photos from PC to Mac

My fiance's parents have an old as dirt local-build PC. Connection options include and are limited to USB, parallel, PS/2, and a modem jack. There is no CD Burner. There is no network card. There is no firewire port.

What's the easiest way to get about a Gig of their precious family photos off this hunk of junk and onto my powerbook so I can burn them to a couple cd's?

I'd initially thought that I could just get a flat-to-flat USB and connect the two somehow...but there doesn't seem to be a way to make that work.

Other options I'm considering:
1. Steal a burner from one of my parents' computers, install it, burn stuff, and then put it back into parents computer.

2. Steal a network card from one of the same computers, set up a LAN . . . .

3. Buy an external case for the harddrive, make it my bitch for a few minutes -- then drop it like the used-up piece of meat that it is. This could come in handy later when I need more storage space, all i'd have to buy would be a cheap HD . . . it would really need to be firewire capable, though.

4. Get one of those USB flashdrive things. 512mb is getting relatively cheap these days.... and it COULD be useful at a later time....

5. Upload all the stuff to some internet server somewhere. a gig's kind of a lot for that....

Any other suggestions? insight? feedback?

Flashdrive -- cheapest and easiest. PLus it'll have its' redeeming value later.

You kinda need 2 to do the 5. I wouldn't even bother doing it through the modem link. That said, definitely get a USB dongle thingy (flash drive), if 512 is too expensive, get a 128mb one -- more iterations, but it'll still be faster than uploading it somewhere. I actually got a 128mb USB mp3 player on Woot.com a couple of days ago for $20, that would've been a good deal for you, 'cause that thing, I think, can be used as an USB drive as well as the music player.

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Originally Posted by Infantile Egomaniac

You kinda need 2 to do the 5. I wouldn't even bother doing it through the modem link.

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They have cable internet hooked up through the USB.

but yeah, the more i think about it the flashdrive is prolly the way to go....

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Originally Posted by focus

They have cable internet hooked up through the USB.

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So it's an external USB Ethernet card? I can't imagine that they plug in directly into the cable modem from the USB port, how would that work, there's gotta be a network card in there. Or maybe, I'm missing something? If there is a NIC, you might be able to set up a LAN with that, the problem is that you are going from PC to a MAC, and though, I don't know anything about it, I imagine it's a pain in the ass to set up a LAN between the two.

Kinda like the flash drive idea --

do you have a hard drive based MP3 player (or any MP3 player for that matter)? Dunno about the Apple ipods, but many of the other ones can be used as a portable hard drive. Just drag-n-drop your files onto the MP3 player in Windows Explorer, and transport them that way.

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Originally Posted by Infantile Egomaniac

So it's an external USB Ethernet card? I can't imagine that they plug in directly into the cable modem from the USB port, how would that work, there's gotta be a network card in there. Or maybe, I'm missing something? If there is a NIC, you might be able to set up a LAN with that, the problem is that you are going from PC to a MAC, and though, I don't know anything about it, I imagine it's a pain in the ass to set up a LAN between the two.

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There are cable modems that directly connect via usb. The computer sees it as a USB NIC.

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Originally Posted by Lurch

There are cable modems that directly connect via usb. The computer sees it as a USB NIC.

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Hmmm... Cool, didn't know that.

^^^ what he said.

and it's actually turning out to be a huge pain in the ass....not cool at all. a simple ethernet port on the back of this dinosaur would solve all my problems, besides allowing me to just plug my laptop into the internet instead of having to use this. I know how to do the whole pc/mac network thing. sorta.

i have an ipod...but it shuts me down on the pc/mac thing.

i was hoping to do this tonight, but it looks like i have to acquire some hardware before it'll be possible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by focus

^^^ what he said.

and it's actually turning out to be a huge pain in the ass....not cool at all. a simple ethernet port on the back of this dinosaur would solve all my problems, besides allowing me to just plug my laptop into the internet instead of having to use this. I know how to do the whole pc/mac network thing. sorta.

i have an ipod...but it shuts me down on the pc/mac thing.

i was hoping to do this tonight, but it looks like i have to acquire some hardware before it'll be possible.

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I've never done it but I realy think usb to usb should work. You might need to be running the same os on both computers though. I have heard of people transferring files from Mac to Mac with that method.

get a 512 USB flash drive, I got one for a specific task, and now I use it tons.

I have just finshed transfering over 300 gigs of images from a PC to a new Mac system, so this is my advice:

Your best bet is to buy an external harddrive, use it to transfer the images from the pc to it, then from it to the mac, then use the external hard drive as a secondary back up for all of your images, music, important info.

The other option is to use a jump drive. I bought a 1 gig one a fdew years ago and it has more than paid for its self.

Ideally buy both.

The other option is to try and net work the PC to the Mac,. but it will take some time, and in all honsty its worth it to just spend the money and go with the above options.