Is this discussion really from 2005?

Nowadays you can buy a netbook to use for internet and email while traveling. They're cheap enough not to worry about and light enough not to be too much of a burden.

It's less worrying than carrying around a laptop that may be your main computer with your whole life on it.

Yeah Donna , I agree . But when , like me , you're in limbo .. not sure where you want to , or should be . The laptop does contain your whole life . Since I moved to Madrid some 4 years ago my laptop has been indispensable . Though I have bought an external hard drive for my 1000s of photos ... just to be safe .

I'm wondering what to do about my photos. They seem to be slowing down my computer.

Do you just back them up on the external drive and put them back into the computer when you want to see them?

I have all my photos .. nearly 17,000 !! backed up onto an external hard drive .. I also have them doubly backed up onto CDs . Once you connect the external hard drive to your computer it should recognise them . Also consider using a ( free ) service like "Picassa " operated by google . It will load all your photos automatically from anywhere on your computer , as well as the external hard drive . And it has some very easy to use editing functions . I love it !

Donna, I'd be surprised if the photos themselves were slowing your computer down. They are just files that do nothing other than take up hard disk space.

What could be doing it is if you do use something like Picassa, which does scan your PC for photos unless you stop it doing so, thus taking up processing power. And it could be too that your hard disk has become fragmented and is in need of optimizing, this occurs especially if you delete files or have suffered crashes.

As an aside, has MM ever considered a section for PC issues where members could post problems and advice to each other ? Not exactly to do with Spain solely I know, but it could be useful and maybe generate more traffic ?

Jamongris wrote:I know you have a point but I learned years ago that while some non-Spain-related categories may be popular, it'd be a shame if they eventually overshadowed the actual purpose of this message board. I think, at least for now, we can talk about the topic with regards to Spain-related travel and what people do do with their laptops and/or their Spain-photos while traveling within Spain.

Donna Cuervo, I, like Jamongris, doubt that simply housing these photos on your HD are the reason your computer seems slow - UNLESS the number of photos is nearly filling your hard drive to capacity. In that sense, it is possible for files, no matter their kind, to slow down a computer. A hard drive needs a certain amount of free space to cache-in and cache-out memory as it's being used on a normal basis. If you impede that space, it could slow down overall performance. Check first the amount of space available on the hard drive. If it's less than, say, 15-20% free, it may be that the HD is getting too full. And, if that is the case, I'd suggest, as steve robinson does, to transfer all those photos onto a good external HD.

I use an external HD for nearly everything now. Imagine one day, for reasons unknown to you, that your laptop or PC simply won't start. Or, nearly as bad, you start up the computer and you get a WARNING blue screen saying that your computer has failed or there's some virus or whatever. At least, then, you have all your photos and files accessible via some other computer if you have them on an external HD. On the down side, of course, if you DROP the external HD on the floor, you may lose absolutely everything, years of accumulated files and photos. That'd be a serious bummer. Other people I know have a double-backup system where by, periodically, they'll copy ALL files to ANOTHER external HD, JUST IN CASE the primary HD fails. This is what corporations do, doing a nightly (or hourly) full-system-backup of all files.

Saludos, MadridMan

Has anyone tried gotomypc.com Grammar Girl used to talk about it (haven't listened to her podcast in a long time). Personally I either take my laptop with me (or borrow the Wife's if I'm joining her on a trip) or use a net cafe. Prefer my own computer as it has all the settings I want.