For many occupations there are data-processing applications to assist. Without the assistance of digital data-processing, many occupations would be back in the stone age! There are noteworthy exceptions, such as skilled trades, some of which benefit only slightly from data-processing capability.

Photography uses data-processing from beginning to end (the output of the sensor to the output of the print head)! But the light striking the camera sensor, and reflecting off the print, are analog signals. Digital cameras are essentially specialized computers that transform analog light signals into digital representations via digital processing done to sensor data, which are subsequently recorded on storage-media.

This process requires a microcontroller, storage contoller/manager, operating system, display, graphical user interface, and many times an on-screen keyboard and touch-screen; just like a small home/office computer.

Digital cameras are different than data-processing systems that have much more computing power; peripherals such as monitors, scanners and printers, external keyboards and pointing devices. But the fundamental principles of semiconductor microprocessors/microcontrollers that use 'and/or' gates (open or closed transistors) to manipulate binary numbers, internal ram memory, BIOS (Basic Input Output System), a vibrating quartz frequency standard (clock), various I/O (Input/Output) ports and controllers, interrupt signals, a file system, a display controller, networking adapter, USB controller, and audio controller are the same!

Smart watches
digital cellular phones (including smart phones)
networking routers
cable modems
home computers
laptops
digital cameras
home theater systems
digital projectors
analytical measurementation instruments
medical monitoring systems
droids
cars
lithium battery chargers
light and sound measurement instrumentation
chromotography and mass spectrometry equipment
electron microscopes
fitness trackers
GPS receivers
two-way radios
precision clocks
music/disc players
IoT (Internet of Things: remote sensors, video doorbells, home automation, remote security access)
flat-screen TV/displays
Amazon Kindle
Modern home appliances
& Calculators

are all specialized computers, designed to assist mankind in performing some necessay function. So, don't get the idea that a digital camera isn't doing PP, because the camera does more PP (to the sensor image) than any other step in the process!

So, if we're going to use digital data-processing in our cameras, it's a little late to forbid such use outside the camera! PP is an extension of the camera, functions not included in the camera's operating system which is very minimalist, because it must be fast and small.

I view my tools, whether used for photography, or home and auto repair, as extensions of my mind and hands that greatly increase my capabilities, and therefore the value of my contributions to this world. But the most powerful element in creation of great images is not the lens, nor the body, nor the brand, nor the latest features in photo/PP/printing equipment!

So, then, what could it be, if it's none of those? I'm stumped! Oh, wait, could it be the human mind!? None of that other stuff will help without a mind behind it. Every tool is inert without a mind to conceive how to use it. And where there is no knowledge there is no wisdom. We can only know how if we know how!

But how can we use PP if we don't know how? The mind has amazing faculties of learning. Rather than join the bandwagon of those whose entire purpose for existence is to promote learning only what they deem is necessary--because no one needs to know that other stuff (those who claim(ed) they'd never use high-school algebra in real life come to mind)--I am willing to at least evaluate promising possibilities for better photos; possibilities that involve expenditure of time and effort!

For instance, on my personal computing devices I use Android (which is Linux) or Linux. I get 1,000x the number of software packages, and if I ever lose the system, I only need a backup of one directory, and I can reinstall all of my applications with all of my settings, at one time, off the Internet. I just feed the package manager the list of programs I had on the last system, and I can come back 20 minutes later, and the system will be exactly how it was before I lost it, right down to all the logins stored in my web browser and every customization I performed bar none!

The same thing applies to OS upgrades. But I use Debian, which supports each release for 5 years. After 5 years, the packages are available, but no further updates will be made except security updates. For this convenience I pay not one penny!

I can do so much more with digital images than LR or PS, it isn't even worth getting into! It's like a car vs a horse. I can crop and scale 1000 photos in 2 minutes. I can work with every format of RAW image, make movies with Cinellera (If not for Linux and Cinellera, movies like Avatar would require 10 years of PP!)!

I can make 3D animations from digital still images, and batch-process video frame-by-frame. I can also use PS, but I don't find it as flexible as GIMP! There are more Linux applications than any other OS, and 85% of Internet-connected devices, and most of the Internet itself, runs on Linux. The distribution I use has 59,000+ applications available, plus millions more in source-code form! I can install 1 or 10,000, or 50,000 of them, or anywhere in between!

So, what did I have to do to get all that? First, I had to admit to myself that Linux might be better than what I had. That same admission applies to PP. I was using PP before I owned a digital camera! I immediately saw it for what it is: an extension to my creativity!

Once I've established the value of a new thing, I sit down and learn it! I don't just read everything about it first. Picture this, you have read everything there is to know about a certain person! But you still have no idea of what meeting in person would be like! That's the same with new tools. How many books does anyone read about 'how to take a shower'? You really won't know until you try! Or, try to learn how to drive out of a book!

I have a relative who posed a question to himself, 'Which one should I choose for photography? Film or digital?' He picked film! I told him it wasn't to late to switch, that perhaps he couldn't make a fair comparison, due to lack of experience. He got angry for me presumimg to know what's best for 'him'!

But, I think we can agree here that digital is better than film for almost everything. So, don't get stuck being stodgy. Try out new things, and keep the good ones.

It's a gotcha that gets keeps many folks busy for weeks, until they give up. Flash drive manufacturers would sell a lot more drives if users were made aware of this very thing. USB<>SD-card adapters have no drive controller to speak of, so the SD-cards operate at a slow speed. If you want it to go faster, you can use MicroSD cards inside a mobile device that can accept such cards in a removable drawer.

You should connect the mobile device to a powered USB hub, so the phone can charge while you do your copying. Otherwise, it might go dead. The transfer rate with a typical mobile-device storage controller is 20-30x what you get with an USB<>SD-card adapter.

That's what I do if I'm in a rush.

Flash memory on SD-cards is much slower than even a HDD. When you use a USB<>SD-card adapter, or a card reader, the operating system writes the file names, and allocates the space on the SD-card while it's waiting for the actual content to be written.

All the file names are there, but with no contents in many of the files. The operating system goes into waiting, which puts the cpu in a wait state, during which time that particular cpu core can't do anything but wait while the data is written to the much slower Flash memory.

That usually doesn't matter, because only a few thousand wait states occur together. But when writing GBs of photos to a SD-card, you get millions of wait states all at once, and the time between when it looks like the data is written and when it really is written can be hours. Everything that can be done is completed, such as allocating space in the Flash memory, and writing the file names. The process to copy the files exits, and the operating system completes the writing in the background.

When you do anything with a computer, it uses a process to complete that task (actually many processes). When the task is complete, the process corresponding to it exits, or 'dies'. So, that is why it looks like the operation completes, when in actuality the files have not all been written. For 100GB transfer, wait at least an hour after you think it's done. Then try to access the files on the SD-card.

There are utilities available to show cpu wait % per core. I'm not sure what they are for Windows. You'd have to google it. In multithreaded operating systems, such as MacOS and Linux, the story is slighlty different, but not much. After the cpu has finished all its wait states, the data should all be written to the SD-card.

But you need the utility to actually see that the cpu is in stuck in a wait state! It is a design flaw in personal computers. MacOS and Linux have a program called 'sync'. If you run sync after the copy operation appears complete, when 'sync' exits, the job is actually done.

So, now you have two ways to check if the files have been copied.

It's always good to know the equipment is at least 'capable' of producing the desired results. I'm astounded at how sharp some lenses actually are! It's a great technological achievement! No if we can just produce smaller, lighter equipment, which is what mirrorless does--smaller, faster lenses.

In my book, that is the only justification for switching to mirrorless, except DSLR's days are now numbered for new bodies! Who doesn't want smaller and faster!? I'm not sure, but you might even gain sharpness placing the lens closer to the sensor, as it is with mirrorless.

Samsung are probably the best SSDs. You would want a 2TB NVMe m.2 m-key 2280 drive and one of the hundreds of external enclosures that hold that type of drive. I only recommend this because then the drive isn't married to the enclosure, so it has it's own controller, and it can be swapped out into newer, faster enclosures as they become available.

NVMe m.2 has been a standard for over 10 years, and was designed for a 20-year lifespan. USB standards are changing all the time, every few years. So, the drive will be totl for a long time, even if USB3.1 is not. The enclosures are inexpensive, but you want one that allows drive trimming. If the operating system cannot periodically trim the drive, it gets slower and slower until it's like a flash drive, because that's essentially what is without tricks like trimming.

Costco and Sams are the worst places to purchase anything that has to do with data-processing, i.e. personal computers. The best place is probably Amazon.com, because you have access to everything you could ever possibly need, and a very low price!

For instance, you will never find a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe m.2 drive at a retail outlet, unless it's by random chance that someone returned a special-order item. And no sane individual would shop at a brick-and-mortar retail shop for something like that. So, you have to go online to find the good stuff!

I calculated how long a Sansung 2TB like I've described would last under extensive use, and it's over 100 years. So, you don't need to worry about the flash-memory chips wearing out. But you should get the 970 or 980 'Pro', not 'EVO'! You'll be happy when your drive doesn't fail!

But always remember, if it isn't stored on at least 2 different drives, it isn't backed up! Any drive can fail at any moment! Have at least 2 copies of everything! Don't think of an archive like a backup.

Undoubtedly not a SSD, but a mechanical drive that is, at best, 1/10 the speed of the slowest SSD!

Sometimes you need a storm. I was shooting a creepy looking crematorium with a black, wraught-iron fence around it! It was stormy, and in the shots one could see water droplets falling from the fence in the foreground. If I'd taken those on a sunny day, it would be like shooting Frankenstein's monster wearing makeup! Which, ironically enough, is what it wore much of in the films, but not for the glamour!

Super shot, BTW. I couldn't ask more from the color in that duck! Superb!

Luck is the bastion of ignorance. With sufficient intelligence, luck vaporizes, and all things become certainties, one way or the other. So, is anyone all-knowing? Then random chance plays a role. On the more philosophical side, photography, like fishing, presents one with a perpetual occasion for hope. That hope once fulfilled is harnessed by greedy capitalists to sell new gear on the promise of even greater hope fulfilled! Those with more money than talent always fall for it!

Belief is much more influemtial than fact. If one believes golf is in the club, magic is in the wand, and great photos are in the equipment, luck has everything to do with it!

It's very easy to contact eBay.com support. You don't call them. They call you. You look in 'help'. Search for some keywords. Go to one of the returned links, scroll to the bottom. Wait about 3 min, so it looks like you actually read the page.

Where it says, "Was this page helpful?" select "No". Scroll down after that until you reach "contact us". Click that, and select, "Have us call you". Put in the phone number where you'll be available for the next 10 minutes, and click, "OK".

There will be an estimated time stated for how long you will have to wait. I'm on the line with eBay support at least once a month. They don't want members using tech support instead of the help files. If it appears the member tried to use help, then they are willing to use live support.

The agents are usually pretty good. Ebay has over a billion listings, 165 million buyers per day, and I don't even know how many sellers.

They've got to do something to temper use of live support, or they couldn't afford to pay the light bill!

Keep in mind that public health-care in other countries is rated by survivors. The dead tell no tales. In Canada there is a saying, "If you want good medical care, be a dog or a cat!" That's because the animal health-care system is private!

And if you want to see bureaucratic nightmares, I invite you to The UK, where it is impossible to see a doctor the same day. It's nice to never receive a bill, but those who are wealthy enough come to the USA for anything serious. I worked at a surgery clinic, in fact two of them, and a surprising number of patients have foreign mailing addresses. That's because either a certain nation's health-care system is incapable of providing the care required, or the patient doesn't trust public health-care to treat him for a certain ailment.

In the USA, most doctors have appointment slots that are not given out until that day. The first people to call in the morning get those appointments. In my system, if my doctor is unavailable, I can see a different doctor, that day! You probably can't sign up your son, because he's an adult, and you're logged in to 'you're' account! They can't have the patients just signing up whoever they want to!

But you may live in an area without competition. The care can get pretty shabby when that occurs, probably only slightly better than public health-care. UK does not permit pregnant foreigners in the courtry unless they got pregnant after they got there. They don't have the money to pay for even one more childbirth than is strictly necessary.

The US has a law, if a hospital accepts Medicare, it must provide prenatal care, even though that is not covered ordinarily by Medicare, regardless of the mother's insurance coverage. If you try really hard to get stuff done with your provider network, it'll work you like a dog! But if you don't really care, like medical care is optional to you, the network will climb to mountaintops to make sure you get the care they say you need.

Unless you're habitually late paying. Then they neglect you as you neglect them. The trick is: don't respond to any communication, like updating your record, any type of special services (dietician, diabetes nurse, exercise classes, and all that stuff). Once they're sure you don't really care, they'll put out the red carpet! It's on patients like you that they lose all their money, because you don't receive the maximum amount of care you're entitled to by your insurance.

Aliexpress can be expensive and long shipping. But it's definitely the best for the price. Sometimes it's the only choice. But Chinese have a few terminology differences. Gold is anything that looks like gold. Laser power ratings are wildly contrived, and many times require kits to jack up the power. Sometime it's a theoretical figure based on the diode capacity.

There are many pitfalls like that with Chinese sites. But, aliexpress has exclusives on thousands of items. I search everywhere for a certain microprocessor. I found one for 35.00. But in my search I found it on ali for around 2.30. But I had to buy 100.

You won't make money if you buy it on eBay and turn around and list the same item. You have to get your supply somewhere else. If a dealer spends 8 hours a day finding bargains, he'll make about 40,000.00/year, about what that type of work, investment and risk is worth.

In fact, it is almost impossible to make more money on eBay than some other job. I wouldn't bother with anything I couldn't list at a 100% markup, and get it! Otherwise, you'll get nickled and dimed to death, get negative feedback and fail.

If the seller can make more selling elsewhere, he should sell elsewhere. But most people can't. If I could find a market like eBay with lower fees, I would use it. Amazon is even higher fees. Etsy is kind of a joke. In the end it doesn't matter how much you pay in fees, as long as you keep more of the sale price vs some other market.

Selling price - expenses = profit. If you get 20% less at a dealer that has no fees, but eBay charges 13%, you're making 7% more with eBay.

EBay automotive is quite risky unless you see the item in person, which is recommended. Sorry for your poor experience!

I don't know what that is.