Efficient photo storage.

[Roger Mills]

If you do a scheduled backup daily, that suggests that the external
drive is permanently plugged into the computer. If it is, I think
that's a risky thing to do. A permanently plugged-in external drive
isn't very different from an internal drive. It's always possible that
a nearby lightning strike, virus attack, even theft of the computer,
can cause the loss of everything on all your drives

That is indeed true - but the other side of the coin is that you can't
automate it if the backup media isn't permanently available - so chances
are that the backup won't get done!

It's somewhat mitigated in my case because I live part-time in each of 2
places a hundred miles apart with a separate external drive at each. I
take my laptop - containing the primary data source - between locations.
If I lose the laptop *and* one external drive, I've still got the other
external drive with a fairly recent set of date.

I like the idea, suggested by some, of using a network drive rather than
a directly connected drive. Since my wife and I each have our own
computer with directly connected external drive, I could achieve
something like a network solution by backing up my data to my wife's
external drive, and vice versa. Might be worth considering.

If I go the full network route, what intermediate hardware would I need
to be able to connect one or two existing hard drives to my router?
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In my view, that's a terrible technique. I think you should never put
anything on the desktop except shortcuts. If you do, you run the large
risk of deleting something on the desktop thinking you are only
deleting a shortcut to it.

While I agree it's not a good idea to store things on the desktop
(though I've seen heated arguments on that subject), someone who
regularly does so is unlikely to delete one thinking they are only
deleting a shortcut, since they probably don't know about - or, at
least, use - shortcuts.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in
silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in
silencing mankind. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I have about 8500 photos on my computer and every one has a starting
file reference of the year the photo was taken. If I am not sure of an
actual year then the start file reference could be something like
1978q. So if I had photos of Majorca taken then they would be filed as
1978 Majorca. Again with further sub file names if desired.

[]
Yes, but how will you find a picture which you can remember was taken in
Majorca, but you can't remember when?

The only solution to such a question (that I can think of) is to use one
of the many (possibly there might be something as standard in 7, I don't
know) photo management utilities that use tags (though the name used may
vary - some call them "albums" or other terms). I must admit I _don't_
use such a utility, but that's probably as I am old and stuck in the
real-world folders, files etc. way of thinking.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in
silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in
silencing mankind. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

 

[Ken Blake]

That is indeed true - but the other side of the coin is that you can't
automate it if the backup media isn't permanently available - so chances
are that the backup won't get done!

I understand your point, but personally, I still wouldn't do it your
way, nor recommend it to others. Rather than schedule the computer to
do it, I'd rather schedule myself to plug in the drive, run the
backup, then disconnect the drive. Might I forget to do it
occasionally? Yes, but I remember to do most of them it should be OK.

And by the way, for most people, backing up every day isn't necessary.
Once a week is OK for most people, and even once a month is fine for
lots of people.

It's somewhat mitigated in my case because I live part-time in each of 2
places a hundred miles apart with a separate external drive at each. I
take my laptop - containing the primary data source - between locations.
If I lose the laptop *and* one external drive, I've still got the other
external drive with a fairly recent set of date.

OK, good!

I like the idea, suggested by some, of using a network drive rather than
a directly connected drive. Since my wife and I each have our own
computer with directly connected external drive, I could achieve
something like a network solution by backing up my data to my wife's
external drive, and vice versa. Might be worth considering.

If I go the full network route, what intermediate hardware would I need
to be able to connect one or two existing hard drives to my router?

You might want to consider installing a third computer on the network,
one running Windows Home Server. It can automatically back up all the
computers on the network ever night.

And it doesn't have to be an expensive computer. A very lightweight
model is usually fine; just make sure it has a big hard drive (or
drives).

 

[Ken Blake]

While I agree it's not a good idea to store things on the desktop
(though I've seen heated arguments on that subject), someone who
regularly does so is unlikely to delete one thinking they are only
deleting a shortcut, since they probably don't know about - or, at
least, use - shortcuts.

I agree that the risk is less for someone who does it than the risk
would be for me. But the risk is still not zero, and since there's no
advantage to putting anything but a shortcut on the desktop, there's
no reason to take any non-zero risk.

 

[Ken Blake]

I have about 8500 photos on my computer and every one has a starting file
reference of the year the photo was taken. If I am not sure of an actual
year then the start file reference could be something like 1978q. So if I
had photos of Majorca taken then they would be filed as 1978 Majorca. Again
with further sub file names if desired.

I organize my pictures much the same way as you do. But rather than do
what I do or you do, she should do what works best for her. I'll
repeat what I said a few posts ago: "There is no best way. She can put
them wherever she wants to and organize them any way she likes. Where
you put files and how you organize them depends on what's best for
you. We all have different needs and different tastes."

 

[John Williamson]

If I go the full network route, what intermediate hardware would I need
to be able to connect one or two existing hard drives to my router?

Buy one or two bare NAS boxes and put your drive(s) into them. That's
the fastest solution for data transfer. Or buy a cheap PC and use them
either internally (fast) or in USB caddies, which is the slowest. The
speed of the file serving computer isn't that important, as all it's
doing is running either Windows or a minimal install of Linux as a file
server. It would be an ideal job for a Rasperry Pi or similar, if you go
the USB caddy route, as the limit there is the speed of the USB connection.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On 18/05/2012 16:01, Ken Blake wrote: []

that's a risky thing to do. A permanently plugged-in external drive
isn't very different from an internal drive. It's always possible that
a nearby lightning strike, virus attack, even theft of the computer,
can cause the loss of everything on all your drives

That is indeed true - but the other side of the coin is that you can't
automate it if the backup media isn't permanently available - so chances
are that the backup won't get done!

I understand your point, but personally, I still wouldn't do it your
way, nor recommend it to others. Rather than schedule the computer to
do it, I'd rather schedule myself to plug in the drive, run the
backup, then disconnect the drive. Might I forget to do it
occasionally? Yes, but I remember to do most of them it should be OK.

[]
As a belts-and-braces, you could also schedule the computer to remind
you to do it (-:! [I use System Scheduler from Splinterware (here on XP,
though also works under 7), but I gather Windows 7 has something
built-in.]

 

[Peter Jason]

My sister has just bought a new Win7 computer.

She wants me to put all her photo files, from the
old machine, and on CDs into the new one. There
are about 3000 photos altogether.

She is profoundly computer illiterate.

What is the best way? Should I store them all
into the "Pictures" folder in the library with
suitable sub folders? I take it that the
"Pictures" folder has some inherent advantage for
this purpose?

Then on the desktop have a shortcut to these? Her
previous technique was to store all the images on
the desktop itself.

Peter

Thank's for the replies. I did a dry run on my
computer and transferred most of my pictures into
the "Pictures" folder on the C: drive and took the
chance to rationalize a few things thereby.

All seems to work well, including the desktop
shortcuts that can drill down to sub folders
easily.

I have not seen her new machine yet, but I will
check it all out. And suggest to her she backs
it all up periodically.

My experience with databasing photos has not been
too successful. In the old ME days I had a
Microsoft product designed to do just this and
could "paint" properties into the image regarding
date, contents, place, from pre-setup strings. For
any image one requires the location, date taken,
and content. The Microsoft product did all this
very well on all the archival scans I took of
photos going back to the 1880s. I organized dates
as "1990s", 1920s, 1930s etc etc. I scanned all
as *.tiff files and filled in all the data. Alas,
when I came to convert them to *.jpgs the database
software failed and I lost all the info. Sad. I
can't remember the name of that software and I
wonder if something of Microsoft does the same
thing these days.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Peter Jason

as "1990s", 1920s, 1930s etc etc. I scanned all
as *.tiff files and filled in all the data. Alas,
when I came to convert them to *.jpgs the database
software failed and I lost all the info. Sad. I
can't remember the name of that software and I
wonder if something of Microsoft does the same
thing these days.

For JPEGs, I use the comment field, which is actually part of the file.
In IrfanView, display the file, then type I then C to get at the comment
field. (Other softwares can access it too.)

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

My experience with databasing photos has not been
too successful. In the old ME days I had a
Microsoft product designed to do just this and
could "paint" properties into the image regarding
date, contents, place, from pre-setup strings. For
any image one requires the location, date taken,
and content. The Microsoft product did all this
very well on all the archival scans I took of
photos going back to the 1880s. I organized dates
as "1990s", 1920s, 1930s etc etc. I scanned all
as *.tiff files and filled in all the data. Alas,
when I came to convert them to *.jpgs the database
software failed and I lost all the info. Sad. I
can't remember the name of that software and I
wonder if something of Microsoft does the same
thing these days.

I agree with Gilliver. Forget MS bloatware and use Irfan.
Irfan is great for annotating.
It can write a comment and write to file IPTC.
It's also my fav picture viewer / editor, ever.

 

[...winston]

Does one of these ring a bell
==> Microsoft Digital Image, Digital Image Suite, or Digital Image Suite
Plus

All were discontinued in 2007.



--
....winston
msft mvp mail


"Peter Jason" wrote in message

My experience with databasing photos has not been
too successful. In the old ME days I had a
Microsoft product designed to do just this...
<snip>
Alas, when I came to convert them to *.jpgs the database
software failed and I lost all the info. Sad. I
can't remember the name of that software and I
wonder if something of Microsoft does the same
thing these days.

 

[Gordon]

Her previous technique was to store all the images on
the desktop itself.

Then she's been extremely lucky that they've survived. Just do a google
for "desktop corruption" and see how many hits you get.
The Desktop is a special system folder that is NOT designed to store
data. Shortcuts yes, because these can be easily recreated in the (quite
common) event of desktop corruption.
If the desktop corrupts then any data stored there is gone. Poof!
Your thoughts about storing in the My Pictures folder are good, you
don't have to do that however, but if you do choose a different location
make sure that it's a folder within the User Account folders.

 

[Zaidy036]

<snip>

You might use the following BATCH file as a start:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:: Photos to Dir.bat

:: Drop a folder containing photos into this batch or copy photos from
camera into "1" or copy containing folder and rename "1"
:: Run this Batch if not using "drop"
:: Result is New folders "YYYY-MM-DD" inside folder dropped or named "1"
with original unchanged

@Echo off
Setlocal
If "%~1" EQU "" (Goto Skip) ELSE (Set Base=%~1)
Set Tool="C:\Program Files\exiftool-8.09\exiftool(-k).exe"

Start "" /wait %Tool% -o dummy/ -d "%Base%\%%Y-%%m-%%d"
"-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" "%Base%"

Exit

:Skip
Echo.
Echo *** No Data Supplied - Drop a Photo Folder on the Batch ***
Echo.
pause

Exit

:: following is expanded command for reference
:: Start "" /wait "C:\Program Files\exiftool-8.09\exiftool(-k).exe" -o
dummy/ -d "C:/Users/Eric/Desktop/1/%%Y-%%m-%%d"
"-Directory<DateTimeOriginal" C:\Users\Eric\Desktop\1

:: following URLs are for reference
:: http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
:: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/filename.html
:: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/filename.html#codes

 

[mechanic]

The only solution to such a question (that I can think of) is to
use one of the many (possibly there might be something as
standard in 7, I don't know) photo management utilities that use
tags (though the name used may vary - some call them "albums" or
other terms).

What we need is a Shotwell version for Windows!

 

[DanS]

I have about 8500 photos on my computer and every one has a
starting file reference of the year the photo was taken.
If I am not sure of an actual year then the start file
reference could be something like 1978q. So if I had
photos of Majorca taken then they would be filed as 1978
Majorca. Again with further sub file names if desired.

[]
Yes, but how will you find a picture which you can remember
was taken in Majorca, but you can't remember when?

The only solution to such a question (that I can think of)
is to use one of the many (possibly there might be
something as standard in 7, I don't know) photo management
utilities that use tags (though the name used may vary -
some call them "albums" or other terms). I must admit I
_don't_ use such a utility, but that's probably as I am old
and stuck in the real-world folders, files etc. way of
thinking.

I'm not one to use a photo management utility either, but for
some people that are computer dumb, taking 20 minutes to show
them how to use may be worthwhile.

One of the most useful features about some photo management
programs is the ability to cross-reference pictures in multiple
ways for easier retrieval......which if using just folders, you
can't really do w/o keeping multiples of the same pictures.

(In all honesty, I've only a few photos/videos....it's the wife
that takes all the pictures...and she uses raw folders for
sorting. I guess we're *both* old skool.)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I'm not one to use a photo management utility either, but for
some people that are computer dumb, taking 20 minutes to show
them how to use may be worthwhile.

One of the most useful features about some photo management
programs is the ability to cross-reference pictures in multiple
ways for easier retrieval......which if using just folders, you
can't really do w/o keeping multiples of the same pictures.

It was exactly this sort of thing which I _thought_ was what they were
trying to do with libraries: you'd store the actual picture in one place
(if me, probably chronologically), and then have it _appear_ to be in
the Majorca "album", the grandparents/children "album", and so on.

But from what I've read here, they haven't implemented them like that -
in particular, deleting from an "album" (library) apparently results in
real deletion (whereas ideally it shouldn't have unless it was the last
remaining link, and then only with confirmation).

(In all honesty, I've only a few photos/videos....it's the wife
that takes all the pictures...and she uses raw folders for
sorting. I guess we're *both* old skool.)

Does she sort by date or subject (or something else)?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I
have
one. -Cato the Elder, statesman, soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)

 

[Peter Jason]

Does one of these ring a bell
==> Microsoft Digital Image, Digital Image Suite, or Digital Image Suite
Plus

All were discontinued in 2007.

Yes, I remember it was "Digital Image Suite" 9

Peter

 

[Peter Jason]

If the photos were never categorized in the first place,
then they're going to need to be sorted at some point.

If they were already sorted into folders, that implies
some kind of existing organization. In which case, other
tools may not be necessary. Just plop down the same
directory structure as existed before. (And no, putting them
on the desktop, is not a hygienic practice. Too many things
can go wrong that way, such as "wayward mouse movement" followed
by "disaster". They should be stored in a folder somewhere, and
preferably, in a folder that receives backups occasionally.)

You can have a look through articles like this for inspiration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Photo_Gallery

The only thing I don't like about the Windows Live suite, is
the notion of uploading the pictures onto storage at Microsoft.
Now, depending on how the Windows Live suite behaves (insists on
cloud storage), you may want to not bother with it, and stick
with the Photo Gallery idea. There may even be third-party
photo organizer tools, which can do a good job (perhaps something
from Kodak that came with a camera, etc.).

I don't sort pictures or treat them specially. I make descriptive
file names (tags as part of file name) if downloading images. Storage
is in folders like GIF1, GIF2, JPG1, JPG2, as the main folder gets
too full. The only reason for having separate folders, is to prevent
name collision when they're moved.

Some pictures, the ones shared on imageshack.us, I find those
by searching my sent messages, using terms associated with the
picture. And that's how I figure out what the name might have
been for those. (The file names for those are artificially shortened
to keep imageshack happy.)

So I'm not really that organized at all. Everything on my computer
is stored that way (tagging at file name level, or folders for
non-tagged goods). Anything which is not tagged, that's a message that
the content can be disposed of on the next "cleaning cycle" to the
trash bin. So if I find a file like 12345678.jpg, that means it
is safe to delete. If I find 12345678__holiday_in_Brighton.jpg,
that means it's a keeper.

Paul

I have held off arranging my photos after my
failed experience with "MS Digital Suite 9" and I
was hoping I could get Access10 to do the job.

What about Adobe Lightroom; I hear this is a
high-end pro utility?

Peter

 

[DanS]

In message

in news:[email protected]: []

Yes, but how will you find a picture which you can
remember was taken in Majorca, but you can't remember
when?

The only solution to such a question (that I can think
of) is to use one of the many (possibly there might be
something as standard in 7, I don't know) photo
management utilities that use tags (though the name used
may vary - some call them "albums" or other terms). I
must admit I _don't_ use such a utility, but that's
probably as I am old and stuck in the real-world folders,
files etc. way of thinking.

I'm not one to use a photo management utility either, but
for some people that are computer dumb, taking 20 minutes
to show them how to use may be worthwhile.

One of the most useful features about some photo management
programs is the ability to cross-reference pictures in
multiple ways for easier retrieval......which if using just
folders, you can't really do w/o keeping multiples of the
same pictures.

It was exactly this sort of thing which I _thought_ was
what they were trying to do with libraries: you'd store the
actual picture in one place (if me, probably
chronologically), and then have it _appear_ to be in the
Majorca "album", the grandparents/children "album", and so
on.

You'd think that how it would work, but when you have the
function as "part of the OS", instead of a stand-alone
program, I personally think it's difficult to include all the
features that a "stand-alone" version could.

But from what I've read here, they haven't implemented them
like that - in particular, deleting from an "album"
(library) apparently results in real deletion (whereas
ideally it shouldn't have unless it was the last remaining
link, and then only with confirmation).
Does she sort by date or subject (or something else)?

Oh jeez......It's a hybrid. Under her main "Pictures"
directory, there are dires named for picture/video theme....

.../Family
.../Pets
.../Funny Pix
etc.

And then inside the ../Family, there are folders named
monthly, 2011-12 and folder named for an occasion, like XMAS
2011.

It's definitely *her* system.

.......so what happens then when you have a really nice picture
of the grandchild, with the dog, on XMAS, that is very funny?

Where does it get filed? (For easy retreival.)