Keeping Track Of Your Gadgets
by
Randy Mears
When it comes to personal digital gadgets like cell phones, laptops and cameras, one constant problem is keeping track of them. In this CNN article about new services to help consumers keep track of their gadgets, one thing is abundantly clear. There are lots of reasons why we need to keep track of these personal devices. In the first place, digital content is often more valuable to the device owner than is the device itself. Having good backups would seem like a good solution but it is usually more complex than that. On the one hand you have data that was just captured (e.g. a digital photo) and has not been backed up or transferred to another medium (hence it will be lost forever) while, on the other hand, the nature of the data is such that it should be kept secret (since it can open the door to identity theft and other privacy issues).
The CNN article talks about a number of services, from personalized labels to software solutions, all aimed at recovering your device should it go missing. The problem is that each device has a potentially different solution and software isn’t always an option.
With all the devices that we tend to have these days (cell phones, notebook PCs, MP3 Players, and the like), a comprehensive solution is needed, and that solution appears to be missing from the consumer marketplace. Without unifying device and data protection standards aimed at mobile devices, a comprehensive solution won’t be possible any time soon.
So where does that leave us? We can protect ourselves from data loss by backing up the data that resides on our devices. Although that can be difficult to do with devices like cell phones, it is well worth the effort to figure it out. Backups don't cover everything; even with backups, newly created data will continue to be vulnerable to loss, so a strategy for transferring or backing up things like pictures, videos and audio recordings on a timely basis is also necessary. Buying a huge capacity storage card for your camera does not mean that you should wait till it fills up before you transfer the pictures to your desktop PC. They should be transferred as soon as possible to minimize the risk of losing them.
As far as protecting your identity information from prying eyes, use password protection and/or encryption when possible, keeping in mind that encryption and passwords are not foolproof and most can be hacked. I suppose some protection is better than none at all. The best recourse would be not placing sensitive data like credit card numbers, account numbers, passwords or diaries on mobile devices, especially the one without such safeguards.
