[techmind]

Even though USB memory sticks are coming down in price, I wouldn't tend to use them for long-term storage (certainly not as the only storage medium).

Writable DVDs are cheaper (you can buy good quality branded blank DVDs from reputable stores for £8 for 10 or £12 for 25 - without jewel cases). DVDs can be written in write-once mode*, which means you can't accidentally delete a file or the whole disk.

By contrast, you can accidentally press "delete" on a USB stick and in a fraction of a second loose a whole directory (same goes for hard disk int. or ext.). On rare occasions I've also had glitches on USB sticks which corrupt the data and require a reformat.
While I do now use an external hard disk for backup (more with a view to short-term recovery - rolling the clock back a month or something), I agree they are fragile and wouldn't consider them as a long-term sole copy for anything precious.


I'd consider also that as USB sticks rapidly go up in capacity and down in price they are doing this using multi-level cell technologies which is inherently less reliable than the earlier sticks, and again the technology is rather young to trust to anything precious for long-term storage anyway IMHO.

If I were being super-cautious, I'd write two copies of photos to two different brands of DVDs. In practice I tend to write one set of DVDs and keep one or more copies on hard-disk as my "working" copies. Never rely on a single point of failure.


Note that CD/DVD drives tend to fail before the disks, so if you do at some point have trouble reading them it is always worth trying different drives.


* write-once mode : I would not trust WinXP built-in CD/DVD writing. Anything which allows you to add files later runs the risk of loosing what's already there. I've had too many bad experiences in the past - especially with "packet writing" softwares. Use Nero or Adaptec burner software and choose "disk at once" to write and finalise a whole disk for best security - that's my approach.


Writeable CD/DVD disks should be kept in the dark (certainly out of any sunlight), ideally in a cool place, but certainly where the temperature is fairly stable.

Home inkjet prints will tend to fade, especially if left in the light, they may also blur if the humidity rises and the paper will yellow over years.

Good quality prints on photographic paper from your high-street photographic store (eg from behind-the-counter Fuji Frontier machines) will be superior to home prints and use photographic paper technology with a long history and good storage characteristics. I would always keep the digital files if you can, but would encourage you to get 6x4 or 7x5" prints made of the pictures you particularly treasure.

[rosalind dna (OP)]

Thanks techmind for your advice and yes I am aware that USB memory sticks are coming down in price,
but that is not why I am interesting in purchasing some USB memory stick.
But as I may have said that to store valuable data or photos in case the computer crashes.
Also for portable reasons.

But I can't Write any DVDs/CDs because the PC's tower only has 1 place to use them with:
LIke when I watch or listen to DVDs.
What are the jewel cases that you've mentioned?? The DVD/CD plastic covers?  Yes I'm sure that it's cheap to write DVDs with although if only I could do this then I would have done so already. As this photo shows you, I hope


Also, techmind I wasn't aware that the USB sticks were going up in capacity-space that fast but I'd guessed that prices are often going down. I keep the memory sticks in a cool, safe place when I'm not backing things up. I've not accidentally deleted a file yet and I've already got several for the family tree data.
I was thinking of really using the memory sticks for the photos to take down to the local photoshop. BTW I've already checked if that's ok and they said yes.


Ok that you do not trust the WinxP for built-in CD/DVD writing.
How would I loose the data if I constantly save it ??
What's "packet writing" software about?
Although if I knew what the DVD drive is then I'd tell you. I don't know.
Also this is the only PC that I own and I was thinking of getting a laptop for extra stuff. Vaguely though.

Writeable CD/DVD disks should be kept in the dark (certainly out of any sunlight), ideally in a cool place, but certainly where the temperature is fairly stable.

I keep any computer related things out of the direct lights in my desk that's dark and cool.

Home inkjet prints will tend to fade, especially if left in the light, they may also blur if the humidity rises and the paper will yellow over years.

I have not tried to do a home inkjet print yet as I have only had this printer for a couple of weeks and I'm still getting to understand/know it. Yes I can understand why the home inkjet prints would go yellow and fade, possibly due to the acidity of the paper.

I do have a couple of local computer shops, not as good as some shops.
I might think about using the Photographic shops paper but I'd rather they did it and that's why I am interested as I've said in buying a memory stick(s) with a possibility of a largeish GBs capacity. I do treasure all of my photos for sentimental reasons mainly.,
 

[techmind]

Using a USB stick to take your photos to the high-street photo lab is a perfectly sound idea. If you ask for 50 or more (6x4" or 7x5") prints in one go, they should do them for about 10p each - which is cheaper than you could print them at home for, and they should be better prints as well as more durable.

As to the other questions, I'll write more another time. Some of my opinion is probably just my paranoia about loosing stuff - but I doubt my experiences (with hard-disks failing, USB devices glitching, CD-writes glitching etc) are that unusual.

[rosalind dna (OP)]

Using a USB stick to take your photos to the high-street photo lab is a perfectly sound idea. If you ask for 50 or more (6x4" or 7x5") prints in one go, they should do them for about 10p each - which is cheaper than you could print them at home for, and they should be better prints as well as more durable.

techmind thanks for the reassurance and I will use the USB stick sometime/someday for the photos also yes I guess that you're right about the prices for the photos x 50. Only I have had this camera since summer 2007 and I've been using it ever since.
But I've uploaded them so I could do it that way.

As to the other questions, I'll write more another time. Some of my opinion is probably just my paranoia about loosing stuff - but I doubt my experiences (with hard-disks failing, USB devices glitching, CD-writes glitching etc) are that unusual.

Ok that's fine about writing more information/advice later, btw there's no rush.
Although it's the Hard-Disks failing or the USB devices glitching or CD writing glitches and so on.
Only there is a lot of data on here that I don't want to loose, then I guess it's the same for every computer-owner.
I don't really know, I'm hypothesising/guessing.

[RD]

... If you ask for 50 or more (6x4" or 7x5") prints in one go, they should do them for about 10p each - which is cheaper than you could print them at home for, and they should be better prints as well as more durable.

10p, I wish, this 2004 article quotes 50p a time ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/06/print_booth_letters/

[rosalind dna (OP)]

... If you ask for 50 or more (6x4" or 7x5") prints in one go, they should do them for about 10p each - which is cheaper than you could print them at home for, and they should be better prints as well as more durable.

10p, I wish, this 2004 article quotes 50p a time ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/06/print_booth_letters/

The only high-street photo lab or booth went when the local Woolworths closed down last December but there are 3 high street photographic stores.

[techmind]

The while-you-wait booths are usually more expensive, still 20-40p/print (and do lower-grade prints using a thermal printing system (dye transfer)?).

I'd recommend Jessops (stores or on-line), or photobox.co.uk (online) but others are available. Unfortunately Jessops (and many other stores) are not uniformly good - it depends to some extent on the operator and machine-maintenance too. That said, you're more likely to get better results from a photographic shop than from your local giant supermarket. You'll probably have to allow 1-hour, or even 24-hours in-store for the best price - but 10-15p/print is the norm under those conditions for 50+ prints.
These will be produced on photographic paper - very much the same material as traditional prints except that the machine exposes the paper using a scanning laser beam rather than projecting light through the film negative.

[rosalind dna (OP)]

The while-you-wait booths are usually more expensive, still 20-40p/print (and do lower-grade prints using a thermal printing system (dye transfer)?).

I'd recommend Jessops (stores or on-line), or photobox.co.uk (online) but others are available. Unfortunately Jessops (and many other stores) are not uniformly good - it depends to some extent on the operator and machine-maintenance too. That said, you're more likely to get better results from a photographic shop than from your local giant supermarket. You'll probably have to allow 1-hour, or even 24-hours in-store for the best price - but 10-15p/print is the norm under those conditions for 50+ prints.
These will be produced on photographic paper - very much the same material as traditional prints except that the machine exposes the paper using a scanning laser beam rather than projecting light through the film negative.

techmind I had thought of Jessops but there is not one their stores close to me.
These are the nearest relevant sites that I found for the 2 local photographic stores.
I don't have a large supermarket that has photographic services. Unfortunately.

But would the machine's scanning laser beam damage/spoil my photos??
Other than the former projecting lights with negatives as you'd mentioned. Thanks

http://www.snappysnaps.co.uk/   http://www.foto-plus.co.uk/index.htm

[Edster]

A lot of good stuff here already May i add some of my experience?

(sorry -v is always in action, I hope I don`t have to apologise for length, a gentleman never should have to.  []

The MS Cd and DVD prog doesn`t care about quality, it writes it and reads it back and it works FOR AS LITTLE AS 18 months! on a DVD.

Soft boys (they can drive the car but if they get a puncture they are stuffed "Oh that`s hardware I don`t need to know about that")  did a system backup this way and one sunday I found this to my cost and had to rebuild from scratch something vital. People were called at home.

Lifetime depends on the media, AND how recorded

I will try to compress this as much as I can

Recordable media is not like a pressed CD or dvd which has a spiral dot pattern impressed. a (usually) aluminium layer applied by vacuum deposition ( sputtering) some paint and a label: usually just more paint.

Recordable media have a spiral pressed, then a dyelayer, then USUALLY a silver layer or gold then a hermetic paint layer ( I`m not bothering with the extras for dual layer dvds)

The patent summaries are imprecise, but sputtering aluminium appears to be not good for the dye. I infer that some liquid phase method is used for the deposition of reflective metal layer as used by philips at some of their CD plants. (some of these had the wrong varnish and the silver layer started to tarnish from atmospheric pollutants. "bronzeing" from the outside toward the centre hole)

On record the the spiral is tracked by a servo, and the focus of the spot on the disk is tracked by a servo, the laser has a fixed amount of time to write to the dye.

A recorder and media rated at x20 will make a recording you can use, but not a best quality recording. the windows software will read this capability and go for it. You can apparently tweak it  but it is tedious.


The infra red sensitive dye is like a photographic emulsion, the darkness depends on the exposure time, so a laser that can just about manage at x20 will happily cope at x10 or less.

The wobbling of the servos is also reduced as the speed is reduced so the exposed dots are closer to the centre of the spiral and sharper in edge.

The exposed dots on a CD are bigger than a dvd. They are therefore less susceptible to light ageing. They are also less demanding on the servo tracking accuracy compared to a DVD.

If you want your Digi photos to last you need a tape store, these have proven lives of over 60 years but cost an arm and a leg.

My recommendation from studies I was paid to undertake is:

backup to CD`s not DVD. use decent software to back up, still the best as far as function and friendlies to use it after 10 years of trying them is Ahead Nero, used throughout the broadcast industry. where it can cost thousands or a lost franchise  for a duff DVD or CD IMHO

Burn media at the slowest speed you can, some media will not burn without errors  at x1 in some  dvd capable burners but  x2 seems to work.

 NOT ALL MEDIA ARE CREATED EQUAL!

The life of a cheap dvd blank recorded using indifferent software is about 2-3 years. or 1 year or so  as I found above.  A colleague bought some DVD`s on e-bay at 30p each (ahem....wouldn`t you be suspicious?)  and even under nero every single one was a coaster. The Id track was gibberish. couldn`t get the factory or any info, what a surprise!

If you want it to last use mitsui archive media as used by the major museums in the world, and burn it slow and accurately.


SERVOS: these are feedback analogue electronic or digital functions used to maintain a desired state, from temperature position or whatever.

This is where something needs to be, if it goes outside a percentage of correct  then a push is generated that is used to push it back. Once that signal is applied it swings  past zero,the other way and an error signal is used to push it back again.
 Servo`s spend all their time wobbling and kicking it back in the middle.

If you run slower, they have more time, and they are more acccurate.

As far as the rest of the thread: Flash drives are available with a write protect function. these are fairly reliable.
Those without may be screwed by windows vista or XP in microseconds.( don`t ask me the mechanism, it just happens, the drive is ok but no data)

Even write protected drives can be killed by the USB 2 interface.
 in order to achieve higher speeds the static protection is now marginal. Especially on laptops. Oh and especially Sony Vaio. 20% dead within 6 months is pretty serious over several hundred.

External hard drives are good But......
USB drives are based on 2.5" laptop tech. the head positioning mech that moves it off disk under shock also means it has a an approx 2 year MTBF shorter lifetime, 3.5" drives about  3 years, enterprise drives 5, but fast enterprise drives are rarely bigger than 40gig.
 Anything over 40G is smoke and mirrors and has to multi pass to recover data statistically to a hugely higher degree than sub 40G drives. if you archive on a hard disk i recommend a good old sub 40G 3.5"ide in a usb case. (£35?) It is unlikely to suffer the "yip yips" of a laptop drive after a year or three  dormant when its internal data has been forgotten as not powered and it can`t find track zero.

You show a standard drive, a USB dvd//cd writer is around £50 from argos 65 for the lightscribe I bought 6 months ago, it will almost certainly come with Nero which will let you write at less than the manic maximum the windows poo does.

Using a decent epson printer with epson ink and paper it is around 20-25p per print(Edit: If you have been on a sailing holiday you will run out of blue in a combined cartridge  and costs can be 35p+ !).
 The results are near as dammit fuji paper, apart from the fade resistance, I understand the latest generation of Epson inks are extremely lightfast.
Any large runs I now take to jessops. they didn`t do this 9 years ago when I paid £600 for a state of it scanner and printer for my 35mm stuff, still won`t downgrade to soft digital as I have the equiv of at least a 10 Mpixel cam even on a fast grainy transparency film captured without interpolation or noise reduction.
Bests
E

[laeed]

What's the difference between a memory stick and a memory card like the one I have in the camera?

The only practical difference is that USB memory stick will not fit in your Sony camera, but the memory card in your Sony camera can be connected to a USB port on a computer via an adapter called a card reader. If you have a cable to connect your camera to you computer then you don't need a card reader.

Once your newbielink:http://www.sourcingmap.com/memory-cards-c-986_1806.html [nonactive] is nearly full, connect it to the computer and copy the photos onto your computer and/or a USB memory stick attached to your computer. Having copied the photos onto the computer (and onto a USB memory stick) then you can delete the photos on the camera's memory card giving you space to take more photos.

Like I said attending beginners course at your local library or camera club where someone can show you how to do this would be the most reliable way of enabling you to confidently archive your digital photos and avoid losing irreplaceable pictures.

The only practical difference is that USB memory stick will not fit in your Sony camera, but the memory card in your Sony camera can be connected to a USB port on a computer via an adapter called a card reader. If you have a cable to connect your camera to you computer then you don't need a card reader.

RD, as I have already mentioned that I do not own (yet) a memory card reader. But if necessary
I will buy one. Also when I've taken some photos then I usually upload them to the PC by plugging in it's USB cable, turning it on then the box appears and follow the instructions.
Yes I've got a memory card for 80 photos but then this is my first ever digital camera.

Once your camera's memory card is nearly full, connect it to the computer and copy the photos onto your computer and/or a USB memory stick attached to your computer. Having copied the photos onto the computer (and onto a USB memory stick) then you can delete the photos on the camera's memory card giving you space to take more photos.

Yes I know that when the camera's memory card is nearly full then I upload the photos and delete them afterwards to give the memory card more space as the camera shows me with it's icons. I would attach a memory stick to the USB hub that has the USB computer mouse and Printer's USB plugs in them. I am confused

 Like I said attending beginners course at your local library or camera club where someone can show you how to do this would be the most reliable way of enabling you to confidently archive your digital photos and avoid losing irreplaceable pictures.

After this Bank Holiday weekend's over I'll ask in the library as it's always closed on Fridays. No I don't know why.
Agreed I do not want to lose the irreplaceable pictures or photos even other data.

Hi, all. Does anyone can solve my problem. The card was in my digital camera (Kodak C340) fordays without use, and when I went to take pictures one day, the camera couldn't read the card. I never had any trouble with it before. It just stopped reading it out of the blue.

I took the card out of my camera, and inserted it into the SD slot on my laptop computer (Toshiba Satellite L500). Usually, I can find the card in My Computer, and access its contents. Now, however, it's like my computer doesn't recognize the card, either.

There are a lot of important documents and other meaningful files on this card, so I would really appreciate any help.

Thanks!

[Geezer]

Hi, all. Does anyone can solve my problem. The card was in my digital camera (Kodak C340) fordays without use, and when I went to take pictures one day, the camera couldn't read the card. I never had any trouble with it before. It just stopped reading it out of the blue.

I took the card out of my camera, and inserted it into the SD slot on my laptop computer (Toshiba Satellite L500). Usually, I can find the card in My Computer, and access its contents. Now, however, it's like my computer doesn't recognize the card, either.

There are a lot of important documents and other meaningful files on this card, so I would really appreciate any help.

Thanks!

If you Google "sd memory recovery" you'll find a load of software products that claim to be able to recover data from flash memory devices like the SD card in your Kodak. I've no idea if any of them are much good, or if they will even work at all in your case, but if you really need to get the data back, you might try some of them.

Of course, if you do get your data back, immediately make a backup copy of everything you cannot afford to loose to two other locations, like your C drive and a CD or DVD. External USB connected hard drives are a good investment too. You can also use a web based backup service if you trust the provider.

Hope this helps.

[laeed]

Thanks for your input. I will try.

[imatfaal]

10p, I wish, this 2004 article quotes 50p a time ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/06/print_booth_letters/

Rosalind and RD

Luckily it's been getting cheaper since 2004 - Jessops will do 6X4s for 5 pence each (for over 200) and currently seem to be giving away 75 prints to get you started

http://photo.jessops.com/photo-printing.html

I take a silly number of photographs and keep them in various formats - and agree with almost all the suggestions; ie I use usb drives, dvds, online storage, and an external hard drive - depends on how important the photograph is to me.  Bits of advice
1.  Shop around for any bits; prices vary widely and amazon tends to be pricey
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=kingson+flash+drive+16gb&hl=en&scoring=p&show=dd&sa=N&start=180
thats a google shopping search for kingston 16gb drives - ranging form 14quid to over 150!!  Personally I use datatraveller and havent had a problem - you can probably find a review of various brands on the internet.

2.  Storage is cheap compared to precious memories

3.  always store in the natural format that comes of the camera - you can make changes and tweek resolution on copies. and make sure the cameras resolution is up as high as it goes.

4.  once you have got your head around dealing with vast numbers of photos it becomes second nature to snap away - it is very easy to get carried away

Enjoy - hope to have helped

Matthew

[imatfaal]

Rosalind

techmind I had thought of Jessops but there is not one their stores close to me.
These are the nearest relevant sites that I found for the 2 local photographic stores.
I don't have a large supermarket that has photographic services. Unfortunately.

But would the machine's scanning laser beam damage/spoil my photos??
Other than the former projecting lights with negatives as you'd mentioned. Thanks

http://www.snappysnaps.co.uk/   http://www.foto-plus.co.uk/index.htm

One more thing - the sights that techmind/you mentioned will take order online and post results to you.  You upload the photos to them and they print them and post the hardcopys back (it's an extra couple of quid). 

If you are physically taking a memory card/stick/dvd to be printed then it MUST be a copy - keep your original safe. The copy of the information (and that is all a digital photo is) will be fairly faithfully reproduced and will almost certainly not be altered by the printing firm and your original at home will not be changed at all. the scanning laser mentioned is part of the printing process not the reading and nothing to be worried about.

Matthew

[JordanRHughes]

I am not sure if you can, but it is certainly possible.

Cheers.

 []

newbielink:http://bookit.com/us/hawaii/ [nonactive]