That's astounding.

le nube, I probably don't want to commit to more than 6 months to a year.

Thanks for those links, by the way. I'm going to play around with the free version of dropsend.com. If that doesn't meet my needs, both they and transferbigfiles.com have $5/month options that may suffice.

It looks like the free version of megaupload takes about 2 hours to upload one of the typical files I'll be receiving, so that's the benchmark I'm testing against.

excellent. would you let me know what you finally decide? I'm curious.

Any suggestions on a laser printer that works well with Macs.

I have a brother HL2040 [link]

It's USB, it's plugged into the USB jack on the Airport Extreme wi-fi router. I can print from my iMac, from my Win7 laptop, and work MacBook Pro with no problem at all. I don't do a lot of printing. But it works great for me. I got an older version of this for old job, and it was about 2 years before I had to replace the ink cartridge. Again, not a ton of printing, but a heck of a lot more than I do at home.

I print a whole lot, at least by home standard - whole books for editing, some brochures and pamphlets for political groups I belong to. I'd say at least medium by home office standards.

My Hp 1320 has worked like a champ. They want to sell me expensive cartridges, but I get no name ones through Amazon for $35 that last at least 5,000 pages. That is around 7/10ths of a page for toner. I'm on windows, but assume HP works with Macs. Again B&W and only makes sense if your volume is high enough if your volume is high enough that a low per page price is worth a higher up-front cost. (Though the 1320 is not that much more expensive than comparable brothers. Also the duplex printing (ability to print on both sides) can be very convenient. Maybe these days that is universal, but when I bought it a lot in the same price range lacked duplex printing

I ended up getting an HP laser printer (P2055dn). It's plugged into our desktop and I can print wirelessly that way. I ended up getting it because it does double sided printing and seems like it should last. Plus, it's a tax deduction.

Cool. I suggest getting a generic laser toner well before your current one wears out. (You can check to see how many pages your toner is good for.) If you live in a major city maybe you can buy locally. Otherwise on-line is your best bet. I get mine for $35 from somebody's Amazon store. Locally the same thing (generic, not real HP) is $85. Again if you don't live in a hick town the price difference may be less. But check it out now so you don't have to buy in a hurry. Check if there is an extended cartridge that lasts for more pages than the standard. The price difference is usually worth it in savings per page. And if there is an HP extended, there will be a generic extended.

I don't mean you need to get it now. But check out the price difference between local and on-line so you know whether on-line saves you enough to be worth it, and then if on-line is best for you, order well before your current one wears out so you don't need to buy a new one in a rush and end buying locally or paying for express shipping.

I need to purchase a couple outdoor security cameras that will send and save video to a laptop. Preferably wireless and battery-run, and easy for a near-Luddite to set up and run. I've browsed and am confused. Any suggestions?

I would lean away from wireless if possible. Battery run means you have to keep climbing up to them to get them down to recharge the batteries. Wireless usually means they are easily interfered with. When I have purchased them for work (theater), I've had nothing but problems with them. They work fine for one minute, then screwey picture the next. It's amazing what interferes with wireless signals, especially consumer grade electronics. The ones I've played with might be a wireless camera, but they have receivers that need to connected to the recording device. I don't recall any that had the receivers IN the recording device. It's a pain in the butt to run cables everywhere, and the temptation is to have the little receivers close to the recorder, but for clear signal, I would suggest the receivers as close to the cameras as possible. So if the camera is mounted outside the bedroom window, the receiver is inside the bedroom window. And then you run video cable from there to where ever the recorder is.

That said, something like this might be what you are thinking of: [link]

not sure if those are battery powered cameras or not, but it gets you on the path to what you are thinking about.

Thank you, omnis, for the advice and the rec. This is a good start.