Cloudy Problems

I am currently trying to cloudify¹ my digital life. I don’t want to get deep into the reason behind this goal in this post², but here is where I stand in the process right now.

1. iTunes Match and Spotify for Music.
2. Various services for TV and movies (Netflix, Amazon, etc).
3. Dropbox for most of my active documents and other files that I feel need normal file system access.
4. Bookmarks use Xmarks with additional archiving using Instapaper and Pinboard.
5. Notes and important archived information are in Evernote.
6. I’ve been a long time user of Remember the Milk.³
7. Almost all of my email activity pass through Gmail. Mostly accessed through Mail.app.⁴
8. Google Calendar / iCloud for calendaring and reminders. Mostly accessed through iCal.⁵
9. I plan on going with Backblaze for full system backup of my main system.

I seem to have 2 stumbling blocks in my way of completing my goal: proper archiving and access to photos and videos.

I have photos in both RAW and several compressed formats.⁶ I understand that the idea of archiving RAW can be difficult due to the file size among other reasons, so I can let that part go for purely a photo service with web access. It’s key to have access to a web view as well as full size file downloads available.

I’ve been a long time Flickr user, but with lack of innovation, treatment of users, and the constant ghost of Yahoo! failures looming over it, I just don’t feel like I can trust it long term, anymore. Plus, the service just isn’t designed to navigate large archives of images easily. There are some whispers of updates to the service. If it turns out to be true, may revive my confidence. I have to admit that with the vast amount of tools, I feel like it’s my best option, no matter what.

My video problem is similar, but with even more of an issue with file size. I have several formats and various lengths of video. And when I say video, I don’t mean downloaded TV shows or movies;⁷ I’m talking about family videos, lightly edited clips, and other self created videos.

I thought about just posting it all to Youtube. But it seems the video you download back from them is highly compressed. And even though I am aware that I can post items privately, with Youtube’s band of mighty trolls that own the commenting, I fear using the system at all.

Vimeo Plus seems to be my best option for video at this time. With this paid option of Vimeo⁸, you get an option to download the original file back from the service. And with the options I see coming in the new version of OS X, accessing the service may get much easier. I may run into a few issues with file formats. And I would have to pace my upload amount due to the 5GB per month limit. But for some reason, paying for this kind of service makes me feel better about it’s longevity.

Automation, automation, automation! That is the key for this really working for me. Setting up processes and workflows that will allow automation of these backups. Flickr has many tools that can help with this, but I have not been able to find many for Vimeo. Though admittedly, I haven’t spent a lot of time searching.

Just the planning of this is an exhausting endeavor. I just hope once it’s worked out, it won’t require nearly as much thought. I can then move on to my next geeky obsession of the moment.