My new camera has a USB port, and it uses the USB mass storage protocol to allow the computer to access the files. Protocol standards are great: it’s a pity all developers don’t read them, especially when they are developing a product that implements the protocol.
I connected my FinePix to my ThinkPad, they said hello, then Linux got confused. I asked what the problem was, and Linux told me that FinePix was answering all the questions strangely: there was extra bit where there should not have been extra bits.
I asked the Google-monster if he’d heard about any similar problems and it told me about Linux and a Sony Clie who seemed to be having the same conversation. The solution that worked there was to ask Linux to just ignore the extra bits and hope they didn’t matter. I tried this, and FinePix and Linux have been best of friends ever since.
I don’t know for sure who caused the proble. Being a Linux fan(atic) I tend to believe that the Linux hackers got the protocol right, and my other USB mass storage devices seem to agree with me. But that isn’t really the point: if I hadn’t been using a Free OS, I couldn’t have fixed the problem in 20 minutes, and my new camera would soon be full of images that I couldn’t access.