Figuring Out What to Keep and What to Change

Laptop

The good news is that the basics are already sorted. Email, browsing, office work, wifi, bluetooth, and lots of small applications all have solid Linux equivalents, so day-to-day computing isn't a problem. The more interesting challenge is figuring out what to do with the more specialised creative software.

The office computer, the one that died its unfortunate death-by-upgrade, had been the focus for most of the heavy graphics work. It was well set up for it. Dual screens, a BenQ eye-care monitor (low contrast by design but genuinely helpful reducing glare for my eye problem), and enough USB ports to keep all my external photo backpack drives plugged in at once. Replacing that setup takes a bit of planning.

Here's where the graphics and photo software currently stands:

Program	Temp Destination	Linux Alternative	Cost
ON1 Photo RAW	Laptop	Darktable	Free
Luminar Neo	Laptop	Darktable	Free
Corel Draw	Studio	Inkscape	Free
Corel Painter	Studio	Krita	Free
Corel VideoStudio Pro	Studio	Kdenlive	Free
Corel AfterShot Pro	Laptop	RawTherapee	Free?
Paint.NET	Both	Pinta or GIMP	Free
XnView MP	Both	XnView MP	Free (user supported)

The encouraging news is that ON1, Corel, and XnView all offer Linux versions of their software, which opens up some options. The outstanding question is how to transfer licences from the dead office machine without having to buy everything again, particularly if switching to Linux versions. That's a puzzle still to be worked through.

Studio

The way I work has always been a bit like following a thread wherever it leads. An idea turns up when it feels like it, on whichever computer is in reach, so sketches, notes, half-finished drafts, and collected images end up scattered naturally across all three machines (office, laptop, and studio). The office computer was nominally where it all came together, but that's never really been the point. The point is being free to pick up and run with something the moment it sparks, without being tied to one desk, one device, or worse, someone else's server.

That last bit matters quite a lot, actually. The whole appeal of building and managing things locally is that the work stays mine, on my machine, without a monthly subscription, quietly making itself essential to getting anything done. There's something genuinely satisfying about owning your tools outright.

Which brings up the trickiest part of the whole picture. My website has been built using Incomedia's Website X5, which fits that local, hands-on approach perfectly. I can build and preview everything on my machine, tweak the code directly where needed, then upload it live via an old-fashioned FTP (FileZilla) when it's ready. Simple, direct, and nobody else involved. The snag is that Website X5 is Windows-only, with no Linux equivalent on the horizon.

Program	Destination	Linux Alternative
Website X5	Studio	No direct equivalent
FileZilla	Both	FileZilla (Linux version available)

Most things have been recovered and pieced back together, but a few Website X5 gaps makes this a natural moment to stop and ask whether it's time to find a different approach that keeps that same local, independent spirit intact.

Progressing Along Nicely

Office

My Linux Mint desktop replacement is settling in beautifully in the office, and honestly it's way quicker than the Windows 10 machine it replaced. I'm taking it step by step, loading and testing things as I need them rather than throwing everything at it at once.

The old Windows 10 Desktop PC had been with me since my consulting days, so it was pushing close to 10 years old. Over that time it had accumulated just about every piece of software I'd ever owned, and it had gotten painfully slow switching between programs. On top of that, I was dealing with complications from a corneal graft at the time, which made screen glare a real problem. I could only manage about 20 minutes of detailed computer work before it became unbearable. Safe to say I don't miss that setup at all.

For the hardware I went with my old Toshiba laptop, affectionately known as ICE because it's white. It's probably around 15 years old and had a rough patch with what looked like an internal disc corruption. Fingers crossed that's sorted now because it's cruising along nicely. It's also the only laptop I have with an Ethernet port, which means I can connect directly to the NBN router rather than relying on wifi. It's not exactly exciting hardware but it's a comfortable old friend and a reliable workhorse.

The main task now is figuring out what works well in Linux and what I might need to find alternatives for. I started with Firefox and webmail, but quickly switched to Thunderbird Mail for email and found it much more to my liking. I was also keen to reduce my dependence on Google where possible, but still wanted to keep using Gmail, Calendar and Drive. The answer turned out to be Ungoogled Chromium, a stripped back browser that follows the same basics as Chrome but without all the Google tracking. It works really nicely with Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs and Drive, so that box is ticked.

The last piece of the puzzle, for now, was finding a replacement for Microsoft Office. Fortunately LibreOffice was already installed and it's been great. It looks and feels very similar to Word and Excel, and it plays nicely with Google Docs and Sheets too. I haven't stress tested the compatibility yet but for my everyday needs it's doing the job perfectly.

A long way further along than I expected, and so far so good. Best of all, it's all completely free!

Hopefully just a Hiccup

 After a bit more testing and reloading Linux from my USB key, I'm starting to think the real culprit was corruption on the laptop's hard drive all along. So I took the plunge, reformatted the whole disc to clear out any lingering issues, and did a fresh reinstall of Mint Cinnamon.

So far, so good!

Putting Linux to work on my Air Gapped Archive

Yesterday’s realization about Linux, reminded me that I have an older computer dedicated to Linux, the Ubuntu flavour. I only use it occasionally (only 3 times in the last year) and its not connected to the Internet. Its my Air-Gapped Archive. However it is a very important to me. I use this older netbook to handle my photo Archive of original Photographs, including RAW images & photos of my art works.

I choose Linux for a couple of reasons. First the attempts to upgrade my little toshiba netbook to windows 10, initially half worked and progressively slow until an attempted system reset ensured it never worked in Windows again, but I found it worked well with Ubantu . Second Ubantu (and Linux) are Open Source, not propriety operating system so there is less chance of being depricated or abandoned.

I must admit I have only updated twice so far since setting it up and today will be the third update (effectively I’m averaging every 4 months (not 3 months) and that means each year I will be running through the full cycle of Son – Father – Grandfather. This year I’m using a series of Old Hard Disk, which I have reformatted and now I am copying on the complete back up set a fresh (from the external Hard drives (in this case in the red covers). Its not fast, I expect it will take about 3 hours to copy and verify approx. 2.7TB of data.

I have also downloaded a couple of programs to help me out if I end up with only the LINUX access at any time. These are Linux version of XNView MP, a cross platform version of the popular photo/movie viewer and converter, and DarkTable, an excellent open source photo editor, that is also available on several platforms including Linux. Both can handle jpeg and the three RAW format I have .cr2, .pef .orf, I feel happier being able to see my photos. Even though this archive is essentially a digital dataset, seeing it is the best assurance that it is a true archive.

PS I left the complete rebuild run over night and it seems it took closer to 6 hours o copy and verify 2.8GB of photos & videos

This came as a bit of a Surprise

I’ve a had a weekend of well meaning folk giving me a hard time because I avoid apple products, particularly the IPad and IPhone and most things “appleverse” (like calling their shop a “city square” and their salespeople “geniuses”). I’m not an apple hater. I still have my iPod, (even though its battery is shot and can’t be user replaced, an incredibly common design flaw in most apple hand held devices, giving them only a guaranteed 2-4 year life expectancy). I just think they are overprices and whilst they do a restricted number of things very well they are pretty inflexible at others… ok I’ll stop there because I don’t want the emotion rhetoric or flame war to start. Anyway it piqued my interest and I decided to look at just who looks at my blog. This is the summary graph by operating system produced by blogger, which hosts this blog

I was surprised! Even If I add together all the Macs, iPhones & IPads its a little over 15% of my readers. So the apple fanboys probably won’t be reading this anyway. What did stun me was the number 39% for Linux users. Obviously I assume I must appeal to the free thinkers, less conventional and nerdy types (or maybe just search bots) as well as the corporate world and more precisely those that can afford the cheaper PCs (windows user 38%). The lesser surprise is the also small number of phones 10%, whereas my website stats have shown viewing with a smart phone to be approaching 50%. Is this because blogger is a bit ordinary in mobile mode or there are no popular HTML “readers” for mobiles. Maybe I am not seeing the true picture, but perhaps it is good that I have avoided the “shiny new toy” syndrome that seems to just focus on gear, (most photography podcasts, you tubers, blogs, and owners of the latest apple gear) not how they can be used. It steels my resolve to return to the mission I started with this blog over 15 years ago, that is “Things They Forgot to Tell You About Digital Photography”.

Archive Obsession Two :: What makes a good Photo Archive

I know I bang on a lot about the difference between an Archive and a Backup. The key difference is a backup can consist of anything, even a great messy mass of files, whereas an archive is a clean long term place to store and easily retrieve information.

rchives, to be useful must include straightforward ways to find and view photos relatively quickly and easily. It needs a logical structure and whilst an archive should seldom be required, it should not be difficult to use or complex to learn. In other worlds KISS (Keep It Simple). It is desirable that it does not contain duplicates and damaged or corrupted photos. The essence is the collection, whilst it can contain a wide variety of photos and style needs to be clean and consistent. Archive should be managed and will grow with time. Backups should be kept of Archives

ackups, their purpose is to quickly restore the mass of data effected in the event that the media on which it is stored is damaged or lost. The emphasis is usually on a full restore, but a few systems do allow for a selective restore. Backup software seldom concerns the structure and viability of the data/files included. A corrupted file will be backedup the same as a good file. They are also focussed on the short term recovery of data. Old backups can become a liability if their contents is not known &/or well organized. Worse still they might be on a media format no longer supported.

Most photo oriented online discussions at present revolve around keeping backups of photo collections not archives. Certainly backing up your working data is important and the 3-2-1 approach is a good starting point. However if your collection of photos is getting large and you want them to be preserved in such a way that you can easily find a specific photo now is the time to start think about building an archive

Features I consider important in an Archive

1. Photos need to be indexed and catalogued (via metadata)
2. Photos should be easily viewed
3. Collection should be free of duplicates
4. Collection should contain only decent images (out of focus, corrupted or low quality images removed)
5. Photos should be in a limited number of standard (non propriety) formats

This is a pretty straightforward set of objectives but alas I have struggled to find a single commercial system that has these features. Lightroom sounded like it might be suitable but I found it both wanting and frustrating to use when several computers and people are involved.

• I have given myself the added burden of quarantining the Archive away from the internet and even my own local area network and housing it within a Linux workspace.

At the moment I use a Hybrid collection of software tools, I now used mainly PhotoMehanic to ingest (upload) from camera cards (I used to mainly use Picasa) and straightway cull the poor quality images and add appropriate metadata. I usually have a short break (could be up to a day or so) and then come back to PhotoMechanic and rate and colour code the images. I use a simple 1, 2 or 3 star rating, photos with 2 or 3 stars are the ones I would like to further process. They will normally be the ones I take into Lightroom (Aurora HDR or On1 RAW these days). Each step in Photo Mechanic is set up to record in both the Jpeg EXIF data and the .xmp side car files for RAW formats. The one star and above photos are the ones that get archived, any unrated photos will be left behind. At present I store the native RAW formats (.cr2,.pef,.orf & .dng) exactly as uploaded from the camera but I’m not convinced this a great long term option. Whilst there is some form of propriety CRC checks in the .xmp files I also create a file in each folder being archived with the .MD5 hashtag for each file. These CRC style checksum are useful to find duplicates and also to check with the files has been in any way altered (ie corrupted)

At the Linux end I read the same files and folders on external hard drives but now I have Linux version of XnViewMP and Aftershot Pro (both of which can view RAW files and read the metadata and ranking in EXIF data and/or the sidecar files. Both these programs can build catalogues or just browse folders. I have not yet tried to catalogue the whole collection but I’m slowly working towards that objective.

Why I started using an Air Gapped Archive

I'm not paranoid or afraid of the NSA. I'm just trying to avoid the risk of ransom-ware or the corruption of a disk via a virus, mechanical malfunction or a range of other things that might affect an active network and hard disk always spinning. I realise my approach is somewhat hybrid and would not satisfy Edward Snowden or the security gurus but It does give me confidence that I have addresses the long term safe storage of my source photos.
I am using an old Toshiba netbook (it served me well as a photography & email connection to the world as I traveled around Europe in 2011). However it was always slow and it was the first computer I tried to update to windows 10 and basically windows 10 killed it! I ran out of patience and installed Linux, and a little photo software but it sat unused for the past year-ish. Then it struck me this would be ideal for the Air Gapped Archive. I leave it turned off most of the time, turn off the WiFi & Bluetooth and just use it to manage my photo archives on an External Drive. It has 3 USB slots (unfortunately USB 2.0 not 3.0, ie file transfer will be slow) so I can do my transfer of files to the archive on this little Linux computer. I can also preview the files with XnView when necessary

The Air Gap isn't perfect because I have to get the photos onto the external hard drive (ie connect it to a network somewhere) and at regular intervals the archive must be updated, again I do this for convenience by creating a new copy of the archive and updating that. This is the Generational approach. The new copy is the SON and this become the new air gapped Archive. The old copy is the FATHER and can be put away till next cycle when It is rewritten as the new SON. In the old TAPE backup days this was often taken to a third GRANDFATHER generation. At present I only have enough spare hard disks to do two generations and I only plan to cycle them over every three months.
I plan to use small memory sticks (only used for that purpose) to extract files if necessary between generation updates and this in theory reduced the likelihood of large scale malware, and particularly ransom-wear but does not avoid it altogether (eg stuxnet). The fact than I'm also crossing operating systems significantly reduces the possibilities of viruses being transmitted.
The Linux computer and the hard drive  containing the Primary Archive are turned off and stored together in my studio rather than my office where the on-line collection of my photos is stored. Hopefully I will only need them every 3 months or so as I cycle and then update my primary archive.