Me and My (Flip) Pal

I jumped on the bandwagon and bought a Flip-Pal scanner before leaving on my research trip.  I used it several times, with mixed results.  My thoughts:

• It weighs practically nothing and was totally easy to throw in my research kit.
• It was great for the obituary cards at the Licking County Genealogy Society, which are 4x6.  Everyone in the room was impressed.
• It was not great for deed books at the courthouse.  Each page was taking 6 or 8 scans, which was just too long.  The digital camera was much better.
• It attracts a lot of attention!  Be prepared to give a couple of demos and have people watch you work.
• It eats batteries like candy.  Fortunately, it lets you know when the batteries are dying and they are easy to change.  Definitely get a recharging set.
• It also eats up your digital storage card.  Unfortunately, it does NOT let you know when it's full (or at least, not in a way that I noticed while I was at the library).  It will keep scanning, but not saving anything.  I lost about an hour's worth of work. You'll have to pay attention to this on your own, and get used to transferring files every night to clear up space for the next day.
• Like most scanners, it works best on flat things.  Scanning books works, but occasionally I ran into places where the frame of the scanner butted up against the binding of the book or photo album and I  couldn't quite get the whole page.   
• Almost all of my scans require editing, mostly to crop away the table top or extra album page, since the scans are all the same size, regardless of what you are scanning.  Easy to do, but plan for it if you're in a hurry.

I mentioned the Flip-Pal at a sewing retreat and learned that they are being marketed to machine embroiderers as well.  My friends were a bit peeved when they learned that I paid about half what the local sewing machine store is selling them for -- but now they know where to go for a better price!