This one really is going to be short and sweet.

Every single person that ever uses a camera, from the top professionals to the rank amateurs, makes bad images. In fact, the dirty little secret is that the best photographers make a lot more bad images than new photographers. Of course that’s because they shoot a lot more frames than beginners, but the one big thing that sets them apart from all the others is that they know which images to show people and which ones to delete.

So if you make an image that is out of focus, badly composed, or just plain ugly, then delete it. You’ll feel better about yourself, your portfolio will be stronger, and everyone that sees your work will think that you’re a better shooter too because they will only ever see good images from you.

The hard drive in your computer, and your entire backup system, will also thank you because you will have far fewer images to store and to backup. You do backup your image files don’t you?

This is another one of those very quick tips that’s going to take me a long time to say.

The tip itself is very simple: Back up your data! Your photos don’t really exist until they exist in at least two places. Hard Drives fail. Optical Discs rot. Floppy Discs are tiny. So what do you do? You make sure that you have multiple copies of every single one of your important files. And you really should have one backup copy of all your important data that is quickly and easily accessible, and another copy that is stored at an off-site location that can’t be affected by the same flood, fire, or theft that could get the other two copies.

Hard Drivesare cheap. If you just consider your backup drives as part of your photographic kit (just like the camera, lenses, and these days the computer too) then you will be in a much better place mentally when it comes to buying them. You need all of these things in order to successfully create, manipulate, and preserve your images. It’s just that simple.

How to Backup

This is the long part. I’m not going to tell you how to backup your photos and other important documents. That’s up to you. But I will tell you what I do, and why I do it. Unfortunately, because my system is so robust it is also quite complicated. And that takes a long time to describe…

I recognize that most people won’t even come close to doing what I do. But I hope you will do some of it, because (say it with me) “All Hard Drives Fail“. Even if you only do some of this it will be much more likely that your data is safe.

• First of all I keep the original copies of all of my important documents, data, and recent photos on my laptop. I would prefer to keep absolutely everything on my laptop, but laptop hard drives simply aren’t available that are big enough to do so; therefore, I can only keep my recent work on my laptop and older stuff must be stored elsewhere.
• My laptop and my desktop are connected via a network and I do automatic backups of all my important documents so that they are readily available on either machine. The frequency of these backups varies depending on the type of data.

  The automatic backup is done using AJC Directory Synchronizer. This is a very powerful program that allows you to choose exactly what you want to backup and where you want it to go. It is easily scheduled via the Windows task manager so you can create multiple jobs with appropriate frequencies for each job. I have used many similar pieces of software over the years and I’m much happier with this one than I was with any of the others…

• I have 2 D-Link DNS-323 Network Attached Storage (NAS) cases that each contain 2 Hard Drives. One of the drives in each NAS contains my entire photography library (including the recent work from my laptop), which I can access directly over the network from either computer using Adobe Lightroom or Windows Explorer. The other drive in each NAS contains all of my other data and documents. I do an automatic backup every week to copy everything from the primary NAS to the secondary NAS. This backup syncs any additions, deletions, or changes to any files on the primary. I do this weekly because that provides a nice buffer in case I make a mistake on either of the computers and it gets propagated to the primary NAS before I catch it. I then have a few days to recover any necessary files from the secondary NAS.
• This next part may sound crazy to some of you, but it is actually the most important part of my backup strategy… I use a portable USB drive that contains another copy of absolutely everything, and I store this drive off-site. This protects me in case of fire, flood, or any other major disaster that would impact my house, and which could potentially destroy all of the other backup copies at the same time. I only update this drive every few weeks, so there is always some exposure to losing my most recent files, but I have years worth of work stored on this drive that will always be safe.

  This drive can be stored at your workplace, at a friends house, in a safety deposit box, or even in your vehicle (as long as you don’t park it in the garage attached to your house!). The important part is that it must be an off-site backup, and therefore you have to get it out of your house. With this drive stored somewhere else, my absolute worst case is that I lose a few weeks worth of data.

  Note that I even go to the extreme of taking my secondary NAS off-site prior to bringing in my external drive!
  

Note that if you have a relatively small amount of data, a system like this could easily be created by using 2 inexpensive USB Hard Drives. These are readily available for under $100 if you need 1TB or less. You could use one drive as your primary backup and the other as the off-site backup. In fact this is exactly what I did for a long time before my storage needs outpaced the USB drives that I had. One benefit of using the NAS cases is that they are directly connected to my gigabit ethernet network, and I really like the performance and speed that the NAS is capable of.

The beauty of this system is that it can be easily upgraded by replacing the portable hard drives as your storage needs get bigger. These drives get bigger, faster, and cheaper all the time. Depending on how much storage space you need, you may never have to do this. Or you might need to start off with a multi-bay NAS right off the bat if you already have lots of data and you don’t have a good backup system.

So even if you only get one backup drive, and even if you only backup your data every once in awhile, I hope you are doing something. Do whatever works for you! Feel free to drop me a line if you need some help setting up your backup system!

Dropbox announced today that they now have a free dedicated iPhone App to allow you to access your files at Dropbox directly instead of requiring you to go through the web interface. I’ve only recently started to use Dropbox, but this is definitely one feature that will make the service a whole lot more useful for me.

Instant access to my important files from anywhere is very cool. Of course there are already several other ways to use the iPod Touch or iPhone as a filing cabinet for key documents, but none of them are very convenient to access or to update. Because of that I simply haven’t used it for that purpose. But now I will!

If you’re not familiar with Dropbox, here’s a brief introduction:

Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your computers.
Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you’ve installed Dropbox on (Windows, Mac, and Linux too!) Because a copy of your files are stored on Dropbox’s secure servers, you can also access them from any computer or mobile device using the Dropbox website.

With Dropbox, your files are always in sync.
Let’s say you’re editing a document at home. As soon as you click ‘Save’, Dropbox will sync this same file to all your other computers (and now your iPhone!) instantly and automatically. It’s as if you saved the document to all of your computers. This gives you the freedom to work on any of your computers and always have the files you need.

Dropbox lets you share files easily.
You can easily share entire folders or photo albums with Dropbox. Simply put the folders you want to share in your Dropbox, and invite people to them. You can also send people links to specific files within your Dropbox. This makes Dropbox perfect for team projects.

With Dropbox, online backup is automatic.
Every time you put a file in your Dropbox folder it is automatically backed up to our secure servers. If your computer has a melt-down your files are safe on Dropbox and can be restored at any time. Our free 2GB account is perfect for backing up your documents. We offer larger accounts (up to 100GB) for backing up your music and video collections.

Dropbox lets you go back in time to undelete or undo changes to files.
Every time you save a file in Dropbox, Dropbox syncs it to our secure servers. Dropbox keeps a history of every change made so that you can undo any mistakes and even undelete files. By default, we keep the last 30 days of undo history for all your files. We also have an unlimited undo option called “Pack-rat”.

Every Dropbox user automatically gets 2 GB of storage for free. You can pay for extra storage, but you can also earn credits to increase your free allotment by referring other new users (up to a max of 3 GB). In fact if you use the following link, you can help me increase my free space… Thanks!

https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTI4MjQ1MzI5

Windows 7 is due out on October 22nd and many people will be planning to install it as soon as possible after it arrives. I know I will be as I’ve completely had it with Vista! In order to try to help make your installation day go a little bit smoother I’ve compiled a list of 7 things to do before inserting the Windows 7 program disc into your computer’s drive:

1. Check for Viruses
2. Backup your System Hard Drive
3. Backup your Data Files
4. Update your System BIOS
5. Find your Hardware Driver Discs
6. Find your Software Installation Discs
7. Consider Dual Booting Windows

1. Check for Viruses: You should be doing this all the time anyway, but if you are planning to upgrade your existing Windows installation to Windows 7 (rather than performing a clean install) you will definitely want to ensure that your system is clean of viruses before proceeding. This is not quite as important for a clean install, but it’s still not a bad idea. If you don’t have a virus scanner check out the free version of AVG Antivirus
2. Backup your System Hard Drive: You will want to be completely prepared to recover your computer just in case the worst happens. It probably won’t, but better safe than sorry. The best way to do this is to make a complete backup of the system drive (ie. the drive that contains your operating system, usually the C: drive) onto a brand new spare hard drive. Hard drives are very cheap these days and it’s always good practice to have a complete backup drive sitting on the shelf anyway, just in case. I generally buy bare drives and install them in USB enclosure to connect them to my computer. I do this rather than buying dedicated External USB Drives so that I can take the disc out of the enclosure and insert it directly into my computer when my installed drive fails (because eventually it will fail). I use Acronis True Image backup software to clone the drive. There are other good software programs out there too, but I’ve successfully used True Image many times.
3. Backup your Data Files: If you have important files stored on your computer, such as legal documents, photographs, music, videos, and financial information, you will want to ensure you have spare copies of those files handy for use in an emergency. USB thumb drives are a good choice here (they are small, fast, cheap, AND easily writable in case you make changes to your files), but burning a CD or DVD would also work in a pinch.
4. Update your System BIOS: Check the website for your computer manufacturer to see if they have any BIOS updates available for your system. Sometimes these updates are required to ensure that your system will even run with newer operating systems, and immediately prior to an upgrade (and immediately after backing up your hard drive) is a great time to do this.
5. Find your Hardware Driver Discs: Windows 7 has been out in the wild in a release candidate version for a long time, so it’s likely that the installer will be able to find the drivers for most of your hardware devices. But sometimes printers, scanners, etc. really need the OEM installer before they work properly. Unless you are uber-organized your discs are probably not all together in one place, so it’s a good idea to find everything and have them ready in one convenient location.
6. Find your Software Installation Discs: Unless you are doing a direct upgrade of Vista to the corresponding version of Windows 7 (ie. Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium) you will actually be doing a clean install of windows and you will need to reinstall all your software, so you’re going to need your installation discs (or setup files if you downloaded them from the web) and license information. Again it’s a good idea to gather all of this stuff into one convenient location in advance. You should also take some time to go through everything you already have installed under Vista to be sure that you aren’t forgetting about some of your rarely used programs (as long as it is still relevant and important).
7. Consider Dual Booting Windows: If you’re really scared about losing everything when you install Windows 7, you might consider “Dual Booting”. Basically that means installing Windows 7 beside your existing OS without killing the existing version. There’s an easy step-by-step guide on how to do this over at Lifehacker, so I’ll leave it to them to help you make this work.

Well that’s it. If you do these things then you should be pretty safe to go ahead and install Windows 7 without worrying about losing all of your important files and data. There’s still likely to be a lot of work to set up the OS the way you like it, and to install all the software you need, but this is a great first step. Good luck!

If you’ve ever had a hard drive failure you’ll know exactly why I’m writing about this topic. If you haven’t, know that you will, and I hope for your sake that you will be prepared for it. Hard drives die. It’s a simple truth, and not a matter of if, only when.

Backing up your stuff is a very personal thing. I probably go way overboard on this, but I’ve made a conscious decision that I don’t want to lose any of my important files, ever. Mostly that means my original images and other photography data, but it also includes all of my other important documents such as personal letters and financial and tax data. I even include the settings for some of my favorite and most important software iin this category. I have all kinds of presets and defaults for Lightroom in particular that would be just plain painful to figure out how to reset if the main drive on my computer were to fail, so I make sure to back that up too.

Backing up your stuff doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. You don’t need to run out and buy a NAS box (network attached storage) to connect to your home network, and you definitely don’t need to shell out the cash for a Drobo (but that would be awesome!) or a hardware Raid system.

Backing up can be as simple as buying a second drive and manually copying your important stuff over every couple of weeks. This could be a second internal drive in your desktop machine, but these days it’s far easier to pick up an inexpensive external drive that you can connect via USB or Firewire.

Using a simple backup strategy like this will protect you from a single drive failure. Keep in mind that this will only protect the data that you have up to date on the backup drive, so if it’s been a couple of weeks since you did your most recent copy, you may still lose a lot of files. For me that would likely be hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of new photos. It’s also important to be aware that this will only be protection against a drive failure. It won’t protect you from a natural disaster such as a fire or a flood unless you store the backup drive somewhere other than in your house. It’s easy enough to keep it in your shed, your car, or over at a friend or relatives house, but doing so makes it that much more likely that your most recent backup will be from weeks ago instead of just days…

A much better strategy would be to buy two external drives. Keep one of them connected to your computer, and store the second one at an off-site location. Use software that will automatically copy your important files to the connected drive at regular frequencies, and swap out the two drives every couple of weeks.

Although my personal backup strategy is much more complicated than this (in order to ensure absolute redundancy), the basis for it is essentially this second alternative. I like to do a backup every night using a an automatic backup program called “AJC Directory Synchronizer“.

There are many other programs out there that would also do the trick, but this one works and it’s not very expensive. Windows users should also check out “Cobian Backup” (it’s free!). I’ve never used it but it gets great reviews.

Of course Mac users should check out “Time Machine” and “Super Dooper“. The combination of these two systems working together will make your life so much easier than anything available for Windows…