That's what smileys are for Mike.

I have known a company where three out of four backup drives failed at the same time.

However, as has been pointed out elsewhere, when we used film we had prints, slides and negatives in the same cupboard at home and didn't fret too much about it.

Hard drives will fail though, sooner or later, so one backup is helpful.

If I'm away, I have the card, a backup on the laptop and then when I return home a backup on the main PC. At that point the card can be formatted for use again. Now and again I backup my stuff to a second drive.

I have hundreds of backup CDs and DVDs, but frankly accessing them is too much trouble and there is no way they will be archived again. If they fail, they fail.

There's been a bit of chatter about archiving and one thing I never do is delete images. Not a single one is discarded.

The reason is that the value of something may not be apparent until much later. In a creative sense, if an image suddenly is in need of a blurred layer, do we have one? Maybe we do, if it's not been scrapped.

In a practical sense, the picture of a tiny Aunty Alice in front of some old shopping street will take on a new significance after the street is demolished. It's now a picture of the street as was and Aunty Alice is no longer the main subject.

I have had the first option many times, when an image that would be a discard on its own merits was useful for part of something else.

The second option recently arose when I was asked if I had any images of where I was raised. See my EPZ Blog, but in essence I did have images. badly exposed, badly composed black and white enprints from When I Was Very Young, so to speak, and now they actually show something we want to see.

Photographically, they should have all been thrown away.

For Photobooks Blurb , Albelli, etc.

Images are made, the original JPEGs go in a folder with date and place or event.

Then images are made as required for work, EPZ, PU, ADAPS, photography talks, slide shows, books, whatever is needed.

Photography with a purpose is always better than aimless photography, even if the purpose is a personal one to improve.

So I can have a bit of fun experimenting with lenses that really now pull in tiny distant objects, such as small birds.

For example, if I pop my 100mm macro lens on it would give me a field of view equivalent to 550mm on film. A 200mm lens delivers a FOV equivalent of 1100mm. And so on.

Now it is true that magnifying even the centre of a lens so much will challenge the resoution limit, but I want to find out how much of a problem that is, rather than rejecting the notion out of hand. First hand experience of something is much better than reading about it.

Hope that helps.

We digress, but especially for JAK don't think twice, it's alright....

Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.

Well I'm speculating, but as the company that runs PU, EPZ, FPME and Photodo has offices, staff and therefore overheads, it looks to me like they need to pay their way and make a profit as well. The staff are also highly qualified in their various fields, so that too will be a consideration.

The actual domain costs and hosting costs are, I would think, insignificant compared to that.

No, I haven't, but in this instance the W90 is the camera that's always in my pocket. My Mum-in-law will be pleased to have the record of the event and she won't be worried about better quality.

It's always the case that the best camera is the one you have with you...