Dan: Grace’s last gift recommendation triggered my mind about this great photo scanning service. The website is called scanmyphotos.com . The service is very easy to use! All you have to do is collect all of the photos that you want to be saved. You mail them the photos and they scan all the photos onto a DVD(s) for $0.04 a photo. It is really hard to find a better deal than the one here. Gifts that are thoughtful are the best gifts!

You can take photos that are meaningful to you and the person or persons that you want to give the gift to. Have them scanned onto a DVD and gift it as a gift! For and extra fee they will even make photo slideshows for you and enhance them with personal music selections. They can even convert old VHS film videos onto a DVD just like the photos. Not only can the service provide a meaningful avenue for gift giving, it is something that all people should do anyways either on their own or through a service like this. You never know when your old photos can be destroyed or weather out. It is important to keep your memories safe and sound on electronic media. If you really want to be safe, make multiple copies and store them in different places to diversify the risk. Also, you can get your old photos back! I strongly recommend this task as a meaningful gift idea and for your own well being.

PS: Here is a link to a great forum where people discuss different avenues for backing up everything from video to professional files!

Grace: This is a really great and creative gift idea!  In addition to getting into digital photography, my dad has also recently started to get into either restoring or preserving some of our old pictures, and this would be a great gift for him!  Unfortunately, I am behind the times and don’t own a scanner and probably never will because I am that lazy.  For someone like me who would only use a scanner to digitally preserve photos, this service is a lot cheaper and easier than buying a scanner.  I love the idea of giving people gifts that they can look back on and reminisce, so I think this is a great, affordable idea!