Thanks everyone. I too would like to know why someone said not to use the camera's transfer ability; my camera came with a utility program & cable specifically for transferring photos. It has worked fine, knock on wood. As for the cards, I bought the same cards I always buy, but maybe they are making them differently now? not sure. Or maybe my card reader is malfunctioning. not sure. So I'll just keep transferring via EOS Utility for now. (which does not use up the battery that much, BTW--the transfer is fairly fast and the camera shuts itself off after it's done, if I have to let it go awhile/walk away from it)

that should do it

I can't post to this.

It really doesn't seem that big of a deal of what always-bezzee did in getting that post to move. It couldn't be replied to so it couldn't be moved. It had sat there for almost 10 days and to me that was more annoying than the process to move it... which was a clever tip that might come in useful. On most forums there are admins that check their places everyday to move these things along. This isn't one of those places and I agree that post could have sat there for a much longer time.