RANT : Lost Life Data

Being a middle aged (the latter end of "middle"!) person, i don't take all this new technology for granted. Yes, i'm thrilled silly with my iPod, and love my netbook, and i think it's great that the Smartphones can do all the things they do - but i am also old enough to remember when cassette tapes were hi tech! So i see the other side of it. i own a pay as you go cell phone and still have a land line - i can't bring myself to trust a phone that can run out of battery power! That's just too unreliable - we have elderly parents - i don't want one of them to get sick and not be able to call me because my battery died or i ran out of minutes!

And while i couldn't live without my computer now, it still bothers me that the information i'm now putting on CDs, SD cards, flash drives, and peripheral hard drives may not be able to be accessed in a couple of years because there will be NEW ways to store data! i have my resume on a floppy disk, had it safely on there for years and could update it at anytime - now it's just a piece of plastic! i still have my old PC - it does have USB ports, so hopefully (if i ever think about doing it) i could transfer the resume to a flash drive. i know there are solutions,but, as a self described computer illiterate and old person, it's a lot

of work and confusing - more trouble than it's worth!

i had a scanner - just utilized it on occasion - and now, after i acquired my last PC, it's too old, not compatible, and also junk! i paid a lot for that thing at the time - now i have to invest in another one when the one i have is like brand new! Then i have to explain to my "Don't get any of those newfangled gadgets near me!" hubby WHY i'm throwing away an expensive, perfectly good piece of computer equipment!

Some of my NEVER USED floppy discs sitting on my useless scanner...
Hey, they're for sale....... cheap!

So are all these photos i painstakingly transferred to a CD for posterity going to be unavailable to me in a few years, or will i have to transfer all of them to something else? i know there are companies that can store all of my data for a monthly fee. Great - what if they disappear 3 years from now? What if i lose my job and can't AFFORD the monthly fee anymore?

i guess i'm looking for certainty in an uncertain world, and may never get what i want, but i wonder if i'm the ONLY person who has noticed any of this stuff!?