OT: Former computer whiz needs help!!

 

       Hey guys I know this isn't really the place to ask this, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated, enough to raise the old blood pressure..

       Can anyone tell me how to connect a Digital camera to my Dell PC? My Samsung camera ( my birthday present last monday) has a USB cable, but the manual, well let's be frank.. IT SUCKS. Where to I attach the side with the pointy end? I have about 4 spots that it will fit, but I cannot get any satisfaction so far. Any Dell users here with cameras like mine?

       If I can get this figured out, not only will it help me with something personal, but you all may actual see what I look like.

       Anyone?

       Sincerely,

       Matthew

Well, the Samsung USB has a flat part that attaches to the camera, And splits at the other end to two plugs, each with a single prong. That is what I am talking about.
Well, let me give it a try,

Thanks,
Matthew

matthew, i think from the sound of it that you may be doing it backwards. the 'flat' part is the usb connector and it should plug into one of the (probably) many usb ports on your computer. probably 2 or so in the front (you may have to open a door of some kind) and a couple more on the back panel of the tower. one of the pins probably goes to the camera. although, that makes me wonder what the other pin is for. is the camera brand new? i'm also thinking that maybe there should be a different usb cable for it. most of my digital cameras from cheap to expensive use a cable that has a connector with a bunch of tiny pins wrapped in an odd shaped metal plug and a usb connector at the computer end.

another solution for you would be if the camera has a removable media like an sd (secure digital) card, you could pull it from the camera and use an adapter (that you can pick up at any electronics store, or wallyworld for $5) to plug it into a usb port on the computer. if the dell is a laptop newer than about 5 years, it may have media ports built into it for micro drives, sd cards, and micro sd cards. some towers even have those. in this case, you just take the card from the camera and plug it directly into the computer and access it through 'my computer'. it will present as a 'removable drive'.

vv

The smaller all these memory devices get, the more complicated! There's just too many holes in our computers!! ;-)

hey matthew, take a picture of the cord and send me a pic of it via email, and maybe i can tell you which end is the usb end. oh yeah.............................................

are you sure you are not missing an adapter or something in the package?

vv

great, matthew! now you can share pics of yer rock collection!

hey, getting back to your dilemma. that other cable that you were first describing. were the two connectors on the other end exactly the same?.......only maybe with different color code.......like maybe red and white or yellow and white?...........look kind of like a crown with one solid pin right in the middle? if so, that is prolly the cable that you can hook up to your tv (if it has RCA jacks on the back) or your vcr....some vcr's have a couple even on the front of the machine for input.....always some on the back for input. that is so you can hook the camera up to your tv and run a slide show on your tv screen. one of the leads is for video and the other is for sound, assuming your camera takes video clips, and most of them do these days.

three easy ways, matthew. if the camera has a removable card like i talked about earlier, either with an adapter, or direct port in the computer, you just plug it in, access it through 'my computer' and move the files to your hard drive. or, after you have them on one computer, burn a cd or dvd with all the pics on it, and then put the cd or dvd into the other computers and load them onto your hard drive again accessing them through 'my computer', only this time you will be looking at your D or E drive which are usually the cd or dvd drives. or you can just download (using the cable you just found) the pics from the camera to each computer the same way you did with this one. nowadays they also have little 2inch flash drives, you can pick up a 1 to 2 gig flash drive with a usb fitting on the end that you can just load them over to the flash drive from one computer and take it to another computer, plug it in, and take em off there to the hard drive of that computer. you can pick up a 1 gig for $10 to $15 now, and a 2 gig from $15 to $25 if you shop around.

vv

Oh those things? I donated them to a secret ninja organization to use like those spikey things assisting in quick getaways!
LOL
Actually, I'm talking about getting them from my harddrive onto a website or other such thing. I got 'em on my harddrive, a few pics of my fishtank..

Ciao,
Matthew

Ok, I signed on to that website. Now what?

Matthew

Matthew,

I would recommend downloading Picasa - it's a Google application. The neat thing about is is once you plug in your camera and turn it on, then Picasa will start up automatically, show you the pictures on your camera and ask if you want them downloaded to your computer. Once downloaded you can upload them to several different sites to order or just post so others can see - I order from Snapfish or Shutterfly, but there are several others. Very easy to use - I've been using it for several years now.

It also has tools to "fix" your pictures; ie, Red eye, cropping, turn them to B&W, etc.

pup

Well for the one thing I needed, I already have the hang of it. I'll do this one of yours, since I'd like to eventually share some pics of my fish tank on ReefCentral. They use photobucket to post them.
I'm starting to figure this out now, but thanks to all for your help!

Ciao,
Matthew