I first got into Fortran in the late 80's and gleefully adopted F90 and F95 when they became available. But then Python caught my attention so I haven't kept up with my Fortran. But there are some tasks for which Fortran is the best solution by far so it's still in my toolbox.

Not older than dirt ...

You can get an application like FreeFileSync that will mirror the contents of one disk to another, taking into account only the files that have actually changed. That's a lot less wear and tear on your drive than a complete backup every day.

I'm from Pasadena but can drive to nearby places on a weekend. I know I mostly lurk here, but I'd love the chance to meet in person!

Don't miss dusk and sunset from the top of Mount Royal. You may even want to put your camera down and just enjoy the changing light. Be sure to bring a flashlight for the walk back down those stairs though! Notre Dame Basilica is an absolute must as is Old Montreal. Mary Queen of the World (Reine du Monde) right by the train station is another must-see church. And be sure to wander around the McGill campus and the Plateau for some great architecture. If it's a clear day, the view of the east end of the city from the top of the Olympic Stadium tower is also spectacular.

I've done three separate stints in Montreal (childhood, undergrad and work after graduation) and I left a large part of my heart there.

Catherine

What's the difference between "Feeling you're nuts" and "Feeling your nuts"?

I'll be the odd ball out here ...

I love Franzis's HDR software. The full list price is pretty expensive but sign up for their mailing list and you'll find the occasional screaming deal ($200+ down to $40). Theirs is the most fully featured HDR software I've seen and I've stopped using Photomatix for this reason.

Catherine

Are you seeing question marks on the missing folders? If so, right-click on them and LR should bring up a file browser to let you navigate to their new location. I've done a lot of (intentional) migrating of photos from one hard disk to another and as soon as I told LR what the new location was, everything was fine.

I've never understood Window's C and D drives. Macs are so much easier as you can name a drive anything you want and it never gets renamed underneath you.

Catherine

Applications/Image Capture

Very handy for deleting unwanted photos off your iPhone en masse.

Catherine

Consider changing your credit card number so they can't bill anything on the old number! I once had problems with recurring magazine subscriptions that I couldn't cancel so I asked the bank to change the number. That solved that problem pretty quickly.

Lightroom works perfectly on Macs as well as Windows so just keep on using LR as it's far superior to the built-in Apple software! And LR works with literally any folder structure you can think of so no need to change your system, unless you want to. Like others, I suggest using keywords to tag the subject of the photo: flowers, sunsets, family and friends, cars, etc. Personally I use a hybrid of location and date taken: the upper-level is all indexed by location (Europe/Ireland/Dublin) and then when I import (directly from the card into LR, no need for any extra steps) I use LR to create date subfolders underneath the top-level location (2018/2018-05-04 for example so the entire folder hierarchy would be /Users/cmoroney/Pictures/Lightroom/Europe/Ireland/Dublin/2018/2018-05-04). I would then use keywords to tag the photo subject and then use smart collections to catalogue all my sunset shots.

There's a very reasonably priced backup software for Macs called SuperDuper that will copy any hard (internal or external) to another and the backups can be scripted so they run at 3 am on a Tuesday when you're not likely to be using the computer and also gives you the capability to exclude certain folders from the backup if you want.

Catherine

As everyone has said: the Old Town is the place to photograph. Be sure to wander down the side streets as you'll feel like you're back in 17th century France and get some good photos without millions of people. Don't even think about trying to drive in the Old City - just take good walking shoes and tromp all about. The few places that take American dollars will rip you off on the exchange rate so just buy some Canadian money beforehand.

And if you have the time, take an overnight in Montreal. That's one seriously awesome city. I miss it every day (except during January and February maybe ...)

Catherine

They may work fine right now, but when your current computer dies (as it eventually will) it's likely that your new one can't run this existing software and you'll be stuck with all your photos in Aperture and possibly no way to get them out. I would advise to "export" all your photos out of Aperture into some currently supported program (I swear by Lightroom myself but there are other options such as the Organizer in Photoshop Elements, and Luminar/OnOne are currently enhancing their editors with organizational capabilities).

I highly recommend using ApertureExporter available from the App Store to get your photos out of Aperture and onto disk where you can put them wherever.

And a bit further afield, the Chiricahuas and Bisbee are great places for a day trip. The former have some great rock formations and Bisbee is an old mining town turned artists' colony with a really interesting mine tour.

Another physics geek here! That pun is so bad it's pretty damn good.

I already have a used Sigma 10-22 that I picked up a few years ago. That and the Tamron are my go-to lenses and I love them both. There's a lot to be said for traveling light!