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The Picture Keeper is a revolutionary new way to back up your digital photos. My name is Lee Devlin and I'd like to tell you a little about my background how I got involved in developing it.

I've been in the backup business for a very long time, starting my career at HP's Greeley Storage Division back in the 1980's. At that time, personal computer files were relatively small and everything could be backed up on floppy disks and magnetic tape whose capacity was measured in kilobytes. As time went on, file sizes got bigger and floppy drives could no longer hold sufficient amounts of data. Later writable optical disks were introduced for backing up computer files. Eventually, hard drives got so big that the only way to back them up was with another hard drive! In fact, the last product I worked on for HP was the HP Media Vault, a networked hard drive device for the home and small office. It's a great product, especially when used as way to backup all your computers. However, after I started participating in a website and user forum to help support it, I found that people weren't always using it as intended. Instead of backing up their files to it, some people were migrating all of their data to it to 'free up' space on their PCs. This meant that they effectively had no backup which was ironic since its primary purpose is to backup multiple PCs. That's why when I was asked to help develop the Picture Keeper, I jumped at the opportunity. You can never have too many ways to safeguard your digital pictures.

All hard drives will eventually crash and lose their data. It's just inevitable since spinning bearings begin wearing from the moment they start turning. You can ask any drive manufacturer and they'll tell you that's the case, if they're honest. In fact, any digital storage media can experience data loss and so the only way to protect yourself is to have multiple copies of your data, preferably stored in multiple locations.

On several occasions I've helped people recover data when they lost it due to some mishap. This is very tricky work, and stressful too, because people become distraught when they realize their data may be gone forever. The time and effort required to recover data is the reason data recovery services often charge thousands of dollars per recovery, provided they can recover the data at all.

Perhaps the most important personal data people keep on their computers today are their digital photos. Ten years ago, this wasn't the case because photos were printed on photo paper and stored in albums and shoeboxes, but now that everyone has switched over to using digital cameras, their photo collections are usually stored on their computers. This makes photos convenient to view and share, but there's a downside to it and that is that computers are vulnerable to data loss. For example, you could have a hard drive crash, or a computer virus or power surge wipes out your data. This kind of thing happens to someone every day, and so you need to have a backup to avoid losing your data should it happen to you.

As I mentioned, the best backup strategy is to have multiple copies of your data, preferably in multiple locations. You may already have a backup solution like a network attached storage device or a USB hard drive, and those solutions are good starting points. But if your computer and everything connected to it gets stolen, then your data will be gone too. Also, your home could experience a flood or a fire, and if that's the case, your computer and its data will be lost forever.

The Picture Keeper offers a very simple approach to keeping your data safe. It was first explained to me by my business partner, Matt, who invented the concept. Matt has years of experience helping people with their computers. In his business, he noticed that as people began switching over to digital cameras, they were not using effective backup strategies. In many cases, they had no strategies for protecting their digital pictures at all! Some people don't even think about backing things up until they've suffered a major data loss. But by then it's too late. The Picture Keeper is a USB flash-based drive that has a program that automatically prompts you to start it when you insert it into the USB slot on your computer. The program automatically finds the digital photos on your computer and stores them on its own internal flash memory. There's nothing to configure or install, it automatically takes care of it. A single Picture Keeper is large enough to store collections of thousands of digital photos. It has no internal moving parts and thus is more rugged than a hard drive. I have literally had USB flash-based drives go through a washer and dryer cycle and continue working. Because of their compact size, you can even carry a Picture Keeper with you on a key chain or lanyard. This makes it easy to store your backup in a separate location from your computer, which is a necessity for a truly effective backup approach. You may already keep a flash drive with you and if you do, then you should consider replacing it with a Picture Keeper because each time you use it, you'll be automatically making sure you have a current backup. And it works just fine as a flash drive too, so you can use it to transport files back and forth to your school or office.

Because the device is portable and requires no software installation, you can easily use it on multiple computers in your house and it will find and backup all your photos. This is a great starting point to organize all your photos into one location if you've downloaded them to multiple computers.

The software programs on the Picture Keeper are not locked to it, and that means that if you want to use it on another device, you can do that if you know how to copy the program file from it. If you need help with that, please email me and I'll explain it. You aren't allowed to copy the programs and distribute them, of course; the software is licensed to you only. But this means that if you needs outgrow your Picture Keeper, you can install its programs on a larger drive and migrate your data with it. You can then use your original Picture Keeper as a standard flash drive, or to backup some other file type, since you can easily customize the way that the software works to add or change file types and directories where it looks for data. In a few seconds, you can convert your Picture Keeper into a PowerPoint Keeper or a Quickbooks Keeper or any other number of file types you want to back up.

If you have Mac computers in your home, the Picture Keeper also has a version of its program that is compatible with Mac OS X. It works a little differently than the autorun on the PC, but is just as convenient to use. Just plug in the drive to your Mac and it will bring up an icon of the drive and inside that you see the Picture Keeper icon. Just click on the icon and it will back up your Mac's photos.

If you have any questions about the Picture Keeper, feel free to email me and I'll do my best to answer them. Picture Keeper comes with a 1 year warrandy and you are free to return your Picture Keeper for any reason within 30 days for a full refund if you feel it doesn't live up to its claims. When you order your own Picture Keeper, use the code 'lee10' for a $10 discount on every Picture Keeper you order. All Picture Keepers ordered with that code will also have free access to technical support directly from one of the product's designers -- me ;-). The Picture Keeper makes a great gift for anyone who takes digital pictures and doesn't yet have a backup strategy. If you know someone like that, you should order an extra one to give as a gift.

Here's a short 2 minute demo video that shows how quick and easy it is to use:

Act now and use the $10 discount code 'lee10' which will save you up to 25% on your order!

Lee Devlin
Greeley, CO
970-978-6188

Still not convinced? Here are some customer reviews you can see at Amazon.com:

Nice and Easy!

Purchased the picture keeper hoping for an easy way to keep all my photos on one flash drive. This one fits the bill. All you do is insert the flash drive into a USB port, click on Backup Photos and the flash does all the work. It searches all your files for any .jpg or .jpeg files. On a second backup I added bitmap (.bmp) files and it went and found those. I keep all my data on a drive separate than my programs, so all I had to do was go to Browse, lead it to the drive and it worked great! I would recommend this product. I purchased the 8GB just to be on the safe side. Plenty of room. There is a technical support phone number which I have not had to call.

Cheryl - Spring Hill, FL

Perfect!

I run a PC repair/services company and this product has been wonderful for my clients. External storage devices can be complicated (especially for the average user) and one of the most common issues my clients have is backing up by themselves (pictures in particular). It has made my life easier as well since I don't have to write automated backup programs/scripts, I just give them a picture keeper and they are good to go.

Don K.- San Diego, CA

EASY and PORTABLE way to save photos!

Absolutely LOVED this little gadget. Used to consolidate 3 separate computers photos into one little gadget. Super easy to use, even someone lacking computer knowledge can use it. Just plug it in and let it do its work. Love the little pop up for reminder of monthly 'backup' of your photos. Would definitely recommend this product.

Jennifer R.

Just what I needed

After both my wife and I lost digital images due to problems with our current backup system, I am delighted to find a device that automatically takes care of preserving our images. And it's PC + Mac-friendly. Why didn't someone think of this before?

Peter O.- Windsor, CO

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