Yesterday I was venting my irritation regarding all the tangle of cables I have under my computer desk. I mentioned I would be very happy if everything would be wireless. That would be great and my office and my city would look a lot better. Well, maybe this is happening even as we speak.
Last week I purchased a wireless CD memory card for my Birthday camera. The name of this cute technological jewel is Eye-Fi Memory Card. The nice little puppy can already wirelessly send photos from a camera to a PC or to websites such as Flickr, YouTube, Picasa or Photobucket, just to name a few. Now, they can also send photos to smart phones, tablets and other devices. It requires a one-time setup to connect the Eye-Fi card to the gadget over Wi-Fi. Android phone or tablet owners then download an app to see the photos.
The Eye-Fi people won’t say if other devices, such as iPads and iPhones, will be supported. The new feature will be available as a free update to people who already own one of Eye-Fi’s Connect X2 cards, which start at $39.99 for 4GB of storage space.
Eye-Fi Inc. is a company based in Mountain View, California that produces SD memory cards and SDHC cards with wi-fi capabilities. Using an Eye-Fi card inside a camera, one can wirelessly and automatically upload digital photos to a local computer (running Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X). Some models also allow for uploading photos to photo sharing, blogging and social networking sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and Photobucket; and some models also allow for uploading videos, both to a personal computer and to YouTube.
It all started with a very simple idea: what if photos could just fly to where you want them to be? That’s how a memory card with antenna and magical superpowers was born.
The Eye-Fi card is the 1st wireless memory card. It looks, stores media, and fits into cameras just like a regular SDHC card. On top of that, the Eye-Fi card has built-in Wi-Fi that uses your wireless network to effortlessly transfer photos and videos. The once essential cable between your computer and your camera is now a thing of the past.
Upon setup, specify which networks the Eye-Fi card uses to transfer your media. Add up to 32 networks for your card to use. The next time your camera is on within range of a specified network, your photos and videos will fly to your computer and to your favorite sharing site.
During the quick set-up, you customize where you want your memories sent. The Eye-Fi card will only send them to the computer and to the sharing site you choose. Pick from one of over 25 popular sites. I selected Photobucket where I store my pictures on the Web.
The Eye-Fi card comes ready to be configured in a USB reader. The software you’ll need to get started is included. Pop the Eye-Fi card and the USB reader in your computer to get started in minutes. I had a hard time doing it with my system. For some weird reason the program would not install. Twice I got the following pesky message:
“Eye-Fi Installer Initializing. Runtime error. Program K\Start Here\Windows\Setup.exe This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application’s support team for more information.”
I sent an SOS message to support@eye.fi but received no response. It was an endless radio silence—zero, nothing, nil, nix, null, aught, goose egg, naught, zilch, nada.
I tried the third time and it worked. It was not a breeze though. I’m not a computer wizard, but don’t consider myself stupid either. Anyway, after sweating for about an hour and a half and cursing a few time (pardon me) I finally got the software installed. Then it was time to see if it was worth its salt.
I sent outside to be back law and took three macro pictures of a fern. When I came back to my computer, abut five minutes later, lo and behold, the pictures were already neatly placed in my compter’s hard disk (My Images) and in my Photobucket album. I thought it was magic, believe me. Ask Harry Potter and he’ll testify I’m telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
I purchased the memory card through Amazon.com and brought it to Panama by a company that to provides this service by opening a collective mail box in Miami. The cost of bringing the package from Miami to Panama was only $3.00 and the cost of the card was a mere $39.99. Total cost: $42.99. Very affordable for banning your camera cable forever.
Below are several pictures freezing the experience of using a Wi-Fi digital camera memory card. Here we go.
- Photograph of the plastic package that housed the tiny Wi-Fi memory card. Photo ©Omar Upegui R.
- Photograph of the card’s small instruction booklet, the USB software installer and the memory card itself. Photo ©Omar Upegui R.
- One of the three photograph of a fern’s leaf that was transferred wirelessly to my computer and to Photobucket using the Wi-Fi memory card. Photo ©Omar Upegui R.
- Photograph of a fern leaf from a plant located on our back yard. This picture was part of the experiment with the Eye-Fi card. Photo ©Omar Upegui R.
- A macro photograph of a fern leaf used to test my recently purchase Wi-Fi memory card. Photo ©Omar Upegui R.
The Eye-Fi Card is as simple as it sounds and works with most cameras that use SD cards (for a complete list of compatible cameras, see http://support.eye.fi/compatibility/). If someone you know is constantly taking pictures that are never seen again by anyone else and they use a Wi-Fi network, Eye-Fi will serve as a carefree solution.
Also, if you hate cables, this darling is for you. The price is relatively affordable—even for a cash-strapped retiree like me, lost in the Tropics. Good Day.
