Tech Tuesday: Fun With My New Flip-Pal Scanner!

Say hello to my little friend!

I like presents. A lot! So, I went ahead and treated myself to a sweet little gift last week: a Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner. I think I'm in love!

The Flip-Pal is a compact, cordless mobile scanner that runs on AA batteries, stores scanned images on a memory card (like the one in your camera) and can make high resolution (600 or 300 dpi) scans from just about anywhere. It's small -- the flatbed will hold a 4"x6" photo or document -- but it comes with software that allows you to seamlessly stitch together much larger documents. Just this weekend, I had fun scanning and stitching my old 4-H camp photos, and they looked fantastic:

Five separate 4"x6" scans that were seamlessly stitched together to reassemble one 8"x15" photo

Scanning the large photo. It took five scans, with some overlap, to get the whole photo. 
Then, the Easy Stitch software stitched them all together into one picture right on my laptop!

It also has a patented flip-and-scan technology that allows you to scan photos, large and small, in photo albums, scrapbooks or even picture frames without having to move or otherwise disrupt the photo. All you have to do is remove the lid from the flatbed, flip the scanner over, place it on the original and hit the green scan button. There's a see-through window at the bottom of the scanner that allows you to frame the original photo for a perfect scan.

Scanning photos straight from the scrapbook is SO EASY! See the handy dandy viewfinder?

It's ridiculously simple to use, and doesn't even need to be attached to a computer:

• Place your photo/document on the flat bed (or flip the scanner if you're working on a larger document or album/book).
• Push the green button to scan.
• Take your SD card from the scanner and insert it into its slot on your
  computer (or you can use included USB attachment if your computer doesn't have an SD slot)
• Then, edit, upload or just enjoy your newly-scanned images!

You can place a photo directly onto the flatbed scanner, or remove the lid and
turn it over to scan larger documents or photos in albums.

There were a few things that hung me up when I first jumped into my scanning project with the Flip-Pal:

• At first, the batteries that came with the scanner appeared to be DOA when I tried using it. The nice customer service person, Charlie, gave me several reasons as to why this might have been. Turns out, I needed to set the date/time on the scanner in order for it to work. That did the trick!
• Charlie also mentioned that, if I'm doing a lot of scanning (which has been the case!), I might want to invest in rechargeable batteries. I think I'm going to do that since, in the long run, it will be easier on both my pocketbook and the environment.
• Initially, I wasn't able to read the supporting documentation or get the Easy Stitch software to work. I had a hunch it was because I was using a Mac, and these were geared toward PCs. I was right, and it was an easy fix. I just headed over to the Flip-Pal site and downloaded the proper software to work on a Mac (for free, of course).

I have to note that the online customer service folks at Flip-Pal are quick, helpful and friendly. They claim that they will return email requests within 24 hours, but Charlie got back to me (twice!) within minutes, keeping my scanning downtime to a minimum.

Now, I find myself constantly combing my apartment for more photos that I can upload to my genealogy files (or use to terrorize my Facebook community). I plan to bring my Flip-Pal to my mom's house this Easter so I can scan photos from her old albums. I'm thinking I could even bring it with me to libraries and historical societies to scan (with their permission, of course) documents that would be difficult to scan in a regular flatbed scanner.

Care to purchase a Flip-Pal as a gift for yourself or someone else?

• Http://www.flip-pal.com
• $149.99 (plus tax/shipping)

Comes with:

• Four AA batteries (installed)
• 2GB SD memory card (installed)
• USB to SD adapter
• Stitching and color restoration software
• Window protector sheet
• Quick Start User Guide
• One-Year limited warranty

Note: I am not affiliated with Flip-Pal or any of its partners in any way, shape or form. I'm just a new fan!

Tech Tuesday: How's Your Google-Fu?

One of my favorite non-genealogy blogs is lifehacker. It offers tip and tricks to, well, make your life easier. I also follow it on Facebook, and find that I learn some time-saving tidbit just about every day. Yesterday, they posed a question on their Facebook page that piqued my interest: What are your favorite search tricks for getting better results?

As someone who is obsessed with genealogy, I spend a lot of time on search engines and I'm always trying to determine ways of configuring search terms to get new -- or better -- results that might help dig up new information or break down stubborn brick walls. For the most part, lifehacker's readers offered up answers to the question that were solid, but that I already knew: use quotation marks around a phrase, use Boolean search terms, check your spelling, use 'site:sitename.com' to search within a website. Nothing new under the sun, but it got me thinking about how I use search engines, particularly Google. 

Most people think of Google as just a plain old search engine, but Google has acquired a nice assemblage of companies to add to their existing technologies, and has continued to evolve over the years. You can find more than just links to other websites on Google. You can find entire books, scans of newspaper articles, photos, links to Google-hosted blogs (why, yes, this blog is hosted by a Google property). You can even use Google to translate just about anything from one of nearly 60 languages into another.

Here are some examples of the family history treasures that Google has helped me unearth with just a few clicks of the mouse:

Thomas J. Rooks & Serena Jane Ishmael

Google Images (http://images.google.com):
A quick search on ["Thomas Rooks"] (including the quotation marks, but not the brackets) netted 323 results, including this picture of my GGG grandparents, Thomas J. Rooks and Serena Jane Ishmael. When I clicked on the photo, it took me to a Picasa photo album that is a wealth of photos and document scans, including wills and land documents, pertaining to this part of my family.

I've also found photos of the land where my ancestors lived as well as some really cool old maps. These types of images really help me to understand where my people came from. It's fun to look at the old maps compared to the current maps that you can find on Google Maps to see how the counties and land boundaries may have changed over the years.


Google Translate (http://translate.google.com):
This has really come in handy with my Danish research. It's so ridiculously simple that you'll wonder what you ever did without it for your non-English language research. All you have to do is type or copy in whatever it is you're trying to translate, determine your "from" and "to" languages, then click on the "Translate" button. 

For example, I copied this from the Genealogy Aero website:

"Hvis du interesserer dig for Ærøs historie, eller hvis du har slægt på Ærø, kan denne hjemmeside være et besøg værd. Da hjemmesiden består af flere hundrede sider, har jeg valgt at inddele den i afsnit" 

And, it translates from Danish to English as: 

"If you are interested Ærø history, or if you have relatives on the Aero, this website will be worth a visit. Since the site consists of several hundred pages, I have chosen to divide it into sections."

Is Google Translate always precise? No. But the translations are pretty darn close, and it will definitely give you a solid idea of what's being communicated.

Google News (http://news.google.com/archivesearch):
You might think of Google News as a repository for the current news of the day, and you'd be correct. However, Google has archived newspaper articles that date back at least to the 1860s. With a simple search ["John Bartram"+ rodeo], I was able to find images of four actual newspaper articles that reported my Grandpa John's rodeo wins in the 1930s. Here's one from the May 18, 1939, Prescott Evening Courier that shows his win in the Bronc Riding contest during the San Francisco World's Fair in May 1939:

And, when I typed in my dad's name ["William Lee Brittain"], and narrowed down time period to 2003-2005, I came up with an abstract of his obituary in the Contra Costa Times. If I wanted to, I could purchase the full copy of the article for my records:

Google Books (http://books.google.com):
Google now offers millions of book titles to search and read. Some are offered only in "snippet" view, some have larger previews and some you can read in their entirety, directly from your browser, by downloading a PDF or by reading on your mobile device. 

Again, I typed in ["John Bartram" + rodeo] on the Google Books site, and the very first thing that popped up was a link to a book called "Early Livermore" that featured several photos of my Grandpa John competing in rodeo events. This listing offered only a preview of what was included in the book, but I was able to get my hands on a bound copy of this book for my personal collection. I also did some sleuthing around for similar books about locations where my ancestors lived, and came up with a treasure trove of fantastic information on my relatives from several California towns as well as around Missouri and Alabama.

I've also found books that detail my ancestors' military engagements in the Revolutionary War, Civil War (both sides) and World War I. One of my more recent finds has been "The Parish Records of Kelsale, Suffolk" compiled in 1887. In it, I found the September 15, 1816, marriage record of my GGG grandparents, Samuel Bartram and Harriet Boste, as well as the 1842 marriage record of their daughter, Harriet. I'm still exploring that tome for more goodies on my Suffolk, England, ancestors.

Of course, you're not going to find everything on Google, just as you're not going to find everything by spending all your time on Ancestry or Footnote or GenealogyBank or the various historical society and library websites. However, I think that a lot of people neglect to make full use of this handy tool that's right in front of us. And all for free! 

BTW, here are links to help you brush up on your own basic Google-Fu:

• GoogleGuide
• Google Web Search Help

What are some of your favorite search tips for unearthing genealogical treasures?