Start Up

Sadly, my computer hard disk died on me last week.

Luckily I have back ups done for my client work on a regular basis but 6+ years of personal stuff – sketches, ideas, plans, stories, etc – are all gone.

When I fired up my email application yesterday, my inbox was empty. I’ve lost all my emails too.

A similar event happened to me a few years ago.I used to have backups of all my work on Zip disks then (does anyone remember those blue disks?). When my then PC got corrupted beyond repair, I didn’t really worry because thought I could rely on the backup data on my zip disks. But no – ALL the disk were corrupted and unreadable. 5 years of work gone. ;(

I have to admit there’s a certain amount of liberation, starting on a clean slate. But I’m a little worried about data preservation at the moment. Will my data DVDs last? If they do will there still be DVD readers in future? Do I need to transfer my files onto a new hard disk every few years? Do I need to upload all 89 million terabytes of my digital photos to Flickr? Should I carve my ideas in stone? Or blog every tiny detail of my life online? Hmmm…

Thoughts on 27 Thoughts
On Blogging for The Artist

I thoroughly enjoyed the list “27 Thoughts On Blogging For The Artist” on Problogger, a guest post by Robert Bruce of Knife Gun Pen. (Thanks to Diane at Please Sir for highlighting this on her blog)

Here are a couple of points from the list I want to discuss further:

1. There’s never been a better time to be a working artist. Ever.
2. There’s never been a worse time to be a working artist (if you’re not truly dedicated to your craft).

I can’t agree more with these two points. The speed and ease of reaching to a large, international audience is a double edged sword. If you’re in the creative industry — be it music, art, design, photography, craft, film — there’s no finer time to share your talent with the world. [Read more....]