Backup. Backup! OMG please BACKUP!!!

I encoded all my CDs and have my entire music collection on my computer. When the machine crashes, its a lot of work to encode all the CDs again. When the house burns down, the insurance will hopefully pay so that I can buy all the CDs again (even if some are collectors items by now). So thats no problem. But what about your photos? When they're lost, no money can bring them back. You can't go back in space and time and get the same pictures. Your photos are unique and most precious (aren't they?) - thats why you should really really make regular backups of them!

And then... almost every day the same question pops up in the Picasa Help group - someone didn't realise that Picasa does not store the pictures, but only shows them... then they deleted the folder on disk, thinking that Picasa has everything... and poof! Everything is gone. All photos. Bad luck? Tough luck?

The nice thing about Picasa is that it has a built-in backup tool that does not only backup your photos (which is no big deal) but also the edits (OK...) and your self-created albums (which might be very important).

There are two articles that describe the built-in backup tool of Picasa. The first one -here- describes the normal backup to CD/DVD, which is a bit clumsy if you ask me. The second article -here- describes how to back up to another drive, like an external harddisk.

I'm backing up my data to an external harddrive, and I store this external harddrive at work. Why do I do that? Call me insane, but what if this house burns down? I still have my precious data on the external harddisk in my drawer at work.

And of course, you shouldn't backup only your photos, but all valuable data on your computer. The more recent and complete your backup, the earlier your back in business in case disaster strikes.

Neurodancer featured on Budotraxx! :-)

My Amiga adaption of the original C64 soundtrack from the game "Exploding Fist" (originally composed & created by Neil Brennan) is featured on a compilation called "Budotraxx" which is downloadable from the blog of electronic music artist "cyborgjeff". The page has a "radioblog" element where you can directly play the tracks when you visit the page - neat!

[the adaption was originally created on the Amiga with OctaMed Sound Studio (OSS) and then rendered to MP3]

Great Photographers on the Internet

This old blogpost from "The Online Photographer" is worth mentioned at least once a year: Great Photographers on the Internet. If you take part in some internet photography forums, discussion groups, mailing lists etc. you'll recognize this.