Old Dogs, New Tech: Why I Dumped Databases and Changed My Photo Storage
Have you ever poured a massive amount of time into a shiny new tool, convinced it was going to revolutionize your life, only to realize the “old way” was a million times better?
Welcome to my world.
I’m always testing out new things. Some work, and some… well, not so much. Last week was a prime example of the latter. If you’ve been following my updates, you know I’ve been on a massive mission to convert all my trusty spreadsheets into a relational database program called Notion.
The initial setup and data entry took hours. A huge amount of hours. At first glance, I thought, “This is it! Everything under one roof. No more juggling multiple files.”
The problem? After a few days, I realized I was just trying to force the program to act like one giant spreadsheet anyway. I had to build custom queries just to find a piece of data. In a spreadsheet, do you know what I do? I just open it and scroll. Simple.
The Spreadsheet Strikes Back
As someone who is incredibly particular about backups, the real kicker came when I exported my data from Notion. Guess how it backed up? Not as a fancy database. It arrived as a CSV file, which is, wait for it… a spreadsheet! One incredibly large spreadsheet.
Plus, there is the portability factor. With traditional spreadsheets, I can work seamlessly offline. That’s a massive deal since I’m going to be out on the road soon where cell signal can be a gamble.
I’ve been working with spreadsheets almost my entire life, and they just work for me. If I hadn’t tried Notion, I never would have known if it was a better fit. Let me just be clear about one thing. Notion is a great program and I had no technical issues with it. It worked the way it was designed to work. It was just not for me. You’ve probably heard the saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Well, this old dog actually learned the trick, he just decided he liked the old one better!
Round 2: The Battle for My Photos
Now for the second time-stealer of the week.
Every now and then, I audit the digital tools I pay for to see if something else can pull double duty. It goes back to my RVing mindset: when space is limited, every physical tool you pack needs to handle multiple tasks. I expect my digital products to multitask, too.
For a long time, I used Google to store my photos. It worked great, but I was paying $99.99 a year for 2 TB of storage. While that’s a ton of space, the benefits stopped there.
Enter Amazon. For $139 a year, I get unlimited photo storage. No more worrying about data caps. Now, most people will never need terabytes of photo storage, but I am not most people. I take photos everywhere I go!
But the real win is how many boxes Amazon ticks for the extra $39 a year:
- Prime Shopping: Free shipping and exclusive member pricing that adds up over time.
- Entertainment: Movies and TV shows for my wife, plus Amazon Music to mix things up on long road trips when we get tired of the free version of Pandora.
- Fuel Savings: A gas feature that saves $0.10 a gallon, including at stations on the West Coast. Talk about perfect timing for where I’m heading!
The Value Verdict
I’m not saying Amazon is universally better than Google. But for my specific needs, especially with a major road trip on the horizon, Amazon simply offers a lot more bang for my buck.
What do you guys think? Are you Team Database or Team Spreadsheet? Are you Team Google or Team Amazon? Drop a comment below and let me know your thoughts!