Happy New Year Everyone! Seeing as how it is the start of the new year, it is also a good time to do some of the yearly maintenance chores on the PC and around the house. One thing I recommend you take some time to do is to organize and backup up your most valuable pictures. By valuable, I mean the ones that YOU find the most important. This would typically be pictures of the family, baby pictures, pet pictures, home pictures, etc. If you are like me, you probably have at least a couple of photo albums lying around in the closet somewhere. The great thing about film photos is that it takes a long time for them to degrade, so most of us just stash them away and ignore them. But, should you have a fire or some other disaster, those photos could be lost in a heartbeat. Fortunately, hard drive and removable media space has increased to the point where we can store thousands of photos on them quite easily and cheaply.

The first thing you will want to do is to get yourself a scanner if you don't already have one. If you need one, I recommend looking into an All-In-One Printer/Copier/Scanner. You can find an inkjet model for well under $100 these days, and the ability to make photocopies is handy. I have an HP model, and I can't complain about the performance. If you are on a really tight budget, ask your friends and family, most likely one of them has a scanner you can use/borrow.

Next you will want to set up the scanning software to store your photos in the proper format. I recommend using the highest color setting you can, the highest scan resolution you reasonably can (maybe 600dpi minimum), and then store your photos in either JPG or BMP format. These may not make for the smallest file sizes, but they are two of the most well supported file formats, making it easy to import and transfer the pictures later on. If you have some badly degraded or damaged photos, you may want to look into a photo restoration service. These services can often restore your photos to near-original quality and will generally provide you with a digital backup as well. Check your yellow pages for a service near where you live.

Once you have scanned in all of your photos, you will want to store them on removeable media. For the most bang for the buck, I recommend using write-once DVDs, commonly known as DVD-R or DVD+R. At 4.7GB per disc, you can easily save a ton of photos on one. Or, if you have less than 700MB of photos, a writeable CD would also be fine. To copy the photo files to the disc, you will need a program like Nero Burning ROM or Roxio Media Creator. I find Nero to be worth the money since I use many of the features, such as the DVD creation and burning tool, but if you are uncomfortable with the price, there are some decent free alternatives for simple file burning. One you may wish to try is CDBurnerXP. Once you have successfully copied your pictures to disc, I strongly recommend that you burn ANOTHER copy of those disc(s). I have seen more than one CD or DVD that I have burned go bad within the space of two or three years. Best to take the time now and make a second copy.

If you don't like the idea of burning them to disc, another alternative would be to store them on a flash drive. They are physically small, and seem to be more reliable for data storage. A good sized one will cost more money though. Or, if you are a real photo snapping maniac who prefers their photos in a raw format, you may want to consider an external USB or firewire hard drive for maximum storage capacity.

So, now you have all of your precious pics all safely backed up. BUT, they are not truly safe if they are stored in the same building as your original photos! This is something that people tend to overlook, but to have a really safe backup, it needs to be stored off-site of the originals. The best solution I know of is to take your media, and put it in a safety deposit box at your local bank. Many of us already own one, so simply stop by and drop it in there. It is not only safe from a major disaster, but it is also safe from anyone who might want to snoop your private data. Which brings up another subject, which is backing up your other important documents. I'll cover that soon in another article on PC backups, but remember that those too should be stored somewhere off-site and secure.

Finally, I imagine some of you are thinking to yourselves, "Why not store your photos online, using something like Flickr or Xdrive"? Well, you certainly can if you wish. However, be careful to read the terms of the agreement with these types of services to see who owns the content posted on their websites, and make sure that you don't post any sensitive information on these sites where they could become publicly available. My opinion is that if the service is free, you get what you pay for. And, who knows when they might shut down, and will you be able to get your data back if they do? Or, are you completely confident in their ability to protect your data from thieves? I recommend you use them if you wish for non-sensitive information, and keep the sensitive stuff locked away somewhere safe.

P.S. While you are at it, now would also be a good time to make a photo record of the contents of your home. If there ever were a disaster that destroyed your belongings, it could be helpful to have a photo history of all that you owned for insurance purposes. Take your digital camera and snap off pictures all over your house. Then copy those pictures onto a CD or DVD, and store them in the safety deposit box. At the very least, it is almost free to do so, and it can provide a fun look back at your home in several years. Best to do this once a year too, as you can be surprised how much your home and possessions change in a year!