouTube Create tab — This is where I get the music for my videos. If you go to your creator studio for your channel on the left-hand side you’ll see “create” and then there’s a ton of music, and it tells you whether you need attribution or not for that song on YouTube. Once I discovered this it made finding music for videos so much easier. 

Etsy — This is what I use to sell my FemmeHead merchandise. So far I’ve sold tote bags and shirts here, and plan to do more this spring. And it makes creating shipping labels super easy for sending the items out. 

Asana — I just discovered this in the past month. I think it would be awesome for group work, but I use it to create my social media calendar. I can have when I want to post what, a place for what I want to post and I can click “complete” when it’s posted, which is oh so satisfying. Being consistent on social media is something I’ve struggled with and while I’m still not perfect this helps so much. 

Calendy — This was another recent discovery, and it makes scheduling appointments, calls, etc. so much easier than going back and forth via email. It syncs with your Google Calendar, so it knows your availability and then you can just send a person the link to your Calendy and they can choose a time that works for them. 

PHYSICAL PRODUCTS:

Canon t5i — This is the camera I bought when I decided I wanted to start a YouTube channel. Spending over $500 was a big thing for me (and still is). But if I had to go back I’d buy the same camera. I wanted one that could both take videos and photos. Not to mention it’s just super simple to use and learn how to do things on. 

Canon g7x — This camera joined the family last summer, and it’s a loved addition. I wanted something more portable for travel, and I wanted to start vlogging, both of which are hard with my big t5i. And I absolutely love my g7x. I love that it can fit easily in my backpack, pocket or hand. 

GoPro Hero Session — This was a wedding gift, but it gets plenty of use. Mostly when we travel because it’s so tiny and waterproof. My only complaint is that I wish it had some sort of built-in stabilizer. I wish I could use it to film while running and not have completely unusable, shaky footage. But it’s really easy to use while you’re doing any sort of activity. 

MacBook Pro — This was another big purchase for me. It’s my third laptop I’ve ever owned. My dad bought me an HP as my high school graduation gift, which died during midterms or finals my senior year (talk about stressful). Thankfully a family friend was looking to sell his old 2006 MacBook Pro, and so I got it for $400. That lasted me for a few years until about 6 months into starting FemmeHead when I realized I needed a faster laptop for making videos. And that’s when I bought my current MacBook Pro, which has been the apple of my eye ever since. I’m a total Mac girl. 

Tripod (from Best Buy) — I got this for $30 a few months into starting my YouTube channel. It was a hassle to stack up books to prop my camera up on for videos. It was cheap and one of the legs snapped off a few months into using it. Thankfully I only ever use it at home so taping the leg back on keeps it pretty secure for a few months at a time. 

Joby GorillaPod — I wanted a small tripod for travel and just something that was more mobile. And it has come in pretty handy when I vlog around the house. But I don’t use it as much when we travel as I thought I would. 

Rode Mic — This was another big purchase for me. I wanted to step up my audio game. And this is the pretty standard microphone for YouTubers. 

Blue Yeti Mic — This is actually my brother’s really nice microphone, but I borrow it when I need to do podcast interviews or anything when I want good audio. I definitely enjoy having access to it. 

Transcend SD cards — These have been my favorite SD cards. 

Seagate Drive — I love this external hard drive. I actually need to buy another one because I've filled up my 1TB so far. This is where I store documents, photos, video or anything I want to keep long-term. 

Rhodia Dot Journal — This is what I use for my bullet journal, which is pretty crucial to what I get done for FemmeHead. Making the switch from a standard planner to a bullet journal was a big moment for me, and I highly recommend it. 

iPhone — And last but not least, my phone. Pretty standard, but I use it for social media and photos, even though it has like zero storage on it. I’ll definitely take that into consideration when it comes time to get a new phone in the future. 

Are there any products or programs I’m missing out on that would make my life oh so much easier? I’m all ears. What are the things you use to make life a breeze?

I Ruined My Laptop | Part Two

So, if you can recall I busted my laptop on the way to Sri Lanka.

I was bummed out to say the least. It was a big purchase for me two years ago, and it’s not like I have a ton of cash laying around to buy a new one (especially after our trip).

But obviously something was going to have to give because I need a computer for work.

So, while I was enjoying vacation I was also trying to come up with a solution when I got home.

I haven’t taken my laptop into Apple yet, so I’m not sure if there’s an “inexpensive” fix to it or if it’s gone for good.

Michael and I were talking about it one day and he suggested using the iPad as a temporary fix until I saved up and found a computer I wanted. He also has a MacBook with a broken screen that’s a $400 fix if I want to go that route.

In the long run I think I’ve decided I want to save up for an iMac since I work from home 85% of the time. But I need something until then and I need a portable option for when we travel.

I opted for the iPad option. We already had it from a Black Friday deal, and didn’t really use it. So, while in Sri Lanka I started researching the best way to ‘turn an iPad into a laptop’ essentially. And here’s what I’ve done.

The first thing I knew I would need was a keyboard. No question about that. So, I opted for a keyboard case instead of a keyboard and stand option so it was portable.

I also knew I needed a way to get video footage from my SD cards onto it so I could edit videos. My camera does have a WiFi option, but seeing as I didn’t want to hassle with that I decided to get a lightening to SD card adapter, which was a great options.

The first day I was using it with the keyboard I found it a bit fussy to not have a mouse or keypad so I looked into buying one of those, but for the time being I’m just using the screen, which just takes some getting used to.

It can be a bit finicky at times and has taken some time to get used to the differences, but because we already had the iPad it was a pretty inexpensive solution.

Depending on how I like it this might actually become my long term portable option after I get the iMac, which hopefully I can buy in a month or two.

Update: I’m sitting outside Apple waiting for an appointment. I’ve decided to pay the money to get Michael’s old MacBook Pro (which is the same model as mine) fixed. After trying to edit a video yesterday on the iPad I just found myself pretty frustrated. There’s an obvious difference between the iPad and the MacBook Pro, and I was beyond frazzled by the end of the day.

I was working to get a video up because I post every Tuesday and Thursday. Well, it’s still sitting on the iPad because even after I got the very simply edited video exported it now won’t upload to YouTube.

I just came to the conclusion that having a computer is too much of an intregal part of running FemmeHead. I really don’t want to see it hurt by not having a computer and I think it would be.

I think I’m still going to save up for an iMac, but for the time being having a MacBook Pro to work from will be such a treat. I’ve brought both his laptop to send in to get fixed as well as mine to see if there’s anything to be done about it or to at least get stuff off of it.

If you’re just looking to type documents, send emails and such, you can definitely do that on an iPad with a keyboard case. But when it comes to editing things, videos and such, the iPad is not made for that.

Update: I got called in for my appointment. We started by sending off Michael’s old MacBook to get repaired and mailed back to our house. That was going to cost $475, which was fine. And then he took my poor laptop to the back to open it up and look to see what sort of water damage there was.

He came back probably 10 minutes later and said, wait for it, that it looked fine inside and he wanted to plug it in and turn it on.

Wait what?

Ok, I said, as I fumbled in my bag for my charger. I plugged it and he pressed a few keys along with the power button and I holy mother of god it turned on. I about pooped myself.

I still didn’t want to get my hopes up because he said that he was going to run diagnostics on it. That took another 5-7 minutes. In the mean time I asked him why my screen looked like it was separating around the edge, and he said it was called ‘delaminating’ and we could look at repair options for that once the diagnostics finished.

And here’s the kicker, the diagnostics came back and he said it looked fine.

He said that even though my laptop was out of warranty, there was this replacement warranty thing when it came to screens delaminating because they aren’t supposed to do that. So, while it normally costs $475 to replace a screen they were going to do it for free (excuse me?!)

Then he said that my batttery wasn’t holding charge for as long as it should, and right before I could say I didn’t care about that he said he was going to try and get that replaced under the same thing as the screen...for free.

At this point I didn’t want to jinx myself, seriously, is this real life?

But I had to politely ask to cancel the repair order on Michael’s Mac because obviously if my computer had miraculously came back to life I didn’t need his as a replacement. And the Apple guy was kind enough to go grab it from the back and cancel the order.

I thanked him profusely, told him he was a rockstar and that he made my week, no the entire month for me. And then I left.

So at the moment it’s best case senario. My laptop is being sent in to essentially be spruced up, and it’s not going to cost me a thing (unless something else pops up while they have it).

But you guys! I’m over the moon right now.

I tried to turn it on after it got wet on the plane, but then my brother told me that you’re not supposed to try and turn on or charge electronics when they get wet. Not until they dry out. So I waited until a few days before we came back to try again, just for the hell of it, because I was pretty sure there was no hope. And it didn’t turn on so I thought it was toast.

There is nothing better than electronics coming back from the dead.

Viva la MacBook Pro!