Back It Up

It's here! It's here! I am excited to announce that my camera and lens arrived safe and sound on Friday. I have to say I am a wee bit intimidated. Okay, alot intimidated. Just ask Val about my 900 frantic emails.

So trying to prepare myself for the learning curve of this camera I started burning old pictures off my computer. Let me stop for a moment and explain the system I have. I take lots of digital pictures. After all, they are free. So why not take hundreds, or in my case thousands. I then upload them to my computer (almost always my laptop) and then erase the photo card. I sometimes then upload the pictures to my online photo album. Do I ever print any of the pictures? Rarely. But hey my goal this year is to print more and actually hang them at the house and send to relatives.

Now at this point I am supposed to burn the pictures from my computer each month to a CD and then file them in the fireproof safe. However somehow I have not done this since December 2006. Yeah, big oops. So last night I started burning and got through June. This morning Matt asked me when the last time I backed up my whole system was. My response? Never. Sure I have pulled files to a CD or a jump drive. And I do have all the pictures on CD through December 2006. But as far as a whole system backup. Never. I really have meant to do it. I even had Val email me what she bought as far as an external hard drive. So what if the email was dated July 20, 2006. I fully intended to do it. And the bad part? I have two computers I have never backed up. I am really really really lucky I have never had a problem.

So as I type, I am finishing burning the rest of 2007 pictures and then I am going to plug in my new 320 GB external hard drive and backup my whole system –– pictures, mp3 files, work and personal documents. Truth be told, I'd rather be searching for Branson rentals. An external hard drive stresses me out just as much as my new camera does. I have this fear of plugging it in and frying my whole computer. Or corrupting all my files. It makes me really nervous. And since I am a Mac girl it isn't like I can get much help in the stores about what is and isn't good.

Now all I need to do is figure how to sync my desktop and laptop computer together and I will really be on the ball. Maybe someday.