Micro SD Trials and Tribulations

So I decided I needed some sort of fall back plan if the wireless system to the sign goes down for a significant period of time. While browsing the internet I came across this MicroSD shield from Sparkfun.com .  I thought it would be just as easy and hooking up a few wires and bam I'd be saving away on the card.  Well it should have been.  But I struggled all day with this. I could get it to recognize the card, finally I was able to write to the card with the library that sparkfun had on their site.  However I couldn't read to it. I found all sorts of great libraries for FAT16 file systems out on the internet, but most had the wiring to the arduino done differently.  Even if I went into the code of the library to change the pin setup it still wouldn't work.  I couldn't understand why sparkfun had the final pin to the micro SD holder go to pin 8 instead of 10 like everyone else.  So this morning I rewired the shield to my arduino and low and behold we're writing and aving info just like that.  Almost made yesterday worth it, almost.  I wouldn't hesitate purchasing the shield from sparkfun I would however be aware that it isn't going to sit properly on top of your arduino.  You'll have to think of some other wiring system.