The Trouble with Macs and Media Card Readers

I purchased a 19 in 1 card reader for 14.95 Canadian. It works perfectly with my PowerMac 4 with OSX Tiger and also my PC Athlon 1.2 puter also running Linux Suse 9.1 Pro and XP Pro. All systems run perfect through USB 2. Check out this card reader from Factorydirect.ca

I am apparently missing something, why do one need a media card reader to download images from a A80? iPhoto takes the pictures right out of my A85 with the USB cable supplied by Canon.

saving the battery.

I have done the picture transfer through both camera and several brands of card reader and have never had such a problem. I have not used the ZIO brand however. Perhaps it isn't a mac problem, but a ZIO problem. Let me suggest a $10.00 generic reader instead. Since ZIO tells you taht a new model is on the way, it is obvious that the problem is in their hardware, not the other way around.

I work in a photographic shop and we often have media card readers returned as defective. I test them on a Vaio and Powerbook when they come into the shop and have had no instance of a media reader not working on the mac and working on the pc - not one in nearly 3 years. If it's defective on the mac, it's defective on the pc. Truth told, I have more trouble with pc drivers than I ever do with the mac. I'll go so far as to say, I have never had to download a driver for the mac over the same period and we have sold about a dozen makes over the years. Oh yes, we sell Zio readers and they work just fine in OS8 / 9 / 10.2 / 10.3 and 10.4.
Sounds like Dazzle/Zio just poked you in the eye.

It is disingenous to say that "the problem is with the Mac OS" when, in fact, "newer Zio-branded card readers won't have this problem" and "if you do experience this problem with a Dazzle card reader, you can trade it in for a newer one." The problem is with the card readers from this company, not the Mac OS!

"why do one need a media card reader to download images from a A80? iPhoto takes the pictures right out of my A85 with the USB cable supplied by Canon."

It has been documented on other sites that a card reader is faster, safer, and does not drain the camera battery. Faster because if the camera is USB 1.1, a card reader will be faster, and a FireWire card reader faster still. This makes more of a difference when using high-end cameras shooting large Raw files. Safer because there are documented cases where a USB communications glitch corrupts the files on the card. Saves the camera battery because a card reader is fully computer-powered. These three are cumulative: A camera takes longer, which uses more camera battery, which could result in a dead battery in mid-transfer, which could corrupt a photo. A card reader would never have those problems.

I had a lot of trouble with a Zio! on a Windows 2k machine, never any trouble with readers my Macs.

If you are using a G4 Powerbook with a PCMCIA slot, a Compact Flash to PCMCIA adaptor is a cheap and very fast way to load your images from a CF card. Several times faster than the USB cable that came with my Digital Rebel, perfectly accurate and iPhoto works with it seamlessly. Highly recommended.

I agree with Dean. I've downloaded thousands of photos with a PCMCIA adaptor to a powerbook since 2001 & have never had even one glitch. Why use a card reader???

OK folks, I love using my PC Card adapter for Compact Flash cards in my G4 PowerBook too. In fact, I just used it again. But if the author was one of the thousands of people with thee 12" G4 PowerBook, well, there's no PC card slot in that model! So a USB or FireWire card reader becomes the only alternative to the slow, camera-power-sapping USB cable.

In Iceland, when people failed to start their car because of the failure of battery in the extreme cold, do they consider it as a problem of the car?

If the writer could use the usb port on his mac for all other purpose while in Iceland (I presumed), then the computer could not be at faulted.

I sympathise with the writer for loosing his cool at the lost of wonderful memories of a beautiful country.

Typical Mac users. The article states that "There are numerous posts on Apple's support site and various Mac sites about it." Instead of asking the obvious question, "which support articles" or " which Mac sites," you all want to say "It isn't my beloved greater than God Steve Job's company's product. It must be the other product."

Perhaps you don't want to have thr truth told to you, that Macs crash just as much a PCs, and the there is no real justification to spending all that money on a machine who's power is stated to be less than the Intel platform by Mad Dog Steve Jobs himself. Yeah, I brought that up. Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Cry about the abosurd amount of money you spent on inferior hardware? Nah, you'll just spin this into a "this is why Macs are so great" argument, just like you always do, all of you.

troll

But have you anything to say that really refutes the author's assertion?

No?

I thought so.

Hi. I live in Chennai, india. I have used a variety of card readers and other usb devices with my iBook. we dont get any branded stuff out here. its usually made in china, wit the exception of Transcend.

never have had a problem...

Do any of you realize how many different brands of these devices there are? Anecdotal evidence that you haven't had the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Apple fans, your paranoia is scary!

Obviously more investigation needs to be done. And despite what you want to believe, every release of OS X addresses NUMEROUS bugs in the OS. It's just the way it is. There's no Santa Claus and no OS that is bug-free. Really. Deal with it. And though you want to believe that OS X is far superior to Windows XP, well, if the truth be know, both OSs have their pluses and their minuses. That's not opinion, that's fact. Use your Apples and be happy. Despite their shrinking marketplace, they're no going anywhere.

"Wahh, wahh, my Mac does not have a problem, so stop saying that it does!"

Typical Mac user response.

My powerbook g4 12" will not read from my dazzle card reader either, my other computers are pc's, they have no problem. I have no loyalty to either system, the simple fact is the mac is the problem, not the card reader. Doesnt matter if it is formated by the mac. Anyone that takes a serious amount of images realizes that the use of your camera to transfer data is ridiculous.

My powerbook g4 12" will not read from my dazzle card reader either, my other computers are pc's, they have no problem. I have no loyalty to either system, the simple fact is the mac is the problem, not the card reader. Doesnt matter if it is formated by the mac. Anyone that takes a serious amount of images realizes that the use of your camera to transfer data is ridiculous.

I have the exact same (original) oroblem My Dazzle downloads images corrupted on my Mac (G4 OS10,4,2) while it works fine on my PC (winXP)
What can I do? get a new card reader? Give up my mac? Dig out my old fild SLR?

I too have the same exact problem. Just moved from MS to OS X and only now do I see it.

Same problem here -- I use Macs for design and the older Dazzle card reader works fine with my PC. But the files are truncated when I try to import to Mac. A long way I found recently was to drag and drop everythng to a CD using the PC, and then pop that CD into the Mac. Earlier versions of OSX had no problem importing to an iBook that I have. I'll probably buy a new reader of a different brand or use the card slot that came with my PowerBook, as someone above suggested. I hope those of you who used iPhoto to import didn't choose "erase contents" -- you can still pull those files off onto a PC.

Same problem here -- I use Macs for design and the older Dazzle card reader works fine with my PC. But the files are truncated when I try to import to Mac. A long way I found recently was to drag and drop everythng to a CD using the PC, and then pop that CD into the Mac. Earlier versions of OSX had no problem importing to an iBook that I have. I'll probably buy a new reader of a different brand or use the card slot that came with my PowerBook, as someone above suggested. I hope those of you who used iPhoto to import didn't choose "erase contents" -- you can still pull those files off onto a PC.

I have the same problem here. My older Dazzle did not work with Mac OS 10. I went and got a brand new 8-1 Dazzle yesterday (aug 18th) and it has the same problem. Very frustrating. I just ordered a lexar firewire card reader fro the apple website...

I wish I would have seen these post 24 hours ago. I just lost about 100 pictures from Mackinaw Island!

I copied all the files to the Mac. Made a backup of my "corrupted" files to CD and I deleted all by files on my compact flash card.

I have never had a problem with the read on my PC. Guess I should have figured the cost of a card reader with the purchas of my new mac.