Yes, I believe that all these things are important if you have eternal life! -----Original Message----- From: pbs [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Leo Martin Sent: Sunday, April 12, 2015 12:08 PM To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org Subject: Re: [pbs] Flower photography organization Backup, backup, backup. And verify your backups are readable. Black ink on white parchment or paper may last millennia, but electronic storage media become obsolete and unreadable as technology changes. Can you read files on your 5.25 inch floppy disks? That was only 25 years ago. Even if the media were still readable - they aren't, they don't last so long - you would have a hard time finding a functioning drive in a functioning computer that could communicate with a modern computer. Colored inks on paper or slides fade relatively quickly as well. Whenever new storage technology comes out you need to make multiple copies of your data to the new media, and retain all your old copies on old media. I still have 20+ year old IBM SCSI hard drives I can read, but this is lagniappe. File organization: De gustibus, non disputandum est. I have subdirectories for each location (Mexico 2001, DBG Spring 2011, Home) and subdirectories for each date on the trip or at that location. Images from that date go into that directory. I leave the original name assigned by the camera on each file. I go through each day's images and copy (not rename) each to a new image file un the same dated directory with the name of the plant in format Genus_species_YYYY_MM_DD_HH_MM_SS.JPG . That way if I use the image someplace else I can figure out rapidly where it originated. (It is difficult with advancing age to keep track of thousands of children's names.) I also have subdirectories for each filled camera card (see first line of message.) I find it faster to search this way than when all the photos are in one huge directory. I still somewhat recall where I have been the last few decades. I don't use image software to store files. It becomes obsolete too. (iPhoto?) I store image files in plain old directories. Ten years from now, would you be able to pull images from an old iPhoto archive? I doubt it. Leo Martin Zone ? Phoenix Arizona USA