Budget a Hard Drive

If you are an avid photographer and enjoy taking pictures when you travel to a faraway land then I think you need one of these. I’m talking about an external hard drive that you connect to your PC or Mac to transfer your photos on. I know what I’m talking about because my wife is the avid photographer and she shoots on average of 200 photos per week. On our last trip when we sailed the Mediterranean, she came back with over 600 photos. Thank God for digital. Can you imagine what the development costs would have been for us if it weren’t for digital? 

Since the time we visited Italy, Croatia and Spain, the price of external hard drives have come down dramatically. I bought a 500GB MyBook from Costco last June for $169.99 and thought that was a good deal. Today, for $115, I can buy the 750GB unit or for $210, I can get the 1000GB unit. Ok, these are substantial savings but it means it’s ok to go wild with your photographs. 

And since we are on the topic of travelling, here’s some car rental codes that some of you have been asking for. Be sure to quote U102900 when renting from Budget to get a premium car at the airport for $229 per week. Or save $80 in Tucson, Arizona and rent an intermediate car for $99.99 per week when you quote U030089.

I was touched by an Archos

If you don’t mind settling for a non-iPod Touch, look at an Archos 30 GB Digital Media Player with built-in Wi-Fi instead. For about $175, you get 30 GB instead of a mere 8 GB that comes with a $220 iPod Touch. On top of that, you get a 4.3 inch display versus a 3.5 inch screen and with the optional DVR station, you can record from several A/V sources including TV. With a bit of hacking, you can put television shows on your iPod Touch but you need some technical savy to pull it off.

Before buying an iPod Touch, I used to have an Archos media player. I would carry it with me on my trips and use it as a portable hard drive. Each night, we would connect it to our digital camera and download all the photos we took that day onto the large Archos hard drive. That is one thing you cannot do with the iPod Touch. There is no connector between your iPod and your digital camera. After transferring photos to my Archos, I would delete the images from my digital camera, freeing up space for more photos.

With the newer Archos players, you can connect to the web using the built-in 802.11g wireless and browse the web like you can do with the iPod Touch. There are games that you can download and you can rip mp3 music onto the Archos. It is definitely worth a second look if you are in the market for an iPod Touch.

If I see any deals out there, I will share them with you on our site.