When traveling for two weeks or even one, having to buy and carry several Smartmedia or other cards to store the photos is expensive. Many of us don't have Laptops. Is there a portable CD-R drive that could be used to accept and copy to CD a Smartmedia or other card and just have an LED screen to show number of files, and space used/open? This would allow erasing and reusing the cards on the trip and allow only one card and a back up to be required.

John, Boston, Ma.

-- John Breen (john.p.breen@compaq.com), March 21, 2000

Answers

I wouldn't hold your breath for this solution. You're better off with a cheap used laptop for many reasons.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), March 21, 2000.

Btw, does anybody know what's the story behind the Digital Wallet?

Digital Camera mag of Feb/2000 wrote in their Mail Box section that they had tried to review the Wallet twice and it just did not function. Interestingly, A.H. Bleich comes across the topic of copying image data from memory cards to portable media in his article titled "Avoiding Digital Disasters" when talking about Clik disks (Digital Camera 2/00).

Neither the Clik disks nor the Wallet seem satisfactory enough. What about cabling the camera to a palm comp instead of a laptop, would this prove cheap storage space? Probably not, as the storage capacity of these devices is usually another CF card. I'm happy with my laptop and a PC Card adapter.

-- Timo Haanpdd (htimo@hotmail.com), March 22, 2000.