Travel-downloading photos to ipod and from ipod to any computer for cd´s.

Question

important! i own a 5th generation 30GB ipod video, i have been researching in great detail the use of my ipod as a mass storage device.
i´m currently in south america traveling and using my ipod to store photos. i have the ipod photo conecter and can confirm that it takes approximately 10 mins to download a 256MB sd card from my canon ixus 55 5MPixel camera. this only used approximately 1-3 to half of a fully charged ipod. im sure that it would be able to easily download a 512MB sd card through the same camera. (It seems also that the battery indicator is not visually acurate and still has significant power suply even when in the red zone)
previously i had a canon V3 3.2MPixel camera with a 128MB card this also downlowded but sometimes would stall. i´m sure that with a fully charged camera and a fully charged ipod this problem should not continue. i also reset my ipod before transfere and then ensure that the photo import funtion is acivated in the main menu.
So far the ipod has been a great product for the use of storage of data and the use of listening to music whilst traveling. to also be able to view the photos on teh road is also great.
ªªthe problem of slow transfere speed is due to the usb1.1 conection and not usb2.0 as indicated by other forum sites which have tested the speed in relation to other items. Also the drain on the battery is due to no other power source in the ipod photo conecter, it therefor pulls the power from the ipod.
An important question still remains, when traveling it is important to make back up cd´s of the taken photos incase of loss or theft of the ipod.
is it possible to plug the ipod using the usb conector to any computer with out itunes?(with windows?)
if so...
Does this recognise the ipod as a seperate mass storage device on the computer and then would you be able to transfere all the photo files across to a cd?
if any one can please answer this important question it would be much appreciated. i hope the info provided can help anyone thankyou garv low.

Answer 1

Just to piggyback on to this: I've got a Powerbook using apple mail with my gmail account. It's set up as a POP account, leaving the mail on the server. It works fine.
I just got a Touch, and synched the Touch email to the Powerbook email settings, and that worked fine, except that it seems like the Touch downloaded the email from the server without leaving a copy. Or at least, it downloaded the emails, then deleted them by hand on the Touch, and when I looked on the server, they were gone. It seems like the Touch is acting as an IMAP, but I'm not sure.
So I guess I have three possible questions:
1.) How can I configure my Touch to look at recent emails without downloading them, or at least without deleting them on the server if I delete them on the Touch?
or
2.) Do I need to change my Powerbook Mail set up to IMAP? or
3.) Is there something I need to change in my Gmail account settings?
Any help or referrals would be appreciated.