jmoiron.net

You're a "regular" 21st century 1st world citizen. You have a computer, internet access, maybe a laptop. A cell phone with an address book, an ipod with a few hundred songs. You have a DVR. A digital camera with pictures of vacations, the kids, your uncles; maybe your very own penis/vagina. You are a student; you have assignments, homeworks, a facebook, a myspace. You're a professional, you have reports, emails.

If you are me, you have code, a blog. But if you aren't me, you still have data. Lots of it! And your data should be important to you. My parents have picture albums of memories of me and my brother when we were born; but what of the past few years when they took digital pictures of everything?

I am very careful with data, but even I managed to lose an entire vacation's worth of pictures. I still feel terrible about it. But all of your data, you should hang on to it; you should demand it be in your control. Figure out how to sync your cellphone's data to your computer over bluetooth. Cost extra? Was that feature disabled in software by your shitty phone service? Call and complain! Demand that the devices you pay for, the devices you place your data on do not make it difficult for you to control that data.

This could easily go into the realm of DRM, but DRM is so innately flawed that it's temporal and completely meaningless. 5 years from now, HD-DVDs will be trivial to find online, trivial to rip using your computer, and trivial to burn. Not because it's no longer useful (because it won't be), but because there are people out there like me, who demand full control over their data. DRM is to "protect" the market now; and the companies know early adopters are a bunch of suckers.

Part of controlling your data is having control over your software and having transfer access between digital devices. This is where it gets hairy; this is where I start to lose people. It means being able to copy your UMD movie to your hard drive, to sync your cell phone, to copy your pictures and songs around as you purchase new computers. It means most importantly that the knowledge required to use your data in the way it was meant to be used is open and well understood. That's what open source is about; source code is detailed instructions that a computer can make sense of to perform some kind of action with your data. Mp3 is known. DVD/Mpeg2 is known; cdda is known.

Open Source code means they're known how English is known. A little under 230 years ago, the declaration of independence was written. If knowledge of how to interpret english had, in that time, perished, then the document's contents would have been lost to time. Yet people consistently allow their data to be placed in whatever unpopular proprietary unknown format is peddled to them in the brightest retail box. Worse, the only software to make sense of the format is an unknown quantity; if the company ever folds, it's availability might disappear, along with all of the knowledge to interpret your data.

In the hardware world, this happens over and over. My father made videos when he was in high school on super 8. He and his friends borrowed liberally from their cinema heroes, and I consider them among the most amazing films I've ever seen. But as times changed, technology changed. I only vaguely remember seeing those films on a Super 8 projector. Eventually, they were converted into some kind of vhs because outside of hobbyist and art-house circles Super 8 equipment isn't exactly trivial to come by. At some point, they'll be made digital, as VHS is already rapidly disappearing.

But once they skip to digital, something weird happens. Their format never needs to change. If for some reason another format is desired, it is most likely trivial to create a copy in that format. This is very important; people need to realize that digital data allows them the freedom of escape from that upgrade loop. People used to purchase music in the form of perforated paper sheets, metal cylinders, vinyl disks, plastic disks. It's a whole new ballgame, now. With the proper upkeep and simple but diligent backup habits, your data can stay the same forever. If new digital formats arise that eventually topple mp3, you can be sure that tools will exist for a long time that convert mp3 to those formats.

So make an effort. Think about the things you use, about the data you have stored and you rely on. Do not let marketing lead you down the path of rare, proprietary parts (be they software, or hardware, like cables). Do back up your data. Purchase an external hard drive and copy all of your data to it periodically. Sync your phone, save your ipod playlists, download copies of your facebook posts, your horrible myspace design, save your homeworks, assignments, email. Backup your pictures, home movies. They're yours; show responsibility, demand control.