New toy

So I bought myself a new toy for Christmas, and have been playing around with it a bit to see what it can do. It’s a Flip Video Ultra, which seems to be all the rage for shooting quick, easily uploadable, simple video. It’s not like my little Panasonic digital vidcam, but it’s great for recording things in the moment, like this clip I shot on my first day back from vacation: About the size of a small cell phone or ipod, it’s so easy to use my 77 year old aunt could do it: press the red button to record, again to stop recording. Zoom and volume buttons occupy the ring around the red button; “play” and “delete” buttons reside to the left and right of the red one. That’s it. Simple.The other cool thing about it is the built in USB arm that swings out at the push of a button, and  the built-in software that means you don’t have to load any extra programs into your computer. Once you’ve saved the video, you can edit with other software, but for simplicity and ease of use, the onboard software works to just get the video out there.I’ll post more on this as I get better acquainted with it, but for now, it gets my two thumbs up.