Cf Card Reader

Technology Fails: Why Doesn't Stuff Just Work?

It's clear that the average, everyday consumer encounters frustrations with technology every now and then. It's easy when you work in this industry to believe that things that are obvious to you should be obvious to most. But this isn't the case for those who aren't as familiar with the tech toys. When technology really fails, however, is when something a product should just "do" doesn't quite happen that way, frustrating even the savviest of tech enthusiasts. I recently experienced two such instances.

I just returned from a trade show in Orlando, FL. After the first day of the show, I curled up on my hotel bed with my laptop, notebook, and camera surrounding me ready to write my daily report. When it came time to upload the photos I shot that day, I came to realize that I forgot my memory card reader back at the office. Shoot! Normally, that wouldn't be an issue. But my DSLR, which is admittedly about five years old, uses a CompactFlash card. While my laptop has a built-in slot for SD, there's no such luck on the CF side.

My anger quickly turned to relief when I realized I had the camera's USB cable in my bag. Whew! Just plug it in, open up the drive, and transfer my pics, right? Not so much. Apparently, the camera requires specific software in order to be read by my computer. Software I did not have with me, and never installed (even if I had, this is a brand new computer.) Great. But of course any modestly tech-savvy person would know that most software is available for download through a manufacturer's site. So off I went to Google to find it. Once located, I attempted to download. The message: it requires the original version of the software; only an update can be downloaded from the Web. Great. I checked forums, blog posts, FAQ sections; nothing provided anything remotely helpful. Especially, when I'm pressed for time, haven't yet had dinner, am lacking sleep, and have limited time to get things done.

In the end, as I frantically continued writing, upset that none of my show prose would have imagery to complement it, my colleague located a small imaging dealer down the road from our hotel. The cost for the tiny, what should have been $5-$10 card reader? $40. It was worth it to shell out the dough at the time. But what a drag. Here's how a camera should work: plug it in, see the drive on your computer, and open it. What's so difficult about that?

Incident number two. You may have heard of BIXI Bikes, a bicycle sharing program that's been around for some time in spots like Montreal, QC, London, England, and Melbourne, Australia, and just recently came to Toronto. It consists of a system of 10 or so locked bicycles in various spots throughout the city. Pay a nominal fee (plus a hefty security deposit) to gain a code for a bike for the day, than ride it through the city, in 30 minute increments. As long as you dock the bike at another BIXI station every 30 minutes, you won't be charged extra fees (run later than 30 minutes, and you'll pay something like a buck each 10 minutes or so.) It's a great system for getting some exercise, taking a quick ride down to one end of the city to walk around, catch a movie, etc., than ride bike. I often see people cycling away downtown with the clearly marked bikes, and there are at least two stations within short walking distance of my downtown condo. So one weekend, I decided to check it out.

Rob Galbraith DPI: Review: M.I.C. CF Card Reader for iPad and iPad 2

If you're jazzed about Photosmith , the new app for managing photos on Apple's iPad and then syncing them to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, but you're also bummed that Apple's Camera Connection Kit doesn't include a module for CompactFlash, read on. We have a review of the CF Card Reader for iPad and iPad 2, a new accessory from Chinese accessory reseller M.I.C. The CF Card Reader for iPad and iPad 2 is comprised of a CompactFlash slot, USB port and dock connector in a single housing. It accepts CompactFlash Type I cards; thicker Type II cards won't fit, which rules out this reader for use with Microdrive-type CompactFlash or even SD cards inside a CompactFlash adapter, as they're all Type II in thickness. The USB port is for connecting a USB device, such as a digital camera, and importing pictures from that. It serves the same purpose as the USB module in the Camera Connection Kit from Apple. It's similarly limited to devices that either require very little power or are self-powered; iOS 4.2 and later severely limits the current an attached USB accessory can draw from an iPad or iPad 2. This is M.I.C.'s third iPad memory card reader offering. In 2010, they released the 3-in-1 Camera Connection Kit , which is comprised of an SD slot, microSD slot and USB port in one module. In 2011, they shipped an updated version . We have both the 2010 and 2011 iterations, and while they both basically work and are capable of roughly the same transfer rates into the iPad as Apple's equivalent in the Camera Connection Kit, in testing the M.I.C. products were sporadically flakey. For example, a card that had been successfully recognized a dozen times before would, all of sudden, not be recognized. That is, the iPad's import interface wouldn't automatically appear, which means the iPad was no longer detecting the connected card and reader. Apple doesn't make a module for CompactFlash cards, however, so we had high hopes for the M.I.C. CF Card Reader for iPad and iPad 2, which arrived in the mail this week as part of the first wave of units the company began shipping out earlier this month. And while it does work, the new CompactFlash-compatible reader from M.I.C. suffers from both flakiness and compatibility problems. Here's what we've figured out. The M.I.C. reader is reasonably well thought out, with one exception: the distance from the CF slot's opening to the contact pins at the back of the slot is short.

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