When I test cameras, I prefer to do so under real situations. I photograph the kids indoors, landscapes outdoors, and generally carry the camera with me for a week or two. And every so often, it poses challenges, like when I recently wanted to transfer my images to my PC, but a previous reviewer had crammed the wrong USB cable into the box. So I pulled the card, stuffed it into the reader I keep in my laptop bag, and nothing.

After a brief look at various products online, I ordered an Ultra ULT31803 Flash Card Reader from Tiger Direct that supports just about every memory card format I could imagine including SD, CF, MMC, SMC, XD, and various Memory Stick formats. (Manufacturers like to list every variant, in this case 22 of them, which is great for consumers who want to ensure compatibility, but it makes for boring reading here).

The ULT31803 worked like a dream. I simply plugged it into my Vista laptop and I was copying files at USB 2.0 speeds. The Ultra All-in-One reader is available online for around CDN $20.