I think I'll move back to linux

  After writing this post, I started using my old laptop, with Artengos.  And it's been some time since I turned on the Acer laptop.  I did try Manjaro Linux live on it via USB, and honestly browsing was much faster than on windows 10.  I have moved my pictures from Amazon Drive to SmugMug, which was the main reason I decided to get a Windows (10) just because it was already on it, to automate the upload of images.  As I mentioned earlier Amazon changed the plan from $12/year unlimited photo's to $59/year for 1TB.  While, I probably won't reach the 1TB in say 5-10 years, I lost trust in them.  Who knows when will they change again?
  In the mean time, I also found a way to move my backed up images from Amazon Drive, directly into SmuMug, who I've used for quiet some time, now they will be used exclusively for my picture's/memories stories, as their service is top notch, with excellent customer support.  Compared to Amazons support which is below average, it took them about 1 week to reset my account as it was hacked. Each contact from support gave me a round around the corner, and back. Until I took it to twitter, I believe then it was like 4-6 hours to resolution.
  Anyhow that's my rant about my backup strategy, and reasons to dump Windows.  The other, really good reason to dump it, is it's huge upgrades, that take for ever, on a low end machine.  I don't have a powerhouse, I don't need one for home use, but I'd like to have something that isn't a slug.  And apparently it's windows that makes it a slug.  It's not made for low end Celeron machines, two cores is not enough for it. Come to think of it, my phone has more cores :P
  Anyhow, I'm hoping to make the full transition back to fully linux OS at home in a month or so. Just doing the copying and moving of my more important files.  My main backup strategy is Google Drive, and SmugMug for my images.  I don't need more at this time.  Alright :) that's it for now be back once I move totally to linux on the little Acer laptop

Things I miss in the Amazon Cloud Drive

  I've made the switch to the Amazon Cloud Drive for my photo's backup which I wrote about the other day. I did find a few drawbacks, that I wish are implemented in the future, metadata/keyword support, and support for my Olympus and Panasonic RAW files.  There is a work around for the RAW files, if I convert them to DNG, the Cloud Drive identifies them just fine. But the metadata/keyword, and the exif info viewing should be a basic option, but it's not. Why does this matter? Well it makes it easier for me to find my photo's if they are tagged, and sometimes I like to see all my EXIF info, not just date created, both these features are implemented well in Flickr and Smugmug.  So I hope these features will be implemented soon. Oh and the other thing I found so far. There is a nice feature to see what you have shared, but the preview doesn't work, just an annoyance, nothing more. I've also uploaded all the photo's and video's from my tablet, I would have never thought I had 5GB worth of short video's of our baby, but I do. So I need a new strategy for storing my video's probably at Smugmug. Sooner or later, all my photo's will be online, and in the cloud. Fits in nicely with my use of Chromebook at home :)

Cheap photo storage/backup hint new Amazon announcement

  I am sure everyone has a backup plan. If not you should. Photography is my hobby, and I have about ~300GB of pictures, RAW and JPEG collected over the years.  I've been using crashplan since it has a linux client, but recently Amazon announced a great plan, just for photo's, at $12/year, it's dirt cheap for unlimited photo's. It also supports some RAW formats, my old CR2 (Canon RAW) format is supported, I have not tried my new Olympus RAW, or Panasonic RAW, so that test will be later. You also get 3 months free trial as well, and it has an iOS and an Android app, so I can upload my phone/table pictures, having a kid sometimes forces you to grab what's near by, and not necessarily your camera. 

  Currently Google Drive, and Photo's, which I guess is being moved into Drive, has one big drawback, that it can't give you a link to send or embed into a blog or webpage, except blogger. I use WordPress for my photoblog, and I also have a little gripe about posting from WordPress to facebook. If I upload the images to WordPress, and post using it's publicize post, the images get uploaded to Facebook. I want to keep the pictures in one spot. For that I use Smugmug, but this Amazon Cloud Drive can change all that, we'll see.

  Amazon's Cloud Drive has an unlimited plan for $59/year, which is almost what I pay for Crashplan, but 99% of what I backup are images, the rest, documents, and other random files are on my Google Drive, or OneDrive, or dropbox, as you can see I don't keep them in one place :)

  Since I'm using a Chromebook, which is basically a cloud laptop, this whole idea of not storing locally is becoming more convenient, and efficient.  If I ever upgrade/change my Chromebook to a Chrome Base, or a newer Chromebook, I don't have to worry about my content, it's all up there in the cloud, safe and sound.

  I remember in the past, you needed an external drive to backup all your content, so you can format your machine (when I used Windows) and then copy things back it was a pain and a long process. It looks like in the future you won't really need a hard drive or local storage, specially if prices keep dropping so fast. What's your storage/backup strategy?