Mark Dalton

Okay so while working on my Digital Filing Cabinet Project (Digital Filing Cabinet Part One & Digital Filing Cabinet Part Two) I found a lot of old photo’s that predated the Digital era. Some of them I struggled to remember where and when I had taken them, others I couldn’t remember who the people were. Well, this simply wouldn’t do! So I scanned them in and headed off to my parents for Sunday lunch.

While we were catching up and generally putting the world to rights my Mum handed me some photo’s that she had taken recently and printed out. We looked at the pictures, which happened to be of my Niece and Nephew and found ourselves comparing them to my sister and I when we were younger. This led to some of the hundreds of photo’s my parents have being dragged out from the dark hiding places they have lived for years.

This got me thinking! I bet we have thousands of pictures between us that predate the digital era that are important in remembering some very significant events and more importantly some very important people that are no longer with us. We remember them now but who will remember them in future? Who will tell my Niece and Nephew about these people and places?

So the “Family Photo Archive Project” was born! The aim of this project is to scan and store as many of the family’s old photo’s as possible and record who the people are and where they were taken.

This is going to be a long term project, but one that I am sure will be worth while and will also allow me to learn a little more about photography and image manipulation, and area I have been keen to learn more about for a while. Once I have got up to speed I will open this up to other family members, allowing them to contribute there own photo’s and memories.

So back in October I embarked on a project to simplify how I handle my personal paperwork (Digital Filing Cabinet Part One). Well since then I have made great progress and found the solution to be a lot less complicated than I originally thought.

At the end of my last post I was stuck with figuring out what storage options I needed for the three types of data I had.

Type 1: Insensitive Data – This is data that is to all intense and purpose no use to anybody else but me, and includes items such as manuals and instructions, for example the Boiler manual, and the instructions for the hot water and control system.

Type 2: Sensitive Data – This is data that could be used by others and could compromise my personal security or be used to impersonate my identity, such as education and health records and official correspondence such as voting data and official correspondence.

Type 3: Confidential Data – This is data that could severely impact my personal security, financial well being, and could certainly be used to impersonate me or secure financial benefits in my name, such as bank and credit card statements.

Well, after a lot of thought I arrived at the decision that as long as the data was encrypted and transmitted over a secure connection then I couldn’t see a major problem, and settled on two cloud computing solutions. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand fully the risks of storing data “in the cloud”, but have reasoned this is no less secure that storing it on a hard disk at home.

So what have I used? Well, for “Type 1″ type data I have selected Evernote and for “Type 2″ and “Type 3″ Data I have gone with DropBox. Evernote is ideal for this type of data as it indexes everything that is stored which means everything is searchable, even images. I have gone for the Premium service that allows you to upload 500 MB per month as I am loading quite a chunk of information at present. I have also using Evernote as a research tool for compiling list’s and research notes including Web Links, Emails, and Scanned pictures. DropBox on the other hand is cloud storage and I suppose a basic CMS / Document Management System. At present I am still working on scanning and copying the data to my DropBox account so am still using the free service, which provides 2 GB of storage. DropBox copies the data over SSL and encrypts all items using AES 256 before storing it on the back end, so I am relatively happy that it’s safe but am still taking a cautious approach at this stage. A great addition to DropBox is that it also provides version tracking so if you do amend a document you can easily revert should you need to. DropBox is also available from any computer either via a desktop client or their web interface. Unlike MobileMe and iDisk DropBox is super fast very reliable.

So that’s the storage sorted out, so I could scan a document in as a PDF and then move it to either Evernote or DropBox. There were a couple of other pieces of software I found made the process a whole lot smoother, however. The first was PDFPen from Smile On My Mac, which allows you to work with PDF documents, and the second was Hazel from Noodlesoft, which allows you to set up automated actions such as document renaming, moving, etc. This really is more about house keeping for me but I as I find myself performing repetitive tasks I do find it easier to configure Hazel to perform them for me.

So that’s in essence it for now! I am sure I will refine this over time and make small adjustments an improvements, for example I am now using OmniFocus from the Omni Group. OmniFocus is a “Getting Thing’s Done (GTD)” application, think advanced task planning. I am also testing Mail Tags & Mail Act-On from indev Software to help me integrate how I use email with the workflow, but for now I am not quite sure how I am going to do that as I don’t really work (at least from home) from my inbox.

Okay so after being Duty Manager last weekend I was due to be off Friday, but I had arranged a meeting and felt it ride to cancel so switched my day off to today. I thought I’d pop into town, do a little clothes shopping and pay some cheques into the bank.

Well, curve ball! I woke up about 05:00 must be getting old as this is becoming a regular habit and thought it was a little cold. The heating was just coming on so I didn’t think anything of it. I returned to bed knowing that I didn’t need to get up and promptly fell right back off to sleep.

08:00 I woke up again, why is it when I have time off I can’t lay in? Any how I thought Mmmm that’s cold, so did the scientific test to confirm. Foot out of the duvet and Brrrrrr cold status confirmed. Stretched my foot to the radiator, OUCH HOT!

Something was obviously wrong. So I had to investigate.

So plans out of the window I settled on the sofa, turning the heating up (bugger the cost, I don’t do cold) and commenced watching unemployed TV. Twenty minutes later, mind suitably numb I settled on getting on with some paperwork.

About 15:00 I wandered (read stumbled trying to look dignified) up to Mum & Dad’s house to find Mum, Dad, Katrina, and the kids all snuggled up in the lounge. Nobody had been able to get to where they needed to be.

You can check out the rest of the pictures over at http://www.flickr.com/photos/markdalton/