Genealogy Software Databases on Flash Drives

Over at the DearMyrtle blog, there are two different posts mentioning taking your genealogy databases from your genealogy software and carrying and accessing them on USB flash drives. The topic came up as people were talkiong about using PAF or GEDCOM files, and apparently some genealogy software makers make their software available for free at Family History Centers.

The first – Legacy:

I access my genealogy from my Flash drive at the Family History Center. They have Legacy 6 installed on all 6 computers. Millennia Corp gives FREE licensing to FHCs. You might want to mention to your audience that if the FHC they visit doesn’t have it installed, they can request that the FHC install it. The FHC just has to contact Millennia and request the License Key for the Deluxe version.

The second, RootsMagic and Personal Historian:

I didn’t know if you knew this (after reading the most recent entry in your blog), but RootsMagic also offers a free unlimited license to all FHCs to install both RootsMagic and Personal Historian on their center computers. They just need to visit:

http://www.rootsmagic.com/fhc

to request their free copies for their centers.

Apparently these four applications are available at many Family History Centers (and/or can be installed with special license keys available to FHCs):
* Legacy Family Tree
* PAF Personal Ancestral File
* Personal Historian
* RootsMagic

10 Years of Palm

It’s been a slow past few weeks in the world of genealogy and handhelds, but you might find this interesting: CNET Asia has a photo history of Palm PDA’s

One of the editor’s at CNet even wrote a happy birthday message.

Ziff Davis Net has a little article about it as well.

Review of DocuPen RC800

GottaBeMobile.com has a review of the DocuPen RC800 Scanner. Rob Bushway wrote the review, and discusses his workflow with the DocuPen. For those of you not familiar with it, the DocuPen is a handheld color scanner that is incredibly small. You have to see it to understand just how portable this thing really is. The manufacturers claim you can store it in a shirt pocket, but Rob points out it’s just a little too tall for that. He goes into using it with OneNote and a Tablet PC.

Quote: “Being able to scan, import, store, search these documents is a huge productivity boost. Never underestimate the power of having all of your documents with you in one place. Being able to scan these documents while on site, and then using my tablet pc to work with the document, take notes on it and then have that available to me later is a mobile professionals dream.”

Sounds like something that any genealogist could find handy. For more information and purchasing information, you can view the DocuPen’s homepage at planon.com. No word on compatability with non-Windows sytems.

via jkOnTheRun

Treo as a Notebook Alternative

PC World has an article about using the Treo as a Notebook Alternative. They are using a PalmOS-based Treo 650, and basically trying to do the things they’d normally do with a notebook: “sending and receiving e-mail, with and without attachments; writing and editing Microsoft Office documents; and browsing Web sites.”

This is part 1 – part 2 will be posted next week.

Review of Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard)

If you are looking at getting a mobile phone capable of running some of the genealogy software that’s available for handhelds, you might want to read this review (mobiletechreview.com) of the Cingular 8125 aka HTC Wizard (available from T-Mobile under a different name I believe). It’s a Windows Mobile 5.0 device, and Northern Hills Software indicates that Pocket Genealogist will run on it.

One of the nice features and one of the reasons it will handle genealogy software made for Windows Mobile/PocketPC devices – it has a stylus. More importantly, it has a slide-out keyboard, which even though it’s small, beats using a stylus for inputing or searching for names. It doesn’t have the fastest of CPUs (195MHz), but hey, it’s a phone.

It also has a 1.3MP camera with a flash for those times when you need to take a quick snapshot (and there is software available and/or being developed that is made to do OCR (optical character recognition) from camera phone shots).

Did I mention it has WiFi available? Beats using your normal service for downloading web pages, email, etc., when you have WiFi access available (ala a library or research center).

A quick check shows it retails for around $350 USD.

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