Zombies are brainless, heartless flesh eating monsters. They are scary and creepy and weird. I’ve seen “Zombie parades” in San Francisco and San Diego and have been fascinated by how people dress up, flashmob and wander around town channeling the Zombie apocalypse. Recently I started watching The Walking Dead, which is an awesome show about.. well, Zombies. Zombie Booth is the spookiest Android app ever! It’s free in the Android Market and can turn your normal photo into a super scary 3D animation. If you have an Android table or phone, check it out! By the way, I’m starting an album of friends I’ve turned into Zombies so send me your photo if you’re brave enough to be in it!

I tested out the free editor on YouTube using some footage I shot during Comic Con. When I say “footage” I’m using the term very lightly! I captured a couple of clips on my point and shoot camera of the Zombie Parade going on outside the restaurant while having dinner at with my friend Liz. I mean, come on. A zombie parade happening right outside while I’m sitting down with a fantastic window seat view had to be captured.

When I brought the clips home and looked at them, I knew the footage was something I wanted to share even though its not the best vantage point. I was lazy about getting up to get some significant shots, but there was still something about that moment that made me decide to polish it up just a bit to share online. Typically I’d upload video into Final Cut Express or Vegas editing software and make something but since I captured such little video I decided to see how the YouTube editor could help for a simple project like this.

The process was simple and straightforward and I’m happy to say, the YouTube editor gave me better results than I expected.

Here’s how it works. First upload your clips as is onto your YouTube channel. They have to be there for you to pull them into the editor. Next click on the link at the top of the My Videos and Playlists section that says Video Editor. You should have a new project started then drag an drop the clips you want to the timeline at the bottom of the page. I put my two clips right next to each other and added some simple transitions. The tab on the top of the video editor that looks like a little bow tie is where your effects and transitions live. There aren’t many, and most are kind of cheesy, but I found a simple fade and wipe and they helped my Zombie video cut together nicely. Finally, I’m a firm believer in adding a soundtrack to your video. It helps so much with the energy and pacing. I found royalty free music directly from the YouTube editor and was pretty impressed with the kinds of music available. I actually love the song that I paired with my video, safe to say I’m pleasantly surprised with that part of the YouTube editor experience.

Thanks to Social Media Club San Diego for the great event! Also big thanks to Richie Edquid for recording the awesome panels to save and share with the world. Check out the Panel Spotlight page for more info on the panelists.

This is a quick mashup of some clips from a video I’m working on at Sony. I got to spend the day with a group of awesome food bloggers showing them a new camera we have that features a gourmet mode for capturing great photos of food. For now, wanted to share these quick pics.

I used a combo of the NEX-VG10 and Handycam to film. Definitely still getting use to using the interchangeable lens camera… I haven’t been filming much so my technique is a little rusty too. Overall, I think the VG10 is best for thoughtful composed shots where you have time and a tripod. Handycam is so fast and easy to use, doesn’t have the depth of field, but still a solid camera for someone like me.

Look for the video blog about the Sony Foodie day coming next week on Sony.com/blog. By the way the camera the foodies are using is the Cyber-shot DSC-WX9.

This video blog goes out to @leehop, @nehalia, @WhitBenj, @DiyaMarketing, @SRawJi, @p_dub, @amyblogschow, @DJofSparta, @RickyRajat, @Cadiou and @RedDolan for tweeting me and motivating me to do my Masala Bhangra Workout tonight! Yes, I love Bhangra… and this video is a nice way to get a little workout in and still have fun. For those of you who don’t know what Bhangra is… well, it’s a Punjabi folk dance that has a lot of shoulder movements, dhol and soul.

This year at Blog World, I had a chance to talk to the folks from ReelSEO about video and how easy it is to add it to your blog. ReelSEO is a great resource to learn about trends, tools and tips for video and marketing. Check out the interview above and then go read the full article on their blog. Yes, video is important, it gives your readers a whole new dimension to know you or see the things you are talking about, not to mention it keeps people on your blog longer too.

You know I add video where ever I can and with the tools available today, it’s so easy. Do you use video when you blog? How have you found video to be a useful tool? If you’re not using video on your blog, what’s the hold up? Here’s your chance to ask questions and (hopefully) get some answers from me or my community of bloggers who continue to push the limits with web video.

I’m in SF for the weekend and got caught in the middle of a rainstorm. Luckily I had a bloggie touch camera in my purse so I busted it out to catch some video and a photo of the pounding rain, thunder and lightning. Not much more to tell you except, I love Union Square and think it is a must spot to visit during the holidays. Enjoy the rainstorm and drop me a note to tell me how things are where you live.

Today was the first annual “bring your kids to work day” at Sony Electronics. My friend and colleague Jen and I talked to kids about what we do as part of the Sony social media team! It was a room full of 8 to 13 year olds. Something like 50 kids showed up since it was a holiday from school. We talked to them about twitter, facebook and of course video blogging!

The most popular part of our “presentation” was a video we showed them of an Auto-tuned Sony commercial. They asked us to play it over and over again, which was fine by me! Kids are hard to keep entertained. I was also surprised when I realized that non of them actually knew or had heard of “social media”. They know about facebook, twitter and youtube, but they had no idea what the words social media meant. Goes to show what social media a bubble we sometimes live in.

The kids got bloggies for the day so they could capture videos of what they did and saw. My friend Michael, who you see in the slideshow below taught them how to easily edit and upload their video on VAIOs. Good times.

My video (above) was with the new Sony Bloggie Touch camera on the walk over for our presentation and below is a slide show with some of the other folks who stopped by to let the kids know about what they do at Sony (also shot with the Bloggie Touch).

Call it lack of time, new priorities or just plain laziness. I haven’t been working out like I should and I’m finally doing something about it. What? Watch the video and see. It’s not earth shattering, but it’s something! If you want to join in, I hope you do. Or if you just have some words of wisdom or encouragement, they’re all welcome here.

I’ll use this post to keep track of what I do and how my workout evolves. My goal is to reach CES 2011 in January, in better shape than I am now. Who’s with me!? By the way, I tried to answer a few questions people had at the end of this video. Thanks for the messages everybody!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Sarah a.k.a @rojopelo for sending me this care package full of Halloween treats! I’m halfway done with my 2nd dark chocolate dipped home made orange marshmallow. I am so grateful to be in your thoughts and to be the recipient of the homemade goodies that are a result of you and your family spending time in the kitchen. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the many Seesmic videos of you and your kiddies in the kitchen… almost as many as me an my parents in their kitchen on the farm! Good times.

For anyone wondering, the soundtrack of this unboxing is a song called Aahun Aahun from a Hindi film called Love Aaj Kal. Great movie, and like I said in the video, I really did watch it 4 times over the weekend.

While I wasn’t sitting in front of my television this weekend watching Love Aaj Kal, I was up to some other Halloween inspired fun. The slideshow below is from the Dia De Los Muertos alter making class I took with my friend @JenBoydSD. Jen has clued me in to many fun things to do here in San Diego. We took this workshop at a store called Back From Tomboctou. It’s a fun place to find Mexican folk art and to learn about it too.

A few weeks ago I went to Black Rock Desert in Nevada for the Sony and Intel Rocket Project launch. The project bought a group of high school kids from LA together with a rocket scientist and mentor from the Mavericks program to build an actual rocket in 30 days. You can read more about it from the post I did on the Sony Electronics blog. My friend Matt took this picture and I had to share. So much of what I do these days involves me turning a camera around and talking to it. I never think about how it looks to people from the outside… well, now I know.  :) If you want to see the pictures I took with the NEX-3 camera I’m holding up in the photo, you’ll find them here.

When I was a kid one of my chores was to clean the floors. I hated vacuuming, sweeping and moping. I mean, I really hated it. The only thing I disliked more was mowing the lawn. Since I moved away from home I’ve procrastinated on this duty and and put it off till there was no more putting off.

About two years ago I saw my first Roomba and I have had it on my wish list ever since. So when I saw this iRobot Roomba 550 on sale at Costco, I knew it was time. Even more, my schedule has been the busiest it’s ever been and even if I wanted to clean the floors (which I don’t) I don’t have the time. So, Roomba to the rescue. I don’t have to do anything, but make sure it’s charged, there are no loose things that could get caught in it on the floor and I press a button. Roomba roams around and finds dirt and cleans it. It’s so wonderful. It really is. I’ve had it for just a week and so far, my floors are the cleanest they’ve ever been. I’ve heard some complaints about Roomba not picking up dust on hardwood, but I haven’t experienced that problem at all.

I hope you enjoy the unboxing video. Of course I had to score it with some Bhangra music and if you made it all the way to the end of the video, you’ll have seen a little bhangra dancing by my new iRobot!

Cast of #glee at comic con! #ccsd on 12seconds.tv

I went to my first Comic-Con this year and it was nothing short of amazing. If Comic-Con happened more often in San Diego, I would love it here. In fact, I vote for there to be mini Comic-Cons here every month. For anyone who hasn’t heard of the biggest show in San Diego, it is the mother of all comic conventions that has exploded beyond comics to all things pop culture. Super-fans show up in costume of the comic, movie or sci-fi character that they adore. You’ll see some of that in my slideshow. You’ll also see pictures of many friends. Lots of people were in town which is probably why I loved this weekend so much. It was great to meet several tweeters in real life for the first time and also see friends from out of town.

My Comic-Con started on Friday night with the Tweethouse party on the USS Midway Museum. Spending the evening on a giant aircraft carrier, with DJ, fireworks and more is a great way to kick off the weekend. Saturday I was able to attend a panel called Celebrate the Web thanks to my friend Rob Gokee. Rob and I have been friends on Twitter for ages but this was the first time we met in real life. Rob has written a book called In the Belly of the Fail Whale: How Twitter Changed My Life in One Year. (I love that title)

Sunday was my only day at the convention center to see the real show and I was lucky to be right next to the area where the cast of Glee came through to sign autographs! Yes, I’m a fangirl of the show and although the area was totally crowded, I got a few pictures of some of the cast. The Sony booth was next door so of course spent some time there. If you see the photos of me posing in front of the green screen I was getting a 3D Resident Evil photo made of me next to Milla Jovovich with our guns drawn.

By the way the photographs in my Flickr album were taken with the Sony NEX-3. I borrowed it for a few days and am having a blast with it. If you want to know more about the camera check out the YouTube video I did with the product team.

Is there any place on this planet that helps you feel grounded? Helps you remember what is important… helps you feel grateful for what you have and where you are in your life? One of those places for me is India. After a month of wrangling a new passport and visa, I am officially going on an international adventure! I’m going back to India for a very short trip. It’s all come together so quickly, and within a few days, I’ll be on a plane.

This video is from the last time I was in India in 2008, a trip I took with my dear friend Liz. This was before I started blogging and the first time I really picked up a camera to start capturing stories myself.

We traveled to the far western city of Jaisalmer, a remote desert city close to the India – Pakistan border known for a huge fort where, within the walls, a functioning town still exists.

From the beginning, this trip was an adventure starting with a 19 hour train trip that had no food, no real stops, and we had 3rd class tickets. (I’ll save this story for another time). In any case this video is on was of one of  the incredible moments we had on this trip. The gentleman playing the music wandered over to us and just started playing. There are a lot of street musicians in India, just trying to make a few dollars… it’s kind of amazing to know that is how they get by. At the end of the video he explains that the instrument is an “algoza” and it is very popular in Rajisthan. It has both male and female sounds, which explains why it’s two flutes in one instrument.

I hope you enjoy the video. I can’t believe I’m just editing it now after having it on my drive for 2 years! Yes I’ll be taking a camera with me again and look forward to showing you India 2010.

How do you do it? How do you do all the things you need to do in a day? How do you work your heart out and then still have time for yourself? Do you have balance in your life? If so, I want to know your secret. How do you do it!? I posted this question on Facebook a couple weeks ago. It’s been on my mind. There were some good bits of advice but as you can probably tell.. I’m still a little lost.

I can’t get over the shock that I haven’t posted anything to this blog in nearly 2 months. Where have I been? We’ll, the honest to God truth is… I’ve been working at Sony Electronics. It’s not an excuse, I know.. but it is a fact. As blogging and social media have become my full time career, I’m finding myself online  most of my waking hours – but as any of you who are connected to me on Facebook or twitter may have noticed, I’m not in any of those places as much as I use to be and I’m certainly not posting on my own blog here.

I have found great wisdom from friends here so I’m going to try something unusual today. A typical blog post from me is about sharing something I’ve seen or learned, but today I was hoping you guys might share with me. I’d like to bring some balance back into my life.  Many of you have families and full time careers. You are deep into the world of social media but you’re able to maintain, life, work, love and in some cases more than one blog! How do you balance it all? What are some tips you can share with me especially for getting all the things demanded of you done? I have to tell you, I’m having the time of my life…I am having so much fun! But I know I can do better and I want to find time to be present here again. Any advice?

I’m pretty impressed with this year’s line of Handycams and wanted to make sure those of you who video blog or are interested in a video camera that is high quality know about this one. I did this video at the Photo Marketing Association show earlier this year and this years line of video cameras have since come to market. This year’s Handycams have s a wider angle lens than previous models,  the low light capability has improved since last year and the zoom response is amazing. Watch how quickly the camera comes into focus with all of my movements. I shot the video above with the DCR-SX83 which is also the camera featured in the video. I’d have to say $399 is a good price too. What do you think?

I’m a lifelong Californian and in all my years on this soil, I’ve never experienced an earthquake like what I felt today – not even in my years in San Francisco! I’m not exactly sure what the stats are on today’s quake, I’ve heard reports go between 7.2 to 3.6. All I know is that my building swayed for what seemed like minutes (it was only a few seconds), the glass doors were rattling and the table I was working on wouldn’t stop moving. My tip to get out of the building came when I heard things fall to the ground and my neighbors running down the hall to exit.

I of course, tweeted “earthquake?” the moment I felt it- before I realized that I could be in danger. Luckily I wasn’t, but I was scared. Not much freaks me out anymore. I like to think I’m an independent girl but days like today really make me miss my family, my parents and my friends.

This vlog post is inspired by that scared/sad/worried feeling and what happened right after as I checked back online to see what others had seen and felt. There were so many tweets and replies from friends who experienced the quake and others who wanted to make sure I was ok. @joyofzen was the first “wow, you felt it too? Are you in SD right now?” It’s funny how simply being reminded that I wasn’t really alone instantly lifted my spirits. My friend @solipsistic is a pretty tough guy, “That was a pretty kick ass earthquake. Not disaster movie strength but enough for me to way WTF!!!” Yes, WTF was pretty much my feeling too and his tweet proved to me that I wasn’t just being a baby.

Nothing makes the world feel small like instantly seeing well wishes come in from around the globe, @Lian_O checking in from the Netherlands, @Mikaelj from Sweeden, @starmike from the East Coast and @Dramagirl from Australia… friends who are sprinkled around the globe in touch even before a call from my Mom!

I know I’m a bit mopey in the vlog post above, but there were tweets from new San Diego friends that reminded me to smile. @ShadowCatSD tweeted me, “Welcome to San Diego! You have now been baptized. ” and then there was some banter with @blogworld, @coachdeb and @sugarjones, starting with this tweet from @blogworld,  “@sukhjit that was your welcome to San Diego: earthquake for you and @coachdeb 8)” and ending with this tweet from the sassy @sugarjones “@CoachDeb @sukhjit @blogworld Okay… who wants a beer? ”

As I mention in the vlog post above, I don’t post like I use to, for whatever reason, but tonight I couldn’t help but make note of this day and of the great people who helped me get through it.

I just wanted to send a quick video thank you to everyone who tweeted recommendations of places to find great Mexican food in San Diego and So Cal this weekend. My friend @RachaelJoyTV is visiting and we had two excellent meals thanks to friends on twitter steering us in the right direction.

Las Brisas in Laguna Beach
Beautiful location with an incredible view. We went there on Sunday night after getting lost on the way to my nieces water polo match!

I had a Mahi tostada salad, but its the guacamole, chips and salsa that are something to write home about. The guac was super fresh and a perfect balance of avocado, lime, salt and some kind of seasoning. Mmm. Thanks @efren and @thatsjuststeve for the pointer to Las Brisas.

When Rachael asked me where we could find great Mexican food here in San Diego, I was so embarrassed not to have an answer. After sending out a quick tweet we had several places to choose from:

We ended up at Cantina Mayahuel – a place with a name I can’t pronounce, but with 3 tacos for $5 and excellent margaritas with several kinds of tequila, I have a feeling I will be going there often, at least until I can figure out how to say Ma-ya-hu-el.

Here are the tacos. Apparently, Monday is taco night. We also had this unexpected surprise… chocolate cake with flan baked on top. Sounded really suspect to me, but I assure you, it was all goodness.

Thank you @WhitBenj for that recommendation. I know we haven’t met IRL yet, but after that dinner tip, I have no doubt that you and I need to hang out! Finally, I say it in the video, but it’s worth saying again.. thanks San Diego friends for stepping up when I call out for ya. You really know how to make a girl feel welcome and I appreciate that very much.. as does my belly!