The wonders of technology
It's a wonder when the technology works but it would be next to impossible to do the historic work I do without all of the technology we've been dealing with over the last 50 years.
I'm so glad that I learned this technology the hard way - by myself - been building my own PCs since 1996.
Once you figure something out the hard way, you usually don't forget it, and it helps a lot that I can fix/troubleshoot myself, pretty much all of the problems that arise.
Even the much older technology that I still have to use for various reasons, keeps me on my toes.
For instance, I have to maintain a PC with Windows 98 so I can access the older GPS technology I still use for mapping fields. It uses SRAM cards and the newer operating systems, motherboards, and BIOSs won't recognize the SRAM reader. Once I transfer the data from the card I can open it in a computer with XP. I have to use this version OS since the Arc View program I use won't run on any newer OSs.
Now there are many more newer hardware devices and programs that will accomplish the same thing and generally a lot easier but it isn't economically feasible to upgrade for what I'm doing for the farming operation.

Next thing is I figured I better clone the hard drives on these older PCs in case the C drive goes bad, but finding cloning programs that will install/function on XP are few and far between.
If one of those drives went bad it would be a nightmare to reinstall everything and then try to remember all of the customized settings and reinstall the special scripts that I once figured out how to add years ago.

I also have software that performs more detailed tests on hard drives. When I test for bad sectors, it takes a long time with these Terabyte drives now...just spent 4 days checking a hard drive.
Then I make sure to defrag the files and check the file system integrity on a regular basis.

This all helps maintain the health of the drives and also lets me know if a drive is starting to get wonky.

Then I recently upgraded one PC to a newer partition/backup program which was needed to resolve/fix some problems Microsoft created when they keep upgrading and changing their software/OS.
I also needed more backup options such as incremental/differential since many of my folders/files are getting huge, so that way the program only backups up recently changed or new files and doesn't take as long as a full backup.

Now I realize that many people have "cloud" backup for their phones/devices, but I want my backups where I can see them and work with them.
Plus there are very few people who have all of the computer devices I have and broad spectrum of digital files to backup and archive.

Of course all of this extra software/hardware increases the costs of preserving the Manning history but well worth it.
I know very few people will read all of this message but for the few who do, at least they'll understand a little bit better what I have to do to save Manning's history.
Dave

I know a lot of genealogists come to my website to look for and grab pix and information and especially obituaries for their use.
If you are currently searching my pages or have done so in the past, please help me with obituaries I don't have or only have partial obits.
Connie & Ann, my Manning helpers look for obits for me and many times they can't find them through their Internet searches, so I would appreciate it if you would help me by going through my obituaries to see if you have some I don't have and then send them to me.
By working together with people this is why I have the immense Manning historical database I have, and when others share and work with me that database grows...

Please remember that anything you grab from my web pages is fine for your OWN use - but NOT permitted to be used on those commercial genealogy/historical websites.
I provide everything for free and don't have any popups, ads, no long-ins, etc. to annoy you, and I don't make any money off of my historical research so I for darn sure don't want those commercial websites or anyone using/selling the data I have.
Thanks,
Dave

As a reminder, IF you have old family/Manning albums and scrapbooks, old Manning/family memorabilia, school, old records, documents, certificates, military uniforms, medals, burial flags, and on and on...that your family no longer wants or your kids/grandkids will just go through and pick out a few things and then throw the rest away...
Please contact me.
I'll take the time to digitally scan the pictures and documents, so they will be preserved and archive which is the most important process in saving our history, and then I will make sure those items get stored/preserved in a Manning Museum.
More and more I'm getting people with Manning connections, but never lived here, contacting me and wanting to know if I would take the old Manning stuff they have and be able to preserve it for them.
A lot of them time, I'll be able to ID some of the pictures they have and also they don't always know that some of the old items they have are Manning connected.
So PLEASE DON'T THROW, but contact me so that precious history will get safely and properly preserved.
Thanks - Dave Kusel, Manning historian - preserving Manning history and items for over 50 years.

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