Backing up

I agree with Bob Sapey ( Inbox, AP 20 October) when he asks why pay £120 every year to Adobe? I think Adobe is exploiting its own users with this subscription method of using its software – especially as (I assume) the average user only makes use of a tiny percentage of the features. The Office 365 is a viable solution if it’s the cloud- route solution that you like, I suppose, but it still costs £60 every year. But if, like me, all that is required is a back- up copy of all your photos then why not invest in a one- off solution in the form of an external hard drive? I have a Toshiba 2TB drive that I leave plugged in to a handy USB port and I make all my back-ups to this. You can buy them for about £65.

I also downloaded a free software application, ‘ TreeComp’, that can be run whenever you want. It compares what’s on your hard drive with what’s on the external drive, and you can click an icon to copy over photos you may have missed in seconds.

As for working across different platforms – call me a Luddite if you want, but I have no need to view thousands of my photos on a smartphone screen, an iPad or any other such device. If I’m doing all that, I can’t be out taking photographs!! Jon Lipinski Thanks for the tips, Jon. I’d only take issue with your last paragraph. What’s the point in taking photos if you never look at them or show them to other people? You can print them, of course, but having them stored in the cloud and available to view on a portable device anywhere in the world is a great benefit to many people, including me – Nigel Atherton, Editor