Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your Photographs, Music, Videos, and Personal Documents in a Digital World [Paperback]

Aimee Baldridge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2009

Now that digital cameras and music players have become so incredibly widespread, a forest of sound and imagery is blossoming in our homes. We’ve got digital pictures in the camera, scans on the computer, JPEGS attached to e-mails, and tunes on tiny players. But there’s also the old-fashioned stuff: photos in shoeboxes, videos in the attic, documents in desk drawers, songs on tape and vinyl. How do you transform all of these different elements into a convenient archive you can store in your computer, easily reach, and actually enjoy? This book delivers basic step-by-step instruction on streamlining and organizing your "digital life" so you can find what you need instantly and create presentations your friends and family will love. In addition, you’ll be amazed at the decrease in household clutter and paper waste.

For everyone —from teenagers who thrive on the technical to families with overflowing photo albums and seniors who’d love to collate decades’ worth of letters and pictures —this reader-friendly source has all the answers. These easy-to-follow solutions can truly enhance and simplify the hectic, over-saturated lives so many of us find ourselves leading today.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: National Geographic (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1426203349
• ISBN-13: 978-1426203343
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 0.5 x 9.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #120,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal resource, April 15, 2009

By 

Paul Duckworth "Writer, Photographer, Librari... (The PA wilderness) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your Photographs, Music, Videos, and Personal Documents in a Digital World (Paperback)

I've eagerly awaited the release of this new book, as it appears to be the only source of information in book form to deal with its topics. And it deals with them superbly. Digital immigrants like myself who have an avid interest in photography and music will easily come away from every page of ORGANIZE YOUR DIGITAL LIFE having learned something both interesting and helpful. It offers time-saving tips, uses clear terminology, is well-organized, has a good index, and explains IPTC, WAV, SATA, RAID, DNG, and many other acronyms. In addition, it offers a slew of websites, brand-names, illustrations, and helpful advice and cautions. Another plus is the physical makeup of the book: glossy paper, clear type, nice graphics, eye-appealing layout. Looking for help with backing up photos, storage options, finding an online community for your photos, online radio, or converting prints, negatives, analog cassettes, and VHS into digital files? Here's the source. Wanting to learn more about organizing your digital files? Here's the source.

The problem with this book? It will be out-of-date sooner than readers would like, given the fast-changing nature of our digital world. But that is the ONLY problem with this clear, articulate, well-organized, helpful title. Congratulations to National Geographic and to Aimee Baldridge for offering such a fine resource.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for what it covers, April 16, 2009

By 

Karen Tiede (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your Photographs, Music, Videos, and Personal Documents in a Digital World (Paperback)

As noted by previous reviewers-this book is great. It starts by stepping you through how to think about going digital, presuming you have lots and lots of artifacts that you will convert from analog or earlier digital formats. It then provides specific guidance for photographs, film, and music.

Unfortunately for me, what it means by "personal documents" is passports, other legal documentation of your life, and passwords. My own digital life was looking for a bit more support for *.doc, *.xls, and *.etc files, which isn't here.

Quite possibly, any one or three of the topics addressed in this book is covered in equal depth in somebody's website. However, I know I haven't found all of the topics addressed to this depth in one place. Similarly, Amazon itself is not providing any links to other books on this particular topic (at least, not as I write this review).

If you are willing to put some significant effort into organizing your own digital (and/or converting analog to digital) files, this is a good book to own.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bewildered no more!, January 15, 2009

By 

A. Eaton "lover of wisdom" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Organize Your Digital Life: How to Store Your Photographs, Music, Videos, and Personal Documents in a Digital World (Paperback)

I'm a smart person but I have felt frankly dumbfounded and frustrated by the barrage of digital media that has overtaken my life in the past 5 or so years. Finally there's someone to help me figure out how to safely store and clearly organize my photos, documents, movies, and music. This book is extremely clear and detailed and gives very helpful and explicit instructions. It has greatly improved my relationship to my digital life. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it, and it would make an excellent gift.