How many numbers are in your cell phone?

It must seem to my regular readers (and thank you by the way~XXOX) that I get on a subject and I cannot let go of it – well most of the time, I do it on purpose. The subjects have so much information that I think maybe you are like me, you can handle it best in “bite sized” pieces. Also you have a life and don’t sit and stare at a computer all day clicking links that are supposed to save you from the ruins of technology!

How much can you learn at “one sitting”? How much time do you have for “one sitting”?

I have been writing about backups and online storage options lately. Well, in the past week, I have had 2 friends tell me random scenarios about their cell phones. Both of these phones are older models and both of them are loaded with numbers – or in the case of one friend ” WERE LOADED” with numbers. Let’s concentrate on that one.

It is beautiful weather here in Maine and my best buddy was fishing with her brother and as she was getting out of the boat her phone took a dive into the Lake. (UGH!) Dead Phone. They found it, but took to the folks at Central Maine Wireless and it was confirmed.

I have been lucky to have the folks at Central Maine Wireless look out for me and protect me from myself. They know me. They know that I lead an active lifestyle, my phone may go flying off the roof of my car because I am late for a meeting and forgot it there or I dropped in the woods when I am out hunting with my dogs. And if there is one thing you learn from this post, is that. Find a local provider that keeps YOUR needs in mind, suggests things that make sense without selling extra “goodies” you have no need for. Seriously, I don’t know what I would do without them.

A few months ago, they suggested to me My Contacts backup. And Paul set it up for me in 5 minutes. You can do it yourself too, but like I said, “they know me,” and they know I need the extra attention. Each day at noon (or whenever YOU decide) AUTOMATICALLY it backs up all your information on your phone to a remote server and you don’t have to think about it! If you have a call or you need to use your phone at the scheduled time, it wont interfere. And if something ever should happen to your phone, then your new phone can be loaded quickly with the data from your old phone from the remote server that has it.

If you are like my friends and have an older phone you can still protect your data by going to this link: Click here.

But like everything, this is about planning ahead. You don’t buy insurance for your car because you KNOW you are going to have an accident, you buy insurance IN CASE you have an accident, the data in your cell phone is the same and you should never have to figure this it out when it is gone.

"My computer crashed and I started crying – My whole LIFE is in there!"


The other day one of my buddies called me out of breath and left a message on my voice mail. “OH Kelly, I don’t know what to do…” the rest of what she said is the title of this blog entry. When I called her back, she was still in panic mode. Did I know anybody that could rescue her data from her computer? She took it to some computer guys down the road and they couldn’t retrieve anything from the drive, they suggested she send it away.

She wanted me to tell her something I couldn’t. She owns her own business and she is right, her life IS in that computer.

So I said, “You have a backup, right?”
She said, “C’mon that was what my sister asked me.” (I don’t even know her sister.)

Of course this means, “No.”

Don’t let this be you. Even if your whole life isn’t on your computer perhaps some other important stuff is. Photos, presentations, emails, stuff that you would miss if something happened. Stuff you couldn’t recreate or would take forever to recreate. But you know this all ready – so how many of you back things up?

With me, my rules, are pretty straight forward. It has to be simple and it has to remember things for me – cause I don’t stop and think, “When did I back this thing up, last?”

Since I have a MAC, I use the Apple utilities on the website, I can schedule the back up as well as store things remotely, which is pretty darn handy when I am on the road or I don’t have my computer with me, I can store email contacts and calendars too. Before I back up, “it” asks me if I want it to. So if I am going out to an appointment and don’t have the time for it to happen right then, I click “NO THANKS” – simple.

But also I am learning I don’t want EVERYTHING on my computer ALL the time and I am not connected to the internet ALL the time, so again I went to Best Buy – I know, but it is MY PLACE that I like to go- and for less than a hundred dollars (they are on sale now) – I bought a Western Digital – My Book Essential 500GB External Hard Drive. 500 GB! WOW! They have all sizes for more or less storage.

I can drag photos over to it, I can save my tunes to it and back up to it all in one compact thing that looks just like a book. This helps my computer from getting bogged down with photos from 2006! I still want them, but I dont NEED 3,116 photos on my computer – which reminds me – time to move some over to “My Book”!

Don’t take chances on the next lightning storm or a computer virus, or just a dead drive – you will spend a lot more than $100 rebuilding your life!

Web Browsers

Okay, if you never have turned on a computer or never listened to the news, you may never have heard the name “GOOGLE.” So if you fall into one of the above categories, this post isnt for you and probably none of my posts are for that matter.

We all know when GOOGLE does something, they do it BIG !

Since I don’t live under the veil of most developers and don’t really see this stuff until it is being used, I find out about it when you do. Today is the launch date for GOOGLE’s browser – CHROME. (Chrome is only available to date for PC’s since GOOGLE is going after the big Microsoft market share.) If you are unfamiliar with what a browser is, Alan from my company wrote a great post a while ago and if you click on this link, you can read it here.

I personally, TODAY am a FIREFOX user. I have a lot of friends that use PC’s and MAC’s and they have turned to Firefox from Internet Explorer because of all its security flaws and other issues. MAC or other Linux users (these are the real geeks) will have to wait for their own GOOGLE CHROME.

Statistics say that about 75% of browsing (down from 88% last year) is done with Internet Explorer so there are a lot of people out there still using it, perhaps because they do not know they have other BETTER and safer alternatives.

I am looking into the CHROME browser and here is a link if you are so inclined to check it out yourself. This is a Barron’s post NOT a way to download the software – I am just researching it and I will keep you posted on “if and when” there is a GOOGLE CHROME for MAC and I decide to change!!

But those mavericks out there – certainly comment on your PC experience if you decide to take the plunge!