[Idyllchat] Idyllchat] Portable memory storage

[Richard Stewart]

Shutterbug Bill and Jay,

As one who finally tiptoed into digital photography about two years ago with
the purchase of a four megapixel Canon Power Shot A520, a 256MB memory card,
and a little HP Photosmart 385 printer (in order to be computer free) and
remains at that level, I'm in awe of your realms.  That the 60 GB of storage
in Bill's Wolverine can handle in the vicinity of  7500 photos shot at
3872x2592 resolution required few key punches on a hand calculator to
fully digest.  Jay's 6500 photos, five cameras, and two laptops are mind
boggling.

A few decades back I was a proud photographer.  We'd go to Europe with a
manual-wind Pentax K1000, eight rolls of 36-exposure Kodachrome slide
film and view the slides in our living room on a Kodak carousel
projector.  Back then I felt state-of-the-art.  Not anymore.

The real purpose of this email is to thank you.  We have a very large,
perfectly symmetric sugar maple tree in our front yard.  The autumn colors
are spectacular, this year even more so than in the past.  With the Canon
Power Shot I took a photo of Joan standing beneath the tree and snail mailed
the photo to a few friends.  All were impressed and said so.  Alas, with
only 4 megapixels resolution and such a huge tree, Joan was tiny by
comparison and blended so well into the few fallen leaves that half the
recipients never noticed her.  While that experience
told me I need a camera with more resolution, it will likely be your emails
that actually spur me on to the purchase.  Moreover, as our current computer
is seven-plus years old with dialup and running Windows 98 at 64MB of RAM, a
new computer followed by a giant leap into digital photography that uses it
is
not out of the question.  Then again, we still use travelers checks.

Happy travels,

Shutterlug Stew