A Picture is Worth a 100 Gigabytes!

April 30, 2012 Leave a Comment

My computer is about to have a major crash!  So I clean out my files and update my software.  But the problem is Photos!   I have over 100 GB’s of photographs. Pics of our first house, our wedding, and our kids.  The last 10 years of our lives.  And I don’t know about you but I rarely print out pictures anymore.  I tend to just keep them in their jpg versions and ocassionally post one to Facebook.

Get Real! 

Now remember I have Parent ADD.   I bounce from one thing to the next quicker than Speedy Gonzalez.  I have a long talk with myself.  If I don’t do this now I will never do it and my computer will crash and I will lose everything.

  • This is a commitment!  It’s going to take time.  I have to set aside a few hours per week for this. And it’s going to take a while.  10 years can’t be backed up in 10 minutes.
  • How far back do I want to go? 10 years or 20 years?  Should I scan them all in?
  • Prioritize.  Baby Albums, Wedding, Pics of the Kids Birthday’s and then everything else.

Where are all my photos?

  • Hard drive on computers
  • iPhone
  • Prints
  • CD’s from Santa and Easter Bunny pics
  • Misc from photo sites from friends
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Misc.. cards, external drives, etc..

Tools

Get my tools to accomplish this task.

  1. Buy a Terrabyte Drive with at least 1-2 TBs.  I found one at CostCo for about $110.
  2. Order Archive Quality DVD’s and back up all photos in to these DVDs.  Make 2 Sets of each DVD.   I found archival quality DVD’s at supermediastore.com.  I ordered Taiyo Yoden DVD-R Media with sliver lacquer for about $31 without shipping.
  3. Shutterfly or Snapfish app for iPhone

What do I want to do with Pictures?

  1. Create photo books – actually if I can put it all in photo books I will be thrilled.
  2. Print a few photos for family and friends
  3. Make a keepsake box of pics for my kids

Photo Books and Gifts

There are so many places where you can get photo books printed these days.   I’ll be honest. I haven’t tried them all.  I have 3 companies that I have used:

  • Shutterfly - I’ve enjoyed the quality of these books. I think they are priced well at $35 per 20 page book in 8″ x 11″ in size.
  • Blurb – They offer a great way to self publish anything from your own cookbook, journal, or kids stories.  But best of all they have tools that can turn your Facebook Pics and your Instagram pics into books.  So it’s a great solution for Instagram and Facebook Pics.
  • MyPublisher – I love these books.  They are printed in several different types of paper from Glossy to Matte.  Their pages lay flat.  Soft and hard covers.  This is a great solution for those super special albums.

Getting Started with your Digital Pics.

  1. Back up – Don’t forget to do one big backup before you start.  This is what your external TB hard drive is for.  This may take a couple of hours. It’s best to run it and get it started.. go get lunch and come back.
  2. It’s easier to go year by year.  Review all your photos year by year and make a list by event or month.
  3. Edit – Go through each event and start editing  each individual photos for red eye, delete bad pics, crop the pics that need cropping etc..
  4. Organize pics into folders or directories either by Event or Year by Year, Month by Month.
  5. If you think a picture would look great in Instagram, start another folder and name it Instagram and go back after you are done editing and then edit these Instagram pics.
  6. Load your photos to Shutterfly, CostCo, Picasa, or other online photo storing program.
  7. Burn Archival DVD’s of the pic folders you just finished.  Just to be safe.. burn two copies.
  8. Then decide what you are going to do with this series of pics you just added.   I’ll tell you what I am doing.  I am making photo books in Shutterfly, My Publisher, and printing out pics on CostCo’s website.  I am going to load a few pics to mpix.com to make some gift type items for parents like photo magnets, and statuettes for the kids room.
  9. After you verify that the archival pics are not corrupted on the Archival DVD’s and then you go online and see that all your photos loaded correctly on Shutterfly, then you are safe to delete your pics.

Hints for archiving iPhone pics

  1. I downloaded the Shutterfly app and added an Album called iPhone Pics and uploaded all my iPhone pics to this directory.
  2. From this directory you an move pics into other albums.  So I always start here and then move pics into the albums the pics should be in.

It’s so easy.  I had mine load while I was sleeping.  And when I woke up the next morning all the pics were there.

Other hints

  • You have more time than you think.  Before you got to bed every night, you can load a new set of photos onto Shutterfly and run it while you are asleep.
  • Need to run to the store.. archive a directory of photos before you leave.

Backing up your Non-Digital Pics.

Okay this is much harder than the digital prints because it’s not already organized by a date stamp.  So clear the table, grab a few post its, and start your piles!

  1. Gather all your pictures and start organizing them by year and event.  It’s a great idea to store them in archival photo boxes  like this one from the Container Store
  2. Gather all your negatives and organize them by year and event and then slide your negatives into negative storage plastic pages like these from the Container Store:
  3. You can also put all your negative pages into a 3 ring binder like this one  and sit them on your shelf with all your other photo media.
  4. Do you you need to scan images?  You have two options:  Scan the pictures in yourself.  Buy a really good Epson Scanner and scan a Saturday away or send your pictures to a service like : ScanCafe.

I’m not quite here yet, but I am planning for it now. I decided that in 2013 my goal will be to go back and have all my printed photos and Negatives Scanned in and sent to me in Digital Format.  I hope to then make some photo albums.

It’s April 30th and my goal is to be done with all my digital photo albums by the end of the summer.   This is with 30 mins – 1 hour each  of work and a couple of days off here and there.    But last week I finished 4 albums by just working on one each night and then spending a day proofing all four albums.

I hope by August I will reclaim at least 100 GB’s of space on my hard drive, so I can do what?  Well download more apps for photos of course!

Hope this helps a few of you!   I’m off to work on backing up Baileybea.com now!

Nancy

 

 

The Devil is in the Details

April 30, 2012 Leave a Comment

 

The Doctor is in!

In 1st grade I played the role of Lucy in a Peanuts Christmas play.  I wore a stiff polyester dress and lucky for me my hair is already dark brown so I didn’t have to mess with a wig.  My favorite part was when Lucy got to be the Doctor and charge Charlie Brown 25 cents.   Well since then we traded the 25 cent advice for a $25 co-pay to see a Psychologist.   But so far I haven’t found a Psychologist I really need because I suffer from a new digital disease….Data Hording.

How did I come to recognize this new ailment?

Well… my digital world was about to crash.. big time.   My iPhone gave out on me, my laptop was giving me problems, and my desktop was screaming for a backup.  My main problem was “Not enough space.”  I remember 15 years ago when I got a 525 MB external hard drive and I thought, “No Way am I ever going to fill that up!”

Famous last words of a single person with no digital camera, no husband and no KIDS!   Let me.. reiterate.. NO KIDS!    My new Mommy lifestyle really requires a few Terra drives!  How was I to know I was going to turn into a photo, music, graphics, app, craft junkie?    How was I to know that my kids would have more apps on my iPhone and iPad than the adults in my house!     I have a 170 GB hard drive on my Macbook Pro and 110 Gigs is Photos.  20 more GB’s is music (humm have I told you I have a huge music collection?  I love music).  and about 20 GB’s was just graphics and documents.   Sigh!  Clearly I have a data hording problem.  What was I to do?  Honestly I had no idea where to begin.  Was there a 12 Step Program for Data Horders? Does HGTV make a show for that?

I’m so organized!  Yeah right!

Well if you were to ask anyone from the kids school, the waiting rooms of my son’s speech therapy office, or Girl Scouts if they know me, they would all probably say, “Yes, Nancy, she’s so organized!”   Recently at my son’s 7th Birthday Party a friend of his arrived with his Grandparents, who told me they were informed by their Daughter in Law that I am the most organized Mom they know.”   Ha!  That was funny!

Obviously these people haven’t looked inside my hard drives on my computers.   Like most parents I know I have the new type of ADD that isn’t officially a diagnosis yet….”Parent ADD.”  I run a tight ship, strict schedule, but I live in 5-15 minute increments of time assigned to task.  Therefore I get a lot done and nothing done at the same time.  I am mostly treading water.  I often day dream of my singleton days when I can leave a project on the table and know it’s not going to get moved into 3 other piles by the end of the day depending on who needs the table.  Sigh.. but I digress.

The Devil is in the Details!

Okay.. I never have time to take care of details anymore!  Damn you Parent ADD!  The fine details like cleaning out your email, deleting files, editing photos, deleting music you don’t like off your iTunes.   Heck, finding time to set up the  iTune’s playlist is hard enough for me these days!  (which is why I am now mostly on Pandora).  The details of filing and managing is suddenly all way too much for me.

And now my data hording was at the end of it’s rope!  My iPhone was dying, my computer hard drive absolutely hated me and I could see a tiny bit of sheer joy coming out of my Mac Repair shop when I asked about updating to a new hard drive… Caaaaaaaaa Ching!   So I had to run to the experts!

There I was at the Apple Store Genius Bar getting the low down on my digital life.

Do you back up? Yes, I back up.  But what was causing all these problems? I asked.

Did I know you have an enormous amount of photo files? humm Yes!  I do.  Why do you think I’m here?

Do you know that you have more music in iTunes than anyone I know?  Yes… I’ve been in Austin longer than 5 minutes. I have a lot of music!  Let’s move on hip Apple dude with the square glasses!  And why I am telling you to download the latest Alabama Shakes CD.. if you’re so hip shouldn’t you be telling me this? Hummm… Just tell me what to do and do they have a magic fairy for that?

Your computer is about to have a major crash, you need to update your Operating System and your iPhone home button is broken.  And our diagnostic reading says that your computer wants to be asleep more and on less.    Seriously!  My computer want’s to be asleep more?  I have pounded my computer into old age or is the computer just jealous of the cat?

So my computer was about to have a major crash.  What to do?   Being the super organized person I appear to be to others I made a list.  I make lots of lists.  It’s actually my favorite pastime.

Computer To Do List

  1. Back up both computers on Terra Drive.
  2. Organize and delete Downloads
  3. Back up again
  4. Organize and delete Documents
  5. Back up again
  6. Organize and delete old software
  7. Back up again and say one Hail Mary till you see the computer is going to be alright!  Then say Amen!
  8. Organize and delete Videos
  9. Back up again
  10. Update all Operating Systems on both computers, iPhones, iPad and iTouches.  {Geez, I am Apple’s dream customer!}
  11. Back up again!
  12. Do something with all my Photos!
  13. Burn DVD’s of photos, make photo books, DO SOMETHING with all these images before 2013!

So there you go.. my to do list. I did items 1-11 and it took like 9 days non-stop. I am not kidding.   There was no image, document etc.. left unfiled! I was all full of knowledge and knowing again.  Whew!  But now what do do about those darn images.

Stay tuned for my next entry… A Picture is worth a 100 Gigabytes!

Bookplates

February 3, 2012 Leave a Comment
Bookplates by Bailey Bea Designs

ex-librīs [Latin, "from the books of..."], is usually a small print or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner.  – wikipedia.org My favorite thing to do in October in Austin, Texas is go to the Texas Book Festival to have authors sign books.  I love giving [...]

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“Please Be Mine” Boatman Geller Valentine Card Giveaway

January 6, 2012 16 Comments
2012valentinesgwbg

ENTER TO WIN A SET OF 24 PERSONALIZED VALENTINES DAY CARDS  from Boatman Geller! Let Boatman Geller make it easier for your children to send a unique and personalized valentine to their friends and classmates this year!   It’s a sweet way to say “Please be mine Valentine!”     There are 10 designs to choose from and [...]

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Beach Holiday Cards

November 16, 2011 Leave a Comment
beach1

Did you take a really great pic this summer of your family at the beach while on vacation?  Beach pics often make the best holiday cards!  No need to worry about everyone wearing matching holiday outfits or editing the one family member who blinked in that perfect shot.  Just break out that fun summer picture [...]

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Gifts for Cooks

November 11, 2011 Leave a Comment
Gifts for Cooks

Bailey Bea Designs has dozens of stylish gift options for the foodie and cook in your family!  Here are our top 5 picks for this holiday season! Recipe Box Recipe Boxes by Boatman Geller and Dabney Lee at Home make great gifts for cooks, brides, and friends.   The top lid opens and you can slide [...]

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