Web based photo programs

Once they’re on the web, you don’t have to keep a copy on your computer. I always do because I’ve lost things stored on the web in the past.

-- When you give someone a chance it may well be their last.

Im with you Russel. I upload but also keep them on the hard drive.

Betsy, you should pobably consider getting an external hard drive and\or large flash drive and\or burn the pictures to a DVD if you want to remove them from your computer.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

Whoa Nellie——that’s electronic terminology overload there Zuki——:-)

By flash drive do you mean that little doodad that looks like a flat stubby stick? I’ve seen those but did not know what they were called.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

There have been cases of online photo albums losing images. Imagestation dumped a bunch of user’s images a few years ago. It would be wise to keep backups of important images. Perhaps save them to a memory stick or burn them on a disk (CD or DVD) if you don’t want to keep them on your machine.

-- Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

Yep . . . you got it.

-- The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them

I’ll have to look into that option. Thanks for the input.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

Betsy

I would be cautious using a usb stick to back up important stuff, I have had two die on me with no warning. They are great for transport and keeping stuff handy, but I would NOT trust them as a back up my only copy of something . . . burn to cd or invest in a USB external hard drive if you are running out of room on your computer
and if it is really important do both . . .

fred

-- Fred, Springfield, Ma

Betsy,

Depends on how important these pics are to you. I think what most people are saying is that you’d want to have important things (whether pics or other files) stored in at least two places. So a website would be a good place for one. If you didn’t want to buy an external hard drive (whether a “thumb” drive or something bigger), or if you didn’t want to hassle with burning something onto a DVD or CD-ROM, another option would be simply to upload all of those pics onto a second website. If you use Photobucket, upload them onto a Flickr account or Picasa Web Albums.

If one of those sites goes out of business, no prob, you always have the other one!

-- Eric at http://adventuresinwoodworking.com

Thanks guys. Eric your solution is genius in it’s simplicity. Sure makes sense.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

Betsy, I’m with Eric. Files on the web are only as safe as the companies running the web server on which they’re stored, and if you’re not paying for that storage, I wouldn’t trust it at all. I back everything up to two hard drives in my house, and then also transfer it to my father’s house in another state, so that one of us has a backup of the important files if the other one’s house gets hit by a natural disaster.

And then my web server is in a third state in yet another region of the United States.

I think that anything you care about should be dealt with in a similar manner. But then I’m also the sort who’s bought a 6lb hardcover book titled “The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs” to make sure I was storing my slides and prints safely…

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

Like DaveR says Copy them to a CD or DVD, I had quite a few on eCircles long gone now.
check out the Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org/index.php.
an eCircles search will show them but without much info.

-- Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

I am sure glad I found this, I have had the same questions , I have learned a lot on this thread, Betsy if you have a blog on blogger they also keep anything you have ever posted (picture wise) also besides picasso . My question tho I have picasso and if I go to delete one of my pictures it will say “If you delete this it will be deleted from any albums you have it in” So what does that mean? What albums? Thanks Betsy for asking this question. I hope more people answer, although I think I am figuring it out!
PEACE!!!

-- Allison, Northeastern Ca. Remember, Amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic!

ok putting on my tech nerd hat…... the key to data(pictures in this case) preservation is to save early save often and save in multiple places….............

-- Hrolfr

A few points.
CD and DVD disks don’t last forever and unless you are buying archival media don’t count on it lasting more than 2 years (it may just don’t count on it)

Pics you upload to a web site are converted (usually) to a lesser resolution, for instance my camera takes pics at 7 giga picals, when they are uploaded to a web site (like photo bucket) the website drops the picture to a much smaller resolution for easier and smaller storage. The point is if you ever want to blow up a picture in the future your out of luck (or at least resolution). You would loss that ability with a pic retrieved from a web site (where you posted it) because of the lower picture size.

All hard drives fail, it is the one thing you can count on like taxes and dying. Also data stored on a hard drive needs to be refreshed from time to time if long storage is what your looking for. Simply copying it to another location can accomplish this. The magnetic bits stored on the disk fail over time and need to be re-magnetized.

I keep everything on 2 hard drives, one internal (local computer) one external (not on the same computer) in case of a drive controller failure or virus on the computer. A USB external drive would work for this.

Good luck

-- "so much to learn and so little time"..

I agree with snowdog Betsy. I would keep the backup copy. I don’t know what would happen if photobucket closed up shop. My guess is that your pics would disappear, they must be stored somewhere but I might be wrong.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Thanks for the input guys. I must admit though, my pictures are mostly LJ pictures – any pictures that I care the most about are the old fashioned kind that you had to take to the store to get developed and printed and it took two weeks. I’m more interested in the computer memory space. But this is all good information for those who have important stuff on their discs.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!