" So long, Earth. Catch you on the flip side.” Jack Swigert

Do you remember flip books? Flip books were the little books that you held with two hands and used your thumb to allow it to flip giving the illusion of animation. I remember seeing all sorts of these growing up from the current cartoon to mimicking the silent movies on the old Nickelodeons. Finally a company has taken it to the next step. FlipClips is a service where you upload a video under 30 seconds in length and they transform it into little flip books. You get to choose cover and any wording on it. The price is reasonable for a cool little product that could be a neat gift to anyone. The video part might be intimidating to some because it seems like you have to buy all sorts of expensive equipment. This may not be the case. In fact you may already have the tech necessary. My cell phone which is a beat up one from three years ago can take video, grainy video but still video. Also most digital cameras now also take in digital video. Finally if you do want something a little better I have recommended to many the Flip. It is an inexpensive route into digital video world. A small camera that is a about the same size as an iPod. It usually can take up to 60 minutes worth and will cost around $100. These are cheap when compared to the next level up of digital video cameras. Also some students have told me they had good luck finding cheaper ones secondary market for less than half price on places like eBay because the company upgraded from 30 minutes worth of video to 60. Many of these made it to the. So if you want to share some captured moments but not on a computer give a flip book a try.