I love technology and technology loves me. I’m the guy who walks in the room and the computer refuses to do the thing that made you call tech support in the first place. There are more computers than people in my house. I’ve been online longer than most MySpace users have been alive. You would think I have some sort of crazy smart phone, but I don’t. I use a very basic Samsung M300. It’s the free phone you get when you sign up.

Going Mobile

Can you effectively stay connected to social media with a basic cell phone and a generous (unlimited) text messaging plan? Facebook and Twitter have the functionality, but is it still cool, interesting, fun, and effective on a basic phone with a tiny screen and no QWERTY keypad? I’ve set up mobile access to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Follow me and find out how effective it is.

Why am I doing this? Being a dad takes a lot of my time. My computer time is limited. I’m looking for the pebbles and the grains of sand to squeeze between the boulders. Using public transit means waiting and sitting. When I don’t feel like listening to music or watching a video podcast, I can send tweets and check in with Facebook.

Facebook Text Messaging Options

Send Text to 32665 (FBOOK)

You don’t even have to type in your friend’s full name to send a message, get profile info, poke, write on their wall. You can type just enough to uniquely identify that person. For example, if I wanted to send a msg to Ernesto Brown, I can just enter “msg ernesto b hey, what’s up brownie?”

You can also set up which notifications go to your phone. Currently, I have messages, pokes, and status updates of a few select friends going to my phone.

Twitter Commands

Send texts to 40404

The offical Twitter Commands can be found in their help pages. Twitter is well-suited for text messaging since your tweets need to be 140 characters or less. You definitely want to fine-tune which events trigger a notification. You will get a LOT of text messages if you don’t pare it down to essential information. I only have direct messages going to my phone for now.

A New Paradigm

Accessing email on my phone is an exercise in frustration, but so far, the mobile versions of Twitter and Facebook have been good to me. If you really need to get in touch with me, sending me messages through Facebook and/or Twitter is, in some cases, more effective than calling, emailing, or instant messaging me.

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I’m with Jeff at Daddy’s Toolbox. Social media has replaced nightly TV. I don’t feel there is much worth watching on TV these days. The things I used to think were worthwhile aren’t so anymore (with the exception of hockey games and Family Guy). Like Jeff, I would rather spend my spare time on Twitter and Facebook.

I’ve been online since 1992. The internet looks very different, but we still use it for very similar purposes. I searched for information. I stayed in touch with people I already knew. I looked to make new friends. Internet porn is almost as old as the internet itself. There. I said it. I said “PORN” in a blog post. All it takes is one mention of “PORN” and you become a spam magnet. Just ask Jeremy at Discovering Dad. Spamdora’s Box is already open. If comment moderation slows down, you’ll know why.

Where was I? Oh yeah, social media. I don’t even use instant messenger and I got sidetracked.

Jeff’s post and some recent email conversations with some old friends got me thinking. My friend Pat has been online since 1994. He’s extremely tech-savvy, can build an entire website in Notepad, assemble a computer from parts, troubleshoot Windows (that alone deserves praise!), and gets along with technology in general. However, he flat-out refuses to go anywhere near MySpace and has put signing up with Twitter, Facebook and  LinkedIn on his procrastination list.

There are times when I feel cutting-edge, and there are times when I feel like I’m only Web 1.6. Pat and I email each other and have “conversations.” Instead of replying in one big block of text, we reply to each other’s emails paragraph by paragraph. We keep track of who’s saying what by the presence or lack of >’s.

We rarely send attachments in our emails. Back in the day, attachments were unwieldy, requiring you to manually encode and decode them. We simply posted files up on our web servers or FTP sites and put the link in the email.

I have benefited a great deal from using social media. What Classmates.com charges money to do, you can do for free on Facebook. I’ve had some great Tweet sessions. StumbleUpon continues to send traffic to my blog.

But all this takes time. MySpace and Digg are like gym memberships. I’m beyond inactive on those sites. I check in with Facebook and LinkedIn periodically. I don’t post nearly as many photos as I should to my Flickr account. If you ask nicely, I’ll Stumble your page or site. I also use Entre Card to promote my blog. All of these sites take time to work. If you’ll excuse me, someone has added me as a friend on Facebook. I’ll need to sign in and confirm them.

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Photo Credit – Flickr, Fanch The System

One of my friends recently sent me an email, “My hard drive crashed and I lost all my photos. Can you send me any pictures you have of the gang?”

A little while back, I described how to organize your digital photos. Organizing your photos is just as important as backing them up. You can’t effectively back up your photos if you don’t have them organized.

Backups Are More Feasible Than Ever

But why do so few people do it? Is it because we’re lazy? Yes. Stop being lazy. You’re not my teenage stepson, so you’ll actually listen when I say, “stop being lazy!” Does it take much effort to burn a CD or DVD once a month? How about a little drag and drop action between two Windows Explorer or Mac OS Finder windows?

In the film-only era, organizing your photos meant putting them in photo albums and storing the negatives in a safe place. Did we ever do that? Based on how people are now, I doubt that many people’s photos were organized. I still have shoeboxes with envelopes in random nooks and crannies in my house! My digital photos have fared much better. In the digital world, organizing your photos is easier than ever. Having a backup copy is within the reach of our budgets, our technology, and the precious time we have.

Several of my older co-workers in the past were afraid of the computer and skeptical of the security of the data. The argument always was, “but what if something happens to the computer?”

My internal dialogue went like this, “Sure Louise. Your paper filing system is really secure. What if we had a fire? All the electronic files we have on the swappable backup drive is off-site. We’ll still have those files. Your paper files are toast! See what the boss will think if you spent the next 6 days doing nothing but photocopying every sheet of paper in our file cabinets. Then see what he thinks about leasing storage space across town to keep all this paper!”

Storing your data, or in this case, your photographs, in digital form is the easiest, most cost effective, time-efficient, and most secure option available to us.

Backup Methods

Backup strategies range from the simple to the elaborate. Your family photos are no less valuable, but you don’t need the same robust solutions that professional photographers use. The important thing is, you must do something.

CD-R and DVD-R

Once your photos are organized, it’s only a matter of dragging and dropping the folders into your CD/DVD burning software or your external hard drive. If your photos are organized on your “live” drive, then they will be organized on your backup media too.

External Hard Drives

I’ve seen many references to CD-Rs and DVD-Rs being an affordable method of storage. Byte for byte, even an external firewire drive (more expensive than USB drives) are cheaper than the equivalent storage in CD-Rs and DVD-Rs!

Hard drives are always getting cheaper and cheaper. This is the most convenient method of redundant storage. You can drag and drop folders from one window to another. Voila! Your photos are saved to more than one location. You win extra bonus points for stashing the external hard drive off-site, like in your desk drawer at work.

Memory Cards

Memory cards also continue to drop in price. For special events, consider buying memory cards just for the occasion and storing them somewhere secure. Of course, you’ll also have the images on your hard drive, your external drive, and a CD-R too.

Multiple Locations

The ultimate in security is to have your data in different locations. This protects your family memories from natural disasters.

Send a CD-R copy to your relatives. They would love to see the pictures, and storing your backups off-site is as secure as it gets. Likewise, you should offer to store their backups too.

Upgrade to a pro account on Flickr. For $25 a year, you get unlimited storage. You can even set up your computer to automatically upload your photos to your account. You will be uploading uncompressed full-resolution photos, but do not fear. They can be set for private viewing only. The added bonus here is, you can just flag the ones you want to share publicly with a few clicks.

There is some debate on the volatility of the media we use to back up. CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and hard drives each have their advantages and potential downfalls. Data can get corrupt on any storage medium. However, with redundancy, you are ensured that your family memories are secure. Storage media fails, but the chance of all of your redundant media failing is slim.

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Now that I’ve convinced you (and hopefully your wife) that you need a DSLR, it’s time to take your lighting to the next level. A well-lit 6 megapixel image will trump a poorly lit 12 megapixel image any day. The word photography literally means “writing with light.” You will still take the same crappy photos with a $2000 camera if you don’t increase your knowledge base.

Increase your knowledge base through one of my favorite blogs of all-time – Strobist.

The winky little flash on your digital camera is responsible for more red-eye than every instance of demonic possession ever documented by paranormal experts. Its location near the lens axis provides the most unflattering light ever known to mankind (think of your driver’s license or passport photo). When you have an external flash unit (or multiple flash units) positioned away from the camera, it makes your photographs come to life with a 3D-like quality. Strobist teaches you how to do it.

I debated whether or not to really pimp Strobist here on 21st Century Dad, but I have to admit it. I am a pathetic Strobist fanboy! David Hobby is the MacGuyver of lighting. I’m doing more with two small flashes, some free sample gels, and stuff lying around the house than I ever did with an entire professional studio strobe setup. The studio strobes are now sitting in someone else’s closet gathering dust. Now my wallet weighs more and my lighting bag weighs less.

I’m so grateful that I had the chance to learn how to use off-camera lighting. My daughter’s first year is being documented in a much more satisfying way. I’m getting professional results from a pretty minimal rig that’s easy to use. We’ll never have to drag her to JC Penney. With some more tools in my toolbox, I’m also able to get some the most elusive photos of all – photos of angst-ridden teenage boys.

Just as it was when you made the jump from point-and-shoot to DSLR, you can run on a sort of a semi-automatic mode until your comfort level and knowledge increase. The most basic Strobist techniques already improve your photos dramatically. As your ambition and budget grow, your creativity does too. It doesn’t have to cost much at all. For around $200, you can get a complete starter kit.

When you buy your Strobist kit, you might want to pick up a battery charger and some rechargeable AA’s too. I recommend the La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger and Sanyo Eneloop NiMH AA batteries. Standard NiMH batteries lose their charge over time, even when unused. The Eneloops don’t. Strobists are among the most demanding and critical users of AA batteries. You can get an 8-pack on Amazon for a little more than the 4-pack at your local discount store.

David started the blog in February of 2006 as a way to store his notes. It has since grown to get over 1 million page views a month. He took a leave of absence from his job in June of 2007 to focus on the blog full-time. David is an inspiration photographically, but he’s also one of the reasons I started blogging. He made the right decision for his family and for 200,000 daily readers. The blogger’s lifestyle allows David to spend more time with his favorite Hobbys – Susan, Emily, and Ben.

Buy your Strobist kit on Amazon

21st Century Dad has always been about being a dad and doing it the best you can. I’m a daddy blogger who happens to care about photography a little bit more than the average dad (I’m not saying every dad doesn’t want great pictures of his children). It would be unfair to keep my mouth shut about it. A blog’s value is in the writer’s personal stamp.

A few months ago, I made a pathetic plug for the Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card. That was hardly a worthwhile introduction to photography 21st Century Dad style.

I didn’t want my photography related writing to go over the heads of the point-and-shoot crowd. My original plan was to share more general photography tips that everyone can benefit from. DSLR users are notorious for spending more time online than shooting. There are plenty of camera aficionado sites out there for the technical information you crave (notice I didn’t call them photography sites). I’m here to talk about photographing your family. I know a better way, and I’m here to share.

What’s a DSLR and Why Do I Want One?

Oh wait a minute. I just got done saying I didn’t want to alienate the point-and-shoot crowd. What’s a DSLR? DSLR stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. If you’re still scratching your head, it’s the camera that uses interchangeable lenses. You probably think of it as a “professional” camera.

DSLRs are now within reach of mere mortals’ credit limits. You can get an entire kit with a body, a great lens, and plenty of great features for under $500. So why would you want a DSLR?

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