Bradey, You are correct on the saving off pics with the highest resolution possible. I have been 'hounding' the wife to take all pics in the 'fine' setting (highest resolution on the cameras) and saving them off in bmp format (default on software).
We save everything to internal drive zip disks. When the total reaches around 650 mb of storage, then it is organized into 'Albums' and copied to CD-R. I have been using CD-RW as the storage medium on my computer, and that makes for an easy transfer to CD-R. That way, we DO have the highest resolution possible saved off, and any pic can be opened, edited, and saved off as a jpeg file for 'net' use. I do not like to store data off on the hard drive as I have had to replace them before, and would not want to lose data when one goes bad. Backup? Not on my home systems! Each has an original install cd that I made for each one, and the basics can be copied off it onto a new drive, but data is still out there on other medium with nothing lost or damaged.