Eye-fi card
On loan to me this week is a cute little gadget - the Eye-Fi. This is a SD card with built-in wireless that you can program with your wireless network settings and account information from your online photo provider (in my case Flickr).
So all you do is set the card up by plugging into your PC and use the manager software to tell it about your wireless network and your online photo account. Then you put the card into your camera and it talks to your PC, your online account or both. Pretty simple and easy to set up.
It does just work, and it is pretty cool to see your photos suddenly appear online. But there are a few points that are worth making..
In a “normal” home-style wireless environment where you are using a passkey only this card will work as advertised. In more enterprise environments where you are taken to a webpage or you use an account/password for authentication then this card will not be able to be configured. So, in an environment you control (like your home or the home of friends and family) this will work fine but for roaming use you will have problems configuring the card for direct wireless access. Access to your own PC will still be possible.
Another point, I generally take a lot of rubbish photos (yes lots) and so an upload to my flickr page for all my photos is not something I want to happen automatically. But auto-upload to my iphoto while I am walking about is kinda cool.
Not sure if I will buy one yet. I may if the cost of the card is not much higher than a regular 2 gig card.
So the photo here was taken tonight, and untouched by cables, was uploaded to iPhoto on my laptop and to my Flickr account. Then I went to Flickr, edited the photo online to crop it and linked to it on my blog. Easy.
Got fed up with the whole hammer and nails thing. I have already done most of the trim work the old fashioned way but it’s much easier when on my own to use the nail gun 
- it’s like having a free hand.
