I recently began making and posting videos on an outside website called Youtube.  This new phenomena is called vlogging...so rather than blogging (writing/typing a journal online) you are videoing a journal.  And I use the term journal very loosely here because that word translates to diary and so much two way communication can occur from these vlogs and blogs that it's quite a stretch to call them journals.

However, it is a very fun and rewarding type of communication with the outside world.  I was using my pc cam (camera) at first, with a cheapo microphone that I had purchased at Walfart for $10.  The video was grainy and jerky and looked very amateurish, but I was totally thrilled that I, Deborah Company, had accomplished such a remarkable feat.  The mic was SO bad, that I practically had to swallow it in order to record the sound of my voice.  I could be no more than 3" away from the mic, or you could not understand a word that I said.

An important point here is that very few people like the sound of their own voice.  Ask around some time and you will discover this to be a universal malady.  I actually dislike the sound of my own voice, but unless I smoke a pack of cigarettes prior to recording....it's not going to have the beguilingness that I want.  We all like to think that we sound like Barry White or Lauren Bacall, but the fact of the matter is that we DO NOT.  So once you get past that point, and just 'let 'er rip'....you will enjoy vlogging a lot more.

In order to keep the mic out of the camera, I began recording my videos from the neck down....much as I had seen some commercials on tv advertising some computer or other and you only saw the 'celebrity' from the neck down while the hands were moving about.  I used a similar format on my vlog so that the focus is on my artwork, rather than on my wrinkles and double chin.

My son actually made the discovery that my Nikon Coolpix digital camera would record videos and the mic in the camera is 100 times better than my Walfart Cheapo.  The video portion is still very grainy and the details of my artwork get lost on the videos, BUT I can walk around while recording and talking....it's totally mobile. 

We did a fair amount of research and discovered that the video, pc, or digital cameras that record 15 pics per second will cause the graininess.  If you go 30 pics per second or higher, the resolution will be much sharper.  The least expensive mobile cams that we found were in the $100 range and we checked at Comp USA, Best Buy and Walfart.

So temporarily I am continuing to use my Nikon camera which will record up to 17 minutes of video (always have rechargeable batteries on hand and charged).  Since the Youtube videos are limited to 10 minutes each, this works out very well.  Once I record my videos and have them downloaded into my Youtube account, I then paste the link into a newsletter and send it out to my alert viewers.  Many of my newsletter people are still trying to figure out the whole blogging format, but most of them are in my age bracket and we don't necessarily keep up with all of this newest technology.  I could never consider myself to be on the cutting edge.

But for now I am on the vlogging and blogging edge................