Archive for the 'Maintenance' Category
Oct
9
1 Terabyte=$200
Today I realized I’m running out of space on the drive I store all my photos on. I’m currently using a 250GB to store all the photos, edits, and any other changes. There is currently 4 years worth of photos on there and who knows many individual files. I would bet I have taken about 30,000 pictures between the three cameras I own.
I have also come to realize I’m not backing these files up like I should be. I have been making copies to DVD from time to time, but it would take over 60 DVDs to back all these images up now. I’m not willing to spend the time sitting there popping 60+ discs in and out of this machine.
It became clear I needed another drive so I could just back the whole thing up at once - one drive to hold the originals, one drive as a mirror of the first. Probably going to be slow on this first copy, but at least I don’t have to watch over it.
But while out shopping for drives I came across a 500GB drive for $99 - an external unit - even more impressive. This will give me room to copy the drive plus room to expand. I ended up buying two so I can now copy all the images to the new drive (which has more room) and create a backup of this new storage point.
They are both external drives which means I don’t have to mess with opening the case to install them. It’s not that I don’t know how, it’s just that I don’t want to. Every time I pop open the case and do something new, there is always a glitch, something I didn’t count on. I want this to be as simple as process as possible. I just want to back up my images and not spend time going back to get the right cable or the right power splitter or some other stupid oversight on my part.
I also think it’s a pretty impressive thing technology wise to be able to go out and buy a terabyte of storage for a home computer. I mean I remember 5 ¼ inch floppy discs that held 100k on them and now to think I have 1TB sitting on my desk. Of course by this time next year 1TB will seem paltry as 16GB cards come out for cameras and thumbdrives. Double digit terabyte drives will be the norm and I’ll have the same problem of how do I back all this stuff up…
But for now, $200 for 1TB of storage is pretty damn impressive.
In making restructuring changes to the site I went through and made modifications to the discussion forum. I started the forum some months ago, but I haven’t given it my full attention. I have of course been working on the picture galleries and this section. I have decided to try and pull the forum from the ashes so to speak and make it worthwhile.
I’ve deleted most of the original content and boards and created new discussion areas which I hope you will find interesting and informative. I’ve included topics I find interesting such as camera discussions, lens discussions, software, favorite places and even a place to post some your favorite pictures. I figure you get to look at my photos, so I made a section where you can post your own.
To start things rolling I’ve posted a couple of topics that I’m personally curious about, such as commission from people who buy your photos online and whether it would be better to get the Sigma 50-150mm or the 18-200mm. If you have a few minutes maybe you can stop by and offer me your thoughts.
I would really like to see the discussion area grow. If there is a topic you would like to see please let me know, I would be happy to create it.
You can jump straight to the forum by going here:
http://www.8×10gallery.com/forum
May
29
Over the past few months (since I decided to start this site) I’ve been studying the art and craft of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s a fascinating subject, but truly does reveal that the Internet really is just smoke and mirrors. Aside from that, it lead me to make all sorts of changes to the structure and format of the site. None of the things you normally see, more of the filenames, the image tags, the keywords and descriptions associated with the pages. It’s an ongoing process, but my work has finally started to bare fruit.
With the help of the CoffeeCup Google Sitemapper and UltraEdit, the site has well over 1,000 pages indexed and is now beginning to show up in Google searches for certain keywords. Many of the pages began to disappear after I made several critical errors (spaces in the names of files, incorrect titles for pages) as I described previously. All those pages have finally been purged out and the correct pages are now being indexed. I have also found the magic PING commands to let the search engines know when I’ve done a major update. Now I can coax all the “bots” to come and pay me a visit without having to manually submit everything.
I’ve been working on the site for about 5 months now and things are moving along quite nicely. There is steady growth within the site and I can see more pieces of the site becoming available through searches. It’s said it takes about 6 months before a site is really even visible through Google. If that’s the case then I am right on track and things should continue to flourish from here.
I do have to say that Google makes it so easy to submit and update a site, whereas Yahoo! makes things a little more difficult. We won’t even discuss MSN. They have so far to go before I will even recognize them as a search tool.