From the Archive Again – #ThursdayDoors

Photography, Technology, Thursday Doors 83 comments
Grace House. Pretty soon we’ll see spring photos again.

I’m still working in the archives, so I thought I’d explain some of this work today. That way, if you’re not interested, you can just skip to the gallery of doors that were unearthed in the process. The process? You ask. Yes, you see organizing my old digital photos wasn’t even the initial goal. The initial goal was to prepare several old desktop computers for the recycle center.

Each of those machines has folders on them that contain pictures. In theory, as I moved from one machine to another, I transferred the photos. Unfortunately, since I know some photos are missing from my current collection, I know that that theory has a few flaws. I will try not to bore you with too many technical details, but I will share one:

The way I am getting the photos from the old machine to the newer machine is to add the old machine to the network I have today – share the drives on the old machine and copy the files. Why go to so much trouble? Because the old machines are running Windows 95 and Windows XP and neither can work well with modern-day USB drives. Copying over a network is surprisingly fast, since both the host and target machine are connected by a wired-ethernet connection.

As you might guess, storing files like “IMG-0123.jpg” in folders is not what I was hoping for when I said, “organize my photos.” While the end goal is to upload the better images from these folders to Flickr, where I can put the photos into albums and tag them with metadata, that goal is down the road. In an effort to gain some benefit, I’ve decided to add folder-level metadata. I am storing a document in each folder with key words related to the photos in that folder and thumbnails of all the images. So, if there is a photo (or several) of Maddie, the document will include “Pets” “Maddie” and maybe “Park” “Windsor Locks” “CT”

If this sounds like a ton of work, it’s not. I signed up for a free account with a forms/survey service called Wufoo. I used to use Wufoo at work, and I knew that their forms support multiple choice text boxes. I’ve created a survey that includes the key words I want to use. Then the process becomes:

  • Open a folder in preview mode.
  • Start a new version of the survey
  • Check any box that is not already checked that applies to the photo
  • Continue until I’ve previewed all the photos
  • Submit the survey

Once I submit the survey, Wufoo sends me an email with all the items that were checked. I save that as a Word document in the photo folder. I also print a Contact Sheet of all the photos in the folder

  • Select all photos (in Windows 10 – select all files Cntrl-A)
  • Right-click on any selected photo
  • Click ‘Print’ and choose Contact sheet
  • Print to PDF
  • Open the Word document and insert screen captures of each page of the PDF

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This takes a few minutes per folder but the result is pretty cool. I can search the Parent Folder of my photo folders for a term like “Maddie” and Windows will search all the sub-folders and show me the files that it finds. I can click on any of the files to open them and see the contact sheet which includes the file names. That makes it easy to decide if I want to review any of the photos.

Notes:

  • There are many other ways to do this, including letting Amazon search your photo images for keywords. I don’t trust Amazon, so no.
  • I have highlighted my process here, a process that meets my current needs. I’m not suggesting this is a method that would work for others.
  • This is an interim step. The goal remains to get these images onto Flickr
  • The form, results and folder contents shown here are examples from a proof-of-concept test. The real form has many more fields.

Now, since this is a Thursday Doors post, well, you know the drill. You can view my doors in the gallery. Then you can skip up to Norm Frampton’s blog and look at his doors. Then you can breeze through his comments and find links to doors all over the world.

This is the Hyatt in Cambridge, MA. Lots of doors, but I thought it was funny that they were using a Windows Machine to display an Apple training course and there was a system error. This is also where I met Skippy
Hollister Co. – I like the architecture of this building.
Years ago, Faith and I walked up Broadway from lower Manhattan to Times Square.
Grace House. Pretty soon we’ll see spring photos again.
That’s the historic facade of Filenes in Boston. The developer agreed to preserve that as they built a new building in its place.
Would that this were still the case in all media.
This is across from the Javits Center. I’m using that plywood door on the left as an excuse to include three cranes.
On Broadway in lower Manhattan. Can you tell what’s real and what’s reflection?
Corner door on the corner of Broadway and Bleaker St in Manhattan. Check out the rounded corner at the top.
There’s an operator up there, so you know there’s a door.
The Bean in Chicago. I’m not sure you can call the arch a door, but people were going in and out, and I love this photo.
Engine Company 7 on Broadway in lower Manhattan. They’re cleaning the windows.
My grandmother (Sita) and I always rode the train at Kennywood (large amusement park outside of Pittsburgh). It’s the only ride she ever went on.
Lots of buildings reflected in the John Hancock building in Boston.
Inside the Javits Center. You’ve seen these doors before, but not this image. I can sit and stare at this building all day.

83 comments

  3. I love the bean. And that flowering tree. Good luck with the photo transfer. One problem we had was transferring the images I had taken/stored on the old ipad to new devices. Some went pisel crazy and were totally blurred. Most of those I have sd cards for but I also have an old laptop with many of our jungle life images. I shudder to think how many actual images I have. Happy Thursday Dan. May you pass theough friendly doors.

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    1. Aw, thanks Cheryl. Without the network, I would have been put if luck with the Win95 machine. Unless I wanted to spend a bunch of money. I hope you can recover yours.

      I do love the bean, and I had to include a spring tree, even if it was from many years ago

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  4. You know I’m computer illiterate, so the top part of your post was as clear as mud to me. lol had to laugh at the Dallas Morning News motto!! If they still believe it, they’re more delusional than the politicians. :)

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  6. I used to travel to the USA and to NYC in particular quite often back in the day. Our NYC offices were next door to Walden Books – they had a great collection of books on and about Banking. I had a frequent purchaser card for that shop. Pity you don’t have a photo of the shop door.

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    2. I lived Walden Books. Between your banking books, my technical books and the Dr Suess books we bought for Faith, they should still be in business! I’m guessing they were gone before we took this walk. That is sad.

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  8. I like your door photos, and think you’re quite ambitious to attempt to do what you’re doing. I gave up on ever having any control over my photos. I find it akin to herding cats, but I’ll take a look at the link you provided.

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    1. Thanks for coming back after your comment self-destructed. I felt like Mr Phelps from Mission Impossible.

      Getting a handle on digital photos is no easy task. I’m hoping this method will help me until I can really dig in (if thst day ever comes).

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  10. I’m with G. P. Cox Dan…..first part is clear as mud to me!! Lol.

    The spring tree in front of Grace House is just beautiful. Even though that’s not a current photo, I hope that beauty is still thriving.

    Absolutely love the reflection of buildings on other buildings. Any photo capturing a reflection always intrigues me.

    Sounds like organizing your photos is quite an undertaking. Good luck.

    Rain, rain, and more rain. Sigh……but no shoveling or chopping ice!! Woohoo!
    🐾Ginger 🐾

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    1. Thanks Ginger. I love seeing reflections in buildings, and in water. Oddly enough, I’m not fond of mirrors.

      We are wet. Yuck. I’d almost rather this was snow.

      Organizing these will take forever, and I’m still adding images! Wish me luck!

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  11. I just cannot understand where the media went wrong since Walter Cronkite?! What happened to us keeping them accountable?? So many questions…. Love your archive tutorial. Worthwhile to those of us who still have lots to learn.

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    1. News used to be a service, a profession. Today, it’s entertainment. This went off the rails (in my opinion) with the first 24-hour news channel. There isn’t that much news, so they repeat and they invent “news” where there is none. Actual journalism costs money that the networks don’t want to spend. Newspapers still do journalism, but most people don’t want to buy them. They prefer getting the news for free, but the news you get isn’t always real or accurate and it almost never presents both sides.

      Sorry for the mini-rant reply to what was probably a rhetorical question.

      Thanks for the visit and comment.

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  12. I told my husband about your Windows 95 and XP (he’s a retired HP computer tech). He smiled and shook his head….. Oh, you are way ahead of me with labeling your photo content. I have to rack my brain for a photo for the Prompt. But I do have a good folder system. So far….
    The photos are wonderful, Dan. Why does is all make sense that you should meet Skippy at an Apple course using Windows with a system error? That sounds so right…!

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    1. Ha ha – I’m sure your husband would recognize the models I’m trying to clean up. HP and Compaq desktops dating back to before the turn of the century. I’m surprised they still light up when I push the button. Two have floppy drives. One has a ZipDisk! It’s so funny, a single digital photo wouldn’t even fit on a floppy today.

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      1. He started as a tech with DEC (remember them?). Then they were bought out by Compaq and then HP. He kept all his seniority throughout the buyouts. Floppy drives….I think he kept some of those as a reminder of days gone by…..

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          1. Dan–this is so weird. Back in NJ, my first ‘job’ was in accounting at Engelhard Minerals and Chemicals. Peat Marwick Mitchell used to sit in the office next to me to do our audits. We probably knew each other in another life! :D

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  13. Dan, I must admit I am impressed with Wufoo. I like how the program organizes pictures. I use an external hard drive called Backup Plus by Seagate that I absolutely love. I don’t have a lot of storage on my hard drive and shooting large RAW files take up a lot of space. I may just check out this Wufoo. Your gallery was totally awesome. When I got to the crane, I said to self, “Of course Dan would include a crane. He’s nuts about them.” I love the angle you took of this crane. Good job!!

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    1. Thanks Amy. Wufoo only allows you to build the set of keywords that you often use. The contact sheet was created in Windows. I know it works in Windows10, I don’t know about previous versions (although I own all of them back to Win95).

      I always figure there has to be a door on a tower crane.

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  15. Your new storage filing system seems pretty good, and you’ll probably find images a lot faster than I can!

    I have a Master folder for the year and inside that a folder for each place or event by month/day/year. I sometimes have to search a long time and through many years to find a particular image if I can’t remember what year it was, or if it was a place I frequented often.
    I use keywording but it’s a hit or miss with Adobe Bridge my viewer of preference. I wish they’d improve that.

    The reflections are lovely, and the corner building is a favorite. I left a note on the Kennywood image. It brought back memories.

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    1. Thanks Deborah. This will help a great deal, but the goal remains uploading these to Flicker. I really like Flickr, even though it’s going up in price for the Pro version. I took advantage of the offer to renew for 2 years at the previous rate. What I like about that is that it’s so easy to share photos with people. I can store the full image, but easily share a 800×600 version if all someone wants to do is use it on a blog post. And, I can do it from anywhere/any device.

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      1. I didn’t renew at the Pro status when they stopped letting the old timers Grandfather in at the original price, so I pared my site there way down and am keeping it just under the 1000 image limit now.

        I never used it as a back up, but a lot of people do, but it is easy to share images with people that’s true.

        Do you have a finish goal in mind for getting it all done? By year’s end or sooner?

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        1. I have my photos backed up multiple ways. I’m not worried about that, and I won’t upload every think to Flickr. I’d like to be done by the end of the year, but since spring is coming and this is a good winter activity, next April might be more realistic.

          The offer to extend at the old rate for up to two years seemed like a good deal. If I don’t have this done by then, I’ll drop it completely.

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  19. The Bean!! As for that crane, I’ll take your word for it that there’s a door. I’m not going anywhere up the high to check.

    Regarding the photo organization, did you have tags on all the photos already?

    Happy Thursday!

    janet

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Thanks Janet. I figured you’d like The Bean.

      No, the photos are not tagged. They probably won’t be individually tagged until I get them into Flickr. I’m investigating the best way to get them tagged while only having to do it once, and to make that effort as light as possible.

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  20. Good door selection, but the quote is the winner in my book. That was back in the day when there was actual news and not entertainment and fear. I miss those days in that area. :-) Now, if only you could invite me over for coffee. I’d bring dessert and paper and pen for notes. I’m pretty sure I can visualize what you are doing with the photos, but I’d sure like to just sit and watch for a few minutes. You’re using Windows, and I have two old Mac laptops. I did sort all my photos on the oldest machine and got it down to shots of my grands. One day when I had that laptop at the local computer store, I asked them to take them off for me so when it shoots craps, I won’t worry about the photos. But, I still need to get some trip photos off my current machine. Let’s face it, we can take new doors and flowers, but some shots can’t be replaced. Thanks for taking the time to explain things.

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  21. Great selection of shots. The Hancock building reflection made me smile because I have a very similar shot of my own from my last time in Boston.
    It sounds like your image archiving project is coming along nicely and your method seems to make a lot of sense. You may just convince me to get more organized as well :-)

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    1. Thanks Norm. I have barely left the starting line on this project, but I like the plan, and I like the test results. Creating the contact sheets and doing the screen capture adds a few minutes, but it makes it so easy to find the photos later. As long as I can get to the right folder, I’ll be happy. Right now it’s “did I visit the place in June of 2018 or 19?”

      It is funny that you also took that photo – I feel like I’m in good company.

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  24. Sorry Dan, just up to the second paragraph and I gave up. Nice photos, though.
    I was just trying to make more space in my drive so I wanted to delete some photos and back it up and that was already too hard for me. Haha
    Teresa

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  26. Hi Dan – fun views … the cherry will be so refreshing to see when the sun decides to reappear! That quote from Dallas is perfect … a balance, a true view of life is something we should all strive for – I’ll be back to read your ‘how’ for information purposes … cheers Hilary

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      1. I also have 3 flash drives. One I use for my writing pieces but the other 2 don’t have anything on them. They came as a package of 3.

        I’m sure you know what you’re doing so I’ll just leave you to it.

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