Griffin Clarifi for iPhone Review – Photos, OCR

Anybody who owns an iPhone knows the built-in 2MP camera is not that good, especially for anything close-up or text-related.

Griffin Technology has figured out a way around that – they have produced a case for the iPhone 3G, the Griffin Clarifi, that is both a protective polycarbonate case as well as a macro lens for the iPhone. They (and Evernote) use the example of a business card, but I’m thinking more in line with references or little text snippets you come across in libraries, etc., that you want to save during your genealogy research, but don’t want to spend the time copying down. Without the Clarifi, they claim you need to have the iPhone about 18 inches away in order to focus, and I agree with this, because you start losing focus any closer. At that distance however, even with good lighting, you start to lose a lot of detail. With the Clarifi, you can get down to 4 inches and still have sharp detail.

I’ve broken up the review into four parts, but be warned, Parts 1, 2, and 3 are image heavy.

* Griffin Clarifi for iPhone Review – Part 1 – A look at the case and lens itself

* Griffin Clarifi for iPhone Review – Part 2 – A look at capturing text & photos from a book

* Griffin Clarifi for iPhone Review – Part 3 – Text recognition with Evernote

* Griffin Clarifi for iPhone Review – Part 4 – Summary

* Update – I forgot to mention that the Clarifi comes with a screen protector specifically designed for it, along with a cleaning cloth.

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.

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