Protecting Your Digital Photos and Documents

 We all have a ton of data on our devices; important documents, photos of friends and family, stuff you just don't want to lose. Anything can happen though, disaster is always lurking right around the corner. Spill your coffee on your laptop, drop your phone into the pool, your devices can even just up and stop working, and poof, everything is gone in a flash. That's why you need to back up those important files, and you need to do it now. Do not wait until it's too late.

There's lots of ways you can do it, and they're all relatively easy. You can back your files up to the cloud, you can use a backup program that will copy your files to an external hard drive and then do incremental updates to the saved data every time you make a change on your device, or you can just copy and paste the files you want to protect to an external drive. You have lots of options, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Let's review a few.

Cloud backups can be seamless and easy, but the cloud can get hacked, so I'm not a big fan. I don't want any more of my data floating around in the ether for some bad guy to poach and resell on the dark web, there's enough of it out there already. I'm always getting a notice from some institution or other saying, "We regret to inform you that all of your personal information has been compromised. Not to worry though, we've signed you up for 3 free months of Experian Credit Monitoring Services and DeathGrip ID Theft Protection coverage. Enjoy it on us! (special terms and conditions apply)."

No thanks, I'm good. The best and most reliable way to safeguard your data is to back it up to an external hard drive. I don't like to use automatic backup software to do it though. It's always running in the background, and it slows the crap out of your devices. Plus, it backs up stuff that you really don't need to back up. The file structure it creates on your external drive isn't very intuitive, either. I 'm going to show you a relatively easy way to back up your files, and I guarantee it will take a little bit of the worry out of your life.

My preferred back up method is to copy and paste my primary file folders over to an external drive and then update it on a regular basis. It's quick, easy and painless, and the file structure is simple, it's just a straight up copy of your hard drive. The folders you want to back up (or copy) on a PC are shown below. Note: If you save a lot of stuff to your desktop, you should copy that folder over as well. 

These 5 (or 6) folders hold all of your personal data, and that's all you want to be backing up and storing, cuz that's what's really important here, protecting your stuff, not Microsoft's.

For a reliable external drive, I like to use a simple USB plug and play drive like the Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Slim Hard Drive. It's small in size but big on storage, and there's no power cords to fuss with. It works off of a built in USB 3.0 cable, drawing its power from whatever device its plugged into. It comes with preloaded backup software, but I don't use it. As I mentioned earlier, backup programs always seem to be running when you don't want them to, dragging your device down. I just plug in the USB drive to my device, open it up, ignore the preloaded software and create a couple of folders.

In this example, I've created a desktop backup folder and a laptop backup folder. Inside of each of those folders I create dated sub folders, e.g. "Laptop Backup 07 01 2025". There's plenty of room on these drives to do multiple backups of each device, and you should. Next, I copy and paste my main folders from the device's hard drive to the external drive's new dated folders. Simple as that. You can copy and paste one folder at a time, or do them all at once, your choice.

Once the external hard drive starts to get full, I delete the oldest dated subfolder before I create another one, this way I always have multiple copies of all my files on the external device, and I never run out of disk space on it.

But what about the pics on my phone, you say? The best option is to sync your phone, tablets and any thumb drives or SD cards you have with your PC or Mac on a regular basis. Then when you back up your PC to your external drive you catch everything in one neat package. It's the same principle as above, you don't need any fancy software or devices, just plug your mobile device into your PC or Mac with a USB cable and copy and paste (or drag and drop) the pictures and files over to the computer. Easy peasy. Synching your mobile devices also allows you to safely remove pics and free up storage space on them, something we all need to do.

Bonus Tip: For added peace of mind, I store my external hard drives in our little grab and go SentrySafe burn box. If disaster strikes, all of our docs and pics go with us, even if our devices don't make the cut.

Bottom line, you don't have to do it my way, but you do have to do it. Choose whatever method you're most comfortable with and do it without delay. Do not be that person that calls me on a Monday night in a panic and says "Help, that new upgrade just bricked my device and now I've lost all of my family pictures." All I'm going to do is give you the number for the Geek Squad, and wish you Godspeed and good luck, because you're gonna need it, all of it. 

Repurposing Old Tablets and Smart Devices

While I'm on the subject of iPods, I thought I'd share a few tips on repurposing old smart tech. I have a ton of older devices; tablets, e-readers, mobile devices, you name it, I have it, and I find they can come in handy around the house. You can trade them in when you're upgrading, but you're usually lucky to get 20 bucks for them, and if they're in reasonable shape, that's a bad deal.

 You're much better served repurposing them to play a role in your IoT (Internet of Things), or "smart house". Old iPads and tablets are a great addition to your kitchen or family room and can serve as calendars, notepads, cookbooks, security camera monitors, music players, or all of the above. My old iPad Air is still in great condition and is an invaluable addition to our kitchen counter. Look up a recipe, quickly respond to a text, check your calendar while you're on the phone and add or update an appointment, you can even see who's creepin' 'round your back door. So many uses. You can mount them on a wall, or just use them in a free-standing cradle, there are a plethora of tablet mounts and cradles on the market, something for every situation.

Same with old mobile phones or iPod Touch devices, they make fantastic smart remotes for your TV's and entertainment centers. My iPod Touch is the primary controller for my Man Town A/V setup. It has my provider's app on it which has a Cable TV remote function, interactive program guide and access to my DVR library. It also has an Apple TV remote app, my iTunes library, and it connects to my A/V receiver via Bluetooth, so my complete music library is always available through my big boy stereo. Plus, it's got a keypad and Siri, which makes searching the guide grids a piece of cake. It also has internet access via Wi-Fi so I can keep track of news and scores. Forget those pricey universal remotes, this puppy does it all. Pro tip: you can also use old mobile phones for the same purpose as long as they have Wi-Fi. Just cuz they no longer have dial tone does not make them useless; they'll still upgrade and be capable of downloading apps via Wi-Fi.

Old iPods or MP3 players can be useful as well, paired with non-smart music systems. I have a Sony HD table radio and a Bose Wave that are both still excellent sounding devices, but both lack any smart features. Rather than upgrade them and trash a perfectly good music system, I use my old 3rd gen nano with them. From an aesthetic and haptic point of view, the 3rd gen Nano, or iPod fatty, as I call it, is my favorite iPod; what it lacks in functionality it more than makes up for in rizz. It's got that old school click wheel and iconic early iPod chrome backplate, it's a sexy little beast. Unfortunately, it no longer holds a charge for sh!t, but it works just fine nestled in a 30-pin dock, which both radios have. It expands the radios functionality, and it's a design statement; it says, "Music lives here". It also says, "We're old", but meh, I could care less. I wear that like a badge of honor.

Anyways, the possibilities are endless, you're limited only by your imagination. Plus, you're keeping it green by keeping things out of our ever-growing electronic waste piles, or the land fill. Double bonus.

So, repurpose those old devices when you can, old tech needs love too.

Barnes and Noble Nook Color

The Nook Color certainly gives you a lot of bang for your buck. It’s not just an e-book reader; it’s almost a full blown tablet. Barnes and Noble bills it as a “reader’s tablet”, and I think that pretty well sums it up. It’s a web browsing, music playing, full color, touch-screen e-book reader.

It runs Android 2.1, has 8GB of on board memory plus a microSD expansion slot for up to 32GB of additional storage, and a microUSB port for easy connectivity. It also sports a beautiful and very responsive 7” VividView Color Touch-Screen with an extra layer of laminate that cuts down on glare and increases off angle viewing. The instructional video it connects to at setup is so colorful and lifelike, and streams so seamlessly, that it will knock your eyes out.

Purchasing and downloading books, magazines and newspapers is quick and easy via the built in Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), and transferring documents, photos, music and other large files (like OS upgrades, Android 2.2 is coming!) is a snap with drag and drop file transfer from your PC or Mac via the USB port. The Nook Color supports both the EPUB and PDF formats, plus has Quickoffice software installed, so it supports a myriad of file types. It also comes with the Pandora Internet Radio app installed, which is a very nice feature.

It’s sized perfectly for an e-reader at 8.1”x 5” x .48”, and weighs in at just a hair under a pound. The casing has a rubberized back that gives it a non-slip grip, and it has a good solid feel without being too heavy. Slide it into one of their leather folios and it looks like a high quality date book.

While it’s not nearly as readable in bright sunlight as a standard e-ink reader, this baby really excels on the e-magazine and children’s book fronts. It even supports audio read along books, which is pretty great if you have children or grandchildren in your life. Like the iPad, flash isn’t supported yet either, and there’s currently no access to the Android Marketplace, so there’s a limited amount of apps available for now, but good things are supposed to be coming with 2.2, we’ll see.

So, it’s not as fully functional as an iPad, but it’s also not nearly as pricey ($249), or as large and unwieldy, and it’s not as bright light friendly as a standard e-reader, but it has much more to offer. Like most things in life, it’s all about finding a happy compromise. While I wouldn’t be upset if this thing suddenly was able to provide me with a little Angry Bird action, for now I’m happy with it just the way it is; as a “readers tablet”.

Truthfully, I really didn’t think an e-reader was something I wanted; I love real books, and I’m not much for bringing electronics with me into the great outdoors, but this device has found a niche in my life. It’s a bedside companion, a book pile reducer, a quick webmail and website tool, a portable picture and document viewer, and a great grandchild entertainer. Plus, all of your purchases are archived on the B&N website, so you don’t have to sweat losing them. Also, with the free Nook apps available for the iPod touch, IPhone and PC, you have cross platform portability of all of your purchases. That means you can sneak a peek at whatever book you’re currently reading, or anything in your library for that matter, even if you don’t have your e-reader with you.

The real kicker for me though, is the ability to download virtually any book, magazine or newspaper that my heart desires, whenever my heart desires. Reader nirvana.

That is all.