These days, I’m addicted to space. No more of the chotchkes all over the wall, lawn ornaments all over the lawn, toys strewn all about, file cabinets, mammoth LP collections… I want more physical space to squeeze my friends in for the party. I want more space in my time, so I’m not at the computer all day. I want more space on the road, keeping my distance between my car and those less-trusted. I want more space in my kitchen, to host the home-cooked food and wine for a future four-hour dinner.
I want a 500-gig, firewire and USB compatible, cross-platform, external hard drive. Nay, two of ‘em. I want my crap to be searchable, so I don’t have to go through CD collections, boxes of photos, backlogs of contracts, receipts, bills, bills, bills.
I did it. I’m free. I have space. I invested simply in a decent amount of digital memory and have a simple process to set it in place. You too can simplify your life by taking advantage of the technology: digitize your photos, digitize your music, digitize your files. You can find things in a flash. And you’ll gain much-envied space.
Here’s my trick: everything that can start digital, stays digital. For everything else, use the software that makes it a pleasure:
Photos: I use a digital camera (go Canon or Nikon, only – you’ll never go wrong). And store it all on a hard drive but then upload for public viewing on SmugMug.
Music: iTunes is great as an mp3 storage, search-n-retrieve, and play application. You can also convert your CDs one-at-a-time, if you have time. If not, as I had written about before, try something like RipDigital.
Files: You can go the long route of buying a scanner, learning the software and going at it one-at-a-time. I chose instead to get an account with eFax and I faxed all my old files to my computer, turned them into PDFs, and cataloged them for quick retrieval. read more about it Here.
“Elbow room,” cried Dan’l Boone.
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