Monday, April 6, 2009

What would you do?

Technology is great.  That is, until it craps out on you, then it's not so great anymore.  We have an old computer and by old, I mean it's not quite four years old.  It started having issues this weekend and Trey and Apple Support spent some quality time together on the phone Saturday afternoon to try and fix it.  By the time he got off the phone, it was looking like all was good and back to normal.
 
Not so much.
 
I'm not sure, but I think he managed to back up at least the pictures and music while the computer was functioning properly, which is good.  Trey loves music and I'm a bit of a shutterbug.  I love to take pictures and one picture just won't do.  He collects music like nobody's business.  Let's put it this way:  We have just over 7000 pictures that have been taken starting around Monkey's first year and I couldn't even begin to count the number of songs we have.  Yes, we have a problem.
 
Hi, my name is Kool Aid and I like to take pictures.
 
Now, I know that pictures aren't supposed to replace the memories, but it's fun!  It's something I enjoy and the family loves it when I remember to send them pictures that I've taken.  I can't imagine losing all those pictures.  
 
So, for those of you who take digital pictures, what do you do to back them up?  Do you use an external hard drive?  Do you also back them up at an internet site?  Do you just burn them to a CD or DVD?  Or all of the above, making back-ups of your back-ups?
 
If nothing else, this may be an excuse to get a new computer...
 
 
 

8 comments:

Tara@Sticky Fingers said...

I have to admit that I back up my back ups Kool Aid.
I LOVE photos. I have so many. I take photos of every stage of my children's lives because I think it will serve as a great memory aid for them in years to come.
So I bought an external hard drive, and I also save them to disk.
The way this computer is always picking up viruses like a cheap tart I don't want to take any chances!

Hayden Tompkins said...

"We have just over 7000 pictures"

ACK! HOLY COW. !!!!!!

Ok, we totally have a hard drive that we back everything onto. AND many of the pictures go onto just the hard drive instead of the hard drive AND computer.

Nathan said...

DVD's are good for backups, but studies have shown they only have a life span of about 5-10 years. An external HD is probably a better idea, since it holds more & can be ported from place to place. However, if it goes bad you're screwed. My suggestion would be a mix of the two.

Alternately, for your pictures, you could get a Flickr or Photobucket account & load them all there.

Kool Aid said...

Oh, Tara, don't you know you can't throw comments like that at me first thing in the morning? I just about killed out laptop with coffee!

Hayden, yes, I do have a problem, don't I?

Capt, I do plan on looking into an internet service to help back them up. My concern would be if there's a limit to how much I can store. A friend uses smugmug and when she lost all her pics on her computer, they were able to send them all to her on CD.

Thanks, guys, for the all the info!!

Tara@Sticky Fingers said...

Sorry about that. The only excuse I can offer is that it was late and I was tired.
I will be clean and virtuous from now on x

Kool Aid said...

Don't worry about it, Tara, everybody needs a little dirt.

Nathan said...

Flickr has unlimited storage if you get the pro account. That's only $25 a year & it's worth it.

LisaNewton said...

I take pictures, too. I download some to flickr, have many more on my computer, have a photojournalist website, and an external harddrive is in my near future.

Hopefully, that will keep me covered...........:)

I look forward to seein yours.