Preserving Your Navy Photos

[CaptainRon]

I've got some great times coming up in my life here. That said, I don't want to lose my digital pictures that I take in these upcoming years.

In addition to CDs, I want to store pictures on a photo sharing site. My question is this: does anybody know of a reliable site that should be around for years to come that allows you to download an entire album for free?

I know webshots used to do this a long time ago, but I don't think it's an option anymore. Snapfish definitely makes you pay to get it on a CD. I just want a site that will let me get the pictures back onto a CD or hard drive or whatever for free. Does a site like this exist?

Thanks.

 

[HeyJoe]

Whoa, wait a minute. Be happy to provide my perspective as I have a lot of images and been doing it for years, but where the heck have you been hiding, young man, and are you finished at Newport???

 

[Gatordev]

My question is this: does anybody know of a reliable site that should be around for years to come that allows you to download an entire album for free?

If somebody knew that, they'd me millionaires and/or there would have been no .com bust...

I wouldn't bother uploading them to the 'net. It will take forever, especially as pictures get bigger and have better quality. Invest in a backup drive, if not for all your other data, then just for your pictures. I have my pictures in two places, on my laptop, because it's nice to have them when on the go and it's a place to put them when taking pictures on the go, and I also have them backed up on a Backup only drive. You just have to have the discipline to back everything up every so often.

 

[mmx1]

I'm fairly certain Google's picasa service will be around for a while. I personally rely on an external hard drive, and a private website maintained by a buddy who I have some faith will keep it around for a while. Uploading is a pain in the ass, though, and I reserve it for stuff I intend to share widely.

 

[Tom]

Whoa, wait a minute. Be happy to provide my perspective as I have a lot of images and been doing it for years, but where the heck have you been hiding, young man, and are you finished at Newport???

Enjoying his stay...

 

[HeyJoe]

If somebody knew that, they'd me millionaires and/or there would have been no .com bust...

I wouldn't bother uploading them to the 'net. It will take forever, especially as pictures get bigger and have better quality. Invest in a backup drive, if not for all your other data, then just for your pictures. I have my pictures in two places, on my laptop, because it's nice to have them when on the go and it's a place to put them when taking pictures on the go, and I also have them backed up on a Backup only drive. You just have to have the discipline to back everything up every so often.

Concur heartily and add that the Kodak site* has served me well beyond doing exactly as Dev attests. I download to a home computer (and laptop), but use an external hard drive to back up and archive my images.

I use 1 and 2 Gig CF cards so usually am downloading several hundred pictures. I advise figuring out how you will sort them (date, subject, etc.) into folders and then decide which you want to upload to a site to share. The only ones I upload to Kodak site are ones I want to share with others (grandson's baseball game shots, special events, etc.). It is a bit of a chore, but way easier and infinately cheaper than when I had to get wet film processed and then hunt folks to share images with. It has rudimentary ability to crop and edit your images including color correction so it's a handy site if you aren't a Photoshop wizard. To share the images, all you need is an email address and you can instantly send your album(s) throughout cyberspace. If folks want copies, they can download themselves and print at home, order them from Kodak (pretty cheap) or take files to nearest kiosk. If someone nees file in higher res, then you can pull that from your archive.

*I tried another site affiliated with Koadk that charged above a certain storage limit and ultimately folded and used anther one that stored my wet film images and it went by wayside as well. I joined Kodak site as it stood up and think it will be around. For single images for posting on AW and on the Internet, I use Photobucket, which I found to be easiest to use after trying several.

 

[raptor10]

For single images for posting on AW and on the Internet, I use Photobucket, which I found to be easiest to use after trying several.

I like imageshack.us for that, less of a bandwidth hog, and you don't have to sign up.

 

[Schnugg]

Routine Back up to a flash drive in 8GB or greater is a good idea. No moving hardrives or parts. I'd expect greater capacity flash drives inthe near future.

As HJ said, creating a filing method now will save countless headaches later.

 

[HeyJoe]

Routine Back up to a flash drive in 8GB or greater is a good idea. No moving hardrives or parts. I'd expect greater capacity flash drives inthe near future. .

Just saw an Extreme CF card with 8 Gigs that could function as a hard drive for display processors. Like Schnugg says, no moving parts is best because hard drives will fail eventually (not if, when)

As HJ said, creating a filing method now will save countless headaches later.

Been there, done that (headaches galore). Also helps to have a program that assists with downloading and filing...there's several that are free/come with high end cameras.

 

[raptor10]

Routine Back up to a flash drive in 8GB or greater is a good idea. No moving hardrives or parts. I'd expect greater capacity flash drives inthe near future.

As HJ said, creating a filing method now will save countless headaches later.

They are here...
Kanguru's 64GB Flash Drive Max, only $2,800

Toshiba's TransMemory flash drives reach 16GB

The only problem with flash drives is that they have a finite number of read/write cycles after which they crap out, and no way of displaying how close they are to crapping out... thankfully the number is very, very high.

 

[CaptainRon]

Whoa, wait a minute. Be happy to provide my perspective as I have a lot of images and been doing it for years, but where the heck have you been hiding, young man, and are you finished at Newport???

I've been in Newport. I'll be graduating in time for Christmas.

Tom (or should I call you "Sir" now?), you little @#$%$@#!!

I had the honor of saluting Tom because he graduated a short time ago.

 

[BACONATOR]

I've been in Newport. I'll be graduating in time for Christmas.

Tom (or should I call you "Sir" now?), you little @#$%$@#!!

I had the honor of saluting Tom because he graduated a short time ago.

Well at least you weren't one of those poor souls in regiment standing the RMOD watch who had to salute the newly minted ENS Joboy.

 

[CaptainRon]

Well at least you weren't one of those poor souls in regiment standing the RMOD watch who had to salute the newly minted ENS Joboy.

True, but if I ever bump into you in that short period when you are an O-2 and I'm still an O-1........

Well, thanks for the help guys. It sounds like that dream photo sharing site does not exist, eh? And it sounds like the giant thumb drive is probably the best physical way to go for now. The only problem with those is that they are expensive. Hopefully it's correct that they'll get a better bang for the buck in the near future.

Now I've got them all on CDs and I'm worried those are going to sh*t the bed any day now.

Does anybody know if there's any truth to these CDs designed specially for photos lasting years down the road? Any of the older guys on here got CDs from a long time ago that are still going strong?

 

[Tex_Hill]

I've had good luck with Photobucket so far.

 

[BACONATOR]

In all seriousness, Thumbdrives are your best bet and they are CHEAP these days compared with what they used to be. I remember a few years back seeing 256MB drives for 40 bucks whereas nowadays you can get a 1GB drive for 30 or so. Go for it.