Your story, your legacy

From time to time, when I tell people what I do, I follow up with a question for them: what has stopped you from creating a full archive of your family history? Many of you said you didn’t know this service existed, and you are not alone. You certainly don’t need me...

Tidying your photos

Marie Kondo’s name is on everyone’s lips. She is the decluttering expert who helps her clients learn to enthusiastically part with anything that doesn’t spark joy.   I love her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Her process has helped me to finally get a...

When your hard drive dies

I keep all of my personal and client files on an external 4TB hard drive. In a matter of minutes it stopped responding. It was working fine, then it wasn’t. This is the stuff of nightmares.   Last week I experienced what would have been a catastrophic data loss....

You can insure your family photos

What is your favorite photograph? Close your eyes and think hard about what it looks like. Who is in it? What is happening? Is it an event you experienced or a favorite picture from your parents’ life? Is it an achievement of your child? Is it your favorite pet? Do...

What the heck is a legacy contact anyway

This week Facebook announced that users can now designate a legacy contact—an authorized user who can access your account and carry out your wishes with your profile after your death. Is this nonsense or a peek at the future?   Unfortunately it seems that many...

7 reasons manual is better than automatic

Manual or automatic? Not cars, I’m talking about how you organize your digital photos. There are distinct advantages to manual organizing (i.e., setting up sets of folders on a hard drive) vs. letting a program (like iPhoto) do it. 1. You are not locked in to...