Most people trust their lives to the importance of their work, memories, events to digital storage. Yet, here are two highlighted common problems, first is the fact that storage media won’t last forever like so many pictures/files that you have uploaded. The second one is that there is a chance that your old files might not read by modern software. Trusting data and social media to cloud storage can make things complicated. The truth is our virtual lives do not just settle on mobile devices as it can across different Internet media. How can one possibly preserve or keep the digital legacies he/she has and make sure that it still completely fine for future use? Here are the tips and proper ways on how you can make your digital life last until you want to.
Social Media
Never forget the history that you made on your Twitter and Facebook accounts through your feed and timelines. There will be a time that you will need those. The fact that Facebook and Twitter give opportunities to request an archive through an email by compressing it like a snapshot of the formatted HTML of your timeline. You can browse it, and these two social media platforms are good at doing their job of making snapshots that can still be accessed in the near future.
Proceed to Account, then to Account Settings, and lastly, to Download Your Information.
Proceed to Account, then to Request your archive.
Google allows users to have a back-up of data in a wide variety. Many yet, not all services of social media, have this kind of similar feature.
Data Formats
It is quite important to use a strong file format for data and media files to be accessible and readable in the future. To preserve and keep documents in the long run, it is best to make them in a proprietary format such as .xls or .doc in Microsoft Offices and .jpeg or .png in Photoshop to an ODF or Open Document Format, PDF or even Open XML. Most probably, photographers should also save images to an original format like JPEG or PNG. In another row, audio files must be in a proper format, too. You might wish to save it on the highest uncompressed like AIFF and WAV if available. The same way with the video files which are tougher yet, MPEG-2 can be a good choice. 2
Here are the things you have to consider when you want your digital life in a great posterity.
- Make copies. It is best to have more than one copy of your file to be perfectly sure that you can save yourself from getting frustrated when there a sudden loss of data. You must consider using different back-up devices or storage media for multiple copies. Remember, what is important for you can fuel your future. Better to save copies!
- Ask for daily back-ups of the activities you have done on your social media accounts. The steps mentioned above can help you out of this. You can use your archive space to store them.
- Make archives. You can store video, audio, and photos to a sensible storage media, whether it can be a traditional, optical, and flash hard drives. Then make sure to test these once a year and transfer it to a fresh drive or storage every 3 years.
- Make daily back-ups. You can try to back up your things in your devices on a daily schedule. It does not really much require you to do, but if you care for your data, then you must do this. It is much recommended that one must create more back-ups in an offsite location.
- Consider encrypting your archive. For some, it may be a huge downside if, in the future, you lose or forget your password, and decryption is not available. For instance, you can lose everything. Yet, if you do this right now, you might not get vulnerable when your archive is stolen or lost.
You might also want to try the Photostick. A stick that comes with software that will automatically scan your computer when you want to find such videos or pictures. It is easy and convenient to use as it can identify or recognize a lot of pictures within a few minutes.
This device does not only work for photos. It can work on finding documents and videos, too. It is a great help for those people who have limited experience in using today’s technologies. As it only takes seconds to plug it on your computer just like how a flash drive. For a piece of great information with this device, you might want to visit their website and give it a try.
You must take copying as a bad habit. In this kind of matter, it is good. Why? Copying or baking up your data is a habit that one must do. It is a pretty thing that your files are fine as you leave them behind your storage device. In case you need it in the future, you can still use it without worries. Also, it will teach you to organize the things that you have. You can make folders on your chosen back-up devices to it will be easier for you to search for it.
You can title them with dates or a word that will remind you about it. You can also review and scan once a while your data for you to keep updated if there is a sudden change or damage to your files. Today, there are a lot of disasters and hackers that can get on your files. They can break down your files in just a click. Make sure to keep your password to yourself and find more securities for your files. It’s not too late not to back up your things, start now!