The hardest part of technology is fitting the pieces together.

I'm most familiar with this problem as it relates to photography. We have all of these tools - a digital camera, smartphone, computer, tablet, software apps, external hard drives, Cloud storage - how do we get them to work together?

I'm thinking about this now because I've presented for three user groups in the last week. The topic has been "The Nimble Photographer." The message was that by becoming more efficient and connecting our tools, we can lighten our load and increase our enjoyment.

By way of example, here's a basic scenario: I have my Mac, iPhone, and iPad connected to iCloud (Apple's online storage and sharing service.) When I take a picture with any of these devices, it is copied to Photo Stream (the pictures part of iCloud). Those images are automatically backed up to the Cloud, and are available on any of my devices.

For long term storage, my Photo Stream is backed up on to my Mac via iPhoto, which is also connected to this workflow. Once set up, I don't have to think about it. Everything just happens.

I take a picture with the iPhone, it is backed up to the Cloud, which then sends it to my iPhoto library on the computer.

I talk about many other scenarios, also, using different hardware and software. And the questions afterward tend to focus on how audience members can adapt these techniques to their own photography.

If you have loose ends in your photography workflow, now is a good time to tie them up. Because when you really think about it, we're not just talking about pictures here.

These are also our memories. Our history.

And they're worth protecting.

-Derrick