Once you actually start using your digital camera, you will undoubtedly find that digital pictures take up a lot of space on your computer. If you follow my first tip and end up taking thousands of pictures, you’ll either need to buy a gigantic hard drive or look into detachable storage options.

Personally I think that CD-ROMs are the best way to go. Blank CD-ROM disks are inexpensive and can be read by every computer made. These days most computers come with CD-RW drives for “burning” CD-ROMs; if you don’t have a machine with an internal CD-RW drive external drives are available.

CD-ROMs are also great for sharing your photos with family and friends: you can create a custom CD-ROM for your family showing where you went on your vacation, or for your friend with pictures of her wedding.

As long as the intended person has their own computer, they can take your pictures and print them out, make them into posters, create Web sites, and do many other things that they couldn’t do if you just sent snapshots.