Working all day on something and then getting results that don't make sense

Today I received my 16GB Dane-elec SD card from 7dayshop. My first thought when I got it out the packet and looked at the back of the card was that it looked very much like a Toshiba card. And it turns out that it is: Toshiba appoints Dane-Elec to distribute memory products. When I formatted the card in my 450D, it only registered the card as being 14.8GB.

I thought there was some reason for this but couldn't remember why, so did a quick google to find out. Apparently manufacturers use 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes, when actually 1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes. So this what accounts for the difference.

I formatted the new memory card in my 450D, and noticed that there was a 'low level' format option on the card formatting menu. So I tried to find out what this does, and as far as I can see it is supposed to be used if your computer has some problems reading the memory card. Apparently the folder structure on the card can get messed up or something and a low level format solves this.

Anyway, while searching for info on what the low level format option did, I found this post, which covers how someone fixed autofocus issues with their 450D by doing a full reset of the camera. So I thought I would try that since my 450D still doesn't autofocus correctly.

I also received the Kingston memory card reader from 7dayshop today. The design seems to be pretty rubbish, it has a large plastic outer casing with the actual card reader bit inside being retractable. Possibly this makes it less likely that the card slots would get dirt and dust in. But it makes the reader much larger than it needs to be, and I never had any trouble with dust in the card slots on my old reader.

As well as this it has a really short (1 inch) usb cable, though will probably be suitable for use with a laptop. It comes with a USB extension cable to allow use with PCs. But it would be better in my opinion if it just used a standard mini USB jack and came with a mini USB to USB cable. This would allow cable sharing (though not at the same time) with other devices that also use the standrd mini usb connector.

Now I need to have the card reader with its built-in 1 inch USB cable, the longer USB extension cable, and a mini USB to USB cable (for connecting my GPS) on my desk. Whereas before with my old card reader I only needed the mini USB to USB cable as I could use the same cable for connecting both the GPS and the card reader.

Yesterday I received the new LP-E5 compatible battery for my 450D, but it was only 1600mAh when the photos for the product on Amazon showed 2000mAh. I contacted the seller and they offered to refund £2 of the price. Though I haven't actually received any confirmation from amazon about the part refund yet.

Most of today I was working on trying to compare some different ways of storing and displaying filenames for my photo website, but my tests seemed to give weird results, so I posted on Sitepoint forums hoping for some guidance.

In the evening I did some more sculpey / plasticine. I still have quite a bit more to do though.