Sandisk's holiday advice is to spend, spend, spend

ON THE 4th of July weekend here in the States, leave it to Corporate America to hand out some amusing holiday advice. "If you're getting ready to pack your suitcase, your sunscreen lotion, and your digital camera, don't forget to pack extra flash memory cards," starts the June 30, 2005 SanDisk press release.

What sort of advice and "news" does the world's largest supplier of flash memory cards have to share in their release? Why, go buy some higher capacity cards! "With card prices falling while digital camera resolution are rising, consider upgrading your memory, so to speak, with cards that are at least double your previous capacity," recommends SanDisk. If you've been using 256MB cards, move up to 512MB or even a 1GB model.

Get faster, more expensive, cards, like the SanDisk Ultra II or Extreme III high-performance cards. Moving from a standard card to one of the faster ones can provide up to "three times faster writing speeds" in newer digital cameras. "Even if your camera is not fast or high-resolution, having the faster cards will be welcome when you upgrade to a new camera in the future."

Haven't spent enough money on new SanDisk products yet? "Get A Faster Digital Camera," recommends SanDisk. After all, there's the buffer processing times to consider on the high-end and low-end five megapixel cameras for $300. Newer cameras mean higher-capacity/higher-performance SanDisk products, after all.

After going through reasons why you should spend your hard earned salary on new SanDisk products and new cameras that need more expensive SanDisk products, the company would like to assure you that flash cards aren't affected by airport X-ray scanners, but you should try not to run a flash card through the wash or drop one into a swimming pool. SanDisk does advise if you carefully dry the card, you might be able to read it again, but frankly, they're being conservative. I've heard of several instances where flash products have inadvertently gone through the wash cycle without problems - and even one where some bloke was unlucky enough to drop his flash into his scalding-hot cup of coffee.

Flash isn't indestructible, but it's a lot more likely to survive a lot of events in a camera that would destroy the camera. Should you accidentally erase pictures or format the whole card by accident, SanDisk also has a software recovery program for the low-low price of $40 that will allow you to take a stab at recovering lost-images.

About the two most useful pieces of advice come at the end of the release. If you really want to print your photos on vacation, first back them up onto a laptop PC or burn them to a CD before dropping off the card at the local photo shop or using a self-print kiosk. And if you are really hard-up for more memory in the middle of your vacation, there are a number of local supermarkets and grocery stores that are now selling various flavours of up to 128MB of flash. µ

[Mr. Mohney would like to note that he has been a loyal SanDisk user since 1997 and will continue to buy their products in spite of their, ah, overenthusiastic advice.]