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We are answering your questions this week: How Steph FINALLY got onto manual mode (after almost 9 years of trying); how we are backing up our computers and harddrives; what other crafts we do (or don’t do); Phone photography; subscribing to all show comments and a few other improvements we’ve made; and so much more.
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Joining the Discussion:
Peppermint Granberg
Katie Nelson
Steph
Picks of the Week:
Peppermint: Instagram for Android
Katie: Krista Sahlin layout
Steph: Veer videos about Open Type Fonts
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I use Crash Plan too and have had a great experience with it so far. But, like Peppermint, I didn’t use the seed drive either. I often wished I had since it’s taken me almost a year to get my 1.5 TB backed up. LOL But, that’s my fault. Not theirs. I’m terrible about hooking my laptop up to backup at night. And I don’t let it back up during times when we are using the internet for other stuff. However, I recently got a new drive and moved all my files around. I’ve been super impressed with how quick it’s reassociated all my drives since I’ve been faithful with plugging in. I’m now down to 250 gb of supplies to back up/reassociate (so about 85% of my files are done). And it’s been about 1-2 weeks. And, it’s estimating it will only take a few days longer to complete. It can usually backup 20GB from about 11pm to 8am running at night on a wired internet connection.
Like Peppermint, I set up different backup sets. The first set was the most important stuff. My photos and tax information. Next are my work projects. Then my layouts. Finally is my digiscrap supplies. So, my most important stuff is always backed up first and then it works on my digiscrap supplies in the end.
One more thought on Crashplan. The reason I chose it is because it will remember my EHDs without any trouble and has the unlimited plan. And, with the 4-year plan, it’s a great price. So, I’m pretty happy with it.
Now, in addition to my online backup, I do run a monthly backup on laptop using Time Machine on the Mac. So, if I ever did lose everything on my computer, I would restore from that first, then get the rest of the missing/updated stuff from Crashplan, so hopefully only a month’s worth of files. My digiscrap stuff is on DVD and EHD as well. My photos are on my EHD and on an EHD in the safe. So, I would always tap into those, and then try to restore from the online service before I’d pay for the restore drive.
Katie… My guess is that you have a setting toggled that was telling your computer to throttle the backup while it was being used or on wireless and/or just not set to the maximum speeds. That would cause it to be soooo slow. I know when I do work on my laptop when my backup is running, it crawls.
As for hard drives, I use Lacie and Fantom. None have failed on me, but I did lose a power supply on one of my Lacie’s. Mine aren’t super portable and just sit on my desk. I’ve had a 320GB, 500GB, 1TB and 2TB with the oldest being about 7-8 years old and they are still going strong.
That’s good to know Wendy. All I know is that I developed a setting that made me want to throttle everything since it was taking so long! lol!
I have to just add a little to what Wendy said … I just signed up with Crash Plan (after hearing good things), and my upload was taking forever. I was super frustrated. After listening to the show, I assumed there had to be some setting that was effecting my speed. I have the fastest Internet service offered and no other process runs as slow as I was seeing with Crash Plan.
Sure enough, it was set to “throttle” the backup down to a super slow speed, both when I was using the machine and when I wasn’t. I just changed the setting and I’ve gone from having 71 days remaining on my backup to 1.2 days. I figure once I’m all backed up, I’ll but the “throttle” back on (at least while I am working on my laptop).
Thanks for the great show … got me thinking and solved my problem.
Thanks girls, so much good information on this week’s show! I’m going to have to listen to it a couple of times so that I don’t miss anything!
Re Instagram, which I love, I always take the photo on my iPhone and then import the photo into Instagram, and crop, add filters etc. in Instagram. My iPhone photo size is much bigger/better quality than a photo taken in Instagram.
After working through Finding Your Photo Flow with Kayla L, I have signed up with BackBlaze as my external backup service. It has taken literally months to back up my files, but the end is in sight and I have just a couple of hundred files to go, and I will sleep easier at night, knowing my files are backed up somewhere other than locally. [I do not have very fast internet speeds where I live AND I have a house full of teenagers/adults who use the Internet heavily.]
I also have my photo collection on two separate external hard drives (one is for storage, one is a backup), and also on Flickr. I have all my photos and digi-supplies in Lightroom so now all I need to do is perhaps scrap with them? LOL
Thanks again, girls! Your podcast is the highlight of my week!!!
I haven’t quite finished the show, but one of the things I wondered, while listening is what do you do with your .psd or .tiff files once you print/.jpg your layout? Do you keep it forever, or do you eventually throw it out?
Love the show as always!
I keep them, but I can’t give you a good reason why. If disk space became an issue I’d have to take a look at them, but for the most part my hard drives are sort of like a black hole – nothing ever escapes.
I always, always keep mine! I have found typos before and wanted to fix things. I’ve also found a need to edit a page for another purpose. Also, if I were ever to lose some photos, having the layered file would give me access to some form of those photos. So, I would delete my JPGs before I’d delete the layered file.
I’m with Wendy … I have gone back to my PSD/TIFF files to ‘rescue’ photos I have somehow ‘lost’.
This has happened to me, too. I wanted to dig up an older photo for a diptych (look at me using photography vocab I learned from this show!) to share on my blog — turns out that that older photo I was remembering was taken with my sister-in-law’s camera. Rather than get ahold of her and then have her hunt it down (and delay my blog post — the horror) I just snuck into my psd file and snagged it.
Can I just go ahead and squeal over the fact my comment got read. I made my hubby listen to the show on the way home from Nashville just so I could hear it.
I felt like, and am ok with the fact that I am, a total Digi Show Fan Girl. I really enjoyed hearing everyone’s take on other crafts, and hope Katie continues with her knitting, and her daughter continues with her reading. I think it is sooo cool Katie “took one for the team” and is learning how to knit. I think we should see pics of that first project!
To chime in on another topic, I only backup on one single external hard drive. I know I should do more, but that was a huge step for me and I never even thought about doing it until I started digi scrapping. I have also, and I guess I am lucky this way, ever had any computer fail, break or not work, or ever lost any data. Of course, I say this, and tomorrow, every single tech device in my house will spontaneously break…. I do think I will move to an off site backup when I get moved post graduation and get settled. As my photos, layouts, and digi library grows I have more to loose. Please keep us updated on your various experiences with online backups. I am storing the info away for later use.
Already looking forward to next week’s show. You guys are always a treat during my week!
Katie – you hit on my trifecta of hobbies: scrapping, knitting and sewing. Like the commenter said, I tend to drift between them but those are my mainstays. I’m venturing into altered books but I’m not sure how long I’ll stick with it. I love to craft with my kids but my trifecta is what makes me happiest. Lain Ehmann knits also so I know there are several other scrappers that have a knitterly side. I hope you get the hang of it but if not, you’re teaching your daughter a great lesson!
Love hearing about the “craft closet of broken dreams” (goodwill received a tremendous amount of my crash and burns) and the “hobby hopping”. It’s nice to geet to a place where you know what fulfills you and gives you a boost. Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find what makes your heart sing
I have dabbled in many crafts too (photography, sewing, quilting, smocking, bear making, knitting, sewing for a children’s wear designer, tatting, the list goes on … ) but for the last almost ten years, I have digi-scrapped (and taken photos) almost exclusively.
In the last six months, I have started quilting again, and I must admit I am really enjoying starting up again. I’ve made ten quilts in that time, and sometimes I even scrap about my quilting!!!
I agree with Becky’s comment above … it’s all about what makes your heart sing!
I got Mozy over a year ago when I could lock in a 3 year contract. Being in Australia, I can’t do a seed drive. So I would leave my PC on and it SLOWLY backed up over 6mths on my 1MB up/20MB down connection. So I now have 1/2 a gig backed up.
I will be looking around when my Mozy contract is up
I also find that portable EHDDs are not designed to be on all the time – so beware if you are relying on them for backup!
When I wasn’t laughing, I sat talking to you all through the first question and of course you didn’t hear me!
“That little meter” is your light meter. It tells you that the camera has enough light to create an image. We also call it an exposure. When exposure is correct color will be the best.
You are all exactly right about having the moment when it all begins to click. That can happen online, in person, but it ALWAYS happens through practice.
And yep, Peppermint, typically the consumer level cameras make your buttons shared or in your menus. As you move up the camera lines more buttons are outside and easier to use.
I bought Crashplan Family Unlimited for $119.99 a year. I can backup unlimited data for up to 10 computers. Considering I have a family of 7, all with their own laptops, it was a no-brainer. Plus, the college kids would never backup unless it was automatic. I also backup (via Crashplan) to an EHD weekly, but I had a Western Digital die on me recently and I had to replace it. I do keep one EHD off-site at my mom’s but don’t really trust EHDs.
It took about a month to backup on Crashplan but since I had all my supplies on the old laptop with the Carbonite online backup still in place, I didn’t worry about seeding the backup. I think it took so long because my college kids were all home hogging the bandwidth over Christmas break. Carbonite worked just fine for me but I couldn’t pass up on Crashplan’s pricing structure.
I’m going to see if I can get another backup done to my old laptop’s harddrive……….might have to free up some space first.
I can’t get the subscribe to all comments feed to work. The error message says this:
“This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below”
Using Chrome? This is what happens to me too. But I don’t have a universal “solve”, let me just tell you what I do.
First off, I use Google Reader and I have a “subscribe” bookmark in my toolbar. So if I am at a site I want to add it to my RSS I just hit subscribe from my toolbar and then it is added. This has been a useful tool for me. I found it in Google Reader under “Settings” in the “Goodies” tab. So when I get that ugly “XML file” error, I just simply hit “subscribe” again from my toolbar and magically it works! I can’t explain why or how I happened to figure this out.
Also my favorite tool from there is called “NEXT”. Again this is a tool that I dragged to my bookmark bar. What it does (this is SO awesome) is it automatically loads the next item from my RSS feed. So I can read each item actually at their website and then just advance through to the next item. I kind’ve like reading my stuff in context and with the “next” button I can just click through as easy as that.
Yes, I use Chrome but my Google Reader is weird on my laptop as in everything is all scrunched together. I will try another computer to subscribe or a different browser. I have used the “next” feature, but I have so darned many feeds it is usually not a good option. I sort my feeds into “daily”(as in, don’t want to miss a day!) and “other” which I can read when I have time. I mostly use Peppermint’s recommendation Feedly for my rss feeds
Thanks, I went back to Internet Explorere to subscribe to comments. Love Chrome and will stick with it, but good to know it has this quirk. Leslie
Hello:
Just finished listening to your recent episode, and had a few tips to pass along on backup speed.
When you first start any of the plans, you naturally have a great deal of info to process. To get the best speed possible, always try and use a “plug in” connection. Even though you may be wireless in your home, plugging in will almost always result in better performance. The back of most wireless routers have additional ports which you typically would not be using. Purchase an ethernet cable at an Office supply store, and connect direct.
Also, most internet speeds are affected by the amount of “neighbor” traffic. My cable based internet is many times slower in the 7pm to 9pm time at night – common Netflix viewing in the neighborhood.
Use a site like this to monitor you speeds:
http://www.speedtest.net/
Select the “BEGIN TEST” button in the middle. It will test both Upload and Download. In most cases, Upload is drastically slower than Download. So – even with fast connections, you may exexperience a very slow upload time of your initial data set.
Once complete, then a typical wireless connection can be used to perform the background updates.
Great show!! Look forward to the next.
Neighbor traffic affecting internet speed is not something I have even considered, but it makes sense. Sometimes my internet crawls (or seems like it does), which is mostly at night and weekend mornings.
A few years ago there was litigation alleging that Comcast slowed uploads to purposely dissuade customers from doing it. I know this because I was trying to use a service similar to CrashPlan to back up all my photos, but gave up because I was uploading on a good day 100 Kps. Kilo-bytes. I had to research why it was so slow… They don’t practice that anymore and my upload speed is measured in Mps.
I need a back up system and get organized (again). Right now I’m not really backed up at all. I think CrashPlan and an external hard drive sound like good ideas. If I lost my stuff, I’d cry. The only files that are (mostly) safe are my photos. I upload them to Snapfish (for printing) periodically, but also to make sure I have copies of them. Over the years and over many computers, photo sites have been a god-send in terms of saving memories.
Oy, how I need to listen to this show—a week ago! Maybe I had a 6th sense thing going on when I asked the question as my laptop died without any warning last Friday. I “try” to keep everything on my PC, which I backup on an EHD. Regardless there were numerous files lost (my son’s science fair project, 3 hrs worth of old photos scanned, work documents). I’m kicking myself and determined to listen to this show again and get myself set this week.
[Aside: I was able to restore my laptop—it was an operations issue, but can’t recover the files.]
Katie, I’d love to hear more about how you train yourself to back up regularly and how you remember what new documents/files you need to back up.
Two more questions—I often delay backup because I want everything organized before I do. I usually have digi product still unzipped waiting to be filed and that makes me delay backing up. For those of you backing up to an EHD, do you end up with a ton of double files after moving things around. For example, will those products stay in my “To unzip” file as well as end up backed-up to their appropriate files?
Last question: any concerns about security when giving CrashPlan or Mozy access to all your computer files? I read all their encryption stuff but still wonder if it is safe.
After posting my question last week, I bit the bullet and ordered another Western Digital! I was cracking up as I heard each one of you bemoan their products’ reliability. Now I’m debating returning it as soon as it arrives! I use flickr pro as well, but don’t have Katie’s good habit of uploading regularly.
The comments sound like they’ve solved the CrashPlan slowness-issue, but it worries me if their customer service wasn’t able to make those same suggestions. I’d love to hear other listeners’ solutions here in the comments. A week from now I hope to be “stress free” about this issue!
I forgot to mention a great tip for “synchronizing” files to an external drive. Microsoft offers a no charge Sync tool called “Sync Toy 2.1″ – Windows only (sorry).
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15155
You basically establish a link between a folder on your machine, and a folder on one (or more) external drives. Just run the program, and run the sync set you established. The software will copy all new and modified files to the external drive, and delete all old files from the external as well.
This program can be run manually whenever you want to sync data.
I use this program to sync my laptop files to an external drive, and then to selectively sync critial work files to a second external drive.
For those into sewing: I’m guessing it is a bad thing if your sewing machine will only feed the fabric backwards?? And yes, I already checked to make sure the ‘reverse’ button isn’t stuck on – I’m smart enough for that – barely!
Been sewing quite a bit the last few weeks. DDs wanted dresses and DD#2 wanted a matching dress for her doll. All was going so well until the sewing machine started sewing backwards!
Oh, and I made some of those tissue paper mounted on canvas projects that were talked about a few weeks ago – they turned out awesome. I am really pleased with it. The printing part was super easy – took me longer to putz with the drivers to get my printer to accept 12×12 papers than to do the printing. All the pictures printed perfectly first time on tissue paper I wrapped around and taped down to the back of some scrap cardstock. I will take some pictures.. eventually
So I’m catching up on all my Digi Show Episodes (*tsk-tsk*). I’ve missed you guys!!
I had a tip for Peppermint but I’m not totally 100% sure on my source. I remember somewhere along I heard that you can set your shutter speed as low as the focal length of your lens. So if you’re using a 50 mm lens (or are zoomed at 50 mm) you can set your shutter speed as low as 1/50, if you’re using a 100 mm lens, you can set it to 1/100. I think I use that tip the most. Once I know my focal length, I know I can’t set my shutter speed lower than the length without getting shaky/blurry photos. Once I set my shutter speed, I can set my aperture to get the right exposure.
I’ll have to try that. I usually set my shutter speed at about 1/80 (with a 50mm lens) because that’s a speed that seems to be most forgiving for me as far as camera shake and moving, spazzy objects (like my kid). I have to go fairly high on the ISO sometimes to use that, though, so I’ll give 1/50th a try (do I have that? I thought it went in 20s?)
You might have seen that tip here
You have 50 Peppermint.
/understanding-shutter-speed/
Ok I have a trick question for the whizzes (is that a word?) when you have done a text box and you go into the box, highlight it and scroll around to see how different fonts look, that box around it drives me nuts. (I am sure that was totally confusing). My question is, how do you get rid of that box so that you can actually see what the font actuall looks like? (In PSE)
Love the show
Angie
Just thought I’d make a suggestion on the external hard drives. I bought mine its only little zip up case from the office store. It lives in this. When I’m using it I unzip it so it doesn’t get too hot but it lives in this so it has the extra protect of a hard case beyond that of the actual drive. It wasn’t expensive and well worth it if your a portable scrapper like me!
Loved Peppermint’s pick this week – my new Android phone will be arriving soon and I would love it if Peppermint would make a list of all her favorite Android apps. Pretty please! I have one to share as well – Astrid, a task list manager. I’m really loving it after my mother-in-law recommended it, but just using the web app until my new phone arrives. Anyway, thanks for the great show! (Also signed up for your social media stuff as requested
I think I’ve run the craft gauntlet too.. Started with sewing clothing in jr high and continued through the 90s with that and quilting, crocheting, a little painting and stenciling. Picked up scrapbooking in the late 90s and have been hooked every since. Went digi in 2010 but still enjoy some paper crafting for cards and bulletin boards.
Always love your shows. Catching up a bit. Had to laugh – Peppermint, there are computerized home knitting machines! Are you taking up a new hobby now, LOL!
I just might! I bet those machines cost a pretty penny.
Another AMAZING show ladies. I could sit and listen to you guys all day, everyday. It’s like having company right in my office while I work. Katie… what a special treat to have my layout mentioned. (blush) You TOTALLY made my day. Thank you!! Krista
Thanks so much for the show! I am backing up right now with CrashPlan. Thanks for all the comments too. Now I know right off the bat to set the back up toggles high for the first backups. I’m down to under 6 days for my 287G of data instead of the 79 that it started out with. LOL!
This was a great episode — I am embarrassingly behind on my listening but this was such an interesting episode that I have to comment!
I can’t figure out manual mode on my camera either — I do not see a difference in my photos when I change the settings and it drives me batty — but I’m encouraged to hear that it isn’t the same for everybody and that I just need to keep trying. I have a Nikon D80, so I’m sure it’s me and not the camera.
For saving my files, I do not do any sort of backup — every 12 to 18 to 24 months I copy my files onto a dedicated EHD and that’s all I do. I have been wanting to set up some sort of consistent backup. Listening to all of your different methods was very sobering and enough to convince me to look into CrashPlan for myself. (I have not replaced any of my EHDs — yet — and agree that failure is a “when”, not an “if”.) Managing my data files — of all types — is one of my least favorite chores and for me it’s been a case of “when I get my files organized, I’ll set up a automated backup schedule.” Peppermint’s incremental approach makes the initial setup less overwhelming in my head and I’m going to seriously consider signing up for CrashPlan …. sometime soon.
On another topic, when someone asks me if I am “crafty” or do crafts, I always say “no.” My craft closet has abandoned supplies for cross-stitching, sewing, and painting. Outside of my closet are supplies for scrapbooking, knitting and crocheting. Not that I do any of those either, but I keep the supplies are more accessible.
One final note that I want to mention is that I have been using Instagram and am surprised that I enjoy it. Since I’m an Android user, I get both the camera and Instagram versions of every photo that I take inside the app. If I didn’t get a copy of the original, I don’t think I would use it at all. It’s fun, but not so fun that I would be willing to either lose my unaltered photos or take the time to pull up a saved photo to play with. I’m thinking about reviving my blog (because an episode of The Digi Show got me excited about blogging again) and I would like to use those photos on there. I have discovered that it is very easy to post them using the Blogger Android app!
Thanks for sharing with us!
I got here from a class I am taking with Katrina on Christmas Photography and saw you discussing Crash Plan. I had a hard drive crash and bought a new one installed. I went up to Crash Plan & downloaded everything I wanted from the backup site. It worked great. You also can set it so it automatically uploads certain files or all files and set the time you want it to be backed up on the Crash Plan site. I also have my EHDs backed up too. It only backs up what wasn’t there before once you have the initial upload done. I feel much safer now since I have been through a crash and got my stuff back. On the subject of what happens to it – how do you know what happens to anything we have anywhere on any site.