any kind of digital storage is susceptible to failure.

Currently, the most convenient backup solution is a second hard drive. The most affordable solution is recordable CD and DVDs.

Store on CD Using Windows XP: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/getstarted/store.mspx

Massive Media Card

When you're figuring out the budget for your next digital camera, make sure you factor in the purchase of an additional memory card. Why? Because the cards included with your new high-tech wonder toy are about as satisfying as an airline bag of peanuts when you're dying of hunger.

If you have a 2 megapixel camera, get at least a 64MB card, 128MBs for 3 megapixel models, and 256MBs for 4 megapixels and 512MBs for 5 megapixels and up.

That way you'll never miss another shot because your memory card is full.

We've been taking digital photos for nearly four years. It's a wonderful thing. One can shoot pictures without need for processing, simply downloading and viewing them with a computer. In that time, we've graduated from a digicam capturing images at 768x1024 pixels (one megapixel) to the next which captured 1200x1600 (two megapixels) and now to a whopping 1536x2048 (three megapixels).

As a result, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is the images with the higher resolution cameras are clearer and sharper, with more detail. The bad news is they require three times as much storage space on a computer than did the earlier images. Although we no longer have to pay the photo lab for processing, we're beginning to realize there is a cost in archiving all the pictures we take.

Megabytes

 We may be unusual. Since we're into QuickTime panorama photography and each of the panoramas requires 18 digital photographs, we gather a lot of images. If we go off for a weekend to some scenic place, we might create several panoramas, ending up with nearly 100 pictures when the weekend has concluded. Each of these three megapixel photos uses about three quarters of a megabyte of storage, so we'll have 75 megabytes of photos from just one weekend. You might have a similar result if you're the photographer at the family reunion or a child's birthday party.

New personal computers, as we enter the new millennium, typically come with built-in hard disks perhaps 20 gigabytes (20 x 1024 megabytes) in size. 75 megabytes, once a month or so, over a few years might not fill up your disk, but storage does become a big issue when you start thinking about five, 10, or 20 years, the average time your kids will be at home; the subject of your photos.

Hard disks fail eventually, so, since you won't have your digital memories in the old trusty shoe box, you'll want to have backups of all your photo files. You don't want to inform your older children that you don't have any photos of them when they were kids because the hard disk crashed back in the year 2000, do you?!

Protect Yourself

 So what is our point? If you're going to give up film photography and go digital, you should do some planning. Get organized. Store your photo files by date and description and back them up on a regular basis. Perhaps keep them in a digital photo album or scrapbook. Nobody seems to know for sure what media is best for long-term archiving of personal computer files. Until recently, we believed it was the CD ROM (write once CDR) but now we're hearing about chemical breakdown of CDR's after a few years rendering them unreadable. Now what?

Our advice would be to maintain three copies of all your digital photos. The original on your computer's hard disk, a copy on another hard disk that you use as an external backup and a third on some kind of removable media such as CD ROM, Jaz, Orb, or DAT tape. View your photos once a year on each of these media to be sure they're still readable and stay current with the technology. If, in five years, you can't buy a Jaz drive any longer, transfer your photos to newer media before it breaks down.

Another option is the recent development of online digital archive storage. Dozens of storage providers are popping up offering online albums, electronic greeting cards, and other merchandising possibilities. Most are free, or at least, low cost. As usual, though, you get what you pay for. The history of dotcom longevity is not good. For a review of many of these services, visit Dave Dyer's Guide to Online Photo Albums.

If all of this sounds too complicated, we suggest sticking with traditional film photography and the old shoe box. These methods have worked for a hundred years. Just don't be surprised if you can't buy film or shoe boxes before long.

A CD-R disc might last for decades, but if you drop the disc on the floor and roll over it with your chair, the lifetime will be dramatically reduced. If you plan to keep important data for long-term storage, keep a "working copy" and an "archive copy". Use the working copy when you need to browse your old data, and leave the archive copy untouched until you absolutely need it. If the working copy is damaged or destroyed, you can use the archive copy to create a new working copy.

Don't Screw Up the Dye Layer

Most folks take great care to protect the bottom of their CD-R discs, because the laser reads data from that side. However, the most sensitive part of the CD-R disc is actually the top, which contains the dye layer. The durability of the dye layer varies, but one thing is certain: if you scratch it or tear it off, your data is gone for good. Use only felt tip permanent markers to write on the top of the CD-R disc, and never apply adhesive labels to a long-term archive copy. Adhesives degrade rapidly, and when the label starts to peel or tear off, it could take the dye layer with it.

Also, keep your CD-R discs in sealed containers away from bright lights, heat and water. CD writers use laser light to write the data on the dye layer, but sunlight, bright room lights and heat cause the dyes to degrade quickly. Water will not harm the plastic disc, but exposure to liquid water may damage the dye layer.

Use Industry-Standard Data Formats