I do my backups to an external 4TB Seagate drive. I have used Seagate for quite a few years, although not without incident. A few months ago, I bought an internal 2TB Seagate, to replace my second internal drive. Less than 12 hours after installing it, my system drive - an identical Seagate - went belly-up. I didn't lose any data, but I did lose some programs I had on a partition on that drive. Plus, I had to pay to have the system stuff recovered and put onto the new drive.

I think you pays your money and takes your choice with this stuff. It is incredibly reliable, but failures do happen. You see the complaints from people who have had their drive fail, but of course, all the people who's drives are working fine don't post to tell you about it...

Back in the day, 28 probably was about as wide as you could go - certainly without spending a whole heap of money. You really didn't see lenses any wider than that being sold - or if you did, they were expensive specialty gear.

Wow! Thank you so much... I have saved your list, and will go try some of them out later on. I have been wading through a bunch of books, but a lot of them assume knowledge that some of us don't have...

I am looking forward to checking these out!

Military Men Marching...

These were taken at the dress rehearsal for the Queen's Silver Jubilee Parade, at Sennelager, Germany, in 1977.

My band are the guys with the brass helmets...

Wow! I love that video... Some of the timelapse stuff is mind-blowing!

Thanks for posting the link.

I agree. If it works at all, you got a bargain. If not, well, at least you had the fun of trying...

Just 3 hours? You lucky, lucky bar steward! (obligatory monty python reference)

I use CS2, which I believe dates from around 2007 or so. I am just learning, and mostly use it so far for retouching - removing spots and scratches and stuff.

One of the good things about having an old version is that Amazon lists dozens of books which you can buy used for sometimes less than a dollar. I have a pile of books on PS which I am currently making my way through.

New books for this stuff can be very expensive...

Probably hoping to get lucky... Then be lunch!

Ah, a child of the digital age... When we old fogies were shooting with film, you didn't get to see the results 2 seconds later. By the time we developed (or got back from the chemist) the photographs, it was often too late to redo the shot.

No more frantically changing rolls of film as the Red Arrows continue zooming around me! My current little thing has several hundred shots on its card, and is less than 2% full. I never empty it; just copy the stuff to the PC and leave the originals on the card as a backup. It also (and this is just my theory) prevents the same part of the card being reused over and over, maybe resulting in some issue down the road.

At the moment, I am limited to a fully-automatic point-and-shoot. I hope to get back to SLR-land soon. My last *real* camera was a Canon A1. I don't think I *ever* had it on P mode, but also never used it on full manual either.

I switched between aperture-priority and shutter-priority depending on the need for whatever I was shooting. Did that mean that *I* was not taking the photograph? Well, someone had to push the button! :D

The stem of some kind of tropical plant...

I use the logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, but I have the one with the thumbwheel. It doesn't move, and you don't need extra deskspace for it. I have had 3 or 4 of the wired version over the years, but I now am firmly a fan of wireless! I am right-handed, but my PC has to sit on the left side of my desk, so there could be issues with cable length on a wired mouse.
I agree with all the comments about battery life. Mine only uses a single AA battery, but it lasts so long that it really is not an issue. Certainly several months, and I never think to turn it off. I just keep on using it until I get a message saying that the battery is low. The keyboard is rechargable, so when that runs low I just plug it in and carry on.

Yeah... Most of the time it is a nice walk - a bit under a mile if I remember right. On days like this, though, not so much. When the wind comes out of the NE, which is not too uncommon, you can end up with all kinds of breakers.

Thank you. The seagull helps too, although I have to admit that bit was just luck!

Thanks... That pier is pretty high, so those are not little waves. I used to go down there during storms and sit in the car watching the waves smashing in.