Christa, Day 14 and 15: In Which I Discover I Probably Have Too Many Photos

Update: I decided to edit this post to include Day 15 as well, since I feel like they both - for me - fall into one post. As noted below, I'm considering online storage and I even cleared out a little clutter from my machine last night, so I'm checking this one off.

I have to say, I've felt at least some measure of enthusiasm for the previous 13 simplification ideas. But today's?

Simplify your computing life. If you have trouble with too many files and too much disorganization, consider online computing. It can simplify things greatly. Read more.

It leaves me feeling blah. Not that it's not a perfectly valid idea, but I didn't freelance for five years without learning a trick or two for keeping my digital life organized and accessible.

Not that I don't fall into the trap of using Gmail as my filing system or a handy way to be able to work on little projects both at home and at work, but I don't have enough files that need to be accessible any a moment's notice to warrant paying to have all my files stored and usable remotely like someone who needs to work from multiple locations. And since having a child and feeling the strange urge to take 14,377 photos and videos of her - seriously, I checked and am horrified - I had to implement an organizational scheme just for my own sanity's sake.

Music and movies? Also not a problem. At some point, my last computer died - or was it the one before that - taken all my music to file heaven along with it. And while there was, for some time, a part of me that considered trying to rebuild my music collection, I am married to a dude with more songs than I have photos of my daughter, so if I really want to listen to some music, it's not like I'd have any trouble finding *something*. I just don't have any music or movies on my computer and I'm okay with that.

But in the interest of making good on today's voluntary simplification list item, I'm going to look into those on the cloud back up services. Or another hard drive. Mainly for all those pictures of my daughter. Even though I put my absolute favorites on Flickr as an assurance that I'll never lose all of them, I'd rather keep all of them so when she's 16 and being a total meanie to me I can look back and remind myself of exactly why I'm not shipping her off to work in a coal mine.