Tidy Up The USB Leads With A CF 2 reader (General Comments...)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	General Comments...
Date:	16/01/02 (68 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No power lead needed, Only takes up one USB port but serves camera and mp3 player

Disadvantages: None so far

Since buying my Frontier Labs NEX II MP3 player, I have come to realise a few things about how it dovetails, or doesn't, with the rest of my computer-based kit.

Firstly, let's kick off with the major "pro".

It uses the same memory modules as my digital camera, i.e. Compact Flash II cards, or in my case, IBM Microdrives, which are a tiny hard drive built to interface in the same way as the solid state CF2 modules. This means that I can stick to one type, and therefore not need as many chips sitting around doing very little in between listening to music/taking photos.

Now for the "Cons".

1.Both the camera and the player has its own USB connecting cable which is not the same at the hardware end, so a scramble round the back of the PC is needed to swap cables over. My other USB port is in use by my scanner.

2.When downloading photos, the camera has to be powered by its mains-adapter, otherwise the PC's USB port will not "see" it. Therefore, yet another mains plug point is needed.

3.IBM Microdrives take a heavy toll on battery life in the MP3 player, (and to a certain extent in the camera too) and the last thing you want to do is waste it on the fairly lengthy process of downloading music to it.

Then, whilst tooling around on the www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk site, I was idly looking at the price of some solid-state memory, like 256mb of CF2 to solve my battery life problems. Unlike the IBM's, this memory does not have an electric motor in it, and therefore makes batteries last a lot longer. It does, however cost £124 for 256 mb of RAM.

It struck me that a good compromise solution could be reached by buying the SANDISK USB COMPACT FLASH II CARD READER.

This is a small, rather mouse-like shell, with a slot to take the CF2-shaped modules, including IBM Microdrives.

It needs no external power source and takes up one USB port on your P
C. Since it can accept the memory both for my camera and my mp3 player, it can become a permanent fixture, without any further scrambling behind the machine (until the next gadget, that is!).

Because this also means that my MP3 player now only gets used for playing music, the batteries last longer.

All that is needed in the case of music downloads or photo uploads is that I remove the module from the device in question and pop it into the slot on the reader.

The driver software ensure that when a module (CF2 or IBM) is inserted, the PC sees it as a removable drive, allowing the transfer of files through Windows Explorer or My Computer as per normal.

The card reader is available from www.internetcamerasdirect.co.uk for £27 plus postage. They will then give you a £2 credit to their on-line photo-printing service (you upload a good jpeg, they print it and send it back).

Compared to some of the other stuff I've talked myself into wanting over the years, this could be genuinely useful unlike that tape back-up machine which chewed every single tape I bought for it!

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