Wednesday 3 June 2009

Hard drive

I've got one. A shiny little metal thing, to hold my zillions of photographs. I realised that since digital cameras became the norm, a computer was a far less safe means of storing wonky pictures of my beloved team, my friends and family (all of whom invariably complain that they look fat/ugly/half-witted/demented), my chaotic but evolving home, my life, really, captured in blurry, badly-composed pictures, than the old method, i.e. the old shoe boxes that litter the house. Shoe boxes don't suffer fatal crashes to the same degree that PCs can, but I haven't had a hard copy of a photograph for years. The thought of losing all those pictures recording the past 5 years was too awful to contemplate, for all that the record is largely banal or trivial - food, baking, cats, dog, gardening, weather, snails, workmen, close-ups of cute tabby kitten whiskers. A rich treasure trove of aide-memoires for when my memory gets even worse ("No, mum, Patrick wasn't your boyfriend, he was your tabby cat - look, I'll show you his picture!")...

So I have stayed in for most of the day awaiting delivery of this new object of desire, feeling virtuous that this was all I had ordered, and not the gleaming white Mac that I really covet (a want, not a need; I could easily convince myself that an external hard drive is both a want and a need). It came, I plugged it in, and nothing happened. After a bit of sitting in front of the screen, mouth slightly open, eyes a little glazed, I realised that nothing was going to happen, no wizard-led installation process - it was
already there, waiting to be used. How easy was that!

So I set to in a determined and organised manner, and now, as if by magic, half my photos are sitting safely inside this neat little box - although I stopped before RSI set in, and went off in search of dinner - and the rest will be moved tomorrow. Strangely, I find that I have no feelings of protectiveness towards any of my documents; only those amateurish pictures matter.

You can always find and copy another special recipe, or write another reference or letter of complaint, but you can never recapture the moment when those tabby kitten whiskers were at their cutest.


8 comments:

Veronica said...

The question is, can you find that kitten photo with out trawling through thousands of images!

BumbleVee said...

I've got hundreds...nay...thousands of photos on my computer....sigh.... I keep saying I'm going to sort through them at least and purge all the many "samesies" and put them in various "albums".. It seems too much trouble at the time or almost like kitten whiskers..I hate to toss out a cute little bear or a doll part I find lovely....or a great flower shot...even if there are 23 of each of them.....

rachel said...

Yes, Pherenike, I can. Now. I learned the VERY hard way about labelling and dating folders.

V, this magic shiny box sort of flags up any duplicates and only saves one, so far as I can see. Today I'm going to experiment a little to check this out. I'm perhaps a little too in awe of it; I might be setting up a shrine to it if I don't get a grip.....

Gretel said...

I must get one too, for the same reason...I don't know what photo programme you use, but if I were doing the transferring, I would go into the photo album, and 'select all' (control A, or whatever it is if you ahve a Mac, you might even be able to find the commant in the edit pull down menu of your phto album) and by selecting all, your photos will be highlighted round the edge and you should be able to drag the whole lot in one go into the folder of your external hard drive simply by grabbing one with your mouse cursor and moving them. It would save doing it bit by bit...

rachel said...

Done now, PG - Picasa is so easy to use (within its limitations) that nearly all my pictures have been transferred now. But oh, I would love a Mac, instead of a basic PC with pawprints all over the screen!

mountainear said...

Another Mac fan here. Love mine - could stroke it the way a cat lover could stroke their cat.

I've loads of pictures on here and one day really should follow your example.

funnily enough word verification is 'sorteri'. Good idea.

Susan said...

hear ya !! I love my photos as well and come to think of it should back mine all up - all 12,542 of them. eek

And hey ! think about an apple next time you're in the market for a new computer i-photo (happy sigh), tres easy to orgnize, file and title - not to mention beautiful to behold.

Thursday said...

I heart Picasa.

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