Q: How can I upload photos taken on my iPhone 4 to my Dell PC's "My Pictures" folder? Do I need additional software?
A: You don't need additional software. Your PC can import photos or videos from your iPhone via the phone's USB cord. See tinyurl.com/24hdxn5
Note that this operates independently of the iTunes "sync" feature, which lets you automatically or manually copy content one-way from a PC to an iPhone, iPad or iPod. When you import photos or videos from an iPhone to a PC, Microsoft Windows is reading the iPhone's memory as if it were an external disk drive.
If for some reason this approach doesn't work, there is for-pay software that will transfer photos and other content, including music and documents, from an iPhone to a PC. See tinyurl.com/7espnnk
Q: I've got a zillion photos scattered over dozens of directories and hard drives. I'd like to copy all these photos onto a single hard drive that I could put in a safe deposit box. I'd prefer not to duplicate photos and to avoid copying directories individually. How can I do it?
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A: The Windows search function can help by rapidly searching all the directories on a hard drive for photos.
Go to "Start," go to "search" and type in ".jpg" (joint photographic experts group, the most-used photo format.) The PC will compile a list of all .jpg photos on the hard disk. If there are duplicates, you'll be asked if you want to include them. Copy the search list and paste it to an external disk drive.
Do the same with your other hard disk drives.
Note that the search function finds all .jpg photos, including tiny advertising images from any saved Web pages. There's no harm in this, but you may wind up saving more photos than you want.
Steve Alexander covers technology. Email your questions to him a steve.j.alexander@gmail.com Please include a full name, city and phone number.