Digital Memories - Handle with Care

My father recently visited the Raigad Fort to attend a ceremony on the fort. He was carrying a Canon digital camera to capture the beautiful moments of the ceremony.

I had purchased Canon PowerShot A400 digital camera in Dec. 2004, which was always a companion to me and other family members on any outing. My father misplaced the camera on the fort. The news was shocking to me as it was a first digital camera and had captured very good and important moments. The reason for writing this blog is not to inform about the loss of the camera but precautions to be taken before you face such situation in life.

You cannot avoid such situations, as you are not aware when you will lose a camera or when your camera will be faulty etc. The best precaution is always backup the images when you return home.

Eg:- Once you come return home after visiting any destination or capturing images of any ocassion, make sure that you transfer the images as early as possible to your computer.

To be on safer side, you can keep a copy of same images on an external hard drive which are easily available in the market at best prices. If not then backup the images on a CD or a DVD and name the same to find them later in the future. You can also save those images on a CD/RW or a DVD/RW, so that you can add more images in future, if there is ample space remaining on the disk. The best way of transferring images is by using a Media Card Reader, instead of connecting the camera to the computer directly.

You can also upload these images on file or data sharing sites on the internet. There are sites which charge on monthly or yearly basis. But, I would personally suggest you to check esnips website, which provides 5GB data storage space. You can save images, videos (less than 100MB), audio files etc. The best part is you can save the images without changing the original resolution. It also has a feature called Private Folder, where you can hide the images from the public visiting the site. Hence, the images remain safe and secured without displaying to anyone.

There are some sites like Flickr, Picasa, Snapfish, Aminus3 etc. which allow storing of images and videos but they compress the original images and then upload the images. So, this naturally reflects the quality of the images and videos.

Once you have backed up the images or videos, format the Memory Card present in the digital camera. This will help you saving time when you are about to leave for your next shoot with your digital camera. Also, try scanning the card for viruses from time to time.

The idea of backing up the data (images, videos etc.) also applies to the data present in your mobile phone. Try backing up the data using a data cable, infrared cable or bluetooth by backing up the data from time to time on your computer.

Hope these suggestions would help you in taking care of your images in future. If you have suggestions to add, please mail me.

Thanks and Regards.

Track the Rain

Image Courtesy: Mahesh Vhatkar (VU2IIA)

Finally, the monsoon arrived somewhere around 4th of June this year in Mumbai. Everyone in the city was excited and eagerly waiting for the monsoon. I, along with few other friends were not that eager, as we were aware about the status of the monsoon.

One of my friend named Mahesh Vhatkar is a ham radio operator. His call sign is VU2IIA. Mahesh is a very down to earth and helping person. You will never get a negative reply from. He is very much interested in electronics and is busy with some or the other activity. When Mahesh informs me about his new recently purchased gadget, I have to ask him when he will be opening the gadget or has he opened the gadget to research. He has been of great help in installing and maintaining VHF amateur radio repeater at Matheran.

Being a ham radio operator and keen interest in electronics, Mahesh decodes the weather satellites from time to time. He decodes at least 3-4 satellites daily and sometimes more. In simple words, he decodes the images transmitted by the satellite, when they pass above the country, India. There are restrictions to reach MET Dept. to get the update on the weather and most of the times these are not clear or the weather is unpredictable. But Mahesh makes it possible by decoding the images regularly. Mahesh is currently using a Turnstile Cross Dipole home brew antenna (home made) to get those images.

Along with the radio and the antenna, Mahesh has to use the an international satellite image decoder software named WXtoImg, which is the world's best weather satellite (WXsat) signal to image decoder. Wxsat is competetor programm from UK to WXtoImg. Mahesh is doing a great job without any monetary gains and no doubt it is very interesting for other people to get the monsoon update.

Currently, the monsoon winds have flown far away from the west and you can notice them on the East coast.

For more images on daily basis, check Mahesh's blog.
(Click on the images to enlarge them)

I am sure you will enjoy watching those images.

Thanks and Regards.