Digital Disaster!

As a Creative Memories consultant I've shared over and over about how important is is to make sure that your digital pictures are backed up, in more than one place.  In fact I have warned my clients and the women attending the Creative Memories parties that it's not a matter of if your computer will crash, it's a matter of when. I predict that there will be a whole generation of children that wont have pictures of their childhoods due to digital files being deleted, destroyed, lost, or just plain inaccessible.

Well, recently it's been my turn at "when".  I'm writing this as a heads up for those of you reading, but in some crazy way, I'm hoping for some healing from my pain. 



The reality of the situation and how easily this (losing your digital pictures) can happen has sunk in!  Did I mention that I knew the dangers of digital?  I was a good little CM consultant, I had done things correctly.  I had two external hard drives, one to store my pictures (memory manager vaults), one that I used for a back up of those pictures and a full backup of my desktop computer and I had just purchased a subscription to an onlne back up site. You'd think that will all of this I would be safe right?  Wrong! I must share with you to demonstrate just how delicate the digital situation can be.

So this is how it all happened. . . . One day I tried to back up a file on my desktop to my external hard drive that for years had been located stationary in my desk.  It wasn't accessible...don't know what the problem was/is, but for some unknown reason I couldn't back up or access the files on that drive. I started to freak as there was about 6-7 thousand pictures backed up on that drive.  But I thought no worries...I also have those pictures, and more, on my other working hard drive.  I need to have my son-in-law the computer guy look at it to see if it's repairable or if I need to replace it.  And I then I procrastinated, well not really procrastinated as it was constantly on my mind, but life is busy, busy, and I kept forgetting!

And then one day, not to long after, I plugged my working hard drive into my computer, you know with the 6-7 thousand pictures from the stationary drive, PLUS about 2 thousand additional pictures. Initially the picture vault opened, and then I received an error...and that was the end of that...I could never open the drive again.  NOW THE PANIC STRUCK, there was nothing I could do!  I prayed...yes I'm a praying girl, and I gave the drive to the son-in-law.

No Luck!  He tried to pull the pictures and couldn't get them off, it seems the type of drive I purchased was notorious for this problem!  So I pulled myself together and realized that there wasn't much I could do about this situation. So I begain to gather stray pictures from a few memory cards laying around the house. I thanked God that there were many pictures still on the cards as I had not completely deleted all the photos.  I realized that there was a new feature at Costco where I could download the full resolution picture from Facebook to Costco and print pictures.  Over the last couple of months, I've gradually found, borrowed and replaced pictures.  I needed to access my daughter's Facebook account and download her graduation pictures and I was starting to feel better....not good but better.

Until last night, Someone hacked her Facebook and her email, took over her page and to make matters worse....DELETED ALL HER PICTURES! And then tonight, I had my memory card next to me on the sofa and it somehow found it's way to the floor, AND THE DOG ATE IT, adding it to her destruction~! That on sent me over the edge!  I didn't lose much this time as there was not many pictures that I hadn't backed up. My family knew I was on the verge of a complete meltdown, they felt awful! While my loving husband was trying to figure out if there would be any way to repair the card (as you can see, that's doubtful!)

I resolved to be even more diligent about the back up of my digital photos!  Tomorrow I will be adding another external hard drive to my home so that will bring me back up to two.  Since the initial disaster, I've been more diligent about uploading my pictures to Smugmug. (the online site) and I will begin to print my pictures more regularly, not just when I want to scrap them.  It truely is the safest way to ensure their safety!!

I hope that the details of this digital disaster will help you to understand that it too could happen to you!  Don't procrastinate, back up your pictures and PRINT YOUR PICTURES! If you are not a scrapbooker, or you're not into digital photo albums, you can either store them in a photo safe box or slide them into a quick easy photo album.  DON'T WAIT....LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!

Tips For Organizing Your Digital Pictures

Organize Your Digital Images -
The age of digital pictures has surely changed the way we take pictures.  Since we can now see our photo prior to printing and are not limited to 36 images on a roll of film, we are taking more and more pictures. For the most part, these pictures are all keepers....those pictures taken with odd faces and closed eyes are filed in the trash can of your camera, before they even hit your computer.  As your photo library grows, it is important to keep your photos organized in a way that makes sense for you and your lifestyle. Random folders, full of random photos, won't do you any good when you decide to search for that family photo from the reunion three years ago or your daughter's preschool pictures.

Memory Manager is an amazing software to help you keep your photo's organized, but it's not just limited to organization, it also contains some powerful editing tools, (just like the pro's use) and an album organizer too.
In Memory Manger you no longer need to spend hours organizing images (or any media) in several different folders just to find the one you need. No opening up several folders,  or guessing which month or year for that matter, that you took that picture of your daughter wearing that silly birthday hat.  Using Memory Manager you can be staring at that picture in a few short seconds. 

Back Up Your Photos -
Once your photos are organized on your computer, it is very important that you back them up somewhere else. It is inevitable, one day, something will happen to your computer: it will crash, your toddler will step on your laptop and break it, or something else that you cannot predict, and all your photos will be lost...unless you have them backed up somewhere else. Thankfully, Memory Manager comes with an automatic back up feature. The backup tool automatically saves your photos, and any changes or additions that you make to your memory vault, so you don't have to remember.  I suggest you invest in an external hard drive that you can copy all of your photos to, they are reasonably priced these days and have great storage capacity. Yes, CDs and DVDs work but those run a greater risk, as they may deteriorate over time, and may one day become as obsolete as vinyl records or cassettes. My recommendation? Memory Manager and don't worry about remembering to back up your photos, just know it's taken care of.

Share Your Photos -
Nowadays, our photos are not just on our cameras and computers; we love to share them with friends, make slide shows for our social media sites, and send emails to family members too. Yes these taskes are easy with Memory Manager, but more importantly, I'd like to caution you, you are taking a chance trusting your precious photos to ANY online site.  You will be not only giving up control of the safety of your photos to someone else but MANY sites change the resolution of your images upon upload, and the picture will NEVER print with the same quality and clarity as your original camera image.  So, of course, share your pictures but do not rely on someone else to guard your precious memories!!!

Order Your Photos -
Ok, you've come this far! Once you've taken the time to use your camera, taken some great photos, organized and edited them, kept them safe with automatic back up, shared your photos with family, and uploaded them to Facebook or some other social site, we now come to the best part; ordering your photos! I have two pieces of advice when it comes to ordering. First, order any prints you like as soon as you upload them to your computer. Next, when you capture something that is very unique, catches your eye, or you know that picture of your child is going to ba a favorite, order a large print right away. If you don't order it immediately, it will just stay on your computer forever. Your life is too busy to remember to order it later. The printed picture is STILL the best way to preserve your memories safely.  Creative Memories has several options for keeping these printed photos organized, safe and enjoyed by your family.  If you've spent all this time and money just to take pictures of the special moments of your life, WHY on earth would you just leave them sitting on your computer?  So don't procrastinate, visit Creative Memories Digital Center and upload your pictures for printing and enlargements. Unlike other photo processors (Walmart, Costco, Snapfish, Kodak and many, many more) we DO NOT, change the resolution of your photo image, and we use high quality photo paper to process your pictures, so you'll love the quality of your prints. 

Don't keep making promises to yourself about getting your photos organized. Keep it simple, and give me a call for help. Contact me here and if you would like to learn more about Memory Manager 3.0 click here to watch a video and see just what you can do

Where Are Your Digital Pictures?

I can help you...

Organize and edit your digital photos.  Are you overwhelmed with your digital photos? Did you know theres a better way to organize than all those folders on your computer?  Not sure where to begin with sorting and filing them? I can help you get started with Creative Memories’ software for editing and organizing your digital images on your personal computer. Memory Manager is the best thing that could happen to your digital pictures. You’ll be able to easily locate your photos and incorporate them into beautiful table top Storybooks and other photo gifts. Ask me about free 24/7 online learning, or contact me for individual help in loading your software and learning how to use it.

If you're saying..."well this looks great for my digital pictures, but I have tons of pictures in boxes and drawers", stay tuned for great orginizational ideas for your printed pictures or contact me for a personal consultation.