Our Heritage Preservation

This week's issue of Our Heritage Preservation is now available at our website. 

In concert with the office of the U.S. Surgeon General, "Preserving Our Family through Family Health Histories" makes a strong recommendation to gather health data as part of genealogical research. This issue's Action Ideas for Active People provides the first of three steps to help you collect and share your family's health histories.

Get a free subscription to Our Heritage Preservation and every future issue will come directly to your email inbox plus with your subscription order you can obtain a complimentary copy of SOS: Saving our (Great American) Stories, A Quick Start Summary.  

Our Heritage Preservation Debuts

Our Heritage Preservation, a new, free magazine, delivered directly to your email inbox debuts early next month in commemoration of National Family Heritage month. Congress first designated October as National Family Heritage Month 10 years ago and during the past decade there was a tremendous increase in interest in genealogy and tracing the roots of one's family.


The new publication offers stories and small projects to assist in creating and preserving family trees while preparing a survival kit for a family's photos, color slides, and important documents. Early subscribers will receive a complimentary, quick start summary of SOS: Saving Our (Great American) Stories.


Visit Our Heritage Preservation to subscribe today!

New Beginnings: Kim, Kris & Irene.

What a Weekend!


Kim & Kris got hitched and Irene got spawned in the Eastern Caribbean. The Monday morning news editors are jockeying to give both stories the visibility they deserve, and while there's a shortage of data to predict the future of Hurricane Irene and its potential affect on the U.S. mainland, there's plenty of information (and more to come) about the Kim Kardashian/Kris Humphries wedding.


When you're a star on reality TV or a professional basketball player, everything you do--good and bad--is documented on film, videotape, and in print. No so for the rest of us. We have our favorite photographs and some video of our kids and grandchildren growing up, but our entire collection of video doesn't get close to the amount of  video taken from multiple angles of the Kardashian-Humphries gala affair. 


Imagine, the images from your kids' lifetime don't add up to those of an evening of a lifetime. More important, when there's huge commercial value to your video, there's a plan to take care of those images so that they're protected from loss. With Irene swirling in the Caribbean this week, they'll be plenty of heartbroken people who lose lots, including their family's wedding photographs, as wind and floods invade the security of their homes. 


As you make a plan, build a kit, and stay informed in anticipation of a natural disaster, give some thought to how and what photos, video, color slides, and documents you want to protect . . . . unless your last name is Kardashian or Humphries. Then you can let others do it for you. If you're on your own though, check out our Important Things Index or the EvacuPacket, a Do-It-Yourself kit. If you decide to buy one, commemorate the first hurricane of the 2011 season and use coupon code ZCBA3B to save $10.00.


Have a memorable day!

Bye-bye Emily.

Greetings from South Florida!

Yeah! We dodged Emily!

Boo-o-o. The National Weather Service added a couple of storms to its prediction for this hurricane season.

What have you done to protect the things you want to enjoy and ensure that they're available for your children to enjoy? Digitize now. Take the photos on display in your living room. If you have the negatives or files and you've locked them away in your safe deposit box, good for you! If you’re like me, and you don’t know where they are, it would be a good idea to scan and make digital files of those photos now.

After all, if those photos are on display in your home, they’re the ones that you like the most. Make sure that they’ll be there for your children and grandchildren . . . all your grandchildren because once you replicate a photo electronically, you can make as many duplicates as you want. It’s easy.

Have a memorable day. 

WSJ--25 Documents You Need Before You Die

The Wall Street Journal recommends collecting 25 documents before you die. Comments to the article by Saabira Chaudhuri include more.

Our Heritage Vault thinks there are lots more things to consider and to remember that information is only good if you and designated members of your family have access to it. Compare our lists of things to think about.

Have a Memorable Day!

Steve

Protecting My Smartphone Apps

Last night, Verizon Wireless invited me to download and upgrade to Android 2.2 Froyo. Having heard good things about the latest version of Android, I was ready . . . but not ready enough. Verizon Wireless encourages the download and offers more information for my Samsung GalaxyS telephone. Unfortunately, the information at  http://support.vzw.com/system_update/samsung_fascinate.html is skimpier than the hair on my head.


It's not a disaster but I should have been better prepared for the changes that occurred. I clicked the "Okay" button and the download started. Once installed, I roamed around a bit, but my handset got bogged down in upgrading the apps that I had previously downloaded. All of my apps were listed plus it looks like some additional ones that Verizon included.


The biggest change is that my shortcuts and my arrangement of shortcuts were eliminated. All the things that made my phone my own were gone . . . poof! Had I know that this would happen, I would have included it in my preparedness for a lost smartphone. Knowledge is power and power is very helpful in disaster recovery. Here's how to increase your knowledge and rapidly recover when your smartphone is lost or stops operating correctly. In addition to this upgrade, I had to replace a smartphone when the on/off button did not function correctly and spent a lot of time changing the settings of my new phone. So, now that I'm wiser, let me share some ideas about how to be better prepared for these types of changes. You want images of your telephones apps and their layout to get you back on track as quickly as possible.

Screen Capture 
of Samsung
Galaxy S 
Grid View

Expectations: Remember that you are preparing reference material in the event of a catastrophe. The images that you obtain in this process may not be presentation quality but they will remind you of the apps that you downloaded and how you used your smartphone.  Those images will help you recover more quickly in case of a flood, fire, or other community or personal disaster.


Equipment Required: Flatbed Scanner. (You can also use a digital camera with zoom lens on a tripod.)


Instructions for a Samsung GalaxyS smartphone using the Android operating system:

• Preparation: 
• Go to: Settings/DisplaySettings/Brightness> Adjust to maximum brightness. 
• Go to: Settings/Display Settings/Screen Timeout> Adjust the setting to 2 minutes. 
• Go to: Applications. 
• Adjust the settings to a "Grid" or "Page" view. 
• Clean the glass on your flatbed scanner. 
• Set your scanner software to : 
• Image type: 48-bit color 
• Resolution: 300 dpi 
• Document size: Approximately 3" x 4" 
• Target size: 4" x 6" 
• Remove protective covering from your smartphone so that the face of the phone lies a close to the flatbed as possible. 
• Clean the face of your smartphone. 
• Scanning/Photographing: 
• First: 
• Preview scan the first page or grid view 
• Manually adjust, if necessary, the scanned image window to include the view of the apps plus the grid or page number. 
• Scan each page or grid view in either .jpg or .pdf format. (I suggest .pdf format so you can add images to a single file.) 
• Name the file such as "My Smartphone All Apps 110531." I recommend a date at the end of file name so that you can readily identify the most recent iteration. 
• Second: 
• Set the Wallpaper of your smartphone to a single, neutral color. (With a Samsung GalaxyS, press and long-hold a clear space on Wallpaper to gain access to Wallpaper selections.) 
• Preview scan the first page. 
• Manually adjust, if necessary, the scanned image window to include the view of the apps plus the grid or page number. 
• Scan each page or grid view in either .jpg or .pdf format. (I suggest .pdf format so you can add images to a single file.) 
• Name the file such as "My Smartphone Shortcut Views 110531." 
• Saving and Accessing your Information 
• Move your two digital files "My Smartphone All Apps 110531" and "My Smartphone Shortcut Views 110531" to a folder in which you can readily find them. 
• Consider backing up your computer hard-drive user files to a portable hard drive. 
• Consider backing up your user files to a secure cloud-based online account so that you can access this information from wherever you may travel or if you cannot access your data due to flood, fire, or other natural disasters.

Let me know if this is helpful to you. Email me at ShulmanS@OurHeritageVault.com. Also, let me know if you'd like other helpful ideas to preserve your stuff. I have lots of ideas, especially for family heritage material.


Have a Memorable Day!!


Steve

Is the Spring Spate of Storms a Predictor of a Horrid Hurricane Season?

The devastation caused by this spring’s tornadoes is historic. We will have the pictures and video of post-storm Tuscaloosa and Joplin embedded in our memories for years to come with words seemingly inadequate to describe what remains of portions of those two cities and the lives forever altered. Other, less remarkable tornadoes also touched down and hailstorms breached the peace of rural America.

Midwest rivers, including the Mississippi and the Missouri, continue to crest at levels not seen in decades and property losses are beyond our ability to comprehend them. Too much water from storms and snow melting plagues even the Dakotas this year!

According to a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announcement, today (June 1) is the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season. The agency is prepared to help states in hurricane-prone areas but calls on citizens to prepare the businesses and homes for a busy season too. A consensus forecast indicates that there may be 16 tropical storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 intense hurricanes between now and November 30^th.

Hurricanes can cause damage in a variety of ways. Hurricane winds, tornados spawned after landfall, floods from rainfall, and surges of coastal waters can buffet any structure near their paths.

All Americans should know that floods are the nation’s number 1 natural disaster. They can happen in any state, and the country’s average annual loss from them during the past 10 years was more than $2.7 billion! FEMA reminds us that floods can ruin property and damage lives even when the federal government does not declare a disaster and urges residents to purchase flood insurance because most homeowner policies do not cover flood damage.

But that’s not the whole story. Insurance can pay for the replacement of a home, furniture, and fixtures, but it cannot replace one-of-a-kind objects or things of sentimental value like photographs, family bibles, special awards, and the like. As part of your preparation for this hurricane season, visit FEMA’s Hurricane Preparedness web pages to get the most up-to-date information for you and your family. As you make your plans for evacuation, remember those special things that mean so much to you. For more ideas on what you might miss, visit our website for a checklist of important things.