permanent

 A while back I began transferring videos and pictures from cd's to digital files. I also began transferring video from tape to digital. Now with the equipment I have its' been a very slow and tedious process and so has fallen by the wayside. I keep telling myself I will start again. The concern is that all will be lost simply because future generations will not have the technology available to play it back. How many of you have an eight-track player or a Walkman? Yes, I know they can be purchased but I'm asking how many of you have one currently? If you found a random cd would you purchase a device to play it back? Probably not. 

 I'm not all that tech savvy but try to understand it. I have cd's and digital files that I recorded but now can't play back. I get messages like, do you want the web to look for a program to open this or this was created by an unknown program. There are MP3, MP4, JPEG, BMP, DCM, DDS, GIF PNG and Tif to just scratch the surface. The list is extensive. Even when presented with a list of options from the web to open those files I'm at a loss. It's all very frustrating. And it's one excuse I use for not continuing with the transfers. By the time I'm done doing that the format will have changed and it's back to square one. Yeah, printing the picture is still the best way of preserving them for future generations. Videos are a bit more challenging, but the film version is still the best, only requiring a light source and a method to move the film at the correct speed across that light.

 My niece had posted on Facebook that she had a great number of music cd's. She was looking for suggestions on what to do with them as she no longer wanted them. They don't sell well at yard sales and such. I have no idea what to do with them, no suggestions to offer. All of that music and I'd suggest the majority of all music ever recorded is now available online. No need for any "playback" machinery beyond a pc or, as strange as it sounds, your telephone. In fact, you can watch movies on your phone too. Well, when you think about it all you need is a phone! 

 I also have cloud storage. I dutifully pay a fee every month for that digital storage that I have no clue where it really is. In the cloud? It is on a server somewhere in the world, but I have no idea where that would be. Occasionally I'm reminded that I need more room having filled it up. I have yet to purchase any additional space so I'm guessing the older stuff is being thrown out or something. 

 The last time I checked my cloud storage the oldest files I have where still there so I'm thinking scare tactics may be being used to entice me to spend more money. I have a great deal of that on an external drive just in case as well. I wonder if someone else could just plug that external drive into their computer and view all those files? My feeling is, it won't be that easy, that simple or that direct. Not when I get messages from my own computer informing me, I need permission! I need to ask the administrator. I am the administrator! Yeah, makes me angry.

 I have pictures that were taken in the late 1800's. That's right, not the last century but the one before that. They are mostly pictures of people, my ancestors long since gone. Those pictures I would imagine sat on a shelf in their homes or hung on a wall. I'm looking at them today without issue. Some are missing data, I don't know you they are, but the image remains. Others, mostly those my great grandmother had, have the names and sometimes dates on them. I have very little text from them, however. I have taken to printing a good number of these blogs and other things I have written. The hope is that they will not be discarded. That seems to happen quite often when people pass on. 

 Today we all think that whatever we write online will remain available forever. I suspect it will, but only to those that want it bad enough to pay for it. It will also be recoverable by those wanting it for nefarious reasons. Politicians are already using that to get the "dirt" on others. Hillary Clinton was aware of that and that's why she ordered the destruction of those servers in her basement. Oh, and the phones too. The phones we carry can easily lead to our downfall. 

 There was a day when an eraser was our best friend, now it just takes a strong magnet. Just takes a second to erase everything. Makes me wonder if transferring everything to a digital file is really worth the effort. Maybe just print the pictures. I don't know about the videos. I'm thinking I'll just pack them away in a safe location and leave it at that. Or put them all on an external drive. Maybe if I did that, labeling it with the proper file and program used to create those files, they could be read in the future. A device ordered from Amazon to do that with. That's where I got a cassette player to play back a tape I had. And yes, I transferred that to a digital file. A magnet will erase either one. Have to use vinyl or acetate or a wax cylinder if you want something more permanent. Even a permanent magnet won't affect those things. Can't say that about any of our methods of recording today. Heck, even a temporary magnet can erase digital files. Not so permanent after all.