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Back up files with a printer and scanner

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Carol Haynes:
LOL - I had a whole collection of photos stored on Microsoft Servers (they don't get much bigger than that) - when they were all wiped (because of a 'server issue') all I got was a "Sorry we haven't any backups and cannot restore your data".

Online storage - yeah right.

[deXter]:
Well, I made a personal website on a free host back in 1998 and it was still around till last year, untill I closed my account.

The photos I uploaded to PhotoBucket when the site first started (2003?) are still around.

I would bet my data more on online storage than on paper or disc. Sure, one server may get wiped, two servers even. But what about three? Just don't store all your eggs in one basket.

Ralf Maximus:
How to restore a backup with PaperBack:

1. In the year 2107, search eBay for an ancient USB scanner just like the one you used to have as a child, to plug into your carefully restored 100-year-old Windows workstation.  You find a scanner, and luckily it only costs $65,000 North American Dollars!

2. Using your Frigidaire Matter Compiler[tm], you fabricate a USB cable from specs downloaded from the Internet after providing Homeland Security with eCredentials that you do not plan to interface any WMDs with the cable.

3. You hire a consultant to design and hand-assemble a solar converter to replace the scanner's brick power supply (using 110v main power for recreational purposes during daylight hours is a felony).

4. You plug everything together and it works!  Sort of... Windows has just popped up its "Found New Hardware" dialog and is patiently awaiting the driver disc.  Frak!  Frak!  Frak!

5. You remember that the drivers you need are encoded onto the piece of yellowed paper you're trying to scan...

katykaty:
Surely the point about digital media is that it gives you complete control over the extent to which you want to future proof your information?

If you want to be sure that your data will be readable in 500 years time, all you need to do is make enough copies to be statistically confident they'll last x years, and set up a trust fund with instructions that the money be used to make enough new copies on new media every x years to be sure at least 1 copy will last the next x years.

If you just want to have an off chance that you'll be able to watch Shrek 2 in 50 years time, tape it off the TV and stick it in the back of a cupboard somewhere, and hope you'll be able to pick up a working VCR from an antique shop in half a century.

- legal under UK copyright law, by the way   ;)

Darwin:
Gluteus, er, Ralf Maximus, this:

Although, it *would* be cool to use this technology to have software tatooed on my butt.
--- End quote ---

Makes for quite a mental picture!

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