ingenuity
About ten days ago I bought an adapter from a company that advertised on eBay. The adapter converts a compact flash card into an IDE interface for a laptop. Basically it lets you use a CF card in a laptop as if it were a hard drive. The company that sold the adapter was based in Hong Kong. The adapter is a rather simple device, basically consisting of a PC board with a 44-pin connector on one end and a socket for a CF card on the other, with a very few other components soldered to the board.
The adapter arrived in the mail today, in an small padded envelope. I was a bit surprised to see it arrive that way both because computer gear is normally shipped in a box, and also because it arrived so soon. I had assumed it would take longer than that to clear customs.
Looking at the customs declaration form that was attached to the front of the envelope, I noticed that the box marked "gift" was checked, and the contents were described as "card". That seemed fairly clever, though I suspect that a customs official reading the form would not appreciate these particular goods being described that way.
Then on opening the envelope I saw a small pink box with a ribbon around it. Inside the box was the CF to IDE adapter.
The adapter arrived in the mail today, in an small padded envelope. I was a bit surprised to see it arrive that way both because computer gear is normally shipped in a box, and also because it arrived so soon. I had assumed it would take longer than that to clear customs.
Looking at the customs declaration form that was attached to the front of the envelope, I noticed that the box marked "gift" was checked, and the contents were described as "card". That seemed fairly clever, though I suspect that a customs official reading the form would not appreciate these particular goods being described that way.
Then on opening the envelope I saw a small pink box with a ribbon around it. Inside the box was the CF to IDE adapter.