Picture my sister in Nepal frustrated in an internet cafe

October 5, 2009 8:08 AM

My sister is going on a 3 week adventure in Nepal and is taking a 1 year old Canon Powershot SD1100 IS. She'd like to upload photos a few times while she is away to some sort of photo sharing site (flickr, photocbucket, or even facebook). She is wondering if it is possible to do this without first saving to a computer (she'll be in internet cafes) and if so how? Both she and I (obvs) are new to this digital camera stuff.
posted by Pineapplicious to computers & internet (11 comments total)

Just connect the camera to the computer with the supplied cable (or use a card reader). The computer will interpret the camera (or card reader) as being a kind of attached drive, and she can upload directly from the camera (or card reader) without copying to the computer itself.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:11 AM on October 5

Having a card reader [they are insanely cheap] is probably the best so that the computer doesn't have some sort of "this is the routine that I go through whenever someone plugs a camera into me" routine that is complicated.. Alternately she can get a few SD cards and just store them someplace so she's not risking losing all her pix (say by losing her camera) and at the same time not having to make sure she'll find an internet cafe. I wasn't sure if she wanted to upload them because she wanted to share them while she was still travelling or she wanted to do this because she thought it was the only way to make sure she had some photos saved.
posted by jessamyn at 8:25 AM on October 5

She wants to do both: back-up and share her adventures.
posted by Pineapplicious at 8:39 AM on October 5

When you connect the camera, the computer should give you a choice as to whether you want to launch the photo software as opposed to mounting it as an external drive -- but someone may have ticked the little "do this without asking next time" box, in which case it will immediately open the photo software. It may immediately start copying the photos in that case. An established internet cafe chain would configure their systems not do that, but I'm guessing she probably won't be in one of those. Jessamyn's suggestion is good, you can get a very compact card reader that plugs into a USB slot for a few dollars online. However, the card itself, because of the distinctive folder names usually found on cards that have been formatted in cameras, may also trigger the same question. Just say no to it.

Another option is the tricky SD cards with a built in USB connector, like this, for example. Saves you having to carry an extra doodad, and it doesn't add much to the price anymore.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:40 AM on October 5

If she'll be in internet cafe's, get her an eye-fi card. Do want. Then all she has to do is sit there and up they go for her.
posted by TomMelee at 8:46 AM on October 5 [2 favorites]

Just a few tips for travelling with a camera/memory cards.

Keep extra memory cards in your money belt.

You can "lock" your SD card (little slider on the side of the memory card). Do that before inserting into a foreign computer.

Get a card reader, as mentioned above (I've had good luck w/ Transcend and Sandisk, but the key is to buy something decent and tiny). I had a lot of issues using the internet cafe card readers all over Asia (especially with SDHC cards), so having my own card reader was quite helpful.

Don't forget your card in the computer!

You can probably add to flickr right from the card, but it is probably easier to copy to the computer, safely stow away your card, copy files from computer to flickr. Delete from flickr. The main problem is that some of the connections are pretty slow, so you'll be sitting there for a while - and there's a higher chance of data transfer failure reading directly from the card.

Never used the Eye-Fi card that TomMelee mentions, but it was my first thought if you don't mind spending a bit more. That or get a netbook and use that to transfer.
posted by backwards guitar at 9:20 AM on October 5

I've done it a million times but it's worth considering that typing a password into a shared computer can cost you if there's a key logger on it. I got a spam email from a friend who was compromised in this way. Logging into flickr is probably safer because they're unlikely to care about it.

When I was in Thailand a couple years ago many of the internet cafes would "offload" / burn your photos from your SD card onto a CD. I didn't use it because my 2-week trip fit on a 2-gig card but it seemed like a good idea.
posted by Wood at 10:28 AM on October 5

I wouldn't count on the eye-fi, particularly in far-flung parts of the world. Many wireless cafes run captive portal software which requires you to click through a terms of service page or something similar, or enter a code that the clerk gives you when you buy something or pay for access. Since your camera doesn't have a web browser installed, you won't be able to do this.

Also, it may not be approved for use in your destination country. It appears that it only recently gained approval for use in the UK. Countries do not have a uniform standard for wireless devices; I have no idea what frequencies are allowed in Nepal.

dpreview.com has some similar caveats about this, as well as a few other discouraging observations. Scroll down to "Conclusions". They say outright that it only works with APs you've configured it for using your computer; you might be able to add a few standardized services like Wayport to that now; but arbitrary WiFi joints are presumably out of the question.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:35 AM on October 5

However she decides to do it, if she gets stuck in the moment, she can lean over and ask the backpacker sitting next to her. He/She will probably be able to help.

Some hostels will transfer photos to CDs - for a fee, of course.
posted by soupy at 11:50 AM on October 5

George_Spiggott: "I wouldn't count on the eye-fi, particularly in far-flung parts of the world. Many wireless cafes run captive portal software which requires you to click through a terms of service page or something similar, or enter a code that the clerk gives you when you buy something or pay for access."

That's not the case in most wifi internet cafés in East Asia - the real thing stopping you using it is that most internet cafés in Nepal don't have wifi. Luckily, most East Asian internet cafés allow you to copy your photos to some part of the hard drive first if you need to before uploading. This allows you to resize/compress them before if you need.

If not, just connect the camera or card reader and upload straight from there. Hold [Shift] when you attach it to prevent any Windows auto-run crap. If you're worried about keyloggers, use the on-screen keyboard or a common-sense workaround.
posted by turkeyphant at 12:09 PM on October 5

ISPs in in Asia often charge per megabyte of transfer, especially for uploading, so many of the cafes will either prevent block uploading or will have to charge you extra for it. It may be worth it to post a few reduced-size images for folks back home to look at (if she knows/wants to learn how, and spend the time to do it), but for backup purposes, extra cards and CDs are likely to be her best bet, eg., burn 2 CDs and mail one home, whenever she has an opportunity.
posted by TruncatedTiller at 2:02 PM on October 5