Protecting Your Protecting Your Digital Memories Memories
Protecting Your Digital Memories Over the past few years, the world has seen a new craze for digital cameras and camcorders.
People nowadays prefer digital cameras to the traditional ones, where printing of photos is required in order to view them.
But digital cameras are more delicate and need better handling than their traditional counterparts. They are prone to electrical problems, mechanical wear and tear and shock impact.
By using the proper camera bags, these digital cameras can be protected from the elements.
Camera bags come in various sizes, shapes and colors. But you need to wisely choose the camera bag that is most suitable for you. You should first ask yourself what kind of photographer you are.
Are you the kind who travels a lot?? Or are you the kind who is more into metropolitan photography.
These days, there is a camera bag for almost every occasion, whether it involves you taking a stroll or going deep sea diving. Whatever the occasion, there is a bag for it.
Before you decide to buy your bag, you need to spread out all your paraphernalia and estimate the amount of space that you will need, to store all of it. It is essential that you do this.
Many of you might go in for a bag that looks very suave. But I personally recommend protection over looks.
Ensure that the bag has sufficient padding on the sides to protect the camera from those rough moments in the forest or while hiking. There are also several bags that cater to security needs.
The Pacsafe 120 wire travel protection bag is designed to prevent tampering or theft.
You can lock your bag to any pole or post and it is nearly impossible to break open the thick cords. This is ideal while travelling.
Another major player in the camera bags business is Lowepro. This manufacturer makes bags that can be split into several pieces. This enables you to allot an entire compartment to each of you lenses.
The Lowepro Stealth reporter has been one of the more successful camera bags that have ever hit the markets. It has luggage space for a camera, lenses and other gadgets as well.
It also has an inbuilt rain-protection flap that really comes in handy while outdoors.
Avoid purchasing bags that look too trendy and bags that stand out of the ordinary. These bags automatically attract unwanted attention from potential thieves.
Bags that are very bright colored or bags that are huge and have designer labels on them are likely victims of theft.
It takes a certain amount of time before which you can decide which camera bag is the right one for you. It is not a decision that can be taken on the spot but must be carefully though about before purchase.
So what are you waiting for? Go grab your gear and always remember that protection outweighs looks.
How to Backup Your Computer Files
As I write this, it’s early December, and try as I might, I can’t remember what my new year’s resolution was last time around.
One thing I can say with near hundred percent certainty is that whatever it was, I failed to keep it. Maybe you’re the same. Maybe you resolved to quit smoking, lose weight, or read more.
We all make promises with ourselves, then fail to keep those promises. Worst of all, those promises might be exactly what we need most. Consider this: When was the last time you backed up your computer files? Last month? Last year? Never?
Let’s make a new year’s resolution together, you and I. Let’s promise to back up our computers. It’s important, I promise. Just yesterday the automatic backup feature in MS Word saved me about an hour’s work when my computer froze up.
Given that I haven’t backed up my computer in almost a year, I can’t even imagine how much data I’d lose if I suffered a power surge or hard drive failure. It can happen to the best of us, and often does.
Even high end hard drive manufacturers report an average failure rate of between five and eight per thousand every year. That may not sound like much, but let’s face it, somebody has to be those five to eight people.
Feeling lucky? There are about 185 million household PCs in the U.S., according to Computer Industry Almanac, so that means about 150,000 hard drives fail each year.
But even if your drive stays intact, about a tenth of all computers suffer minor data loss in any given year. A power surge, the magnets in your home stereo speakers, or even an accidental nudge can affect data storage.
According to a report from the ONTRACK data recovery service, data loss can be caused by natural disasters (3% of cases), computer viruses (7%), software problems
(14%), and plain old user error (a whopping 32%). Now, I’m sure you never hit a wrong keyboard button, but do you have a button on your computer that prevents a bolt of lightning? I didn’t think so.
WHEREAS our data is important, and disaster can befall even the most noble and undeserving of us, BE IT RESOLVED that you and I shall back up our computer files forthwith.
Amen, brothers and sisters. Now, where and how do we start?
STEP ONE: Choosing Favorites
Not all files are important enough to preserve for posterity. The most critical files on a computer are its operating system files.
If you’re a good little consumer, you bought the operating system and kept those CDs handy and secure from data loss. If you’re not, then remind yourself to go stand in the corner later.
The drones at Microsoft did not work for years just to watch you steal their work. It’s people like you that keep Bill Gates from buying his second planet.
Now that you’ve been suitably chastised, either go buy a legal copy of the operating system, or include the necessary files in your “must back up” list.
The same principle goes for software applications.
Maybe you bought an ad and spyware blocker you really like, but the company that coded it has since gone out of business (perhaps because other consumers weren’t as scrupulous as you).
If so, include the files you need to run the app in your must list.
Now it’s time to look at the remaining files on your computer and prioritize. If you’re not a digital packrat like me, it may be possible to save everything. If so, congratulations.
I don’t have ten gigabytes of portable media at my disposal, so when I back up my computer, I’ll be leaving a few gigs of MP3s and questionable Windows Media files at risk.
One of the first things I will save is the folder I use to save my writing assignments, because that data represents money in my pocket. I’ll back up my email address book, plus my digital photography and fiction writing efforts.
I can live without “Milkshake” (what was I thinking?), but the guitar piece my friend recorded and sent to me is going on the list. Your results may vary.
STEP TWO: In Which I Tell You Where You Can Put It
That’s right, this is the section in which I’ll tell you where to store your data. It’s not a good idea to put backup files on another drive on the same computer. That defeats the whole purpose.
Duplicating your files on another computer in the same LAN is almost as risky, because computer viruses can spread as fast as an imaginary Anna Kournikova JPEG.
You need to find a portable storage medium that can hold all the files on your must list. Your options include floppy diskettes, portable hard drives, optical drives, tape drives, and remote servers. We’ll look at each in turn.
Hard diskettes, the old familiar 3.5” squares, hold up to 1.44 megabytes of data. They’re cheap, but 1.44 MB is less than two percent of the ten gigs of data on my hard drive.
Even if each of those files were smaller than 1.44 MB (and each weren’t), I’m not keen on the idea of buying, labeling, and storing fifty diskettes. Next idea, please.
Most computer experts rely on removable hard drives for memory backups. The most popular of these drives are the Zip drive from Iomega and the ORB drive from Castlewood.
They’re relatively inexpensive and hold up to two gigs of data. Basically, you’ll save your data on a Zip disk, then transfer it from the disk to the portable drive.
The catch is that removable drives fail about as often as regular hard drives. They may even be more susceptible to damage from dust and rough handling. A sub-option here is to use a permanent hard drive as a removable drive.
At up to two hundred gigs, conventional hard drives are bigger than removable drives, and prices have dropped enough in recent years to make this idea practical.
Whatever kind of hard drive you decide to use, make sure to keep it isolated from dust, magnetic charges, and static electricity.
Optical drives use a laser to store information, rather than a magnet. Even if you’re not a tech junkie, that’s probably enough information to give you a clearer idea what we’re talking about: namely, CDs and DVDs. Less common are EO (erasable optical) and WORM
(write once, read many) media; they’re less common because they cost over $1000 per drive. CDs, on the other hand, cost less than a buck and can hold up to 650 megabytes.
DVDs hold up to five gigs and cost about fifteen dollars apiece. Most computers nowadays have either a CD or DVD writer (or both), but write times can be slow.
My CD writer, for example, works best on the 300 kilobyte per second setting—if then. I’ll be using the remote server option.
At $250 and up, tape drives are more expensive and slower than hard drives or optical media, hence less common, but also extremely reliable.
Remote servers are third party companies that store data online for a fee. This is a great option for broadband Internet users, especially people like me who don’t own a reliable data writer.
SkyDesk runs Backup.com, Back-Up Solutions maintains BackUpHelp.com, and Iomega hosts iServer (Iomega.com/iStorage).
XDrive.com, once a free service, now charges ten bucks a month for up to five gigs of storage. Promotions and other rates change, so it’s a good idea to shop around before selecting a remote storage service.
STEP THREE: Git ’er Done
Now it’s time to put the files you want to save on the storage medium you’ve chosen. There are several ways to do this. Your CD writer, for example, may come with proprietary disk writing software.
That application may even include a backup option. If it does, and you’re more familiar with that software than Windows features, then that’s the way to go.
Otherwise, backup is still relatively easy on all MS operating systems since Windows 98. Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows XP Professional include a built-in Backup utility.
To run it, just click on Start, then Programs, then Accessories, then System Tools, then Backup. How easy was that? If you’re using the XP Home edition, you may need to add the utility manually.
If so, insert the Windows XP CD into your disk drive and wait for the “Welcome to Microsoft Windows XP” screen. (You may need to double-click the CD icon in My Computer.) Then click on Perform Additional Tasks and Browse This CD.
In Windows Explorer, double-click the ValueAdd folder, then Msft, then Ntbackup. Double-clicking on Ntbackup.msi will install the utility.
Once it’s installed, you can also run the program by clicking Start and Run, then typing msbackup.exe (Windows 98 and Windows ME) or ntbackup.exe (Windows XP) in the Open field. Click OK, and you’ll be off to the races.
Incidentally, the Windows XP Backup utility also includes a bonus application called the Automated Recovery Wizard. This creates a bootable floppy that initiates backup if the hard drive must be replaced.
Other options for “disaster recovery” include BackUp MyPC from Stomp (StompInc.com, $79) and Norton Ghost 9.0 from Symantec (Norton.com, $69.95).
Ghost actually allows users to duplicate the contents of their computer over the Internet. Both have earned stellar reviews from top PC magazines.
Don’t let another month go by without protecting the files you value most. My girlfriend justifies her messy car by saying she “lives out of it.”
Well, I live out of my computer. It’s not just my office; it’s the home of cherished memories in the form of pictures, MP3, and other data files. I’m resolved to keep it safe.
Digital Photography – Fast Food Memories
A quick search in Google or one of the other search engines can easily yield dozens of images from everyday life, snapped on camera phones, small pocket-sized digital cameras, or high-end digital SLR’s.
In many cases, camera phone images are so blurry as to be of little value, but they abound in the wide world of the Internet, and as small portable imagery devices get into more and more hands, the sheer volume of electronic images just continues to increase.
Some people ask the question of whether the digital photography revolution is necessarily a good thing. It is easier, faster and cheaper than ever before to capture memorable moments for later viewing.
Because of this, digital photos often feel more “real” than traditional film-based images, as dozens or hundreds of images can be snapped continuously at no cost without interrupting the flow of a moment in order to have participants re-create it “for a picture”.
Because of this essential freedom to review, arrange, and remove unwanted images, we are far more generous with our shutters than was generally the case with more expensive film-based methods of image capture.
Because of inexpensive storage however, many people never bother to remove most unnecessary images, resulting in bloated virtual albums with duplicates, accidental pictures of thumbs, uninspiring shots of brick walls, pavement, and more.
However, because of this essentially greater freedom to snap, some make the argument that many of our images have less value.
This is tricky territory, however – who’s to say that a plastic bag lying on the sidewalk isn’t lovely, or that an overexposed picture of Fluffy the dog isn’t artistic or as valuable as a more traditional family photo? In the end, there’s not much point arguing about taste.
One thing is certain, though – as more and more cameras find their way into more hands, the numbers of images available on line are sure to continue to multiply – and whether good, bad,
or ugly, each of these images has meaning for someone. And when you get down to it, individual freedom is one thing we can all likely agree on.
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