Keep Your Pictures in Multi-Device World

With mobile-phone cameras getting better and better, it’s easy to click away and then download your pictures to a computer. And when you max out your phone’s storage, it’s easy to delete them from your phone and click away some more. Just one problem: if your phone and computer are synched, you could delete the files from your computer, too.

The problem came up when an employee of one of our clients told about her daughter losing pictures she thought she had saved on her Mac. The daughter had been in Europe for a study-abroad program, and she traveled after school ended. Lots of kids do it, and lots of kids have iPhones and computers.

Naturally, as her phone’s storage filled up with photos, our traveler decided to download them onto her Mac. Just about all of us who travel with a computer do the same thing so that we can keep on clicking away. You never know when you’ll get back to a travel destination, and you want to collect all the memories you can; you can sort them out later.

That’s what our young traveler was told to do. With the magic of wireless connections, she was able to sync her phone and computer so she could save her pictures to her hard drive. With pictures safely stored on the computer’s hard drive, it was a simple matter to delete the photos from the phone and free up space for new pictures.

However, there was a catch. The way her sync was set up, deleting from one device deleted from the other. So, when she came home and sat down to share her pictures, they weren’t there. But they were somewhere. Using Mac’s time machine, we were able to find previous back up files, and we were able to send the computer to Apple. Their technicians were able to recover the pictures, but it took a while for them to get all the pictures, and it was a very stressful time for our student.

Here are some steps you can take to avoid the problem:

  • If you have an iPhone, you can set your phone to store photos in an iCloud photo library and keep them there when you delete files from the phone. If your phone senses a Wi-Fi network, it will upload the photos automatically.
  • You can optimize your storage so that you can leave a thumbnail of your photo on your phone. Then, you can use the thumbnail to identify photos you want to retrieve.
  • If you are traveling with your computer, download the photos manually and turn off any synchronization that deletes files from your phone and computer at the same time.

I download photos all the time from my SLR camera, but it uses SD cards. I can get some redundancy by downloading the pictures to the computer and keeping all the images on the SD cards. I can also upload them to the cloud. When you add up all the costs of a vacation, this is a relatively small expense.

More and more point-and-shoot cameras have SD cards, too. But if you’re using your cell phone or an older camera with fewer features, you’ll have limited options. If you or any family members are getting ready to travel, we can help you make sure your gear is all set up to keep your photo and video memories safe and secure. Call us – 973-433-6676 – or email us to get set up.

Smart Photo File Management

If you’re like one of our clients, you may have a huge number of photo and video files from your last vacation, and you may be getting ready to add more as your family gathers for the upcoming holidays. If you’re also like this client, you may be wondering where to safely store all your accumulated pictures and videos without paying an arm and a leg.

We can never recommend strongly enough that your precious memories are safest when stored on the cloud. Those large servers have built-in redundancies to protect your data, removing worries about crashing hard drives, whether they’re in your computer or external. Your storage on your own devices are suspect because:

  • Your computer’s hard drive can crash.
  • An external hard drive can crash.
  • Removable storage media (thumb drives and DVDs) can be damaged or lost.
  • Your smartphone can be lost.
  • Your camera, with its SD card, can be lost or damaged (which means you might want to find a way to upload photo and video files daily by one means or another).

In addition, photo and video files can take up a lot of space on your hard drive, and at some point, they will slow down your computer’s performance. If you have an iPhone, you can free up space by managing your storage; just go to Settings – iCloud – Storage, and you can delete files from your old phone. Android and Windows phones have similar capabilities.

So, let’s deal with all those photo and video files. Here are some options:

Free-storage sites all come with various limits, such as file size, types of files you can store and download and exposure to ads or privacy limitations. Some will allow you to upgrade to paid storage for more space and options.

Some of the more notable free-storage sites include:

  • Flickr
  • Shutterfly
  • Smugmug
  • Dropbox

While one of those sites may work for you, our mission here is to give you storage options that give you the same capability to store and retrieve files just as you would if they were stored on your hard drive.

Google gives you 15 GB of free storage, and you’ll always have it no matter how much additional storage you buy. Only monthly plans are available, and you have lots of flexibility. You can buy 100 GB for $1.99 per month or 1 TB (terabyte) for $9.99 per month. You can change your plan or cancel it before your next bill.

Google has apps for uploading and downloading image and video files from a computer, iPhone or Android phone. You can upload RAW files, which is critical for serious photographers who use SLR cameras, and high-quality j-peg files for equally serious photographers who use higher-end point-and-shoot cameras.

Apple gives you 5 GB of free storage and offers 50 GB for $0.99 per month, 200 GB for $2.99 per month or 1 TB for $9.99 per month. Again, you can upload all of your files in their original formats and can invite people to view selected files. You can edit files and still retain the originals, which gives you a Photoshop mulligan.

Apple also has apps for uploading from iPhones, Macs and PCs, and you can easily create photo books from your library.

Amazon gives you 5 GB to store “non-photo” files, such as videos and offers 5 GB for a free three-month trial. After that, it’s $11.99 per year. You can scale up to unlimited storage – also with a free three-month trial, and then you can pay $59.99 per year. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you already enjoy unlimited, secure photo storage plus 5GB of free storage for videos and files at no extra cost. You can upgrade to the Unlimited Everything plan at any time.

Again, you can view your files on a computer or mobile device through Amazon’s Cloud Drive.

We like the big three of Google, Apple and Amazon because they have well-earned reputations for safe, secure storage. The pricing is cheap – especially when you compare it to high value of photos and videos that are irreplaceable. Each site has its own peculiarities about setting up an account and uploading files. If you have any questions or need a hand to hold, contact us by email or by phone – 973-433-6676. And while I find them all device-neutral and platform-neutral, we can answer questions you may have about compatibility and raise your comfort level with your choice.

Which cloud-storage service is right for you?

Cloud storage gives you 24/7 access to your documents, photos, music, and you can access them wherever you are and on whatever device you’re using. It also makes sharing photos, videos, and documents easy. Even better, a number of services are free. Here’s the scoop on four of the biggest cloud services:

Apple iCloud: Best for Apple users. Apple iCloud is built into many Apple apps, including Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. You can start writing a to-do list in Notes on your iPad, for example, and finish it later on your iPhone. iCloud also syncs your e-mail, contacts, and calendar on whichever Apple gadget (or Windows PC) you’re using.

Other cool ways iCloud automatically syncs your stuff across all of your Apple devices: Snap a shot with your iPhone, and you’ll find it on your Mac. Buy a song on iTunes on your desktop, and it downloads to your iPod Touch. Bookmark a site on Safari on one device, and it updates your bookmarks list on all of your gadgets. 5GB of storage is free; you can add more starting at $20 a year for 10GB.

Dropbox: Best for sharing files. Store and sync documents, photos, videos, and other files on your computer, tablet, or smart phone, then invite others to download. Just be aware that your allotted free storage includes data others share with you, so clean out your folder periodically and ask people who have shared their folders with you to remove them from your account. 2GB is free; add 100GB for $99 a year.

Google Drive: Best for collaborating in real time. Two things distinguish Google Drive from iCloud and Dropbox; first, you get the tools you need to create presentations, documents, spreadsheets, and drawings right from Google Drive. And once you create a file, you can not only share it with someone else, but you can also work collaboratively on it. When you make a change, the person you’re sharing with sees it right away.

It works well for work but has handy personal uses, too. For example, you and your siblings can work together on an anniversary-party invite for your parents, even if you live miles apart. Whenever your device goes online, Google Drive automatically syncs the latest versions of all of your documents. 5GB is free; add 25GB for $2.50 a month.

Microsoft SkyDrive: Best for Windows fans. It’s a no-brainer for Microsoft users, but SkyDrive has another big upside: It’s the best deal of these services. You can collaborate on projects and edit documents with free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. SkyDrive works on computers using Windows 8 (including Surface tablets), 7, and Vista, and Mac OS X Lion. You get 7GB free; add 20GB for $10 a year.

Some final advice: Always be familiar with your chosen service’s policies. And never use a cloud service as the only storage for files you can’t afford to lose. Your best option for backing up everything on your computer is still an external hard drive.

This story originally appeared in the May 2013 issue of ShopSmart magazine.