1. What are vital records versus ordinary records? I like this suggestion from another attendee: “Vital Record” is, by definition, a record without which the organization could not continue to function.
2. Would you consider Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable receipts and related backup documentations vital records? They may be vital to some businesses and not vital to others. I suspect that these would be much more vital in the short term and much less important after the year is closed out. But I can imagine scenarios where they would be required for decades.
3. It was mentioned that it was risky to scan paper into a electronic format without a written, compact retention policy. My question is this: If you are in the process of setting policy and adding to your policy and procedures manual is it still ok to scan? My boss has pushed for me to begin the conversion process even though I haven’t managed to complete the new policy and procedures. I think this is his way of showing his superiors that we are making progress on a project that they weren’t neccesarily behind in the first place. I would worry that you’ll waste effort scanning documents that shouldn’t be saved. But it’s better to duplicate and waste some effort than to not save at all. So scan away! But get that policy done too!
4. What about TIFF storage? Is that still viable? and For long term storage, why isn’t tiff G4 an option? TIFF is certainly a widely-used format for images, and G3 compressed TIFF will probably be readable a century from now (assuming we’re still here!) Plus, TIFF is (usually) lossless. However, it’s very flexible, and a TIFF file can contain lots of different data – you could easily create a TIFF that won’t be readable next week! Also, there have been some patent/royalty arguments about TIFF and related technologies. Finally, TIFF files tend to be huge (since they’re lossless) compared to other (lossy) formats. I like open standards like PNG better since they’re fully documented and portable, but TIFF is probably a decent choice.
5. When storing paper does the newer printing technology – inkjet, laser etc. match the archival quality of older paper and inks? and What do we need to know about the kind of paper that should be used for long term archiving? I’m concerned that newer technologies, including printer tech, won’t last like old ones. I have impact-printed pages from the 1980s that look like new, and laser-printed pages from the 1990s that are clear and clean. But my old inkjet pages are very faded. Now, this could have to do with the paper I chose, and it could be that old inkjet isn’t a predictor of new inkjet, but I’m skeptical. HP claims that their Vivera inkjet ink will last “108 years”, which seems oddly precise. I guess they took a Photosmart printer back to 1900 and printed out some pages? In all seriousness, be concerned about any claims like this that cannot possibly be tested. And consider handling as well – proper temperature, humidity, and storage will make documents last much, much longer!
6. Dry caskets of nuclear waste are dangerously radioactive for over 10,000 years. Consider the “pancake” drive: titanium disks written with an ion beam in both analog and digital. Even without ASCII, it can be read with an electron microscope. Now that is longterm storage. Do you really trust current formats for 50-100 years? Think of how much change there has been in the last 50 years. and If There was not a question of Blu-ray discs lasting for decades , what is your opinion on the technology as a viable archive solution? I’m skeptical of all unprovable longevity claims, since media has never lived up to them in the past! If I had to guess, I’d say that mechanical devices like disks and tapes will have more problems than plain discs, and that optical will last longer than magnetic. So I bet Blu Ray media will outlive most other current mainstream media.
7. If it isn’t vital you should not convert. On another project (our archives) I am trying to save and prevent any further damage to the records because they are currently stored in a basement with water leaks, rats, and no climate control. Is this instance how do you weigh the vital and non-vital? Specifically, I was asked to bring in outside companies to see what they had to say and get quotes after my warnings and price estimations were rejected. Any suggestions on how to get across the importance of not allowing these records to just rot? Rats don’t make great records managers! Seriously, though, I’d say that something is seriously out of whack when records are stored like this. Maybe you should come in to work one day and claim that all of the records are destroyed and see what reaction you get? But be sure to have another job lined up before you pull this stunt…
8. I just want to point out there is a whole profession that deals with this every day – the Archivist. Information can be found at www.archivists.org – they even have a group of Business Archivists that you can talk to. Thank you for that link – I’ll look into it!
9. Can you provide more information on what Open Standard Format is? I like standards that are well documented in public places – ASCII charts are freely available and widely distributed, for example. These are a message to future generations – when you encounter this file, decode it with this chart! But proprietary formats concern me, especially when their documentation isn’t freely available and open.
10. When will the presentation slides be available? The webinar and slides should be posted at AIIM’s site within two weeks.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Thoughts on Long-Term Archiving
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This makes it much easier to see which drive is which!

I previously wrote about the benefits of custom drive icons, which can help you to keep your removable and internal drives straight, and how to create them on Windows Vista. Well, Mac OS X surprised me by using the same generic icon for every drive, so I set about figuring out how to customize them here, too.

It turns out it’s not only simple to do, but illustrates an odd way in which Apple implemented their split resource/data fork filesystem idea in a GUI. This exercise taught me a lot – what an ICNS file is, how Apple stores drive icons, what a droplet is, and how to use GIMP on a Mac.

This is part 1 – where I’ll go over the basics. Part 2 covers custom Boot Camp drive icons and other troubles.

This post is part of my series focused on Apple OS X tips and tricks.

• Access NTFS Volumes On Your Mac
• Clean Up Your Mac! Essential OS X Tidiness Tools and Techniques
• How To Move OS X Time Machine Backups To A New Disk
• Hallelujah! OS X Can Reduce PDF File Size!
• Custom Drive Icons in Mac OS X
• OS X Custom Drive Icons 2: Boot Camp and NTFS

OS X is pretty clever and consistent in how it handles drive icons. It simply looks in the data fork of the .VolumeIcon.icns file in the root of the drive for an icon resource of type icns, and uses that icon. If it can’t find such a file, it uses one of default icons, designed to suggest either an internal or external (USB or FireWire) drive.

The default icon for an internal disk drive in OS X is not exactly friendly

As a new Mac user, I was surprised at the unfriendly look of the default icons. While external drives get a decidedly iPod-generic white shell, internal disks look like, well, bare disk drives. Which is something most Mac users will never see, since most Macs are locked down tight. I expected a Finder-esque smiley face or an image of the machine itself.

Creating an Icon

So let’s create an icon! For my example, I’m assigning a custom icon to a PQI Intelligent Stick mini USB flash drive. If you already have the icon image, you can skip ahead. Otherwise, read on to learn how to create a drive icon.

1. Locate a good picture of the drive. I went to PQI’s web site and downloaded their publicity image.
2. Now we’re going to clean up the image. I used Wilber Loves Apple’s version of GIMP (the best GIMP I could find)
3. In GIMP, I added an alpha channel (for transparency), and then used the magic wand (with feathered hair edges) to kill the white background.


I added an alpha channel and removed the background in GIMP

4. I then saved it to the desktop as a PNG file.
5. Next, I converted the PNG into an icns using img2icns


img2icns converts PNG files to icns format

6. Finally, to make sure it was the right resource type, I converted the icns file to use itself as its icon using IconDroplet


IconDroplet simply makes an icns into a icon of itself

7. Now I had a perfectly-formed icns resource, ready for use!

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Assigning the Drive Icon

Now we can assign the drive icon to the drive. Note that the drive has to be writable for this to work, which generally means it has to be HFS+ or FAT. I’ll cover adding icons to NTFS and Boot Camp drives later.

1. Right click on your drive and select “Get Info”
2. Leave that inspector up and right-click the icon file from IconDroplet and select “Get Info”


We will copy and paste the icns resource using these inspectors

3. Now we will just move the icns resource from one to the other. Select the desired icon in the upper left corner (not the Preview down below) so it has the blue fuzzies around it and use command-c to copy it.
4. Now select the one you wish to replace in the other inspector (check for the fuzzies again) and use command-v to paste.


Now the drive has the new icon assigned

5. If all went well, you should now have a custom drive icon installed!

So there you have it. You should be able to use this method to assign custom drive icons all day long, as long as the media is writable. I was amused at how Apple uses the inspector windows to assign icons – where Windows would have some buttons to click, OS X is drag and drop. It may be intuitive, but it’s certainly not obvious – even Apple has to have a document describing the process!

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© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Custom Drive Icons in Mac OS X
This post was categorized as Apple, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.