Digital memory Card

MEMORY CARD MANAGEMENT

The memory card in our digital camera was full, and it was an emergency: snapping spring flowers. So we stopped at a camera store to buy a new memory card and, of course, we paid top dollar.
If you plan ahead and remember to bring them, you can buy 1-gigabyte flash memory cards for less than $10 apiece. A half-dozen would cost less than the small Photo Safe battery-powered hard drive we were given to try out from Digital Foci (DigitalFoci.com). The drive is pocket size and sells for $149 for the 40-gigabyte model. That would be $400 worth of memory cards, if you wanted that much memory.
On the face of it, it would seem like a much better deal to just buy a few extra memory cards and drop them in your pocket. But that was at first glance. After a moment's thought, we realized the tiny drive had some big advantages.
With a pocket full of flash cards, it's hard to remember which ones are full and which are not. It's also almost impossible to recall what's on each of the full ones. Then when you back up to your computer, you have to insert and empty each of the cards, one at a time.
None of this is terribly onerous, but it's so much simpler to just unload a card into the pocket hard drive when it fills up. There are seven slots in the side of the Photo Safe drive to accept almost any of the cards used by today's digital cameras. An adapter can be purchased to add three more. Come home or back to the office and just plug the hard drive into your computer to unload all the stored pictures in one sweep. Most computers will have a program that organizes them as they come in; if not, there are several such programs you can buy.
All in all, we felt it was worth the price difference to be able to empty just one or two cards and keep shooting. This would be for people who take a lot of shots: professionals or shutterbugs. If you take only a few shots whenever you use the camera, then it's not worth the extra cost for the Photo Safe hard drive.
A TRAVELER'S AID
Kensington.com has a nice external numerical keypad for laptops that also functions as a stand-alone calculator. That's handy if you do a lot of key punching. It's sold in a package with a wireless mouse for $60 at Kensington's Web site.
An external mouse is really nice to have for a laptop. We use one. If you like the idea of the keypad alone, we found it for around $30 on the Web.
DROPPED CALLS AND ALL THAT STUFF
Dropped calls and poor cell phone reception have become the bane of the land, and naturally enough, we have a fix. (On the other hand, maybe you really didn't want to talk to that person in the first place.)
We've found, through costly trial and error, that expensive cell phones experience fewer dropped calls and better overall reception. Not too surprising, we guess. The quality and reputation of your carrier counts too, and there's a Web site -- CellReception.com -- that offers personal opinions about that, depending on your location.
And then there's the antenna. You can kick up almost any cell phone's reception by adding an external antenna. Some of these plug into the cell phone itself; others attach to the roof of a car or have suction cups that stick to a wall or window. We did a few Web searches and found over a hundred offerings. There's no way we can test them all or even want to.
We looked at a two-unit combination to increase reception in a defined area, like inside a home or large office. This was the Spotwave Zen Z1900 signal booster. The unwieldy name is matched by an unwieldy price: $399 for improved call coverage estimated at up to 2,500 square feet, depending on the construction of the building. It doesn't boost the signal from all cell phone carriers, however. In our ZIP code, it doesn't work with Verizon or Sprint/Nextel, for example, two of the largest cell service providers. We checked many ZIP codes and couldn't use Verizon or Sprint/Nextel with any of them. What it basically works with is Cingular and T-Mobile.
Looking at the exceptions is instruction enough to carefully consider which signal booster would suit you best. You can go up to several thousand dollars for signal boosters for manufacturing plants, office buildings and large areas like casinos and sports arenas where there's lots of metal to interfere with reception. For a business, it's worth it. Individuals are better off with a high-quality phone.
INTERNUTS
Wize.com has a search routine that hunts for user comments for thousands of products. It searches more than 6,500 Web sites and ranks more than 30,000 products by user satisfaction and media buzz.
This is pretty much the way we all shop: We ask someone we know what they use and like, or we look up published opinions. But we've mentioned the problems with this before. Some songs of praise may be coming from people connected with the manufacturer or people who know a friend who works there. Some critical opinions may come from people at competing companies or someone bearing a grudge. It's always a judgment call, and common sense should be applied.