How to Protect Pictures and Video of your Family

Digital cameras continue to grow in popularity.  It is becoming the norm for precious memories to exist exclusively in a digital format.  The average person copies photos to their computer and saves them, but how many of those pictures are ever printed on photo paper? What happens when that computer eventually crashes?

One method for sharing, organizing, and storing photos, which is becoming very popular are the online photo sites.  They allow members to upload, organize, share, edit, and print pictures.  The problem with these sites is that once the photograph is uploaded to them, the member will eventually have to pay that company each time photo prints are needed.  That’s fine as long as the company stays in business, as long as their quality remains intact, and as long as the member doesn’t need pictures in an hour.  These are several things to consider and should encourage everyone to at least keep backup copies of photos whether the online photo websites are used or not.

Saving pictures exclusively to the family computer that everyone uses is not very secure or reliable either.  A computer that is used daily to connect to the Internet is exposed to many dangerous threats that can corrupt data and ultimately destroy, not only pictures and precious memories, but any hard work which is stored there.  It’s alright to save files and pictures to that computer, but precautions should be taken immediately to protect them.

Use a hardware firewall to protect that computer from the Internet.  Firewalls are available at all electronic retail stores that sell computers and are easy to install and configure.  Use a trusted antivirus program to monitor the computer for harmful viruses, Trojans, and worms.  Install a spare hard disk drive into the computer and either manually copy important files to it or use a software backup utility to do it automatically.

An even better idea is to build a stand alone computer that is used exclusively for storing pictures, important file, and videos.  Do not connect this computer to the Internet and be sure it is password-protected and logged-out when not in use.  Install a DVD writer in this computer and make DVD backup copies of all important files and keep the DVD’s stored in a locked box or filing cabinet in a temperature-controlled room.  If this computer needs to be networked to the computer that uses the Internet, then it is possible to block Internet usage on the backup computer and still send files back and forth between the two.