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Technology: sometimes you just want to punch it in the face

July 1st, 2011 by Elizabeth

I’m a geek and I love technology. No big surprises there.

I pride myself on being able to quickly learn new programs and I admit for having fondness for Excel that has been described by some as “scary”. I’m the family’s go-to person when their computer won’t start, the file is lost (you did back-up your files, right?), or anything seems to go wrong. But, though I love the challenge of a good problem, most of the time I really just want the stuff to WORK.

So, what brought this on? I had to upgrade my email software for day-job client work and upon doing that I solved random problems that were happening at with client system. Yea! Happiness!

However, New and Exciting Problems started when I moved over to the rest-of-my-life stuff (yes, caps are intentional). I have separate logins for day-job client and rest-of-life/work due to client’s domain peculiarities (geek, remember? hang in there, we’re getting to the point). Unhappiness ensued when I tried opening emails in recently upgraded email software that won’t be named and boom! The whole thing crashed. Well, the email crashed anyway.

There was some new, fun!, problem and some of my emails just would NOT open. Unacceptable! I’m trying to run a business here of which day-job client is only one part. Now I’m unable to read emails, potentially from other clients or more importantly, potentially long-lost-far-flung cousins!

Well, short-story-long, there were two (very standard I might add) fonts that I had to install new versions of in order to make the unhappiness go away and so far it’s working (knocking on wood). But what’s the morale of the story? Technology is awesome! It has enabled great things. Especially in genealogy. You can see copies of records, do more research, publish, and connect in ways unimaginable when I started researching.

But, even folks that embrace change don’t always like it. Sites that change all of their navigation at once and keep none of the same terminology as a hint as to where to go and give you no “old-site” option (and I’m not talking about a genealogy site here): boo!

And when it changes but then doesn’t work as well as it used to? Or at all? Well, then I just want to punch it in the face.

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postscript

lol! – no lack of available images suitable for including in this post, guess I’m not alone…

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Categories : computers, data backup, technology
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Genealogy ‘dark ages’ coming?

July 30th, 2010 by Elizabeth

BYU is hosting their conference on Family History and Genealogy in Salt Lake City this week. On Wednesday, Curt Witcher, manager of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, spoke of what he believes are the coming ‘dark ages’ of genealogy. The jist of his talk is that while we’re busy digitizing every old record in sight and technology is speeding along, we are either losing or not creating those types of records today for the future generations. (Link to story in the Mormon Times is here.)

Thanks to Marian Pierre-Louis, who has several blogs and can also be found on twitter @marianpl, for pointing out this article on Facebook and, in not so many words, challenging all genealogy bloggers to voice their thoughts. Mr. Witcher does make excellent points. Libraries are cutting back on hours (and staff). Choices are being made to discard some records by libraries as well as government at all levels. And really, when was the last time you wrote a letter or kept a journal on paper?

However, I don’t think the dark ages are necessarily around the corner. Granted, today we are not creating some of the records that are currently used in researching genealogy and, more broadly, family histories. But I don’t think genealogical research of the future will look like anything we would recognize today. Who would’ve imagined even 25-years ago that you could sit from home in the middle of the night and look at census records or newspapers from across the country and years? Only a visionary few.

Decades from now, I think our ancestors will be looking at our tweets and Facebook pages; tweets for sure will be in a big honkin’ database at the Library of Congress, we know this. They’ll be examining whose ‘walls’ we wrote on, what we said to them, and wondering how we are connected to those people. And–oh!–the pictures. They’ll search our digital newspapers and blogs for mentions of us. And I do believe that vital records will most likely be better preserved (accessible might be another question) as every person, business, and government agency is more aware of protecting some records than ever before, digitizing them, and storing in multiple locations.

Records, as we know, have always been damaged or discarded, much to the dismay modern genealogists. Or, the records weren’t even created in the first place. I only know of one of my ancestors who may have kept a diary, but for all we know it is lost. I do have some letters, but my ancestors were farmers and apparently not the pack-rat I am. Or maybe they just didn’t like each other enough to write.

So, back to Mr. Witcher’s point. I don’t think we’re headed for the genealogy dark ages, but he is right in that it’s up to each one of us to carry history forward. While we are digging around in the past, we shouldn’t forget to preserve the present.

Perhaps one way to remember to do that is every time you can’t find a piece of desired information for an ancestor, record that fact/anticdote/story/etc. for yourself and/or family and file it away. This can be done either on paper or electronically. And, just as important, make sure you have someone or somewhere for all those papers or files to go when you are no longer around to be their caretaker. Too many records are lost because there isn’t someone in a given generation who cares about them.

So, save your descendants from sitting in front of their version of a computer at 1:00am (or 2:00) silently cursing their ancestor’s lack of ability to leave a paper trail. Be the ancestor you wish you had.

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Categories : computers, connecting, data backup, facebook, genealogical heir, memories, publishing, record keeper, research, writing
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What I do – Tech for Genealogy Research (and beyond)

July 8th, 2010 by Elizabeth

Geneabloggers posted a new Meme today for the genealogy blogging community: “list what you use in terms of technology to either run your genealogy business or pursue your family history as a hobby.” It’s an excellent topic for discussion (and is begging for a compilation and maybe a chart or two). The Family Curator adds that a biographical note is probably useful for context; another awesome idea!

Bio/Info: My professional background is in publishing/graphics/web so some of the programs and tools I use for my aspiring professional genealogy life (and personal research) would probably be overkill for some folks (ie: Photoshop when Photoshop Elements might be all you need). But, they are what I have on hand and know how to use. I also have a pretty serious photography habit (as does my husband) and I love statistics and charts (refer to “geek” part of blog name).

Note regarding links below: normally I set links to open in a new window but since there are a bunch in the list below, I haven’t done this for them. If you want to check out a link but not leave my blog (and why would you, right?), for PC users hold down the CTRL key when you click the link and it should open in a new tab (works for Firefox and IE).

Hardware
  • Computer Set-up (1): Toshiba Satellite P305D-S8900 with AMD Turion™ X2 Duel-Core Mobile RM-70 2.00GHz, 4GB RAM, 300GB hard drive; running Windows Vista™ Home Premium (64-bit). Also, for use at home: Acer external monitor, Belkin laptop cooling fan, wireless external mouse, Wacom Bamboo tablet (input device), and Toshiba Dynadock to pull it all together.
  • Computer Set-up (2): Dell XPS 410 desktop with Intel Core™ 2 CPU @ 1.86 GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive; running Windows Professional 7 (32-bit). Noted here because that’s what the external drives are actually plugged into.
  • External storage: Maxtor OneTouch 4 (now Seagate; their products here) 1TB drive and Fathom GreenDrive (1TB). Sounds like a lot but I’ll actually probably be getting another larger drive soon. (Remember I mentioned that serious photography habit?) Also, generally I’m more of a fan of having several pieces of equipment of smaller sizes then just one LARGE drive. It insulates you from massive data loss and *should* run faster.
  • Online storage: Windows Live SkyDrive (25GB free), Dropbox (2GB free, more for $$; easy sync to your computer though)
  • Router: Netgear Rangemax Duo Wireless router
  • Backup: Carbonite(for laptop) and Mozy (for desktop as it accommodates backup of the external drives)
  • Firewall: Windows Firewall
  • Virus protection & Spyware: Norton 360
  • File cleaner: Microsoft Disc Cleanup
  • Printers: Canon MF4100 (black and white laser+scanner+fax; don’t use this scanner for genealogy use though) and Brother HL-3070CW (color printer)
  • Scanner: Epson Perfection 1660 Photo
Software
  • Browser: primarily Firefox but have to use Internet Explorer for Ancestry.com and LinkedIn
  • eBook Reader: Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF)
  • Text editor: Microsoft Word, Notepad
  • Graphics: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
  • Screen capture: Windows Snipping Tool
  • Office suite: Microsoft Office 2007 (don’t remember which version)
  • E-mail: Outlook 2007 (I bring all my email addresses into this interface, at 7 addresses and counting). Also have email access in iPhone for 6 of the addresses).
  • Calendar: Outlook 2007 (synced with iPhone)
  • Accounting: Quickbooks Pro 2010
  • PDF generator: Adobe Acrobat distiller for hard core, but you can “save as” to PDF from most programs these days
  • Genealogy database: Family Tree Maker 2010 (have been using FTM for, well, ever) and The Master Genealogist v7 (still in testing mode)
  • Genealogy tools:
    • GenSmarts (well, would like to use it when I get the time – pausing for group laugh…)
    • See iPhone apps below (I <3 by iPhone)
    • Microsoft Word & Excel
    • Google: books, maps, search engine
Back-up Strategy
  • Maxtor external hard-drive nightly backups up changes to desktop and external Fathom harddrive (aka: GreenHornet). The Maxtor is the external drive I need to get a larger version of. Since it’s my first line of restoring.
  • I manually backup laptop files to a directory (aka Folder for the non-tech types) on GreenHornet [which are then backed up by Maxtor drive]
  • Laptop is automatically backed up offsite via Carbonite (whenever is detects a change; performace impact is low).
  • Desktop hard drive, GreenHornet, and Maxtor external drives are automatically backed up offsite via Mozy (set up backup when CPU usage drops below a certain level, up to something like 3 times a day but since the kids use this computer CPU is pretty busy until they go to bed).

Yea, I’m a little paranoid. We’ve had hard drive failures before. It is not pretty.

Media
  • Phone, mobile media: iPhone
  • Music Player: iPhone and Zune
  • Car audio: whatever is installed from the factory
Social
File Transfer
  • RSS: Google Reader (requires Google account)
  • FTP: I have FileZilla installed, but honestly usually just end up using Windows functionality. It was a pain to set up though
Other Tech Stuff
  • Still Photography: Canon EOS camera bodies and various lenses. Of course, also use my iPhone camera.
  • Video: JVC digital camcorder and iPhone video (you use what you have with you!)
  • Search engine: Google. Sometimes will also use Dogpile or Bing on occasion.
  • Web site creation: Microsoft Expression Web, Adobe Dreamweaver, Notepad
Mobile/iPhone Apps
  • Tree to Go from Amazon
  • GedView from The Generations Network
  • Genealogy Gems Podcast
  • Shutterfly
  • TweetDeck
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • GoodReader (for reading PDFs, perfect for conference syllabi)
Wish List
  • A netbook or more portable device (but gotta have a decent keyboard)

And lastly, paper. Lots and lots of paper. Because as much I love my tech, there is something to be said for the paper piles to and when I’m brainstorming or working on a tricky problem, I can still doodle better on a yellow legal pad.

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Categories : computers, data backup, geneabloggers, social media, technology, twitter
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