Don’t let your digital memories go up in flames!

Digital cameras are a valuable addition to the travel scene. Never before was it possible to take and carry around 1000s of images in 6 oz package. However, these tiny and all important memory preservers are prime targets for thieves and are frequently lost. Like it’s said about a good reputation: it takes a lifetime to make and only a second to lose. The same is true about digital memories contained in that little picture box: all your hard work to capture your experiences and memories can be gone in a flash. To help prevent this unfortunate and very possible event from happening we have put together these recommendations for preserving your pictures. These suggestions, beyond storing pictures, are also great for keeping important documents safe and sharing them across platforms beyond your Facebook or whichever social network account you have. Each can be used from shared computers and don’t require carrying around a laptop or other heavy computer machinery.

1. RECOMMENDED: Online storage sites: Store and share photos, important documents (i.e. copies of passports, travel insurance, credit card information, etc) and back up cell phone info. All of the following have free and premium accounts.
   
   • Box. net- www.box.net: Recommended! Easily create a contact list from Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook WITHOUT requiring contacts to join. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I receive pictures from friends and I have to join or remember a password.
   • Drive Head Quarters- www.drivehq.com
   • Omni Drive- www.omnidrive.com: Australian based. Has a nice read/write feature which does not require downloading the document.
   • X Drive- www.xdrive.com: Ad supported and AOL owned. Offers 5 GB for free, but requires that each person you share files with have an account.
2. Photo sharing sites such as Flikr.com, Kodak’s Easyshare and Snapfish are also options and have the added benefit of being able to send a personalized postcard (i.e. upload picture, have it printed and sent to someone special). Flickr for instance, has a monthly upload limit of 100MB (free account) which can be limiting. Also, upload times can be quite lengthy.
   • To use any of these make sure you do not forget your camera USB cord.
3. USB Flash Drives: These little gizmos are fantastic and are ideal for many tasks such as carrying around important files and digital pictures to free up the memory card. The process is pretty straight forward: 1) download your pictures from your camera onto a shared computer; 2) transfer the images to a folder on the shared computer; 3) download the pictures onto the flash drive. Not all cameras are going to let you do this without their specific software so research this issue as it relates to your particular camera.
4. Backing up / burning a CD DVD: According to Jane Dent, who manages The Green Room Internet Café in Manly, Australia, this is the most common backup method. Additionally Dan Ross, who is currently on an around-the-word trip and is contributing to iKangaroo, says that many internet cafes he has encountered offer this service. He burns a CD or DVD about once a month and mails them home.
5. Another solution that we learned about via Sindrit Trandafili -the head tech guy for Yellow Youth Hotel in Rome-is that the Yellow rents laptops which people can use to burn their own CD /DVDs.

In a final note Jane has some advice to travelers: “ensure that precious items are backed up/burned before wiping the memory card! (you would be surprised how often this doesn’t get done).” This must happen quite frequently because The Green Room has invested in a “detective”, which “most times” can retrieve mistakenly deleted photos, but she adds, “this is a looooooooong process.”

Implementing these suggestions is easy, quick and most importantly if your precious $300 digital camera is lost or stolen then you won’t have to say to yourself, “I can handle losing the camera, BUT it sucks that I lost all those pictures!!!!!”

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