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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">CD and DVD are just external storage. Provided you have a USB DVD drive, they can be copied to The Cloud, or copied to local hard drives. </div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">As archival storage media, it's hard to beat DVD-R an<span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">d CD-R media. They are durable and stable. The only drawback is that modern computers and laptops don't have optical drives. That problem can be solved with an external CD/DVD reader or writer. Those connect via USB, and most devices and OSes can read from them. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I would not rush to convert CD or DVD photo collections to other media. The only reason for copying your favorite photos to the Cloud or a hard drive is to make them easier to view and share. I consider shared content to be temporary storage, so I don't care where or how shared content is stored. It's whatever is convenient to you and to those with whom you want to share the photos. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">By the way, Google Photos offers some free storage. This counts along with GMail, Google Docs other Google Apps, and Google Drive toward your total free storage quota with Google Services. For serious sized collections, go ahead and pay for an upgrade to more Google storage. Also, if you are really serious about photo editing, go for a paid product for editing. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">I use Google Drive and to some extent, Google Photos. I also have done a presentation to a Chicago computer user group via Zoom, about the limits on Google's free storage and how to organize and clean up your Google storage across several of their services. I have my slides (LibreOffice Impress and PDF formats) from that presentation and can present and/or share them.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">Microsoft offers OneDrive for Cloud Storage. Limited free storage is built into your Microsoft Account if you have Windows installed. Good Windows desktop integration features.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">-- Bob Primak</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div>
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On Thursday, November 25, 2021, 04:58:24 PM EST, Umesh <ushelat@gmail.com> wrote:
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<div><div id="yiv8655135171"><div><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small;" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default">I've got family videos on DVD-RAM discs. Any thoughts on how I can convert these files to a durable format and save them to an external hard drive?</div><div style="font-size:small;" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default"><br clear="none"></div><div style="font-size:small;" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default">Thanks,</div><div style="font-size:small;" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default">Umesh</div></div><br clear="none"><div class="yiv8655135171gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="yiv8655135171gmail_attr">On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 6:32 PM Harry Forsdick <<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:forsdick@gmail.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:forsdick@gmail.com">forsdick@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br clear="none"></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;" class="yiv8655135171gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148);" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default">Denise,</div><div style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148);" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default"><br clear="none"></div><div style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148);" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default">You describe that the data she wants to store are images/pictures/photographs. Carbonite is a general-purpose backup system. There are better ways to store photographs that have the online qualities of Carbonite, but have a lot more useful features if you are storing photographs. Here are three of those systems:</div><div style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148);" class="yiv8655135171gmail_default"><ul><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Google Photos (<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="https://www.google.com/photos/about/">https://www.google.com/photos/about/</a>)</li><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Amazon Photos (<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Photos/b?ie=UTF8&node=13234696011">https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Photos/b?ie=UTF8&node=13234696011</a>)</li><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Apple Photos (<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="https://www.apple.com/ios/photos/">https://www.apple.com/ios/photos/</a>)</li></ul><div>There are many other systems out there and it is not my intention to say that other offerings aren't as good. But, these three are offered by large companies that are likely to be around for a long time, and have the resources to keep up to date with the latest technology and features -- and that is important.</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Each of these systems will provide you with the following capabilities:</div><div><ul><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Online photo storage</li><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Reliable backup of that storage so, depending on your trust level, you can count on the service to take care of backing up your valuable photos.</li><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Organizing mechanisms such as folders and albums.</li><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Presentation capabilities, such as slide shows, the ability to produce printed books of your photos, etc.</li><li style="padding-bottom:0.6001em;">Higher-level capabilities such as face recognition and object recognition so that you can search or organize photos by automatic recognition from the photo itself, rather than someone manual labeling effort.</li></ul><div>I personally use both Google Photos and Apple Photos. They both are very good and worth the modest amount of money they charge for their services.</div></div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Of course, the quality of any collection of photographs depends on how much time you spend curating the photos. Some of the futuristic Machine Learning (ML) capabilities of these systems include automatic curation where the ML system chooses the best photographs of your collection based on analyzing how someone has selected a few photos from a lot of photos taking into consideration things like composition, focus, colors in the scene. It's pretty amazing what is being done or starting to be done these days.</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Hope this answers some of your daughter's questions.</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>My first and last recommendation is that she do something -- she will find out that exploring the capabilities of what can be done is very interesting and at the same time will be a safer way of storing her photos than on her own disks.</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>Regards,</div><div><br clear="none"></div><div>-- Harry</div></div><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="text-align:left;"><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="2"><font color="#0b5394"><br clear="none"></font></font></div><div style="text-align:left;"><font face="verdana, sans-serif" size="2"><font color="#0b5394"><br clear="none"></font></font></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br clear="none"></div><table cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" style="color:rgb(80,0,80);font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:19.2px;background-color:rgb(238,238,238);margin-left:0px;margin-right:auto;"><tbody><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1" valign="top" style="font-size:10pt;"><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://www.forsdick.com/resume/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">Harry Forsdick</a><br clear="none"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://lexingtonphotoscan.com/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">Lexington Photo Scanning</a><br clear="none"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://lexingtontmma.org/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">Town Meeting Member Precinct 7</a><br clear="none"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:harry@forsdick.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:harry@forsdick.com" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">harry@forsdick.com</a><br clear="none"></font><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://www.forsdick.com/" style="font-family:verdana, sans-serif;color:rgb(17,85,204);">www.forsdick.com</a><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><br clear="none"></font></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1" width="5"><font face="verdana, sans-serif"> </font></td><td colspan="1" rowspan="1" valign="top" style="font-size:10pt;"><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="https://goo.gl/xZXT2F" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">46 Burlington St.<br clear="none">Lexington, MA 02420</a><br clear="none"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="callto:17817996002" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">(781) 799-6002 (mobile)</a><br clear="none"><font color="#0b5394"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://meet.jit.si/HarryForsdick">meet.jit.si/HarryForsdick</a> (video)</font><br clear="none"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" target="_blank" href="http://forsdick.weebly.com/home/my-websites" style="color:rgb(17,85,204);">Click</a> to see my other websites<br clear="none"></font></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></div></div><div><br clear="none"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br clear="none"></div><br clear="none"><div class="yiv8655135171gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="yiv8655135171gmail_attr">On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 5:46 PM Denise <<a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:denise@rcn.com" target="_blank" href="mailto:denise@rcn.com">denise@rcn.com</a>> wrote:<br clear="none"></div><blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex;" class="yiv8655135171gmail_quote"><div lang="EN-US"><div><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">Hi All,<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">This is a follow up question re hard drives and long term storage.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">So my daughter has about 5-7 external hard drives and none are newer…..She wants a long term safer solution (like Carbonite) rather than keeping everything on these hard drives; as she now knows they will all fail eventually.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">The pics (only pics on all these drives) that are on these drives are on no computer at all, just on these hard drives.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">Given that Carbonite backs up your computer (and word, excel, etc.) and these pics are not on a computer or iphone, what’s a good option for her? She does not need backup for word, excel or other computer stuff.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">How should she get all these to transfer to a better and more long term solution?<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">With Carbonite you would have to have one computer and only ONE hard drive connected; so that might not be the best option.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">thanks,<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">Denise<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="yiv8655135171MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13pt;">p.s. we’re still working on taking in the failed drive.<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div>===============================================<br clear="none">
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