Nothing makes you feel quite as old as realising you can’t listen to the first single you ever bought without getting hold of equipment that today’s teenager would classify as retro. Or vintage. Or antique, even. Charming.

Technology certainly has moved on. Would your younger self have believed that one day we’d be able to buy, store and play music on our phones, or watch movies on handheld screens the size of greeting cards? You’d probably have dismissed the idea along with Marty McFly’s hoverboard and Martin Bower’s teleport bracelet.

Much as we love the progress that has been made in these modern times, we can’t help looking back with fondness at some of the tech dinosaurs that have become extinct over the years….

Cassette tapes

Remember listening to the radio and waiting with your finger poised above the record button so you could tape your favourite tune when it came on? Without any of the DJ’s introduction, if you were really skilled. Fun times. Less fun was having to find a suitable pencil to wind the ribbon back in if it got chewed up in your old cassette player.

VHS and Betamax

Long before the PC vs Mac gang wars started, it was all about Betamax vs VHS. Whichever side you were on, there were definite disadvantages to the whole video thing, from the crazy convulsing picture when you pressed pause, to the chance for your mum to record over your favourite episode of the A-Team because you forgot to label the cassette.

Reel-to-reel

Is it just us, or do reel-to-reel tapes make you think of spy films? No? Just us then. These bad boys actually date back to the 1920s, but there are still plenty of them out there today, mostly boxed up in attics and warehouses for lack of anything to play them on. Sad, isn’t it?

Floppy disks

Now these made us feel like proper techies, and not in a bad way. “You need a copy of that report I wrote? No probs, won’t be a tick… no, no need to fire up the printer, I’ll just copy it onto a floppy for you.” Genius. Especially when they added that little ‘write protection’ tab so no one could wipe out all your hard work.

Ah, nostalgia. If only we could go back, right? Actually, scratch that – no one needs to live through shoulder pads, mullets and Milli Vanilli again. But it is nice to take the occasional trip down memory lane, if only to laugh at the clothes you once thought made you look super cool.

That’s where we can help. At Scan Film or Store we can convert old analog audio and visual material into DVD, CD, external hard drive or USB format, which won’t snap, tangle, unravel, fade or lose quality. That way, you can listen to or watch your old music or video footage on any modern machine, and ensure that your memories will last well into the future.

If you’d like more information about how we can convert your old analog material to a digital format, just get in touch.

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So summer is upon us, and Facebook will soon be full of holiday snaps from a rash of exotic beaches around the world. Which is great if they’re yours, but less fun when you’re looking at them from your desk, with its ineffective air con, wilting rubber plant and view of the skyscraper next door.

There’s only one way to survive a summer stuck at the office, and that’s to cheat and bring the holidays to you. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

1) Join the tourists and get the open top bus to work instead of your usual commute

Be sure to abandon your laptop in favour of a backpack (worn on both shoulders, naturally) and hang a digital SLR around your neck so you fit in with the crowd. Then relax as the usually frustrating journey to the office becomes a mini staycation adventure in your own town.

2) Suggest a theme for dress down Friday – Hawaiian, beachwear, mermaid etc

You’re not the only one who isn’t eating paella and swigging sangria on the Costa del Britsabroad – your colleagues are bound to be feeling the effects of the green-eyed holiday monster too. What better way to boost moral than to get everyone out of their shirts and ties and into something far more suited to a resort theme night?

3) Buy a cocktail kit and mix everyone up a pina colada* at lunchtime, complete with umbrellas (*It may need to be a virgin one, depending on your boss)

If anything’s going to distract you from the why-am-I-here-when-it’s-sunny-outside blues, it’s a cold glass of something cheerful. Even if you decide that vodka at midday is probably not going to help you balance the accounts or proof read that report, a well made summer mocktail can do wonders for the soul.

4) Insist that everyone in the office speaks with a foreign accent

Granted, this one may be harder to pull off, but if you can get everyone on board (and we suggest trying this after the cocktails, assuming you were able to persuade the manager to let you have real ones) the sound of non-English chatter should help you feel like you’ve escaped home shores for a little while.

5) Fill a tray with sand, put it under your desk, take off your shoes and pretend you’re on a beach

If you can’t go to the beach, the beach must come to you. If anything signals being on holiday, it’s the feeling of sand between your toes, and this particular summer survival kit is so easy to make (helpful hint: sand is readily available at any good DIY store, or your kid’s sandpit).

Of course, you could always book yourself an actual real life holiday. In which case, we’ve got one final summer survival tip – make sure you don’t forget data security while you’re gone. Thieves tend to see the holidays as a chance to notch up a little overtime, so get your documents stored securely, either by locking them away at an alarmed and monitored unit like ours or by transferring them to protected digital formats.

Then lock the door behind you, and forget about it all for a week. Oh, and before you go, don’t forget to send these tips to the colleagues you’re leaving behind – after all, if you’re going to make them look through your exotic Facebook snaps, you should at least give them the tools to survive a summer stuck in the office.

For many businesses data is crucial, so have you ever thought about what might happen in the event of a disaster? Imagine having a fire, flood, or complete crash of your computer systems and losing all your data because you have failed to properly back up your data; something like that could completely destroy a company.

With that in mind there are businesses out there that do fail to back up their data properly for some ridiculous reasons, and we are here to make sure you all understand the importance of backing up your data.

This month’s blog post will enlighten you on the 4 most common and ridiculous reasons for not backing your data.

Read more…

Here at Scan Film Store one of our main services is document storage, whether holding your physical paper records securely off-site or scanned copies in a digital format.

So we were intrigued to find out about some of the most secure storage facilities in the world. When you think about the ultimate in secure storage Fort Knox would probably be one of the first to come to mind, but in fact there are a number of more unusual places that can rival it in terms of security but it’s likely you’ve never heard of them.

Svalbard Seed Vault

How many of you have heard of the Svalbard seed vault before today? Well to tell you the truth neither had we. As the name might suggest the purpose of the vault is to store duplicates (‘back ups’) of all seed samples from the world’s crop collections.

The seeds are stored on the island of Svalbard which is located halfway between Norway and the North Pole under what is known as “black box” arrangements. This means that once the packets of seed are sent for storage they will not be opened or sent to anyone other than the original depositor in the event that they are required. No one will have access to anyone else’s seeds!

So if you want to make sure that your business records are backed up and have no possibility of being altered by anyone else then the seed vault sounds like a pretty great place. What a shame that your business records don’t come in seed format.

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The draw has been made and I am delighted to announce that Paul & Crissie from AWL are the lucky winners drawn from nearly 100 entries. Well done to both of you! The champagne will be delivered in time for Christmas. Thanks to all others who entered — better luck next time.

Merry Christmas!

With less than 12 entries received so far the chances of winning the bottle of champagne in time for Christmas are very high! Simply see the latest blog to enter the easy competition but be quick as quiz entries must be received by 12 noon on the 22nd December!

Followers of our blog will know that Scan Film or Store has a very special relationship with a certain well known figure very popular at this time of the year.

This year we have been working on a top secret project helping him to move his operation into the digital age.

For obvious reasons we can’t name names and give too much away but we are sure you will guess who our very special client was from the case study below.

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