Costco blog/discussion forum

Most people don't even know what a power inverter is, but once they find out they understand how useful it could be. Costco.com offers several:

• Vector 400 Watt Inverter (Costco Item # 226396), $34.99 (Pictured)
• Vector 100 Watt Slim Inverter (Costco Item # 992828), $29.99

Why do you need an inverter? A converter plugs into the cigarette lighter of a car and provides a household-like 120 V AC outlet. So, it allows you to plug in your laptop, cell phone charger, digital camera battery recharger, electric shaver, portable DVD player, or whatever into your car.

The 400 W model also allows you to draw directly from the car's battery, with a cable similar to what you use for jump starting a car. If you need more than 200 Watts, you'll need to connect directly to the battery. The wiring to the cigarette lighter in the car cannot handle that much current.

The Vector 100 Watt inverter is more mobile. In fact, it can be used on many airplanes to plug into the plane's electrical system. See The Seat Guru for information on which seat to pick.

The prices that Costco.com offers on these inverters are competitive, but not a great deal. You can find the 100 W inverter on Amazon for about $23, once you include shipping. The 400 Watt model goes for about $45, once you include shipping. I would buy from costco.com, in case you need to return it.

Costco.com is selling a wireless video baby monitor system, the Q-See 2.4" TFT monitor with wireless camera (Costco item #298791, available online only). This comes with a small handheld monitor, a camera, two power adapters, and a video cable. Both the camera and monitor can run off of either batteries or the power adapter, which is plugged into the wall.

You probably want to mount the camera somewhere in the baby's room, plugged into a wall outlet. If you use batteries on the camera, you'll spend a fortune, since the 4 AA batteries will only last about 5 hours. The monitor, on the other hand, can run off batteries. The trick is to put the monitor in sleep mode, (turn off the video portion) when you aren't actively looking at it.

This wireless baby monitor is regularly priced at $189 at costco.com, with shipping and handling included. However, a $20 discount is available for the month of June 2008. This does not appear to be a great deal. You can get the same $169 price, directly from the Q-See store. Since it's the same price, you might as well buy it from costco.com in case you need to return it. The Q-See store, however, also sells a second camera for $69.99.

If you have a digital camera and hate hooking it up to your computer to download the photos, Costco.com has the solution for you. It's called the Eye-Fi 2GB SD card (Costco Item #253191).

This is how it works. You plug this in your camera, just like any other SD card. Your camera thinks it is a 2GB SD card and acts just like it always did. When your camera is on and in range of your wireless network, your photos are automatically uploaded to a website (it could be Costco Photo Center, Facebook, Shutterfly, Smugmug, Walmart, Picasa, Kodak Gallery, or PhanFare for example). Before you first use it, you have to configure some things on your home computer. But once it is set up, just shoot photos and they will appear online. Your home computer will also get a copy of the photos.

This is a new product, and there are some problems. The biggest one seems to be that you have to delete these photos from your 2 GB SD card. Of course, you don't want to delete them until you are sure that they have been properly transfered. So, you have to go look on your computer and compare one by one the photos on your computer with the photos on your camera. Another problem is that it only transfers jpg images. If you like to shoot movies with your digital camera, they will remain on the card and you will have to transfer them the old way.