Travel: Memorystick download to permanent storage device

Hermo Terblanche said:

Hi,

I have the following problem:

I'm planning an overseas trip of 17 days to Europe in June/July. I
will definitely take my DA (707) along. I have 2 x 128 MB and 1 x
16 MB memorysticks. There is no way that this will be enough for a
period of 17 days, especially if one considers that I shoot at
highest resolution and love to take many shots of the same subject,
each with different settings.

I have a laptop that I usually take with me for downloading the
photos from the memorysticks to free up space. This is in fact what
I did when I travelled in Ireland last year. But that trip was
different in that I went on my own and hired my own car. It was
thus safe to have the laptop with me as I could lock it away safely
in the trunk of the car.

The Europe trip will be a Contiki tour, that is an organized tour
for mostly young people. Personal belongings will sometimes be left
behind on the bus while exploring the attractions. I'm not so sure
that taking a laptop on such a tour is a good idea as I don't know
how safe it will be while on the bus. Carrying it around all day in
a backpacker might just become a burden and a big inconvenience.

I thought about two possible solutions:
1) Some kind of small lightwight mobile device for downloading
memorystick data onto some miniature hard disk drive
2) Internet Cafes or places that offer data storage services where
one might download data and write to CD to take along.

Unfortunately I don't know whether a device (1) exist and if there
are any places delivering data storage services (2) in Europe and
how available they are. They might also be outside the route of the
tour.

If anybody can help me in this regard, give advice, information,
shed light, it would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

--
Hermo Terblanche
http://www.pbase.com/hermo
http://www2.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=44829

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DonD said:

Do a search for 'Digital Wallet' Lots of info available on this
topic. Here's an example:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1009&message=4125423

Have a great trip!

Don.

Hermo Terblanche said:

Hi,

I have the following problem:

I'm planning an overseas trip of 17 days to Europe in June/July. I
will definitely take my DA (707) along. I have 2 x 128 MB and 1 x
16 MB memorysticks. There is no way that this will be enough for a
period of 17 days, especially if one considers that I shoot at
highest resolution and love to take many shots of the same subject,
each with different settings.

I have a laptop that I usually take with me for downloading the
photos from the memorysticks to free up space. This is in fact what
I did when I travelled in Ireland last year. But that trip was
different in that I went on my own and hired my own car. It was
thus safe to have the laptop with me as I could lock it away safely
in the trunk of the car.

The Europe trip will be a Contiki tour, that is an organized tour
for mostly young people. Personal belongings will sometimes be left
behind on the bus while exploring the attractions. I'm not so sure
that taking a laptop on such a tour is a good idea as I don't know
how safe it will be while on the bus. Carrying it around all day in
a backpacker might just become a burden and a big inconvenience.

I thought about two possible solutions:
1) Some kind of small lightwight mobile device for downloading
memorystick data onto some miniature hard disk drive
2) Internet Cafes or places that offer data storage services where
one might download data and write to CD to take along.

Unfortunately I don't know whether a device (1) exist and if there
are any places delivering data storage services (2) in Europe and
how available they are. They might also be outside the route of the
tour.

If anybody can help me in this regard, give advice, information,
shed light, it would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

--
Hermo Terblanche
http://www.pbase.com/hermo
http://www2.photosig.com/viewuser.php?id=44829

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Akkers said:

A cheaper option is the XS-Drive. This is a small box which
contains a small hard drive. When you have filled the memory stick,
insert it into this box and press copy and the contents get copied
to the hard drive. You carry on like this. When you return home,
connect it to your pc using the USB cable and copy everything
across. This device is not as elegent as the Digital Wallet or the
Nexvue solution, but works and its damn cheap. Its available from
various net traders in US and UK.

I suggest you take the XS-Drive and the USB cable with you. If and
when you can get to a XP pc with a cd-writer, connect it up and
write off your files to CDs. I would make double copies. Keep one
copy with you and post the otehr one to your home address.

Check up on the device here:
http://www.xs-drive.com/

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Darryl Cox said:

Hermo,

I purchased a Mindstor digital wallet with a 30 gig hard drive for
use with my 717 on field trips and travel. It comes in a 5, 10, 20,
and 30 gig and runs from around $300 to $550 with the multi-card
adapters.

The 30 gig unitshould hold approx 16,000 - 18,000 images if my math
is correct.

At one time I had a laptop for the purpose of downloading memory
cards but found it to be a lot of weight to tote around and so easy
to have stolen.

So far the device has performed as advertised and I am quite
pleased with it. The unit is about the size of a thick paperback
book and runs on rechargeable NMh batteries that has excellent
field life. It fits in the bottom compartment of my camera bag, it
is not heavy, and is always handy for use.

Darryl Cox

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