Tag Archives: data

Checking Your USB Cable Specs

When I got the new cameras, I needed to get a new card reader as a result of the change of format. I researched this a little and bought what seemed to be a good reader. However, when I was downloading the shots, I have to say I was a bit disappointed. I know the cards were larger and the files were bigger but it seemed that it wasn’t any faster than I was used to. At some point, I thought to look at the USB C cable I was using. I had bought the cable for connecting my iPad and found that charging cable and fast data cables were not the same thing. I tried the cable that came with the camera and the downloads zipped along. I then bought a proper data cable and now the card reader is working like a charm. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t thought about this having already got a USB C cable but it made a big difference so don’t make the same mistake as me.

Backblaze Online Backup

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After asking a few people on Facebook for experience with online backups, I have recently committed to using Backblaze to provide a separate backup of my entire data. There is a NAS backup system I use as well as BluRay disc based backups but all of these are in the same place so are vulnerable to a single event taking them out. Having an online service was something I had contemplated for a while but finally I have done something about it.

I picked Backblaze because they have an unlimited data plan for about $70 per annum. I could use Amazon Prime for some of it but their plans are quite specific and the add ones become quite expensive. Backblaze is all in. I have about 13Tb of data currently. I switched my Xfinity plan to unlimited for the upload phase. I have a good connection so, after about 14 days of uploading, I was about halfway through so it should be done within a month. I shall then see what the impact on bandwidth is going forward.

I have already had cause to use it. I had a hard drive failure in my desktop. Almost everything on it was already backed up but it turns out there were a couple of folder on there which, while recreateable, were lost initially. Fortunately, Backblaze had already backed them up so I was able to get them back quickly and easily. I hope I don’t need it again but having the entire system backed up will make me feel a lot more comfortable and having it constantly working in the background will be easy.

Demise of a NAS

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Moving house means packing up your stuff and hoping it all survives the journey. Some things you have are not ones you are happy about leaving out of your control so you take them with you. Since we were driving up, we had a bit of flexibility about what we could take with us. Aside from the camera gear, I brought my two NAS devices. These have the backups of all of my stuff so, while the computer went in the truck, I had the backups. However, when we got to the new place, one of the NAS units wouldn’t fire up.

This rather defeated the purpose of taking my backups with me. The reason I have two units is that the one I have had the longest is limited in the size of drives it can handle. 2Tb drives are the largest so, as it was getting full, I bought a new unit. Originally I had planned to just use it but, instead, I kept the one going and added new data to the new unit to avoid having to buy larger drives up front.

I figured at some point I might want to retire the old NAS. It was far noisier than the new one and was probably over ten years old. It seems to have made the decision for me.

Now I was in a worrying position. The newer unit didn’t have enough capacity for all of the data. However, it could handle most of it. I immediately backed up what I could. Meanwhile, I ordered new drives to expand it. The price of drives has dropped dramatically so the 3Tb units are being replaced by 8Tb items. That should provide plenty of capacity for a long time! As the drives get swapped out sequentially and the NAS rebuilds and syncs everything, I gradually got extra capacity and set up the full back up process. Now I am back to normal. It does make me wonder about the life cycle of a NAS though. (As an aside, I do have a tertiary backup of the images to BluRay so, while some elements were vulnerable for a while, the majority did have a fallback option.)

FAA Jets With Extra Bits

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The engineer in me is always pleased by a plane with extra bits added. This Learjet 60 was departing San Jose. As it taxied out, you could see a lot of extra probes on the front fuselage and some antennae on the fin. It is a Federal Aviation Administration jet, hence its abbreviated registration number. I assume it is used for flight checking services when the performance of things like instrument landing systems is calibrated. Whatever it does, it has a few added extras compared to the average bizjet.

Updating Your Keywording Standards

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I provide a number of images to stock agencies. They require keywords to tack what is in the images. This has never been a problem because I have been keywording my images for a long time. Some people keep their images in folders based on shoots but I have, for a long time, been more bothered about putting keywords in for my shots. This way I can use Lightroom to find shots of any topic really easily.

However, I have become a lot more diligent about my keywording standards in recent times. I used to not get too bothered about adding too much detail to my keywords. Now, when I am looking for something, I search on a keyword but the result doesn’t show up an image that I know I have. When I look at older shots, the keywords are rather sparse and not as specific as they would be now.

The result is that I am making an effort to improve my old keywords. This is not a quick task. I find little fixes I can make for clusters of shots and implement those. It usually triggers something else I can do. I don’t try and do everything at once. I just build a list of little tasks and tackle them one by one. I am now also more diligent about keywording new shots more aggressively. Fixing this afterwards is a lot harder so now they all get tagged with everything relevant. I hope this will eventually pay off for me.