Digital versus hard copy

[Moses Yoder]

I kind of prefer the digital world. Okay, for some books that would be sacrilege, like Krenov or Nakashima, but most everything I do nowadays is on my lap top. I have a good but relatively cheap HP laptop with 4 gig memory 750 gig HDD with a 2.4 Ghz Core I3 processor, Windows 8.1. All of my music is digital, my car stereo accepts a flash drive. I also have a Kindle but lately have just put the Kindle app on my laptop and read books with it. A good example is the new Willie Nelson CD that was released last fall. My wife preordered it for my birthday and the day the CD was shipped from Amazon they automatically loaded the album onto our Cloud storage, I downloaded it and started playing it that evening. When the disc was delivered to our house I put it in my desk without opening it, still in the original plastic wrap. So what do you think of the digital world? My wife hates it for some reason, can't figure that out. She doesn't want to stream Netflix, needs hard copies for everything.

[Larry Edgerton]

I'm in your wife's camp. I like having a hard copy although I use digital most often. I like the sound of albums though so what do I know.

Larry

[Curt Harms]

.........................
My wife hates it for some reason, can't figure that out. She doesn't want to stream Netflix, needs hard copies for everything.

Dunno, it might be a female thing - my wife is the same way. Might it be "I can hold this in my hand so I know it's real and durable (sort of), I can't see or hold an MP3 or MPEG2 file"?

[Matt Meiser]

Going more and more digital here. Some of the stuff we still get on paper and can't switch drives me nuts. One issue e-bills raised for us is that only one of us was seeing them. We fixed that by creating a new email account which forwards to both of us.

[Joe Tilson]

I am more of a hard copy person, because I can sit back in the chair and study what is in my hands (I have a bad back). I do use the computer to find whatever I'm looking for, then copy it for reading. Having to lean forward to see what's on the comp screen with progressive lenses really puts a kink in one's neck. Yes, I'm old and old fashioned (by today's standards). In the sixties we were right in there, yeah mannnn, we were cool and buzzed.:eek::D

[Matt Meiser]

But you can do that with a tablet. ;)

[Dan Hintz]

Searching is easier on digital versions, but a hardcopy is easier for locating the same thing over and over, as well as being easier to read (for me).

That said, I will not accept anything digital that requires DRM of any form... I've seen too many cases where something was purchased, only to be "lost" when the DRM scheme decided it was no longer yours (such as when the DRM server company decides they no longer want to be in business).

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

I didn't think I would ever like to convert to electronic format for reading books. My MIL was given a kindle and she was very frustrated with it. I tried helping her out and set it up and I did not like it either. (It's many years old now.) It was very cumbersome to use. We bought her an ipad to replace and she LOVES it. She was so pleased with the ipad that I set her up with iBooks and transferred her ebooks from the kindle account to her ipad.

While trying to set her up on the ipad, I downloaded iBooks to my iphone so that I could see how it works and step her through any problems she had. Little did I know how much I would like reading books on my iphone! I always have a book with me now for when I have a few spare minutes to read. I can read in bed in the dark while the LOML is sleeping. I also love the ability to highlight text for future reference, as well as quickly look up a word in the dictionary. Another example is I was reading an ebook on car "barn finds" and it was listing all sorts of cars I had never heard of. I could highlight the name of the car and do an internet search from my iphone and find other photos of that car. The funny thing is, it turned out my MIL hates reading books on her ipad, yet still loves everything else on her ipad.

[David G Baker]

I have a Kindle paper white and love it. It fits in my coat pocket much better than a book, it is light and I can read it in bright Sun light. If I want something to keep I prefer hard copy or on my external hard drive. I have had drives crash on me so I am not 100% comfortable with digital in some cases. I also burn important photos and files onto a CD or DVD. I still have files on 3 1/2 disks and 5 1/4 floppies but I also have old computers with the old drives in them so I can access the files if I need to.

[David Weaver]

I like hard copies, and won't buy anything that isn't productivity related where someone else controls the license after I bought it. My wife uses itunes, but I don't (I don't use any apple products, actually, it seems like you have to pay for something every time you move).

[Rich Enders]

Just today I read about a classroom study of students who read the subject material on a tablet versus those who read it on a hard copy. For some reason the hard copy readers retained more of the information.

[Mike Cozad]

I have a Kindle paper white and love it. It fits in my coat pocket much better than a book, it is light and I can read it in bright Sun light. If I want something to keep I prefer hard copy or on my external hard drive. I have had drives crash on me so I am not 100% comfortable with digital in some cases. I also burn important photos and files onto a CD or DVD. I still have files on 3 1/2 disks and 5 1/4 floppies but I also have old computers with the old drives in them so I can access the files if I need to.

I also like to store important info electronically as well. I've done some research on using cdr or dvdr for it and I have quit doing it. My research finds that if you don't store them perfectly the substrate starts to deteriorate, sometimes as fast a just a couple of years. And the cheaper the manufacturere, the worse it gets. I am using space on the Google cloud until I find a better solution.

Anyone have better advice?

[Matt Meiser]

Just today I read about a classroom study of students who read the subject material on a tablet versus those who read it on a hard copy. For some reason the hard copy readers retained more of the information.

Paid for by whom?

[William Adams]

Reading / listening digitally is convenient, but has some drawbacks:

- DRM --- there're a couple of songs and books I've bought on accounts I can no longer access which I will lose when the devices they're on cease functioning
- image quality --- as good as a Retina display is, it doesn't have the same # of pixels as a printed b/w page, and there's no way for it to match the subtleties of a ``double-dot black'' print (granted, I only have one book so printed, but it's gorgeous) --- certain fonts just don't display well either --- it's not quite the same reading Optima on a screen as it is reading a letterpress-printed book set in Optima
- access speed / convenience --- I need to find a better PDF reader for my iPad, which can deal w/ having _hundreds_ of issues of a particular magazine loaded --- it kills me that iBooks doesn't automatically put them in a folder. Similarly, while I have an iPod-enabled stereo in my truck, it's really tedious repeatedly pressing the ``Next Album'' button to get out of the ``A''s (I never thought I'd get tired of listening to _Abbey Road_, but I am)
- display size --- I really wish that there were more affordable machines w/ larger high-density displays --- it kills me that I can't find a ThinkPad w/ a 1400x1050 display for a reasonable price

[Moses Yoder]

Just today I read about a classroom study of students who read the subject material on a tablet versus those who read it on a hard copy. For some reason the hard copy readers retained more of the information.

This leads me to assume that ink has some magical quality that actually imbeds the information on the paper into the brain. Who'd 'a thunk it?

[Rich Enders]

Matt Meiser,

"Paid for by whom" is a point well taken. It was a short "Trend" from USA Today, and does not really identify interested parties. Here is what they said:

"An e-book may be lighter in your backpack, but a new survey says reading them might make your brain lighter, too. An associate education professor of education and an instructor at Westchester University found that middle-schoolers who used e-books were more likely to be excited to read them, but also retained less information. They couldn't answer reading comprehension questions as well as the students who used hard copies of the book, reports USA Today College's Memet Walker".

[Michael Mahan]

I also like to store important info electronically as well. I've done some research on using cdr or dvdr for it and I have quit doing it. My research finds that if you don't store them perfectly the substrate starts to deteriorate, sometimes as fast a just a couple of years. And the cheaper the manufacturere, the worse it gets. I am using space on the Google cloud until I find a better solution.

Anyone have better advice?buy hard drives on sale & then buy the empty external enclosures for like $15.oo (NewEgg) , transfer the files Then don't use the hard drive unless it's to access & back up files they will last forever
I do this with music in FLAC 's when I want to listen I transfer the files to a 2ndary drive on the P/C or a thumb drive to use in the car
the storage files & that storage drive barely sees any use except to transfer

[Rich Enders]

Moses,

Your sarcasm is well taken. For reference I posted the entire USA Today brief above. This "study" is hardly the final answer, but is worth considering. I certainly am more comfortable reading from a hard copy, but I have been doing it for a long time. But, those middle-schoolers probably are still more used to hard copies also. Barring that I guess it has to be magic...

[Matt Meiser]

The safest method (but less secure) is probably cloud storage and staying on top of your subscription. Use file formats that are very widespread like JPG, PDF and MS Office and up convert as needed over time.

I should check if it's still set right, if the setting is even there anymore, but I used to have my iTunes set to download and rip as MP3.

The private high school I went to and my daughter will go to in 2 years (:eek:) has gone to e-textbooks and mandatory iPads. They wouldn't have done it without a lot of research so that's a pretty good endorsement for me.

[Rich Enders]

Matt,

Noted what your old school has done regarding e-books. In the AZ Republic today, another one of our local HS's has made the same decision. It is in the financial interest of the technology suppliers to promote it so we have to be vigilant to confirm it is truly a good way. It is the equally interesting side of your question about "Paid for by whom?".

I bring no expertise to this subject, but at a ripe old age have become cynical about lots of new ideas.

[Brian Ashton]

I didn't think I would ever like to convert to electronic format for reading books. My MIL was given a kindle and she was very frustrated with it. I tried helping her out and set it up and I did not like it either. (It's many years old now.) It was very cumbersome to use. We bought her an ipad to replace and she LOVES it. She was so pleased with the ipad that I set her up with iBooks and transferred her ebooks from the kindle account to her ipad.

While trying to set her up on the ipad, I downloaded iBooks to my iphone so that I could see how it works and step her through any problems she had. Little did I know how much I would like reading books on my iphone! I always have a book with me now for when I have a few spare minutes to read. I can read in bed in the dark while the LOML is sleeping. I also love the ability to highlight text for future reference, as well as quickly look up a word in the dictionary. Another example is I was reading an ebook on car "barn finds" and it was listing all sorts of cars I had never heard of. I could highlight the name of the car and do an internet search from my iphone and find other photos of that car. The funny thing is, it turned out my MIL hates reading books on her ipad, yet still loves everything else on her ipad.

I'm about to go on a 2 day flight and thought about buying some ebooks but they're not much good when the batteries die... So I'm sticking with old school paperbacks.

As was said earlier also. You can't lend a digital what ever. Old school has a lot of benefits.

[Curt Harms]

I also like to store important info electronically as well. I've done some research on using cdr or dvdr for it and I have quit doing it. My research finds that if you don't store them perfectly the substrate starts to deteriorate, sometimes as fast a just a couple of years. And the cheaper the manufacturere, the worse it gets. I am using space on the Google cloud until I find a better solution.

Anyone have better advice?

I bought a refurbed DVD drive at MicroCenter for $15. It was M-Disc capable which I'd never heard of. Taking the 1000 year claim with a large grain of salt it still sounds kind of interesting for archival purposes. The Navy ran some accelerated aging tests on various grades of DVD-R and M-Disc. M-Disc withstood corrosive environments much better than organic dye based media.

http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/

Another possibility is to use archival quality media and store it properly.

http://www.mediasupply.com/archive-data-storage.html

Of course there's always the question will anyone even remember what a DVD/BluRay disc is in 50+ years when long-forgotten discs are discovered at the bottom of a box.

[Matt Meiser]

In our school--paid for by the school (infrastructure) and parents. We have to but the ipad and the books that go in it.

[Brian Kerley]

I'm fairly young and usually an early adopter on all things tech. I try to get high-end stuff whenever I can, and spend tons of time on my computer/phone/tablet every day.

I prefer actual books to digital copies.
MP3s are fine, though I don't like subscription based services (I want to own the song)
Movies, I want a disc. Then I can rip it and transcode into whatever format I want. I can stream it across multiple devices/platforms at any time.

I basically am anti-DRM and want freedom to do with my items whatever I want.

[Myk Rian]

The safest data storage without using the cloud is writing it to an, M-disc. It is a BURNED substrate, unlike a regular CD.
Data is good for 1,000 years or more.

[Shawn Pixley]

For traveling, e books can't be beat. Ones and zeros weigh very little compared to 4-5 books to haul around. For books as a reference (art books, techniques, woodworking books, etc...) I prefer hardcopy. On my iPad I have about 50 books right now. We have a pretty large library at home which reminds me, I need to build some more bookshelves.

[Michael Koga]

I'm on my 4th Kindle. The early Kindles were nice, but the paperwhite has the best screen.

Unlike a Ipad or tablet, the battery will last weeks before needing a charge. I've read the Hobbit and LOTR on less then one charge. I do keep wifi off unless needed.

[Matt Meiser]

Yes, I find that to be true as well. I have had a kindle maybe 4 years now and while I use my ipad when traveling since it's Multi-purpose, my kindle gets more reading use at home. EXCEPT...I recently found that Kindle magazine subscriptions are often dirt cheap but they require a tablet.

[Charles Wiggins]

As a librarian live firmly in both worlds and I see advantages and disadvantages to both. I don't really like reading long form on a screen, but you can't do a keyword search in print. In fact, my own personal preference is to have the print book in hand while listening to the audiobook. I guess my biggest problem is that the industry won't conform to a standard. A lot of providers are still proprietary and the best technologies don't always win (Anybody still got their Betamax?).

I was at a presentation years ago (pre-Kindle) from netLibrary (now eBooks on EBSCOhost) where they showed us some usage data, and the average use at that time was under two minutes. Basically, most people were using it for reference rather than reading. A lot of better, more portable screens have come out since then.

We've gone about 98% digital on music. We have a HUGE MP3 archive on a networked drive so we can listen to anything anywhere we have a computer. I have a portable speaker that accepts a flash drive to play MP3s. The big drawback is that there's no menu screen; just forward, back, and pause. I just listen to the radio in the car, but my son's car stereo accepts a flash drive as well.


My wife hates it for some reason, can't figure that out. She doesn't want to stream Netflix, needs hard copies for everything.

I hope she realizes that when she plays a DVD or Blu Ray it's still a digital signal, it's just that the origin of the signal is local instead of over the Web.

Cheers,
Charles

[Moses Yoder]

I would guess that the type of person who learns by reading is also the type of person who wants a more tactile experience. Seriously, when I went to high school I did not believe I would ever own a computer. One of the differences I see in the digital age is that information is so plentiful that we have to scan a lot of it in order to find the details we want. Most people read at speeds of about 400 words per minute but when scanning a web age to find what I want a lot of the info is scanned but never really registers, I might be looking at 800 words per minute. When reading a book I read each word to get every detail because it all pertains to the subject I am interested in. This is a generalisation but would perhaps explain the results of the test. Even though both are reading the exact same words, the book has more authority.

[Kev Williams]

To umm, turn a page on this discussion-- What about digitally scanning your bills, receipts and other paperwork with those things they sell on TV-- guess it's convenient to have a scanner automatically sort and file your paperwork electronically, but--- afterwards, do you throw out the paperwork? I kinda wonder what the IRS would say about being handed a flashdrive loaded with pictures of your business receipts rather than ACTUAL receipts...?

[Chris Parks]

I'm about to go on a 2 day flight and thought about buying some ebooks but they're not much good when the batteries die... So I'm sticking with old school paperbacks.

As was said earlier also. You can't lend a digital what ever. Old school has a lot of benefits.

The advantage of the Kindle is that the batteries last for weeks with constant reading as there is no HD or backlight to flatten them.

[Chris Parks]

To umm, turn a page on this discussion-- What about digitally scanning your bills, receipts and other paperwork with those things they sell on TV-- guess it's convenient to have a scanner automatically sort and file your paperwork electronically, but--- afterwards, do you throw out the paperwork? I kinda wonder what the IRS would say about being handed a flashdrive loaded with pictures of your business receipts rather than ACTUAL receipts...?

I have recently taken the step to digitise all my bills, accounts etc and junk the paper but they are household not business related. I am also considering putting a spreadsheet into each folder and as they are done adding the expense to the spreadsheet and then linking all that to a master sheet that updates automatically. I am not sure if that will work and have to investigate it a bit more but it sounds good.

[Larry Edgerton]

My wifes Bean she has been putting music in for years just died. Reason #1 to have hard copies. In the album days I always played the album once, put it on reel to reel and put it away so I always had backup.

As far as books, I have a Kindle but just use it on trips. I like reading real bools for what ever reason.

Larry

[Matt Meiser]

My wifes Bean she has been putting music in for years just died. Reason #1 to have hard copies. In the album days I always played the album once, put it on reel to reel and put it away so I always had backup.

No that's yet another of a multitude of examples I've seen proving that good backups stored in a physically separate location are critical. CDs, tapes ore vinyl certainly qualify as backups but if you store the backups electronically and you can reload a new device in minutes. Store them on cd and you've got hours of ripping ahead. Storage is dirt cheap.

[Curt Harms]

To umm, turn a page on this discussion-- What about digitally scanning your bills, receipts and other paperwork with those things they sell on TV-- guess it's convenient to have a scanner automatically sort and file your paperwork electronically, but--- afterwards, do you throw out the paperwork? I kinda wonder what the IRS would say about being handed a flashdrive loaded with pictures of your business receipts rather than ACTUAL receipts...?

That's actually a very good question. I'm pretty certain enterprises with thousands of employees don't keep paper receipts of each employee's expense account items yet those expenses are certainly deducted. I do recall reading years ago - pre 'cloud' - that it was necessary to use write once media, not re-writeable media. Beyond that I really don't know. A lot of people no longer receive mailed bank and credit card statements. Lots of billing and payment transactions are never committed to paper these days. I presume in the event of an audit that the tax people could look at the bank or credit card company's records to see if they're the same as the presented account info. I'm just guessing though.

[Matt Meiser]

I know many of the multinational corporations I've done work for, invoices go to a central location and are scanned. I don't know what happens to them after that but no one I work with ever sees the paper. Possibly they send it to someone like Iron Mountain for archiving?

7-8 years ago I was involved in developing a portal that chemical suppliers for a large automaker used to submit all their data electronically which we manipulated and loaded into a commercial environmental software package that then did the regulatory reporting. The only "paper" we ever got was MSDS sheets which data entry people loaded into an online system which was how they were available to employees of that company. I say "paper" because even then a lot of them were coming in as PDF. And we were involved in an initiative to define a standard XML schema for MSDS data. That's all highly regulated stuff and the EPA was accepting it.

[Ole Anderson]

I tend to use digital. Nothing yet has been said about photography. I guess it almost goes without saying that hard copy film based photography is almost a thing of the past with a few hold outs as with vinyl recordings. But viewing the photographs is another matter. I tend to view everything on the screen and don't bother printing anything out. But I have friends that will still have key shots printed for an album. The difference is now you will shoot a thousand pics on a trip, not just a few rolls of film.

Another item touched on is electronic billing vs getting bills by snail mail. We have converted to digital in this area as much as possible, including church contributions.

I have converted much of my music to digital for use on my Nano Ipod. I can use that tiny storage device on a plane with my noise cancelling earphones or in my car with a cable to the USB port. BUT I don't use an MP3 format, I choose a lossless format (WMA) to keep the best fidelity.

[Chris Parks]

My doctor's office is totally paperless, when you walk in they give you a tablet and you fill in a form on it.

[Brian Ashton]

The advantage of the Kindle is that the batteries last for weeks with constant reading as there is no HD or backlight to flatten them.

Ya point taken. Didn't think anything on batteries could last that long.

[Ed Aumiller]

Being an old person and involved in computers starting in 1966... data formats change... important information can be lost when updated hardware/software comes out unless you go to great pains to keep it updated to latest gizmo...
Example, tape recorded my oldest sons first sounds... went from reel to reel, to cassette, etc... even took it to floppies, etc still it is now gone...

Anything very important, may use digital to do it now, such as taxes, but keep a hard copy just in case....
Wife has probably 25000 pictures.... they scroll on our tv constantly... but I still print out the best to put in wood frames and photo albums....

A photo album of my kids 40 years ago is much more satisfying to peruse with a glass of wine than sitting in front of a screen or tv and looking at them...

Same thing for written material...

Digital is great, but if anything happens, may not be permanent enough for the irreplaceable things...

Even if material will last 1000 years, if nothing is available to read it, it is useless....

How many of you have VCR tapes recorded and no working VCR??? Or vinyl albums and no record player...???

[Chris Parks]

The preservation of digital information has (so I am told) become a real hot potato. Between new formats and hardware failure it is difficult to see how the information of today will be able to be accessed and read in a hundred years time let alone five hundred. A book can sit on a shelf and apart from dusting needs little or no maintenance but the worlds digital information is a high upkeep job which can only grow bigger. There is a lot to be said for the printed page and Guttenberg was definitely onto something.

[Chuck Wintle]

I kind of prefer the digital world. Okay, for some books that would be sacrilege, like Krenov or Nakashima, but most everything I do nowadays is on my lap top. I have a good but relatively cheap HP laptop with 4 gig memory 750 gig HDD with a 2.4 Ghz Core I3 processor, Windows 8.1. All of my music is digital, my car stereo accepts a flash drive. I also have a Kindle but lately have just put the Kindle app on my laptop and read books with it. A good example is the new Willie Nelson CD that was released last fall. My wife preordered it for my birthday and the day the CD was shipped from Amazon they automatically loaded the album onto our Cloud storage, I downloaded it and started playing it that evening. When the disc was delivered to our house I put it in my desk without opening it, still in the original plastic wrap. So what do you think of the digital world? My wife hates it for some reason, can't figure that out. She doesn't want to stream Netflix, needs hard copies for everything.
I agree that digital documents, music etc are the way of the future since the trend is sway from paper, cd's movies and all of that but when uou consider how fragile the entire digital domain is to me its a bit scary. A couple of strong EMP's can cripple the internet, destroy hard d rives and generally wipe out all data. The redundancy though can make this scenario unlikely. As one poster said printed books can still be read and understood after hundreds and hundreds of just sitting on a shelf.