I recently went to Australia for a month, armed with my digital camera and laptop. You can imagine my horror when I discovered that I'd left the camera cable at home! How on earth would I transfer my pictures?

A quick visit to a camera shop resulted in the purchase of a little USB photo card reader. And what a useful object this has proved to be! I soon found I was leaving the PC at home. I now plug the reader into friend's PCs so they could view or download pictures. So much easier than sending zipped up images by email!

The device has proved so useful that I've just bought one for my daughter, who is about to travel. This one reads several different cards including PDA and mobile phone cards, so shop around if you decide to buy one. And beware, not all cameras have the same type of card, so make sure you get the right one for your camera!

The shopkeeper who sold me the card reader pointed out that it is actually safer to transfer photos to a PC using a card reader than a camera and cable. This is because the card reader has no battery. If the camera battery fails during the transfer process you are in danger of losing all the photos on the card... No doubt he's seen a number of disgruntled customers who have lost their piccies.