You know your life is going to suck for the next few hours when you insert your 4GB CF memory card into a reader and this shows up on the screen. Clicking on the card proceeded to freeze the laptop, subsequent attempts at mounting the card normally via USB reader (two different readers) and a PC Card adapter was futile.
I was out on location and happen to also have my own laptop with me so I ran Photo Rescue (which I highly recommend owning if you’re a photographer to analyze the card and recover the images from the un-readable card.
Laptop buckled-in, Photo Rescue running to recover images as I went back out to the location to shoot new images just in case the recovery attempt failed.
Shot my new images and inserted the wireless card for Verizon Wireless National Access and the laptop doesn’t recognize the card at all. I transmit one image via cellphone while rebooting the laptop, get the card to work then move two more images.
So things weren’t totally FUBAR, Photo Rescue ended up recovering all the images (about halfway back on the drive to the office). Photojournalism is often about problem solving and sometimes the problems you need to solve have nothing to do with taking photos.