100 Year Memory; Recover Data From Anything; My Interview With B&H; and More

Good Late Afternoon Everybody,

We wrapped up the Imaging USA Convention yesterday making our rounds through the tradeshow one more time. In addition to all the frame and album manufactures, processing labs, my favorite booths to visit are the photo dealers like Midwest Photo Exchange and Dury's.  I've been a friend of both companies for many years and they both always have a great deal or two.  

Yesterday I picked up a SanDisk 32 gig compact flash card for only $89!  It amazes me how much the cost of media has dropped over the years. I can still remember about 10 years ago purchasing my first 1 gig flash card for, get this, $700!!!!!!

Brand New Memory Storage

I'll tell you, one of the more interesting things I saw at the Dury's booth was the brand new SanDisk Memory Vault.  The SanDisk Memory Vault is nicely packaged flash memory that SanDisk says will archive anything, including photographs, for 100 years!  That's quite a claim, but if true we finally have a much safer way to store our valuable images other than the hard drive, DVD, or Blu-Ray alternatives. Definitely a very interring product to consider.

Data Recovery Solutions For Everything

OK, the SanDisk Memory Vault looks cool but what if it fails?  I also stopped by and talked with Darren at DriveSavers.  I've also been familiar with DriveSavers for a number of years and even used their services a several years ago to recover one of my hard drives.  Yes, they recovered all of my data and have a great reputation of doing just that.

What turned our conversation interesting was when Darren mentioned that they also recover data from dropped, drowned, or otherwise electronically neutered iPads and iPhones. That was news to me and I wanted to pass it along to you.  The bottom line is that Drive Savers can recover data from just about any device that can store data - a good thing to know.  You can get full details here.

The Biggest and Best and Most Fun In The Midwest!

We just got back to Cincinnati, Ohio a few hours ago and went right to work gearing up for our upcoming PhotoPro Expo 2012. 

These next two weeks are the big "push" weeks leading up to the convention. As of last weekend, PhotoPro Expo 2012 is the largest photographic convention and exhibition in the Midwest! 

We should easily hit our goal of 700 attendees and tradeshow visitors.  That's great news to all the vendors at our sold out Expo Tradeshow too. I sure hope you'll plan to come by.

Check Out My Interview With B&H

Yep, I've been doing a lot of interviews the last week or two.  My interview at B&H Insights [link] just went “LIVE” It went a little long – what’s new :~) and they broke it into two parts.  You can catch Part 1 right here.

Here are 4 of the 11 questions I answer in that interview:

• B&H: You’ve been doing this (wedding & portrait photography) for a long time. What are the three biggest changes or turning points in the W&P industry that you’ve seen over the span of your career?
• B&H: Who inspired you in the past, and does anyone inspire you now?
• B&H: What advice do you have for today's up-and-coming photographers who want to enter this very competitive field?
• B&H: We know you are a W&P guy, but we see plenty of landscape and cityscape images on your blog, Digital Pro Talk. Is there a different thought process that goes into your making of personal images versus “business” images? Also, do you have a favorite place where you’ve taken photos?

Check it out right here, I think you'll enjoy the read.

________________________________________________________

Hey gang, I'm cutting it a bit short today since we've just got home and we need to tend to a few more things before the end of business day.  How about I see you tomorrow for a very special Business Day Thursday.

I'll see you then,  David

Podcast Wednesday: A Conversation With Scott Tallyn - Data Recovery Expert

Good Morning Everybody,
Well, it's that time again - time for another podcast here at DigitalProTalk. This week's guest is Scott Tallyn of Tallyn Photographics. I have known Scott for a number of years as our path's have crossed many times at various trade shows and conventions.

That's exactly what happened three weeks ago in Las Vegas at Photoshop World. I hadn't seen Scott in a while so it was great to catch up with him after a few years. Although Scott runs his very successful Tallyn's Professional Photographic Supply, he ventured out into data recovery about 12 years ago and runs one of the few companies that has pioneered flash card data recovery in the mix.

Give a listen to my interview with Scott to hear the latest on hard drive and flash card reliability and failure. His insights and wisdom on the subject may help you avoid what we all fear most - corrupted cards and hard drive failures. Just tab on the Gcast button to the right of this post.

Questions For Scott Tallyn About Disaster Recovery:

1. You have built your data recovery business into one of the nation's leading companies offering data recovery services - What made you take your company in that direction?
2. You pioneered data recovery from flash cards, even disassembling them to get to the data. How successful have you been at that?
3. SanDisc just introduced a 32 gig model. That's a lot of data on that little chip. What do you think of the new high flying card capacities?
4. You talk about these cards having a certain number of Read/Write Cycles, what's that mean, and what's the life of a flash card - do they live forever?
5. Are there any instances where data can't be recovered from a card?
6. What are your best recommended strategies for shooting, saving, and optimizing card usage to avoid disaster?
7. You mentioned you even recover data from CDs and DVDs - I thought once they were scratched up, they were history?
8. How about hard drives? With the drive space getting bigger, are these newer models more or less reliable than in years past? What are the features that we should consider when purchasing a hard drive for my data?
9. You say people send you cards and drives the other data recovery companies have given up on and you can still recover the data - What's your success rate?
10. What's this cost, does it "break the bank"? Will my home owner's insurance cover any of the costs?

Scott is so dedicated to getting your data back and easing that sinking feeling in you stomach after you find out your drive crashed or all your wedding images seem to be history on that one flash card that won't open, you can call him personally on his cell 24/7. Here is his number - 309-696-7575. Here is his office number 800-433-8685 M-F.

Service doesn't get any better than that!

Thanks again Scott for sharing your insights and wisdom with our listeners. -David

Links mentions in this podcast:
Tallyn's Professional Photographic Supply
Tallyn's Data Recovery
Western Digital Caviar Drives
Drobo - Data Robotics, Inc.
Photo Rescue

p.s. You can also down load this podcast or all others right here.

Hot Off The Presses – DataRescue Release Latest Upgrade Of PhotoRescue 3.1

If you do not have this piece of software in your data recovery toolbox, get it in there today. I’ve been using PhotoRescue since it was introduce more than 7 years ago, Read my lips – “It is the absolute best solution out there for data recovery from corrupted, formatted, or otherwise unreadable flash cards." It has brought a few of my cards back from the dead, and saved the day for some of my friends to whom I recommended the software. Hey, for a lousy $29, you can’t go wrong. Check out and buy PhotoRescue 3.1 right here. It’s a Ziser “Top Choice” pick.

13 (Isn't That Bad Luck) Tips for Using and Caring for Memory Cards

We all use them, and we all abuse them. Here is a very sensible article that will give you some excellent advice on memory card usage - how to get the maximum life out of them and when to pitch them. Here is the memory card link right here - good information.

Oh, by the way, if you should have a nasty disaster, my all time hands down favorite memory card recovery software is PhotoRescue - here is the PhotoRescue link right here. Never found a card I couldn't recover - the best $29 bucks you will spend.

Should you have super major recovery problems, check out my buddy, Scott Tallyn's site - when all else fails, Scott is your "ace in the hole" for reasonably priced data recovery. I've known Scott for nearly 20 years and give him my highest recommendation, too. Here is the link to Scott's data recovery site.