Monday, January 19, 2009

Leuven station in twilight

One more photo of Leuven railway station that I made almost a year ago. This time you could see a large version if you click on picture (and then click "All sizes" above the picture).

Leuven station





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Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Winter photos

Unusually for Belgium we've got real winter this year - lot's of snow and freezing all week. It was a nice sunny day yesterday so I went out to make a few pictures. This one is made in Heverlee bos:
Heverlee bos

It was -10 centigrade and I didn't have any issues with the camera at that temperature. However fully charged batteries died extremely quickly - it was showing "battery low" after about 15 minutes of use. Fortunately I have a good habit of always having several charged batteries with me. By the way Canon compatible battery behaved better than original Canon. It was showing "battery low" but kept working, while Canon battery quickly went down.


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Monday, January 5, 2009

Data backup

I was keeping in mind for a long time that I need to improve my data backup strategy. This topic was recently discussed in one of the internet forums I read; and following that discussion I finally made a move :) I should have done that earlier, but luckily I am not too late because I didn't loose any data yet.

Until now I was backing up my RAW files + edited PSD files on 2 recordable DVDs, both stored at home. Personal non-photography data was occasionally copied on another hard drive on the same PC. Although my personal experience with recordable CDs and DVDs is good I've read many times about CDs/DVDs becoming unreadable after several years. Also saving the data on the same PC (even on a separate hard drive) isn't safe at all.

So my new plan is the following:
* Keep making a copy on DVD, but just one copy. That's for RAW + edited PSD files.
* Make 2 copies on 2 external hard drives (different brands). One of them stored off-site (swapped monthly). RAW + PSD + personal non-photography data.
* Keep a copy of most important data in online storage - I've chosen Amazon S3 for reasonable price and good SLA. To keep costs low this will only be used for selected most important RAW files and selected personal data.



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