It seems that the folks who lost the pictures used on the “I found some of your life” site found the site and now it is down.
For those of you who did not know, someone left a digital medial card in a cab or something. This guy found it, and since he didn’t know whose it was (instead of turning it into the authorities) he started posting the pictures and making up a story. It was pretty funny actually.
I have a tip for you though to help prevent this. If you spend the $30 or so and buy a “card reader” such as a Sandisk, then you can plug the card into the reader to get the images off the card, instead of going via the camera. Why does this help?
Because the card will show up on your computer desktop like any other disk. So what you do is never let the software erase the card. In the case of a Canon camera, there will be a folder named “DCIM” which you can just toss in the trash. On Mac OS X, you can even security delete the files at this point, making sure they are gone.
But how does this help lost media? Because you can, if you manage the card yourself, put a text file on the card titled “I own this card.txt” and inside put an email address (say to a yahoo or gmail account) that some kind soul can contact you with.
Then if the card is lost, there is a chance that someone might see the file. If they just put it into a camera, then no. But into a card reader, yes.
I lost one of those USB Keychain drives in the Seattle Space Needle and some kind soul read my resumé and found out how to contact me. Very nice of them.