The liberating shakles of PIMs

Well it happened again - for whatever reason, it seems that every few months or so the synch process has a hiccup and some of the meticulously gathered and all too important data on my computers, PDA, and now my phone gets scrambled. Before when it was just the Macs doing their thing it was pretty easy to get around, but with the phone now, there is another layer of complexity. So what happened to alert me to this was that I synched one day and it took longer than normal and then without thinking to check how it went, I left. I had to make a call so I call up my address book and it's empty... and on my computer ditto.. on .mac same. ARGH! So it's over to the backed up databases... two months old... wait the other machine at home... back that database up before it synchs and I should be safe... and sure enough, this time... that was able to save the day and now I'm going through synching on both sides to make sure that things become as seamless as they were last week. It's far more difficult than it should be, but thankfully it can happen in the background. If this current strategy doesn't work, I'll remove the phone from both computers and then add it in again and remember to always synch the computer first... then the peripherals. Thankfully I was at least prepared for part of this malfunction on my phone as I had put the core numbers onto the SIM card (take that Telus... and your "global roaming... but not with the phone you have but with our service - just get a GSM phone from us and ... ok .. now that that is out... ) and I've got more than one place that has my PIM life, but I would hate to think about what would happen if the phone was my only storage point - as it is for so many who essentially become invalids without their phone and their PIM info... like who remembers new numbers anymore... that is what the contact list is for and there are alarms to remind you of meetings... The ED/IT angle here should be obvious... the value of personalized data is enormous and growing and we have to make sure that we train people to understand that. Granted some will rely on memory and pen and paper, and others will be in between somewhere, but the majority will use the technology to free their minds to deal with other problems... just like the tale that Einstein never remembered his own phone number because it was in the book. Technorati Tags: PIM