Convoluted, complicated photo downloads...

People who are very competent technology users probably should give reading this post a miss! For example, 'digital natives' would just roll their eyes or even roll around the floor while reading about my use and management of ICT. (Information and Communications Technology; I had to know what that meant as it was part of the Curriculum that I taught my students!) Oops....almost forgot to explain...in my job we also had to read journal articles about the term 'digital natives' or a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and so familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age. 

Love this cartoon; first saw it in some handout notes in a PD session for work!

One of our daughters, DD1 did an IT course after year 12, and although she chose to ultimately work as a bookkeeper,  she is my personal 'help desk'...I think she probably rolls her eyes quite a bit when I tell her my woes with the computer and the peripherals, such as the uploading of photos etc and even management of MP3 files. And so it was that early this year, that the computer informed me via messages in boxes flashing up on the screen that there was a problem with the installed Fuji uploading program. Oh easily solved I thought, uninstall the program and use the little CD to reinstall it. Didn't work! Maybe the disc was 'corrupt'? So I tried to download a program from the Fuji site. Still didn't work! So it was time to invite DD1 over for dinner...and then just casually mention I was having trouble downloading the photos from my camera...heheheh! 

The poor girl tried for so long; doing similar things to the ones I'd done, plus a few other nifty ideas she had...sadly nothing worked for her either :-(  My brother is my ultimate, last ditch IT support guy...but he can get quite grumpy with me...so I ditched that idea! DD1 suggested I use a free Microsoft photo uploader that she said was already on our computer...sounded like a great idea but when I tried to do it next day, I couldn't find the program...sad isn't it??? 

So for many months, I have been putting the SD card from my camera into the little slot at the front of my laptop and waiting for the photos to slowly upload on to the laptop. 

I had started buying SD cards with only 2gb of memory because the 8gb ones took ages to 'scan for duplicates' if I was not deleting the photos but saving them on the card as well...

Then I have been transferring that file of pics to my USB and then coming to the main PC to write my blog and select photos from the USB.  :-/ It worked! But then DH announced that when he flew out to Rockhampton last Sunday, that he would be taking my our laptop! My smart (-er than me!) phone had also been having issues with the error messages occasionally coming up on the PC screen when attempting to upload photos. But I had to find a solution pretty fast as to how I would get photos from the camera to either to the main PC as it was possible I couldn't rely on phone photos...

DH heading off; the laptop is over his left shoulder...

The photo stream on the iPad is also in the Pictures file on the PC thanks to that iCloud 'thingy' but I haven't discovered yet whether an Android (my phone) can connect via that...see, now I'm confusing myself again!

Anyway, long story, short...

I put the SD card from the Fuji camera into my old Kodak camera (bought in a Walmart in Salt Lake City in 2011 when I wore out my previous camera and it kept 'freezing'), plugged the cable into the camera and the other end into the computer. 

The tale of 2 cameras...the cute purple one is the Kodak camera

The previous Kodak program disappeared in the famous computer crash here last year but as soon as it was all plugged in , the computer went checking to find an updated program. It found one, I clicked on 'install' and followed the prompts. Easy as that. It took a while but it downloaded all the photos and saved them to the PC...I was in business again! I was worried though, that those dreaded error messages would come up again, lol! But it has since uploaded 2 more lots of photos so I can relax for now perhaps? 

I still prefer to take photos with the Fuji camera so the SD card has to be replaced each time...so it's ready to take more photos...although I believe the Fuji has a small hard drive that the photos could be taken with...now I wonder how that works????? lol