Tag Archives: backup

Digi.me is pleased to announce that we continue to have Instagram’s support đźŽ‰

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On June 1st Instagram will cut off access to its feed API. This is how apps help you access your content outside of Instagram. We are pleased that Instagram understands the importance of its users having ongoing access to their photos and are very pleased to be among a select group of developers granted access to its new API.

This means you’ll continue to be able to search, view, download and share photos you’ve posted to Instagram ⛰🎆👍.

If you’re using digi.me on Windows or Mac make sure you update to 7.1.5 before June 1st. If you don’t see an update prompt, download it directly from here.

iOS and Android apps should update themselves but again you can reinstall directly.

If you follow anyone with a private account you will notice that photos you’ve liked of theirs no longer show up in digi.me. This is a known issue with the new API and we’re hopeful it will be fixed real soon.

Desktop users also used to be able to see who followed or stopped following them. Unfortunately this function is no longer available.

Digi.me 7.1.5 for Windows and Mac

Digi.me for iOS

Digi.me for Android

The power of photos to lie as well as enhance

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It’s my eighth wedding anniversary today, but my favourite picture of a truly memorable day isn’t a happy one, and not even really from the day itself. Allow me to explain…

Obviously lots of memories of a great day are very much on my mind, aided happily by my digi.me app serving up a plethora of pictures of a beaming couple surrounded by their favourite people.

I love those pictures too, but the one that is now one of my all-time favourite pictures didn’t surface until a couple of years later. It’s a terrible picture, of pretty much everyone in it, and is far from a reflection of the day, (or our overall photos to be fair) – but it is the one I post every year on social media for the comedy value, because it makes others smile as well without fail, and because – most of all – it makes me smile every time I see it.

Do I look miserable? Yes. My about-to-be husband? Yes, him as well – in fact he looks like he’s about to cry. My dad also looks very serious – and if you took this shot in isolation you’d think we were three people very unhappy with what was about to unfold.

In fact, I was nervous as anything and very wobbly, clinging on to my dad and James was, he tells me, overcome with how lovely I looked. We composed ourselves during the first hymn, said our vows happily and without duress, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But looking at it, and posting it, once again, to Facebook, it served as a very powerful reminder of how snapshots of our life can only be that – one frame in time.

To look back with clarity, depth and certainty on events, particularly as they get further away, requires a fullness of knowledge – multiple pictures, comments, snaps from friends – so that a snapshot broadens out into a jigsaw of memories more representative of the day as a whole.

In this way, pictures can enhance but also distort a memory – and only by taking all that is available and gathering it together can we get a true, overall picture.

And that’s what backing up our real life events and memories brings us – rounded memories to enjoy in future years.

So cheers to digi.me for doing just that, and here’s to the power of digital memories – the good, the bad, and the funny!

Facebook celebrates our friendships on its 12th birthday

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Facebook turns 12 today – which means for most of us there really was a life before it, however it feels sometimes – and it is celebrating users’ friendships to mark the event.

For what the site has dubbed Friends Day, each will see a custom video that celebrates their own lives and friendships popping up at the top of their News Feed, which only they can see unless they choose to share it on their timeline. You can also view your own by clicking ‘watch yours’ at the bottom of a friend’s video.

I’ve seen mine and it’s nicely done – good choice of friends (social interaction data) as well as some pictures that got a good number of likes and comments (most popular data), overlaid with comments from them and a scrolling screen of friends wishing me happy birthday and other nice things in the past.

So, it’s cute, and I don’t doubt that my timeline will be awash with them as more and more of my friends log on through the course of the day.

But what else is the video really telling us? How much time we spend on the network, for one – and just how many important and significant moments are posted or celebrated there.

It’s also a reminder of how pervasive it has become in just over a decade – I have only a handful of friends not on there, and for many, particularly those living abroad, it’s my sole point of contact with them, and how I keep up with their lives.

There are certainly people on there who I wouldn’t be in touch with at all if it weren’t for the ease of keeping up through FB – not because I don’t like them or they’re not important, but because Facebook just makes keeping in touch so effortless once you’re connected.

And that ease of connection and sharing is obviously a huge factor in the news, announced recently, that Facebook now has 1.1 billion users a day. That’s a huge, huge number – something like one in every 9 people on the planet.

Speaking about why it was celebrating users on Friends Day, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “That’s what the best movements do. You find ways to keep it focused on the needs of the community, and it’s not about you.

“And that’s the whole point of Friends Day. We felt like the world was making it too much about us and it’s not about us.”

In actual fact, Facebook couldn’t be more about you, or me, or all of our friends – because our data and our use makes it what it is, end of.

So if you like how Facebook has explored your data, or have suddenly realised just how much of your life is on there, then our digi.me app and its data backup powers combined with powerful insights about which of your posts or pictures are most liked, or who you most influential followers are, is something you’re going to love. Try a free download now!

 

 

Back up your Instagram – or risk losing everything

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Instagram users have reported having their entire accounts suspended or deleted without warning, with no chance to save or back up their content first.

The issue was first highlighted by Hugo Baeta, a Portugese web designer living in San Francisco, who wrote a blog on his shock of having his account with over 900 photos in it deleted hours after posting five videos from a Janet Jackson concert.

What concerned him most was the speed of the action taken, with his account being completely deleted without a chance of defending himself or being  given the opportunity to remove them.

When he tried to respond to links in the emails sent about the videos, which had been the subject of copyright claims, presumably from Jackson’s legal team, he was unable to login and then directed to a help article that told him: “Your account has been deleted for not following our terms. You won’t be able to log into this account and no one else will be able to see it. We’re unable to restore accounts that are deleted for these types of violations.”

As he explained in his blog: “So, my Instagram account got deleted without them giving me any kind of actionable options to follow up. I can’t contest the take-down notice (which would be my legal right), because I can no longer log into my account. My account got deleted for posting 5 videos from a concert that I really loved – something I’ve done countless times with other artists I saw perform live.”

Getting to the crux of the matter, he added: “All of this made me quite introspective today. Something so tiny, in the grand scheme of things, actually has shaken me. I was looking back at all the photos I posted on Instagram over these 3 years (over 900 photos) and all the memories they are associated with. It’s a shame all the comments and reactions to them are lost now. But none of it was ever “mine” to begin with, right?  It’s a fine line for these social network companies… they need users to exist, yet users aren’t the client, we are the product they sell to advertisers.”

Of course, he’s wrong in one way – whatever the T&Cs of the various networks, content and information created by us or about us does fundamentally belong to us – but that’s of very little help in a situation like this where the platform holds all the power.

Occurrences like this show why it is critical that each and every one of us has all of our information, or at least a copy of it, in a place that we own and control – and it is this vital work which is a big driver in the continuing growth and development of our free app, which does just that.

Luckily for Hugo, he has a friend at Facebook (which owns Instagram), who helped him get his account reinstated. But it is clear from the blog comments that others in the same position were not so fortunate. And even Hugo himself is clear he will transition away from Instagram, his faith in it tarnished by this unpleasant experience.

Retrieving Your Personal Information

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From time to time we all think about leaving platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  However before we leave we want to make sure we aren’t losing anything in the process but how do we go about doing that?  This article will run through some simple but effective approaches to help you capture and retrieve as much of your personal information as possible. 

Facebook

When it comes to retrieving your Facebook data there are a few different ways to get your data.  Unfortunately Facebook don’t make it easy to get a copy of everything you have ever put up there and if you want everything you will need to put in a personal data request and from what we hear that can take months for a response.  Officially if you are based in Europe they should be responding within 40 days to your request however history already shows this hasn’t been the case in the past.

In the meantime what you can do to retrieve a lot of your personal data is download digi.me and connect to Facebook to synchronize and retrieve the majority of your personal data.  This will provide you with your wall posts and images direct to your computer and you can export these into an easy to use PDF. To gain access to our private messages you will need to “download a copy of your Facebook Data” which you will find on Facebook under settings. The list of what you will get with this download can be found here and it does include your private messages.

Twitter

Again with Twitter you can use digi.me to automatically download your tweets as you go which will save you time and effort having to regularly remember to download your archive to keep up with your latest twitter updates.  As Twitter limits the amount of time you can go back historically we recommend that you also download your Twitter archive so that you have all your really old Twitter content.  That way you will have all your Twitter updates that you have ever created to date and all the ones you generate in from when you start using digi.me onwards will also be captured.  There are some very comprehensive instructions from Twitter on how retrieve your Tweet archive here.

LinkedIN

Digi.me also works with LinkedIN to help you keep copies of your most recent interactions on the social network.   However you may also wish to put in a request to gain access to every update you have ever made on LinkedIN through their access request page.  They do collect information about your search history and much more. You will be surprised just what this social network really knows about you and your data.

The other useful feature that you may wish to take advantage of within LinkedIN is the ability to export your profile as a PDF.  It is a great starting point for putting together your CV and is a fairly well hidden feature.  There is a little down arrow next to “View Profile As” when you are on your profile page. Click on the arrow and you will find a drop down with a few different options including the option to “Save to PDF”.

Let us know if you have found this article useful and remember to share it with your friends!

Friday Fun: Finding Yourself

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When you lose your phone or your laptop fails you how do you find and restore your digital self?

The other day I lost my phone. Don’t ask me how I will never know!  Anyway it was lost for three whole days and along with it my sanity and my sense of humor were both starting to go as well.  All I will say is thank goodness that my digital life is mainly online and here’s how I managed to recover it!

First of all I started searching for my phone… I looked everywhere, turned the house upside down… then started searching my car and anywhere I’d been recently. It took forever and I didn’t find it.  So then I decided to play detective…

  1. What was the last social media content that I uploaded? What were the last pictures of me online and what was I wearing? (Maybe it is in my clothes or maybe it will give me an idea of where I was when I lost my phone… (I used the digi.me journal to do this bit as it was quicker than looking at each social network individually!)
  2. All my photo’s are backed up to the cloud so I also then went through the most recent image uploads there… The last images that were uploaded were at home… that’s a start then… it’s unlikely to be anywhere but home…
  3. My phone is on Android OS so I then decided to see what information Google had captured about my location to confirm this last assumption. All I needed to do was search “find my phone” on Google and it shows the last place it saw it.  Thank goodness it agreed the last place I had it was at home!
  4. So now to work out what I did with it.  I knew where I’d been that day so then went through the bags I’d used and voila my phone was found!

So you see social media and my online digital presence can be used to track my every move.

Your challenge today is to find out what information is out there about you and share your story online.  Remember when you share your story tag it with #itsyourlife and we’ll share the best of them on Twitter and Facebook!

Digi.me: The Results – User Survey 2015

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Firstly a BIG thank you to everyone who completed our survey over the last few months.  Your insights have been invaluable as has your feedback. Those of you who claimed your account upgrade at the end of the survey should find that your account has now been upgraded. If you are having any issues with this please let us know.

We promised to share the results of the survey with you and what better way to do that than in an infographic.

Click here or on the image below to see the full survey results!

survey results thumbnail

If you are just hearing about digi.me today then why not try us out for free by downloading our software here.

Digi.me Version 7.0.4 Is Now Available

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Digi.me version 7.0.4 was released yesterday evening and many of you will see the release notes when you are asked to upgrade to it.  In this release we have made some major alterations to how we interact with Facebook due to Facebook no longer supporting Facebook Messages download and Facebook Friends download.  All previously downloaded data will of course still be available.

We have added additional language support to our PDF export functionality and improved the Top Bar features throughout the app.  With upgrading digi.me to use the new Facebook API syncronising your personal data is now even faster than before capturing those precious moments forever.

To ensure peace of mind remember to always back up your social media data as you never quite know when your social media providers are going to change how and what data you have access to.

 

Useful Backup Tools

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You know that you need to backup your computer and your online content but what are the best tools for the job?  This article gives you some suggestions of tools that you can use to do just that.

PC Backup Tools

There are lots of options when it comes to backing up a PC and some of these are free or relatively cheap and some are paid for services.

Online vs Offline Backups… You have two options with your PC.  You can back your content up online or you can back it up to an offline device.  If you have poor internet access then we would suggest you go with doing offline backups to an external hard drive.  This would be your quickest and simplest answer however it is easy to forget to do it so set a reminder in your calendar to do it regularly.

If you have decent internet access then online backups are certainly a quick and painless approach if you don’t have loads of large files to back up. There are a range of services out there that offer this.

This article from PC Pro gives a good comprehensive list of cloud backup services for you to choose from.

Mac Backup Tools

Similarly to backing up a PC you can back up a mac to an external hard drive if you don’t have a good internet connection.

Cloud backup tools are also an option but remember with a mac you also have the option of backing up to iCloud.  You can find the instructions on how to do this here.

Mobile Backup Tools

Mobiles can be one of those things that you just completely forget to back up and yet they are one of the things that we use most and capture a lot of our memories with.  So how exactly can you back up your phone contacts, pictures and more?  If you have an iPhone the answer is easy. Just use iCloud and voila.

If you are on an Android or Windows phone then backup services such as OneDrive and GoogleDrive are great alternative options. This article on the 10 Best Android Backup Apps may come in handy for those looking for a tool to just do it all without any technical know how.  For Windows phone just follow these simple instructions to set where you want your data backed up to.

Social Media Backup Tools

When it comes to our online social media content we often don’t consider backing it up and yet we would be lost without it!  So how do you back up your content from social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIN?  The answer here is simple. You can download digi.me for free and back up your four favourite social media accounts for free for a year this World Backup Day!

Make the most of the offer and tell your friends and family!

Why backups are so important

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Every day you probably hear at least one person in the office go “Aaah help I’ve just lost everything I did in the last hour!” or something similar.  That is unless they have a backup and then they just revert to that and off they go again.

On the 31st March 2015 it is World Backup Day and to celebrate the occasion we are offering our software free for 1 year to all those who download between now and the 31st March.

What is a backup?

A backup is a recent historical version of the document, update or information that you have been working on. It is usually not as up to date as the latest version but it is there for you to fall back on should you ever need it.

Why would I need that?

Well quite simply we all make mistakes. We save over things, we delete things that we really didn’t mean to delete and we do things without realizing what or how that will impact things in the future. If the content is on a mobile phone or laptop then the content or the device could get damaged, lost or stolen.

When should I backup?

It is worth backing up your computer, phone and tablet at least once a week but if that is just a bit too often aim for once a month.

What about your online content?

Many people don’t realize that they can backup their online content especially their social media content. By using digi.me they can backup their social media content quickly on a daily basis so they never lose their updates or images ever again.