KWBaker

Wedge Mountain Cabin in British Columbia, Canada.

Contributed by Jeff FitzGerald.

Stone huts in Geiranger, Norway.

Contributed by Elwin Zuiderveld.

In today’s digital era, it’s so simple to copy your photos onto your laptop hard drive and forget about them, thinking they’ll be there whenever you need them. But if your laptop crashes or gets stolen, and you haven’t backed up your photos in another place, then they’re gone forever. Most forms of digital storage are unreliable in the long term. Hard drives crash, computers die, and CDs and DVDs get scratched up and become unusable.

If you want to preserve your digital photographs then it is important to develop a strategy to back them up. Many people have started looking to the cloud as a place to store their photos. Could cloud storage be right for you?

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself if you’re considering cloud storage:

• Do you want to use a free storage service, such as Google Photos or Apple Photos? Or are you willing to pay for a service with more features? If so, how much are you willing to pay?
• Do you want to use cloud storage as a backup solution for all of your photos or just some key ones? How much data do you have? How often will you need to access your photos?
• What types of files do you have? Camera raw files? Tiff files? JPEGs? All of the above?
• How fast is your internet connection? Uploading files to the cloud can be very slow.

There are a few free applications, such as Google Photos and Flickr. These services could be a good option to back up your digital photo library if you don’t want to spend any money. The problem with a lot of them is that they either compress your photos, which means a loss in resolution and quality, or dditionally they don’t support RAW or TIFF files. So if you’re a raw shooter then this isn’t a great solution for archiving your photo library.

Luckily there are a number of services which will store your digital photographs for a small fee. There are many different companies that provide cloud storage, so I’ve decided to focus on only a few in the rest of this article. Be sure to do your research and find a service that fits your backup needs.

A Few Options for Cloud Storage

Google Drive

Google Drive is a relatively cheap and reliable cloud storage service. All Google accounts are given 15GB of free storage. From there you can pay as little as $1.99/month for 100GB, $9.99/month for 1TB, and up to $299.99/month for 30TB. Google Drive allows you to organize your own folders and supports all photo file types.

Amazon Cloud Drive

Amazon Cloud Drive touts an impressive unlimited photo storage plus 5GB for video and other file types for only $11.99/year. Additionally, if you have an Amazon Prime account, then this service is already included as part of your subscription. The one catch is that file uploads are limited to 2GB per individual file, so if you have files that are larger than that then you may not be able to upload them.

Microsoft One Drive

Microsoft One Drive has plans that offer 15GB for free, 100GB for $1.99/month, and 200GB for $3.99/month. Additionally, Microsoft is currently running a deal where you can get the Office 365 application package and 1TB of storage for $6.99/month. A big disadvantage to this service is that you cannot store more than 200GB without purchasing additional apps from Microsoft. But if you have less than 200GB, then One Drive is a really cheap option for back up.

Dropbox

The Basic plan gives you 2GB of storage for free. Upgrading to a Pro account will give you 1TB of storage for $9.99/month. The highest level plan is a Business account which will give you unlimited storage for $15/month per user. Dropbox doesn’t offer the most competitive prices among cloud providers but it’s a popular option that you may find reliable. However, if you have more than a terabyte of data, and files that break the size limits of some of the other unlimited providers, then Dropbox may be the best option for you.

Mediafire

Mediafire is one of the cheapest cloud storage options among the major players in the market. They offer 10GB of storage for free and up to a terabyte for only $2.49/month. Most impressively, their Business accounts offer up to 100 terabytes of storage for $24.99/month. If you’re looking to get into cloud storage for relatively cheap, then Mediafire is definitely a good bet.

Alternatives to Cloud Storage

Cloud services are not the only option you should investigate as a place to store your digital photos. Like any other digital backup, cloud storage isn’t full-proof. A quick internet search will show you numerous horror stories of peoples’ data being lost in cloud storage glitches and failures. This section of the article will explore a few other possibilities for saving your digital photos.

External Hard Drives

External hard drives are a good option if you need a lot of readily accessible storage for an affordable price. I use one terabyte Toshiba drives that only cost about $60. There are many other brands that offer similarly priced drives. One advantage external hard drives have over cloud storage is speed of access. You can store these files and keep them in your home or office, meaning they are readily accessible. Trying to download files you have stored on the cloud can be extremely time consuming.

Another advantage is cost; hard drives are relatively cheap when compared to continuously paying for monthly fees for cloud storage over the longterm. The drawback of hard drives is that they will eventually fail. Many are only reliable for 2-5 years, so it is important to back up your files to multiple places. But if you can’t afford a RAID hard drive system and you have a lot of data to backup, external hard drives are a good place to start.

Flash Drives

USB flash drives are another option for backing up data in your home or office. Prices are continually dropping on flash drive storage. Flash drives don’t have a lot of storage capacity, but 16GB flash drives are as cheap as $6. This makes them one of the most inexpensive options to back up your most prized images. I use them to back up my portfolio and store the memory sticks at a relative’s house. It’s not a solution for all of my data, but it gives me an added layer of backup that could save some of my best photos in the event of a disaster.

CDs/DVDs

You can also back up your data on CDs or DVDs, but at this point I wouldn’t recommend it. This kind of media is quickly becoming obsolete, and while it’s cheap, CDs and DVDs are easily damaged or corrupted. Additionally, you can’t store that much data on discs. Most CDs have a capacity of 700MB and DVDs cap out at less than 5GB. On top of this, many computer manufacturers, such as Apple, aren’t including disc drives in a number of their products. This means you’ll have to purchase an external drive just to read your discs in the future. You’re better off storing files on a hard drive or flash drive with a USB connection.

Conclusion

Ultimately, there is no holy grail, one-size-fits-all solution for backing up your digital photos. The main theme is that you should not rely on a single source of backup because it can easily become a point of failure. If you haven’t stored your photos in more than one place and that one backup fails, you’re likely going to be out of luck.

Backing up your photos doesn’t need to be expensive; it just requires that you be strategic. I believe that cloud storage is best utilized as part of an overall storage strategy for your digital photographs, rather than the only point of backup.

Is cloud storage right for your backup needs? That is for you to decide. I hope this article gives you a starting point to get you on the path to reliably backing up your digital photos.

The post Backing Up Your Digital Photos: Is Cloud Storage Right for You? by Dan Bullman appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Obama Refugee Chief Didn't Know Boston Bombers Were Refugees...


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Woman who wanted to be disabled blinded with drain cleaner...


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Main cabin and shower house with a water-jacketed Franklin stove and hand-built tile tub in one room and shower in the other. Located at 40° 5'32.74"N  105°29'37.67"W, near Boulder, Colorado. 

Contributed by Peter Stout.

Muslim man beaten to death over rumors he had eaten beef in India...


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Amazon just announced an initiative to leverage the nascent “gig economy” as part of its ongoing mission to deliver everything to everyone at all times.  Amazon Flex, which promises to pay people $18-25 per hour to use their own cars and smart phones to deliver parcels is the latest, and [...]

It seems every day that cameras are getting better: camera phones and digital cameras keep improving – higher resolutions, better color, better low-light performance. But none of these improvements are really game changing. What does the future hold for cameras? Is it more of the same, a revolution, or a bit of both? A Look Ahead with Apple Just a few years ago, Apple’s iPhone 4 took 5 megapixel (MP) pictures, and 3MP selfie pics. The camera on the iPhone 6s is expected to take 12MP pics and 5MP selfies. A vast improvement in only a few years. But what’s even...

Read the full article: 5 Camera Technologies That Will Change The Way You Take Pictures

Whether you work with a global team or you’re just working from home, the ability to give a presentation remotely using the magic of the internet can make the difference between a powerful presentation, or a boring one.

The tools presented in this article all allow you to not only share your presentation online with others, but they all offer built-in tools that let you present in real-time, while others on your team are connected and collaborating with you.

1. Google Slides

Any list of the best online presentation tools would be lacking if it didn’t include Google Slides. You can access it anywhere from your Google Drive account and it is free. Even as you present Google Slides online you can use the built-in chat tools to interact with your team.

But the best feature? You can start a live Q&A session with an audience during a presentation with Google Slides

For creating slick designs, you have a choice of several themes and hundreds of fonts while you add embedded videos, animations, charts and diagrams. Up to 100 people can work on a collaborative presentation in real time.

How to Present With Google Slides Online

To create your Google Slides presentation, go to your Google Drive account, click on the New button in the navigation menu, and select Google Slides from the list.

You can choose a blank presentation or take the help of the free presentation templates. The easiest way to start is with the free themes so you don’t have to build the presentation from scratch.

After you finish your presentation, just share it with your team. You can control who can view, edit, or add comments to it with the right permissions even as they view it in real-time. Google recommends you use Chrome for best results.

Go to the top-right of your open presentation and click Present.

The presentation will open in full-screen Presenter view and you can control the flow with the toolbar at the bottom. Use the Esc key to exit full-screen.

Click on the button marked Q&A to open Audience Tools in a mini-window. This allows you to open the session to questions from the viewers. You can choose who can submit questions.

2. Microsoft PowerPoint

Business presentations often rely on Microsoft PowerPoint. And it no longer bound to your desktop thanks to Office Online that lets you create a PowerPoint presentation online.

There are some differences between PowerPoint Online and PowerPoint on Windows. But the ability to give remote presentations isn’t one of them.

In PowerPoint 2013 and newer versions, you can broadcast your slides by using the Office Presentation Service. This free, public service is like the bridge that allows others to join in from their web browser. No special setup is required.

How to Give a PowerPoint Presentation Online

To start broadcasting, go to Slide Show > Present Online > Office Presentation Service.

Click Connect to the start the service. You can allow remote viewers to download a copy of the presentation by checking the Enable remote viewers to download the presentation box.

Send your meeting invitation with the link on display or as an email invite so that your team members can join. You can use any email program for this.

Click Start Presentation to begin.

When it’s time to end your online presentation, press Esc to get out of Slide Show View. Again, on the Present Online tab, click End Online Presentation.

3. Zoho Docs

Zoho Docs a lot like Google Drive. You can create not only slideshows but also documents and spreadsheets if you like.

The presentation tool is Zoho’s suite is called Zoho Show. You’ll find that the presentation editor is just as functional—if not more functional—than Google Slides. It also offers a whole bunch of great templates for you to choose from to get started.

How to Give an Online Presentation With Zoho Show Broadcast

Create and save your presentation on Zoho Show. Now, you can broadcast your presentation to your team while retaining complete control from any location in the world.

Invite your participants by sending an email or by sharing the broadcast URL link. Access the Broadcast button from the File dropdown on the top-left or the Share button on the top-right.

All participants will receive the invitation to join the broadcast. When they join, a pop-up message will display to indicate their participation.

Click Start Broadcast begin with the first slide of your online presentation. You can invite missing members even after starting your show.

As a presenter, you can use all the different tools at your disposal like zoom controls, presenter notes, access timer, pen or highlighter tools, etc. to manage the flow.

Zoho also allows you to set edit access and allow collaborators to present with you. This can help you design group presentations when every team member is not at the same spot.

But what’s a presentation without some interaction? The presenter and the participants can ask questions and share comments using the Chat panel while having a remote session on Zoho Show.

4. Slides

Slides is another interesting and highly functional online presentation tool that can be used by individuals and teams, This service is not only simpler than all the others on the list but it has a few unique features for creating collaborative presentations.

It works on the browser and thus on all devices as you don’t need to download anything.

Slides is a subscription service with two paid plans for individuals, and one for teams. You can try out the service with the Free plan which is publicly viewable and comes with ads.

How to Create and Share Presentations With Slides

With Slides Team, your entire team can share assets and anyone involved can add to a presentation. The Slides editor is a drag and drop interface that is supported by a media library with reusable images, videos and slide templates.

The Open Source format of your presentation makes it unique among all such tools. So, you can access the code and customize it further with CSS.

Once your slides are ready and everyone is connected to the service, click the Start Presenting button and you’re good to go.

A control panel with your speaker notes, live streaming, and remote control from any touch-enabled mobile device enable you to present from any browser.

Slides for Teams is also equipped with Google Analytics integration to help you measure the impact of your presentation.

5. GotoMeeting

GoToMeeting is a paid tool that’ll cost you a small monthly fee. But it’s also the one virtual meeting tool that provides the capability of meeting with the largest number of people without freezing up or crashing. Free services like Skype and Google Hangouts have maximum limits of 50 and 25 respectively.

How to Give an Online Presentation With GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting isn’t a presentation designing tool. But think of it as the medium which will carry your presentation among other things. The big advantage of GoToMeeting is that it is a full featured screen sharing and meeting tool over video.

So, you can not only can you show your team the slideshow presentation you created, but also show them data from Google Spreadsheets, a document from Google Docs or even show them anything else on your computer or mobile.

For instance, the Virtual Whiteboard is also a powerful medium for holding webinars and live sessions with your team. GoToMeeting’s Drawing Tools like the Pen, Highlighter, Spotlight, and screen annotations let you mark up your screen as you’re giving your presentation.

And while you are doing it, share content on your screen and then pass presenter control to another user whenever you need to.

You can hold cross-platform presentations across any device and even while your team members are on the move.

The Perfect Online Presentation Software

Choosing the perfect platform for your online presentation will vary from person to person and the needs of the team. You may need a platform that no one needs to pay for. This makes Google Slides the right solution.

Maybe, your company is on the Microsoft suite. Then, PowerPoint is an obvious choice. Or maybe you just want to do a product demo for potential clients, in which case GoToMeeting is what you should use.

The other fallback option is to screen share the presentation software on your desktop with virtual meeting tools like Zoom and GoToMeeting. Zoom even allows you to present in one monitor while going through the presenter’s notes in another monitor.

Read the full article: 5 Tools to Give an Online Presentation From Anywhere

Earthen house in North Iceland.

Contributed by Seb Maurice.   

Rod Emory has been modifying 356s since it was considered crazy to do so. People called him and his father outlaws. That legacy — and name — is reflected in...

Visit Uncrate for the full post.

Nothing like being lectured about how we are bad people for emitting CO2 by the guy who owns Virgin Airline.

ACCEPTING YOUR FEELINGS

People respond to a personal crisis with many feelings: anger, anxiety, outrage, self doubt. They may be hostile - lashing out at those closest to them. Or, they may become moody and depressed. Their tension may show up as restlessness, loss of appetite, loss of interest in sex, insomnia, and feelings of apathy and exhaustion. While some of these symptoms may be unpleasant, they are normal, predictable reactions of people experiencing a loss or critical change in their lives.

The first step to accepting feelings is to sort out and identify your feelings. Some feelings - often those that are painful - may become so buried you may not even be aware they exist. Recognizing these strong feelings, understanding why they may be present, and dealing with them in positive ways are important. Refusing to accept your feelings can cause physical and emotional damage.

One of the first feelings you will probably identify is anger. Anger is a powerful emotion that is often viewed negatively. Unchecked anger can be an emotional “time bomb” exploding when triggered by little things such as a glass of spilled milk or a spouse asking how the job hunt went today.

Looking beyond the anger, you may begin to uncover many other emotions hidden underneath. Anger may stem from feelings of failure, being unappreciated, exploited, manipulated, or humiliated. Anger may result in feelings of helplessness, worthlessness, frustration, anxiety, guilt, fear, or resentment. Once you begin to look at the variety of feelings behind the anger and to understand the hidden feelings, you can find ways to express your feelings in a positive manner.

Getting Rid of Your Anger

• Look behind your anger. Remember exactly where you were when you first felt it. Who was with you? How did you feel at the time?
• Ask yourself if your anger is reasonable. Are you expecting too much from yourself or others? Are you looking at your situation objectively?
• Look at your reaction to the anger. Was the behavior justified? Did it increase your stress level or threaten your relationship with those around you? If so, look immediately for appropriate ways to discharge your anger. Talk to others about your feelings, change what you can about your situation, view it more realistically, or use relaxation techniques to vent your stress. Read Coping With Stress for more information.
• Anger is often fueled by blame. Blaming yourself or others is a way to avoid the real problem. The energy you spend blaming could be better spent on working to understand your feelings.

Damage to Self-Esteem

Feeling good about yourself, or having high selfesteem, is one of the most valuable assets you can have. Self-esteem develops as we grow from childhood into adulthood. The love and acceptance we get from parents, family members, and friends shapes our self-esteem. It is linked to how competent and successful we feel.

Having positive feelings about yourself is easier when things go well. When things take a turn for the worse, you often lose some of your self-confidence and begin to doubt yourself.

Whether it is your first experience with tough times, or you have been there before, you may feel a sense of loss that extends well beyond losing your income. Work contributes to your identity. It helps define who you are and makes you part of a larger community. Working helps you feel you belong and are important because you have something to contribute.

In many ways, losing a job or part of your income is like losing part of yourself. Your lifestyle suddenly changes. Schedules and routines that controlled a large part of your time are no longer there. You lose contact with your support system of co-workers and friends.

Many unemployed people report going through a process of grief and mourning in response to a job loss. This loss is characterized by stages of denial, anger, depression, and finally acceptance. With the help of those around them, most people eventually work out ways of dealing with their feelings. They make adjustments that help them recover from their loss and put it in perspective. Others may find coping more difficult and may require professional help.

Understanding Your Feelings

If you are not used to thinking about your feelings, identifying them during this stressful period may be difficult. Use Worksheet_-6_Thinking_About_Your_Feelings (pdf) to list feelings you may have experienced since your life situation changed. As you read over the list, think about which feelings you have experienced and when you experienced them.

Remember, it is okay to have these feelings. They are all natural reactions to a difficult situation. Recognizing their existence and accepting them is important to your physical and emotional health.

Steps to Accepting Your Feelings

• Recognize your feelings; do not try to ignore them. Although it is sometimes painful, confronting your feelings and looking realistically at your situation are important steps in the coping process.
• Talk with your family. The feelings you have may be shared by other family members. By talking about your feelings, you can help each other express, vent, and accept these feelings in constructive ways. Together you can provide support and reassurance to one another that can help build more positive self-esteem.
• Talk with others. Do not keep your feelings bottled up inside. Talking to others who have been or who are in similar situations can provide needed support. By discussing your feelings, you will find you are not alone.
• Take emotional health breaks. Think of ways to reduce the emotional tension and stress you are experiencing. Take some time for the things you enjoy. Include regular physical exercise in your daily routine to help you work off your worries and help your overall well-being.
• Make the most of your time. Do not get in the habit of sleeping late or spending your time in front of the television. How many times in the past have you wished you had more time to spend with your kids, to work on projects around the house, visit friends, go fishing, or catch up on some reading? When stress is high and you are feeling down, you may not be in the mood to try new things. But these feelings do not last forever. Once you have worked them through, put your time to good use. Working on projects, starting a hobby, or doing volunteer work can help you feel more productive and may lead to new employment opportunities.
• Evaluate your situation. If it looks like your situation may be permanent, shift gears and begin looking for other types of work. You may want to get help analyzing your skills and finding out about any additional training that can help you qualify for another job or areer. Doing this before your benefits run out can increase your prospects for reemployment.
• Recognize the need for professional help. The feelings associated with a job loss are very powerful and may be difficult to deal with on your own. Talking to a trained professional can help you work through your feelings and restore your self-esteem.

'CURE' FOR BLINDNESS FOUND...


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Most eye appointments include a fitting if you happen to need glasses. But no traditional session can come close to the customization offered with Mykita My Very Own Eyeglasses. Once...

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Draped over the shoulders of a well-to-do woman on the Upper East Side, say, a fox pelt and fur hat read differently than in the hands of a man or woman who needs to trap to survive. In photographer Patrick Kane‘s images of a community descended from the local trapping industry in the Northwest Territories, near the Arctic Territories, we learn about the trapping industry as necessary for survival, not fashion. These trappers catch marten, fox, wolf, and wolverine and they can “earn as little or as much as they can harvest.” Every year, the territorial government purchases these pelts which are later re-sold at auctions around the world. According to Kane, some of “the best trappers make between $20,000 and $50,000 annually.” Kane’s project, entitled Colville Trapping investigates the daily life of these trappers and the economic sustainability of a controversial industry via portraits and interviews with community members, trappers, and a member of the territorial government who states that these trappers are, indeed, an ‘endangered species.’ We asked photographer Patrick Kane more about the subject.

What sparked your interest in the making of this project? What did you learn that you weren’t expecting to upon completion of spending some time in the Arctic Circle with these communities?
“I became interested in this project after I heard about a government-run program that helps trappers sell their furs nationally and internationally. There are many First Nations groups in the Northwest Territories and it is important to them that traditional skills and activities be properly funded and that the government support cultural preservation. Once I heard that wildlife officers actually drove snowmobiles to remote communities like Colville Lake to pick up furs from trappers, I knew I had to document this. I think I was most surprised to learn how important trapping is to the identity of Colville Lake – it is one of the most traditional villages in Canada and people there do not view trapping as barbaric or cruel. It is a humbling wakeup call to meet people who work incredibly long, difficult hours in the bitter cold to make ends meet. It really made me feel spoiled that I can just pop over to a grocery store and buy whatever I want.”

Why, exactly, are these trappers are an ‘endangered species’?
“Trappers are an endangered species for a few reasons, one is simply because there are fewer of them trapping as opposed to, say, 75 years ago when most indigenous people in the North survived from hunting and fishing. Today, there is more access to food, most of it processed and extremely expensive, at the local grocery store. Trappers are also endangered because more young men and women are moving away from traditional activities, and instead, are pursuing well-paying jobs in the oil, gas, and diamond mines in the Northwest Territories. But there’s also a cultural threat too: trapping is viewed as barbaric to many people in southern Canada, the U.S, and Europe which means that if the fur industry suffers, these trappers—many of whom choose not to work in mining because they feel it is more environmentally destructive than trapping—actually suffer the most by losing their main income and a traditional way of life that is rooted deep in their culture.”

Any idea who buys this fur at the auction?
“Northwest Territories Furs are sold at auction in North Bay, Ontario, Seattle, Washington and Helsinki, Finland. Many garment companies will send buyers to attend these auctions and purchase pelts on behalf the company. In recent years, many buyers are representing companies based in China, and I believe China is now the number one importer of North American furs.

On a personal note, I’m still torn about how I feel about the fur industry. On the one hand I understand why animal rights groups would be upset by trapping and hunting. On a large, industry-wide scale it seems really barbaric and cruel. But it’s also easy to judge if you already live a comfortable life in a larger urban center. If you look at trapping on a smaller scale you can really see how healthy and positive it is. The people in Colville Lake choose to live a traditional life and trapping is a large part of that. It is important to the preservation of their culture that they live off the land and pass these skills onto their children. It is so important in fact that the school has a program dedicated to teaching children how to safely trap and harvest wild animals. I guess what I’m saying is that it is easy to make judgements about trappers if you’ve never actually been to these places or talked to trappers face to face.”

All images © Patrick Kane

The post A Look Inside the Arctic’s Controversial Fur Trapping Industry appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Sherry finishes, peat bombs and decades-old age statements.

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3 bold statements just in the headline, but even CNBC granted that Schiff deserved to take what it called a “victory lap.”

Schiff argues that the Fed does not plan to raise rates at all because it can’t raise rates. 7 years ago with the start of ZIRP and QE Schiff says the Federal Reserve entered a “monetary roach motel.” That the Fed is now stuck. Which is of some concern to say the least.

It should be noted also that there seems to be a lot of talk about less than 0% interest rates as of late (LZIRP). So what does that tell you?

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Yeah, the Federal Reserve and the Feds have made all the right moves. Good grief.

This does not come as welcome news to this homeowner. But it’s not surprising. Even in my hometown, 90 miles outside of one of the few cities not clocked by the Great Recession, Washington DC, even as bulldozers plow new ground for new home sites not far from me, one can feel a cooler wind blowing through the real estate market. I’ve watched it like a hawk for the past 18 months and the market feels very strange. The best word is probably “uneasy.”

I also drive to Washington all the time. I have family who live much closer to the city and one feels the cooler (not even cool, certainly not cold) breeze there too. This in a place which barely hiccuped after the 2008 Crash. I will be up near DC this weekend and I’ll do a little research. The attached article says things are challenging in much of the metro area. More challenging than maybe I thought.

Regardless, what we are seeing is likely a new stage in the housing “recovery.” We had frozen solid and people being turned into the streets. Then we had the long delayed thaw. Then near optimism. Now something new, but it’s too early to say what. It doesn’t feel like we are building on optimism though.

It is also interesting that the areas which stand out in the attached article are not even the mountain states and Texas which may be slipping into a recession as oil continues to slump.

But trust your realtor. They’ve got your best interests in mind. Ahem. (The real estate economists are even better.)

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