Tag Archives: Photography

Backup Strategies, Part 1

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Backups are essential today–we’ve all lost files at some point and we all know our hard drives will fail at some point. That is why it is important to have a firm strategy and plan in backing up your files. Whether you use external hard drives or an online service like Mozy, you’re better off using one of these options than nothing.

New blog Managing Your Digital Life (MYDL.ME) has some great tips and discussions going on about managing backups on your computer. Many of the tips center around Drobo, a hot little product that makes expanding your backup capacities a snap. Drobo appeals to photographers, video producers, and other creatives who rely on large capacity drives to accomidate a horde of gigabytes of data. If one of the drives gets full, Drobo lets you know and  you simply pop in a new, empty SATA hard drive and Drobo intelligently moves your data and recognizes the new elbow room.

I don’t have a Drobo yet, but I’m currently relying on Apple’s Time Machine in OS X Leopard to backup my data weekly to an external hard drive. What are you using to manage your backups?

Smashing Magazine

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A new favorite source of inspiration is Smashing Magazine. Smashing Magazine has been on my radar for about two months now, and it has continued to fuel my creativity with everything from WordPress themes, brushes and symbols for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and some of the most stunning photography I have seen.

Even if you are not a graphic designer or photographer, take a look at a couple of my favorite posts from Smashing Magazine:

50 Stunning Examples of Reflective Photography

50 Beautiful Winter Wonderland Photos

Vintage and Retro Typography Showcase

50 Stunning Underwater Photos

25 Beautiful Macro Photography Shots

As you can guess, there are far too many to list. I’ll save some more for a rainy day. Thanks, Smashing Magazine!

Hobbies: The Expense of Fun

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Tax season is right around the corner, and that thought is keeping me going right now. You see, about every four to five years, I feel the need to replace my computer for something bleeding edge. My PowerBook G4 is my main workhorse, and it was more than enough computer…in 2004. So why do I need something new?

I blame photography. When I bought my PowerBook almost 5 years ago, I was taking photos with a Canon PowerShot S50 and the typical photo was about 2 MB total. Today, I’m shooting with a Canon DSLR (Rebel XT), which shoots 8 megapixels in JPEG and RAW simultaniously. All jargon aside, this means my hard drive is filling up FAST, like a scout troop in quicksand and there’s no rope in sight.

Sure, I could get a new hard drive, but a new computer would give me a boost in speed, giving me more time to focus on creatively editing my photos in either Photoshop or Aperture. I have spent enough time in iPhoto to know that it is no longer meeting my needs. Those are the easy questions to answer. The brain stumper is currently whether to go with one of the sweet new MacBooks, or shell out for the 24-inch iMac.

Sure, money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does buy new gear! And with new gear comes a whole host of new abilities and ideas. 2009, here we come!