Bette

I am a writer/photographer for the local newspaper. Need to download my personal pictures from my memory chip to home computer, which is a PC. I work on a Mac. Should I download the pictures I want to a CD or memory stick first? The pictures are large format for newspaper use and I have no program on my work computer to make them smaller. Thanks for any information, B

drjuice

La Junta, Colorado, near to Bent's Old Fort? KEWL!

Copy the photos onto a medium that your PC can read. What you might do for just one is to make a gmail or yahoo account and send it from your work email to that account. Then you can download the image from that account. This assumes you have a cable or DSL connection.

If you don't have a relatively fast connection, it may take all night over a phone line. Before I got a cable connection, I used to follow that process for large documents then haul my notebook over to the public library and download the attachments from my gmail account.

HTH.

drjuice

gessman Loc: Colorado

Hi Bette. I would take the suggestion about opening a gmail account and email the images to myself there. gmail is my favorite and they give you 7.5 gigabytes of storage to hold your messages. It's the quickest way to get into free "cloud" storage in that you can store you messages on gmail's servers indefinitely. You can also set up several different email accounts with gmail and give yourself even more storage, if, as was proposed, you have a high speed 'net connection. You can then then pull the files into your pc at home. I might also move the files to a disc or flash card also just so I had three sources to retrieve the files even though having them stored online might be perfectly adequate. Then there's also that online backup service we hear so much about, Carbonite, at $59 a year, a business expense deduction. You want to give yourself several opportunities to retrieve your files if your future livelihood is going to depend on you having the images because technologies change and online businesses do go out of business. The more you spread it around, the more you enhance your chances of not losing it.

Bette

Thanks. I do have a DSL connection with Centurylink. I will try that first. When I get them separately, then I can also put them on a storage device such as a CD. Do you know how many of those big images a CD will hold, or perhaps my home computer can take down the size, since it does have the program to do so. Thanks again.

JimH Loc: Western South Jersey, USA

Bette, a standard 700mb CD will hold approximately 700 1-mb images, or 1,400 500K images, or 2,100 330K images...and so
on.

If you do burn to CD's, make sure you verify the images afterwards.

Bette

I like the multiplicity of storage idea, but am pretty ignorant of what's available. I can use a memory stick or CD to record and I do have DSL through Centurylink at home. I have an email account through them also, so I can send the pictures to myself. Sounds like a good first step. My first newspaper had me send pictures no more than three at a time, so I have always followed that principle, but my daughter has an old computer and cannot receive my pictures. Sounds like I need to "launder" them through my home computer, which does have the capability of reducing the size. Thanks for your expertise. Bette

Bette

I like the multiplicity of storage idea, but am pretty ignorant of what's available. I can use a memory stick or CD to record and I do have DSL through Centurylink at home. I have an email account through them also, so I can send the pictures to myself. Sounds like a good first step. My first newspaper had me send pictures no more than three at a time, so I have always followed that principle, but my daughter has an old computer and cannot receive my pictures. Sounds like I need to "launder" them through my home computer, which does have the capability of reducing the size. Thanks for your expertise. Bette

gessman Loc: Colorado

Good on the DSL. First thing I'd do is go to google.com and set up a gmail account. It's easy and free. Then I'd email those images to myself which you can then open them either at work, at home, or at a friends house, even on a smart phone if you use one. They'll be secure there until you choose to erase them or if google goes out of business which doesn't seem likely to happen in the immediate future. Once you've done that then you can manipulate them any way you choose in your home computers. May I just suggest that when you decide to cut them down in size that you work with a copy rather than the original file which I would suggest might be better kept in tact. If I can be of any further assistance to you, you can reach me at gessmansr@gmail.com. I'll be happy to help you however I can.

drjuice

Hi, Bette -

One thing that you might want to do for your own mental health is to start up a gmail account (gmail.com). Google gives you about 7gigabytes of "mail" storage space which should be enough to get you by. ;~) If you run out, you can make another gmail account. When I was teaching, I had one for each university where I taught for my students to hand in their homeworks which was a lot easier than having them fight with the limitations on the file sizes in the universities' email systems!

drjuice

drjuice

Hi, Bette -

One thing that you might want to do for your own mental health is to start up a gmail account (gmail.com). Google gives you about 7gigabytes of "mail" storage space which should be enough to get you by. ;~) If you run out, you can make another gmail account. When I was teaching, I had one for each university where I taught for my students to hand in their homeworks which was a lot easier than having them fight with the limitations on the file sizes in the universities' email systems!

drjuice

Bette

Great news about gmail account. My son keeps trying to get me to do that, too.