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Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#91

Post by salil999 »

greenie_beans wrote: post #66
salil999 wrote: post #49

Apple solves this problem well! Note that I use iCloud family which allows me to share the storage with my family. But for going down the list: A) Mint for most financials. iCloud for storage of documents. B) Apple Health for keeping track of my records. For ad-hoc stuff I use iCloud to store the documents. C) Product and service info I use iCloud for. Logins and credentials to them are stored in my family's 1Passwor…

do you use syncing? because if so, then i thought this wasn't a good backup strategy? for example, my photos could get deleted on my iphone accidentally and that change would sync with all my other devices and that data would be lost forever.

I guess that is a risk I'm accepting. For what it's worth, for photos specifically, Apple keeps them in a deleted folder for up to 30 days. But I'm pretty careful with my digital content and I would much rather them be synced.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#92

Post by lotsoweiners »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #12

In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/

Are you able to pay to increase your storage amount?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#93

Post by meristohm »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #74
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #12

In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/

As an American, this is hilarious. The american people would riot in the street over something like this

Some Americans would. Those of us who want the US government to do an excellent job of taking care of the people in the USA (not just citizens) might be inclined to support such a centralized system for storing important personal information. I'm more collectivist after witnessing how the USA handled/handles COVID-19. I wear masks not just to protect myself, but also other people far removed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#94

Post by mikewarot »

raggles wrote: post #89
mikewarot wrote: post #2

Safe deposit box at the bank for the physical records. A labeled manila envelope stored locally for each of us with the typical "identity" documents, SSN card, birth certificate, etc. Everything is stored locally, unencrypted, and backed up on a local removable HDD, and on BackBlaze. BackBlaze has saved my bacon more than once. As for physical objects, they're all temporarily mine, until I pass on. They're either too…

What do you use for face tagging? It's a tedious task, I used to use Picasa but it wasn't XMP and it's deprecated now

I use DigiKam, it is far less crashy than it used to be, but it's not as good as Picassa was.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#95

Post by tylervigen »

The biggest “aha!” thing for me has not been any complicated data lake, but rather one simple text file.

In this file I write the date and a short note anytime something important happens. Visit the doctor and get test results? Write a note. Change the oil in my car? Write a note. Get a quote for a mortgage? Write a note. Open a new bank account? Write a note. Shop for new running shoes and learn what size fits best? Write a note. Have a contractor come work on the house? Write a note.

If there are important files that relate to those I list filenames and say where they are, but frankly I haven’t found that to be very useful. Rarely do I need any original documents. And if I died prematurely, my family can just scroll through this document to check off accounts (Google will automatically send it to them if I don’t access it for a period of time).

I’ve been using it for a few years and found it to be a total lifesaver. I frequently just need to quickly see how I did something, who I used, or his much something cost.

I store the live version on Google Drive so I can edit it anywhere, but you could host it locally.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#97

Post by coderatlarge »

moooo99 wrote: post #39
egeozcan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, the government entities also rarely, if ever, communicate with each other. I'm offered a citizenship and while I'm extremely grateful and even considering the fact that Germany is the country I love the most by a huge margin, I couldn't bring myself to start gathering the documents they need from various government offices. It's been many years, I wonder if I'll get on with it sometime in the future.

I can’t even start to imagine the annoyance that people have to go trough when they need something really important, like a citizenship or a visa. I haven’t had to deal with that bureaucratic processes, but if I extrapolate the awful experiences I had with something as simple as a new ID, I can fully understand why people hate this kind of organization.

I'm dealing with a bureaucracy which is literally asking me to essentially document every place I've lived and every place I've worked for the last 30+ years. Not only that, but they require paper documents with paper Apostilles affixed and everything notarized. Even if it were possible, it would cost many thousands of dollars in documents and travel fees. In practice, it's essentially impossible because some employers no longer exist, others don't provide paper documents, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#98

Post by coderatlarge »

DontchaKnowit wrote: post #74
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #12

In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/

As an American, this is hilarious. The american people would riot in the street over something like this

I assume you mean that many Americans would consider this overreach by the government.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#99

Post by coderatlarge »

Eumenes wrote: post #63
AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #12

In Belgium, every citizen has access to a "digital vault" provided by the government, which is accessible using their ID card. Individuals can upload up to 1GB of documents into this vault. It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime, but you can choose what happens with it after your passing. https://www.izimi.be/en/

> It's a well-designed system that ensures privacy during one's lifetime So is a filing cabinet or safe, ideas that have worked well for 1000s of years. If you really need a digital backup, throw the documents on a $10 flash drive, maybe have two copies of that. I guess I'm cynical because governments and institutions get hacked all the time.

I had/have filing cabinets. The problem is that over the years they grew into collections of multiple paper boxes with poor indexing and scattered contents (i.e., some docs in a series in one box, other docs in a series in another box). And then I moved again and again for various reasons. And then I ended up living abroad in places where it wasn't easy to bring all the boxes along. It's been a tricky balance :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your “family data warehouse”?

#100

Post by coderatlarge »

jncfhnb wrote: post #23

Laptop documents folder and outlook inbox

If you're willing to share: curious how you structure your folders (all chronological? by entity producing the document? by your own use?). And also whether you periodically export your outlook inbox and, if so, what you do with the export.
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