Losing important photos, documents, video, and music is still all too common, but as we store more of our important data digitally another important situation comes up: How do we ensure our memories are passed on to future generations?
Twenty five years from now today's hard-drives, DVDs, and CDs are sure to look as laughable -- and be as useless as -- giant floppy disks from 25 years ago -- or even Zip disks from 10 years ago.
Similarly, as we store more information in online accounts, how do we ensure that access to those sites survives us? Access to today's Facebook and Gmail accounts is all too often locked away only inside our heads.
There's no one catch-all solution yet, but solutions include:
Keep your most important files, in current formats, on your current computer -- And keep that computer backed up! Hard drive upgrades, external backup drives, and online backups are all relatively inexpensive. Likewise, converting from .doc to .docx may seem boring now, but it's that sort of step that is key to keeping your important files from becoming obsolete. Always move your data from your old computer to your new computer during an upgrade.
Get your important files off old external media. Don't store important files on floppies, Zip drives, old hard drives, etc. When old media sits around it tends to go bad, and over the course of years it will become difficult and time consuming to read. Move things you want to keep to something new, now.
Legacy Locker -- Described as a "safe, secure repository for your vital digital property that lets you grant access to online assets for friends and loved ones in the event of loss, death, or disability."
Don't rely on Facebook. Who knows if Facebook, or any of today's photo-sharing Web sites, will be around in five years, let alone 25. Keep a local copy of anything that you want to keep for the long haul.
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