A Year of Higher Ed. Marketing Photography Bla, Bla, Blogging

If you keep at it you’ll reach that coveted goal of blogging for a year. I was never sure if I could do it, but at the very least I’ve now proved to be persistent. So let’s keep dancing!

Actually, it’s been a bit of a tonic to put down thoughts on my livelihood. If you pay attention to the things that are important everything else will take care of itself.

This has been a year of discovery. A new website, two blogs, Linkedin, Flickr, Friendfeed, Vertical Response and Google Adwords. Tweeting doesn’t fit my style, I don’t have an i-phone. Facebook is really a place I want to watch but not join. All of this stuff is so important if you listen to the noise “out there”.

All of this is about community, but what community?  If we join all of these virtual “clubs” what do we gain?   I send out an  e-mail and hope folks will want to look at my work.  What a great way to market, maybe.  The open rate on my VR is about 25%.  I’ve been told that’s great, but really?  The flood of junk e-mail makes us suspicious of legitimate contact.  That means that we see too much “stuff”.

I guess it boils down to quality versus quantity.  Unfortunately a filter has not been developed to make that call.  So we are left to make those decisions, but there are so many decisions to make that in the long run, we really are missing so many great messages.

I’ll keep it simple.  Let’s get the message out that there is a college or university that is a fit for any high school student who cares about where they want to spend four years.  Let’s show them the heart and soul of that institution.

Here’s to another year of blogging.

Paul O’Mara

The Snakepit of Image Archiving

“There’s a consensus that as the ability to store more and more data [increases], the data itself has become less and less reliable,”  Don Mennerich, an archivist at the New York Public Library. Excerpted from Bye, Tech: Dealing With Data Rot by David Pogue

So much has been put out there about longevity of digital images. The notion of using redundant hard drives to ensure that files are preserved still has it’s pitfalls.  The thought of continuously moving data to new technology is like placing it into suspended animation and does not solve anything. I just read about someone who has used redundant storage and he has experienced file corruption.  I hope he can recover everything.  If you Google search DVD longevity,  the sources thin out pretty quickly without really putting the debate to rest.  CBS Sunday Morning took a look at this on the March 1, 2009 show by Contributor David Pogue  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/01/sunday/main4836569.shtml  . In the “industry” it’s called Data Rot.  

I have chosen to put my faith in the CD/DVD.  I am assuming that I will stir things up but here are my thoughts:

At least in the foreseeable future, disks will be readable by all systems. All of the archival testing by the Wilhelm Group has given a life span for CD/DVD’s that I think is based on criteria unrelated to reality. I have disks stored for 10+ years that come up first time every time.  My sense is that the disk is a reasonably stable medium.  If a disk is used a lot I can understand the risk, but for archive purposes, this seems as safe as anything else out there.

The cost of redundant storage is getting better but until mechanical failure can be eliminated, I would be at least considering CD/DVD back-up of at least all of what you determine to be your most valuable images.   Granted it’s an uncomfortable decision I have made, but one I live with.  When DVD/CD drives and firewire/USB2 stop coming with computers,  I will revisit my decision.

Note: The image above was taken in Costa Rica last spring.  While it has little to do with the matter at hand, it was during a high school ecology trip.  The gentleman holding the snake found it in his house.  And we worry about roaches.

www.photomara.com