Cool Gadget For The Digital Camera Folks

[Mike (Virginia Beach)]

I just recently picked one up on eBay. It's a multi-format memory card reader/caddy that allows you to take your flash memory card out of the camera (or out of the package from the store if you just buy the memory) and slide it into this thing and then plug into any computer USB slot. You can now access the contents of the card just like a hard drive. I have it shown here with the 64MB card that came with my old Fuji camera but now use it with the 1GB card from my Canon camera. I've seen the 4GB cards out now for as little as $99 and the 1GB for $29. Best part is that I got this reader for $7.98 SHIPPED (!!!) on eBay. There are many different models out there but this one reads the very popular xD and SD picture cards as well as a couple of others so that's why I got this one. So you could have a 1GB personal USB flash drive for under $40.

I got the idea when I was searching for a good price on an extra cable to offload pics, so I could have one for the home PC and one to carry with the camera. I realized that this was actually cheaper and more easily used on the run. And even if you didn't have a digital camera and just wanted to use it for personal data, with the price of this and the price of flash memory cards now, it's cheaper than buying a comparably equipped USB flash drive.

Here are some shots:

Sleek and compact...you can see the memory card is closed up in there...
[attachment 26974 reader1.jpg]

Front cap pulls off, back trap-door flips up for easy insertion...
[attachment 26975 reader2.jpg]

Ready to rock...
[attachment 26976 reader3.jpg]

 

[Bobbie]

You can also get ones that read several different size cards or have the whole thing built into your computer. I just plug my cards directly (no gadgets or wires) right into the front of my computer.