CD/DVD Burner / CardReader Computer availability

[Chris Cross]

Hello,

we can´t wait ´til 30. of May to our first tobago-experience...

So we have planned to take many pic´s with our DigiCam and MiniDV...

In fact that the MemoryCards (M-Stick Pro-Duo) are very expensive, we wanted to know if there are any DVD-Burners (or CD-Burners) available
on the Island (maybe in Internet-Cafe´s or other Shops, or Hotels)...

I asked Nicole at the Rex where we will stay for the whole vacation, but didn´t get any response :O( Maybe there´s someone who knows where to BURN or to get "BURNED"!

Big thanks + have a nice Weekend!

Chris

[Ronald]

Mostly Internet Cafés are afraid for getting virus into their computers, sometimes it´s even difficult to add something as a pic to an email!
By I know a man from Norway, running a company in Crown Point, he also has Internet Computers, and he use to have peoples with high computer knowledge.
Myself is ´going to take more pictures during this summertrip and I will, most likely, also have to put them on a CD.
The company name is Caribbean Holydays, nearby the airport, on th road to Store Bay. You see the building on the wright hand side before reaching Columbus Bar. His name is Tore Svalesen.

[Chris Cross]

Thank you... maybe we get further informations for this prob...

Fact is that the REX TURTLE does have small lockers at the reception, so I have been told from Nicole of the Rex.

Fact is, that I wanted to take my Notebook with me, but If the Hotel can´t provide security for it, I won´t take it with me.

I´ve been told that they have a Computer with Internetaccess available,
but I didn´t get closer information about this...

Maybe I gotta check myself a HDD 1,5" which supports USB OTG...

Thanks to Sweden so far!

[Steve Wooler]

Hi Chris

Bob Brent answered this question for another reader some weeks ago. He says there are a number of camera shops/photo processing shops that will burn images to a CD for you. I don't have any specific knowledge of which shops offer this service (please let me know if anybody finds out for certain) but I know there is a good photo shop in the Mall in Scarborough and, more conveniently, opposite Penny Savers in Canaan.

As you are staying at the Rex Turtle Beach, neither of these is going to be convenient for you. I would suggest that you strongly consider taking some form of external storage device. That is something I must look into myself - I came back with more than 40Gb of shots from my last trip.

[Chris Cross]

Hi Steve,

40 GB that´s much! I´ll check the the Shop and will tell you more
if I find out where else to get travel-data burned.

Chris

[Steve Wooler]

Hi Chris

Actually, I admit to telling you a lie. Let's just call it a 'senior moment'. On checking I see that the 4258 photos came to 13.6Gb - an average size of over 3Mb per shot.

I admit it came as a total shock to me. We had bought a second laptop so that we could both be working, rather than fighting over the one laptop as in previous years. Plus, I'd had a partial failure last year which gave me a few sleepless nights thinking I'd lost the lot, so I figures two laptops would allow me to backup the draft reviews and photos and sleep easily.

Within days I had to abandon an adhoc wireless connection because it just wasn't fast enough to transfer all the photos and the connection would just jam. Fortunately, I'd bought a cross-over cable just in case, so I was able to get a faster connection. Problem solved - or so I thought. By the end of the first month I was running out of space on Jill's machine which only has a 20Gb disk, but the 40Gb on mine (I think that's what I had in mind) wasn't enough to keep a backup of everything, even assuming I was prepared to risk a backup on the same drive.

I'm running an 8 megapixel Canon EOS20D. Normally I would save the shots in both raw and jpeg format, but I soon realised that that wasn't a good idea. However, even shooting at maximum jpeg quality the images are all between 2 and 6 megabytes in size. My aerial shots all had to be run at a lower resolution because I only had a single 1Gb memory card and I was worried about running out of space while in the air. That's something I'll have to correct before next year. Yet more expense - all because of this damned site. Even my 20D hasn't seen the light of day since I got back.

[Paul Tallet]

Not sure if this could be of help to anybody.

Yesterday's (2005.05.21) Financial Times had it's May issue of 'Travel Unravelled' and something caught my eye in relation to the problems covered in this thread.

Apparently you can now buy a satellite receiver that works in a similar way to Mobile Phones ... you get a SIM Card ... it looks like a Laptop and you plug it into your Laptop and do your stuff ... apparently quite fast, all for the price of about £300 plus the cost of a tariff.

If you are still reading ... apparently you only pay for download time even if you are on line 24 hours per day and so an email or the transfer of a jpeg or mpeg file could be very cheap.

It is said that it works in 100 countries and will be available all around the world by September 2005.

I am just not sure if Tobago is covered yet.

The point is that I guess the prices will start to fall quite quickly and if worldwide coverage is available soon then this could be just the ticket for those that want to email those precious photos home as a back-up.

Go to http://www.satphone.co.uk if this is of interest and look for the BGAN link.

I hope this helps.

Regards

[Chris Cross]

Hi Steve...

this evening we tested our new 5 MP Sony... So we´ll have about 250 Pic´s at 5MP res. on the 512 MB DuoProStick... Tomorrow I´ll try to get a 1GB spare-Card... for the worst case (which happened to myself as my old 1 GB XD Card lost it´s spirit after 2 Days in the coral-reef at south-east Jamaica...)
Last time we took about 600 pics, but luckyly the owner of the guesthouse had a computer with a burner.

I found out that most of the new cam´s support USB on the go, with which you can transfer the pics directly on a Harddisc without using a Computer...
the only I found ´til yet is a medion 95200 (In fact that this is a MP3 Player with a 1,5 " 20 GB, but you can also use it as a Harddisc, it has a built in SD Card and MMC Card Reader + USB) which is ideal for travelling... light and small... but I don´t expect to get one until next Sunday...

My old Nikon F5 now has it´s own place near my Super 8 Cam...

What do you wan´t to do with that much of 8 MP Pic´s?

[Steve Pitts]

I'm way out of my depth here - far too technical for me - but I understand that you can get an ipod that will act as a portable hard drive for photos and other data. 20 or 40 GB capacity seems to spring to mind.

I have no idea about compatability with media cards etc and would imagine that you would need a pc or notebook to effect the data transfer from camera to ipod.

Worth Googling for further info.

Cheers
Steve

[Brian Taylor]

bring your software and connection cord and go to PROCOMTEX in scarborough. they let you do it yourself or help you with it....