Have you had your family’s old film reels converted to the technology of the time only to find out that that technology is outdated in today’s world?
Many of us have taken old 8mm/16mm films and put them on video only to have VHS machines disappear. The same with new laptops - most don’t even have CD/DVD drives and the formats used in the original transfer are obsolete. In both cases, you’re chasing technology at the expense of time, cost, and newer formats, like MP4 and MP3, and you don’t even know what that means.
Today, the cloud rules supreme. Everyone keeps talking about how easy it is to use, but you only know about the clouds you see in the sky. It’s true that cloud technology has become the go-to method of storing everything from personal and business documents to photos to presentations to websites. But, what does it mean to store in the cloud?
Essentially, the cloud is a website where you can store almost anything which is why it is here to stay. The advantages far outweigh the challenges of learning another new technology. When it comes to safe storage of photos, old films, audio reels/cassettes, slides and so on, digital storage is the best way to protect against fire, flood, and damage to physical formats. Once your media is transferred to digital, housing them and accessing them is a snap.
Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Dropbox are among the most used services and provide convenience especially if you have one of their products (Gmail, One Drive, iPhone, etc.) or use their services in other capacities. Once your physical media collection is transferred to digital, it’s a snap to upload to the cloud and likewise download from the cloud to your phone or laptop. Here, it is stored through an account you create (or have already created) and managed by the capacity size (GB) you need to load all of your images to one place.
For example, I have Google’s Gmail for my email. With having a Gmail account, I also have access to all of Google's suite of products including Google Photos, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Maps, etc. Once I have uploaded my photos to Google Photos, I can send them to friends and family via a direct email that provides a link to the recipient so they can see the photos in your account.
Voila! Everything is in one place and is safe via a password that only you know and can share.