Anonymous wrote:Also, for photos, print the good ones and send copies to friends and relatives. You don't want to find out fifty years from now that the old hard disk in a shoe box is unreadable and, even if it were, that the file formats are obsolete. Make sure that your family has some actual silver-halide prints (made at a real photo lab, not ink jet printed, which is not archival) of your favorite pictures.

Good advice. Digital is risky for archiving purposes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I need a secure email program. A fee based program is fine. I would also like a program for backing up and organizing photos. I do not want to use google going forward. Thanks for your suggestions!

We have a Mac and use the no-extra-cost Apple "Photos" application to store photos, but we do not have or use iCloud for anything. Instead, we have a backup external disk and use Apple's integrated backup utility to backup the whole Mac computer (including photographs) to that external disk.

Mac products are designed to be used with cloud. We always buy the lowest storage option and then do $9.99/month for a family iCloud storage plan. I guess I don't understand why you'd use Mac products but be so opposed to the cloud?

I will say I just had a friend who lost all her family photos in the fires in Altadena. Assuming your computer and external disc are both located at home, you'd be in the same situation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define "secure email program." Do you mean an encryption tool like PGP? Unencrypted email is basically insecure by definition.

And what do you expect your photo storage softwrae to do? Is there any reason not to just store the files in a regular filesystem, make normal backups of that, and have your favorites printed at a photo lab?

This. AVOID "cloud" storage systems like the plague. Because they are a plague basically.

Highly disagree but the benefits of having all my photos automatically backed up to icloud is worth any perceived risk to me. For photo backups I have two physical and one in the cloud.

Sounds exactly like an advertisement.

An advertisement for what?
Amazon offers free storage with Prime, which I have anyways. No, I'm not Jeff Bezos. But any good backup will have an off-site copy in case the place burns down.

Also, for photos, print the good ones and send copies to friends and relatives. You don't want to find out fifty years from now that the old hard disk in a shoe box is unreadable and, even if it were, that the file formats are obsolete. Make sure that your family has some actual silver-halide prints (made at a real photo lab, not ink jet printed, which is not archival) of your favorite pictures.

Anonymous wrote: If you like the cloud, sorry but amazon is the best one.

Why is this? Do you know their security measures?

There is a really expensive one that is private, not to the cloud.

With a hard drive (make it two) and/or solid-state drive, you could be great.

I have a job doing this for people, but I don’t need to advertise here. And IME, it’s not like you’d hit me up for help from dcum.

But 3 places. A mixture of on-site, off-site. If you hate the cloud, fine. If you like the cloud, sorry but amazon is the best one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define "secure email program." Do you mean an encryption tool like PGP? Unencrypted email is basically insecure by definition.

And what do you expect your photo storage softwrae to do? Is there any reason not to just store the files in a regular filesystem, make normal backups of that, and have your favorites printed at a photo lab?

This. AVOID "cloud" storage systems like the plague. Because they are a plague basically.

Highly disagree but the benefits of having all my photos automatically backed up to icloud is worth any perceived risk to me. For photo backups I have two physical and one in the cloud.

Sounds exactly like an advertisement.

There is no cloud. It is just someone else's computer.

Anonymous wrote:I need a secure email program. A fee based program is fine. I would also like a program for backing up and organizing photos. I do not want to use google going forward. Thanks for your suggestions!

We have a Mac and use the no-extra-cost Apple "Photos" application to store photos, but we do not have or use iCloud for anything. Instead, we have a backup external disk and use Apple's integrated backup utility to backup the whole Mac computer (including photographs) to that external disk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Define "secure email program." Do you mean an encryption tool like PGP? Unencrypted email is basically insecure by definition.

And what do you expect your photo storage softwrae to do? Is there any reason not to just store the files in a regular filesystem, make normal backups of that, and have your favorites printed at a photo lab?

This. AVOID "cloud" storage systems like the plague. Because they are a plague basically.

Highly disagree but the benefits of having all my photos automatically backed up to icloud is worth any perceived risk to me. For photo backups I have two physical and one in the cloud.

Anonymous wrote:Define "secure email program." Do you mean an encryption tool like PGP? Unencrypted email is basically insecure by definition.

And what do you expect your photo storage softwrae to do? Is there any reason not to just store the files in a regular filesystem, make normal backups of that, and have your favorites printed at a photo lab?

This. AVOID "cloud" storage systems like the plague. Because they are a plague basically.

Define "secure email program." Do you mean an encryption tool like PGP? Unencrypted email is basically insecure by definition.

And what do you expect your photo storage softwrae to do? Is there any reason not to just store the files in a regular filesystem, make normal backups of that, and have your favorites printed at a photo lab?

NONE are fully secure. All will say they are. Do you really trust them?

Apple?

I need a secure email program. A fee based program is fine. I would also like a program for backing up and organizing photos. I do not want to use google going forward. Thanks for your suggestions!