Dave's Favorites: Copy Pictures to Your PC With Bonzai Flash Drive

I love my 256MB USB flash drive. It's a tiny, key-fob sized gadget that's compatible with any USB port, without needing drivers in most recent versions of Windows. (If you want to use this kind of drive with Windows 9x, you'll need to install drivers.) I carry it everywhere, and for good reason. For example, I was at a convention a few weeks ago when someone couldn't get his laptop to connect to the LCD projector. I popped out my USB flash drive and copied the PowerPoint presentation to a second laptop. Like the superhero USB Man, I saved the day.

And did I point out that my particular USB flash drive is upgradeable? It might be a 256MB device today, but if I replace the Secure Digital card inside it, I can have a 512MB flash drive tomorrow. Try that with your average flash drive!

What is this wonderful device? It's the Bonzai USB 2.0 Upgradeable Flash Drive from SimpleTech. And it is quite amazing--just pop off the cover and you can replace the gadget's SD card quickly and easily. That makes it upgradeable, but it also makes it the easiest way to transfer pictures from your digital camera to a PC. As long as your camera has an SD card slot (and these days, many do) you don't need to carry a USB cable, desktop flash memory drive, or any other doodads. Slip the SD card from your camera into the Bonzai, and you're in business.

I've used mine for months now and I love its flexibility. You can buy one in a variety of memory capacities from 64MB to 512MB (SimpleTech preinstalls the SD card), or get the flash drive empty and install your own SD card. An empty drive costs just $29, and prices for the populated version range from $79 for 64MB to $389 for 512MB.