Re: Back-up/Archive of Digital Photographs...Suggestions?


wilt wrote:
>
> Precisely the concerns I have...it requires continual and active
> vigilence to prevent media and file formats from causing loss of data
> in the future. And these are exactly the reasons I think that history
> will find these times we live in to be a bit of 'digital Dark Ages'
> with lost history, lost photographs...

The crux of the matter isn't technology, per se, but that the
technology that we're using carries a very high overhead cost in order
to guard it from very rapid obselecence, and most people aren't willing
to make the investment.

For example, if we were to run a survey of this USENET group, I'd "Bet
the Ranch" that we would find that less than 50% of its regular readers
*faithfully* make monthly backups of their image data. And the actual
percentage who really do this is probably a lot closer to a mere 5%.
The reason why we don't make good backups is a combination of it not
being cheap or convenient. But that doesn't make it any lesser of a
problem.

I know its increasingly dated, but Clifford Stoll's book,

"Silicon Snake Oil : Second Thoughts on the Information Highway"
(ISBN: 0385419945)

....is IMO a very good introduction into the subject of the hidden
perils and costs in digital technologies. And now that its a decade
old, it is still an interesting read, since we can see where his
concerns and predictions have or haven't already come true.

-hh

.