not just any port will do

I know a lot more today than I did two days ago about this. It’s my 2006 all-occasion gift from hubby, covering birthday, retirement, Mother’s Day, 25th wedding anniversary, and probably Christmas too.

After our trip to Future Shop yesterday I spent the afternoon puzzling through the operation manual, pushing buttons and arrows, cycling through menus, downloading software and finally taking a few test photos.

All went swimmingly until I came to the final step, transferring photos from memory card to PC.
I followed the procedure described in the manual to the letter but on pushing the button that should have seen my computer leap into action and begin transferring pictures - nothing.


So I plugged and unplugged devices, restarted the computer, tried to reload the USB driver (it was already installed – did I want to uninstall it – Cancel!), fiddled with the cable input into the camera but after at least an hour of repeating each of these things many times I still had no transfer and was completely stymied.

As a last resort, I checked the back of the CPU to where I had plugged in the USB cable. That connection had sure seemed wiggly earlier and I wonder if by chance it had fallen out.

For some reason I noticed, then, while peering back there, the smallest of openings beside the USB port that connects to the printer. Could it be that this was where that cable belonged, and not that bigger loose port. I easily slipped the cable from its sloppy porthole, then jiggled and coaxed it into its proper snug one. Duh!

I went to bed then, but this morning my jpgs tranferred smooth as oil. I have lilacs to prove it.

Can’t you almost smell them?

I love my new Panasonic digital camera (with its 10x zoom and built in stabilizer). Although I’m sure I’ll never be a macro expert like Bonnie and Tim, or compose as beautifully as Island Sparrow's friend Rhinda (though Islandsparrow takes some pretty fine pictures herself), I plan on having a lot of fun! And along with all the stuff I learned about the new camera - I am now also very clear on what a USB port looks like!