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Archiver > TMG > 2011-05 > 1306614137


From: Lee Hoffman <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Back-up Problem -- External Exhibits
Date: Sat, 28 May 2011 16:22:17 -0400
References: <445192.36805.qm@web83608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <445192.36805.qm@web83608.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>


Fred Claussen wrote:
>Many of the exhibits are 3 - 5 Mb .jpg files taken from original
>docs with my camera. So it seems likely that this is the
>problem. I only have ~ 900 people and ~ 1000 sources in this
>project. But I document them (and my conclusions) as much as
>possible with digital images of the cited sources.

I presume that you are speaking of census images or photocopies of
letters, etc. Are you planning on printing those images in
reports? My guess is that you are not (with some exceptions). In
such cases, I would remove them as TMG External Exhibits and just
store the files in some other folder outside of TMG (could still be
within the TMG folder scheme for ease of access). This would reduce
the number of Exhibits and the size of the External Exhibits.

Personally, I do not keep _most_ photocopied data unless it is
something that I cannot access otherwise. Most census records,
military records, vital stats, etc. are so easily accessed on line
today that saving the copy on one's computer is just redundancy. I
understand the desire (not need) to have easy access; but with good
citations, one can easily find the same image on line in just a short
time -- in about a minute or less. Not having them as External
Exhibits not only reduces TMG project file sizes and TMG Backup file
size, it reduces the amount of hard drive space that is used.

Still, if you want to keep the image files for you own use, that can
still be done without attaching the files as External Exhibits in
your project. That give you easy access without affecting your project.

I based my statement about a ZIP file size limit of 4GB on a Wiki
entry. Further information indicates the limit may be only 2GB. My
main project is about 51 thousand persons, but with only about 400
External Exhibits having an average of less than 0.5 MB of size. My
TMG Backup SQZ file sizes are all less than 200 MB with External
Exhibits included.

>I have been ignoring this problem for a couple of years when I back
>up by "un-checking" the external exhibits option -- not "best practice."

Including or not including External Exhibit in a TMG Backup may or
may not be "bets practice". It is good to have backups of your
data, but how the backups are done may vary widely.

Hope this helps -

Lee Hoffman/KY
TMG Tips: <http://www.tmgtips.com>;
My website: <http://www.tmgtips.com/lhoffman>;
A user of the best genealogy program, The Master Genealogist (TMG)


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