The Process of Handling Digital Media

Today, I'll take a break from talking about the equipment (mostly), and concentrate on what I've established so far as "my process" of handling all this digital media that I've accumulated. I decided to write about this subject since it's something that rears it's ugly head at all of us and the modern world of digital media.

It all started a few years ago when Camille decided it'd be a great idea if we were able to put all our CDs in one place; namely an iPod. So, magically, Santa brought her one that Christmas and Santa was able to spend virtually the entire holiday ripping our library of 400-500 CDs into her laptop to sync with that iPod! Santa: he's a great guy. That has been one of the best things we ever did since, every time we leave for a trip, instead of laboriously going through the CDs and pulling out 20 or so (never the right ones), we have all of them with us. And we don't have to worry about doing something stupid like leaving an entire CD folder (24) of them on the roof of our car as we drive off from seeing our neice at college in Madison, WI! Almost as good as having all the music is the fact that it can be put into "playlists" and then you don't have to run off the road scrolling through the menu.

As a matter-of-fact, the iPod thing has been so great, we now have 3 (Camille has 2, 30Gb ones, and I have a newer 80Gb "Classic" one). Camille has 2 so she can keep our music library on one and experiment with podcasting on the other at school. They are identical with the exception of the fact that one is black and the other white so she can tell them apart. I have some music on mine, but it's mostly a mobile data storage device. On our trip to Alaska, it was great in that I was able to double up on it's function as both a personal music device on the plane as well as the picture file backup to the laptop that the camera's memory cards were dumped into. It was perfect for that! In fact; these days we are so iPod-centric that we have a dock for our main A/V system so when people come over, we can just start a playlist, in the office we have a Logitech speaker-dock that is portable with it's own battery (10 hours), and Camille has a Sony radio with a dock as well! I even have a smaller Logitech speaker-dock in my classroom too.

Wow, that sounds like a lot of equipment and doesn't sound too "frugal", does it. Here's where the frugality comes in. With the exception of Camille's 30Gb one, none of the other devices were bought at retail or even "on sale". Both of the other 2 iPods were bought used off of local Craig's List. Her white one as an "older/non-current" model that costs $100, mine was current, but it came right after the big iPhone migration when LOTS of folks were replacing their virtually new iPods with those. It was $165. I bought the really nice Logitech dock/speaker "refurbished" on ebay for less than a third of retail ($50 vs. $200) and the other smaller Logitech was after Christmas clearance from Walmart for $16! The home theater dock was one of those eBay "Hong Kong Specials" that costs about $25 after shipping, vs. the DLO or Griffen dock that you pay $159 for at Best Buy. For the life of me, I can't understand why, otherwise intelligent people would pay retail for this kind of stuff. Electronics are the perfect products to buy used since people are conditioned to having the latest and greatest. Just because it's not "the latest" doesn't mean that it's not any good any more.

Now that I'm done with my iPod segment, what exactly do I do with the rest of this media? Actually, I'm in an in between stage. Ultimately, I understand that I will have to either put a file server or a Network Attached Storage device on my system. So right now, all I have is a bunch of random USB 2.0 portable HDDs from drives that I've salvaged after upgrading a laptop and adding a cheap or "free-after-rebate" case. Those are great for temporary storage and moving things, but certainly can't be considered long-term solutions. What I do have is a home-built desktop that functions as my main media workstation. It has a pair of 160Gb, 7200rpm drives in it, where I use one as the main drive and the other as a file backup. Yeah, I know; precarious; but hey, at least they are on a salvaged APC Smart-UPS!

So yes, I do back up my important files (as well as my "client" files). I'll get to my "clients" in another post. One of my summer projects burn DVD backups over all my important files. Although my HDDs are good "server rated" units and they don't have many hours on them, you never know.

At some point in the fall, I will start the process of doing a network storage solution, but right now, during the summer, photography is so much more immediate. Speaking of; the D200 arrived yesterday and it was a classic case of the good and bad of eBay. I'll devote an entire post to the new baby after it's first real "shakedown" cruise and I know more about it. Surfice to say that the look, heft and feel of it is wholely "professional" and I love it!