How prepared are you in the event that you lose your mobile phone?
Much like a disaster, nobody knows when, where, or why it’ll hit you. Having one’s mobile phone stolen or lost can be a devastating experience both mentally and emotionally. Today, so much of people’s lives are tied to their gadgets and mobile phones that if one loses it, the results may be catastrophic. Getting back on your feet and starting all over again will be a tough task if you haven’t prepared for it. However, if you follow these few simple tips, you’ll be able to jumpstart your recovery and go on with your life like nothing happened.
Backup your mobile phone regularly. Just like a doctor’s advice to take your vitamins regularly, this one advice falls to deaf ears most of the time. Most people do it once, while a few irresponsible individuals don’t do it at all. The loss of important data such as contact list, photos, videos, bank accounts and passwords is the primary concern of people who had their phones lost. Phone companies themselves recognize the importance of their feature and all one has to do is look to the skies for answers.
An example is Apple’s iCloud feature that is built in to their devices. This allows all Apple owners to automatically back up essential contents like contact, photos, calendar entries, messages, etc., to the iCloud data servers for free. Although the free storage allocation is somewhat limited, one can always upgrade the capacity for a reasonable fee. When you activate this service, your data is automatically synced with their servers and will be available to all other Apple devices you own.
– Not sure how to activate your iCloud? check out this step-by-step guide on Mashable
Dropbox is an independent cloud storage company that also offers free limited data storage that the seamlessly transfer data from your device to any laptop or desktop PC. In a few instances the automatic sync feature of Dropbox has aided the capture of some mobile phone thieves who didn’t know that pictures they were taking were automatically sent to the owner’s computer. The only way to fully backup data on your device for free is to have it stored in your PC or Mac. However, most cloud services provide enough storage to hold the essentials for free but if you want a full backup without being tethered to your desktop computers, for now the only option is to pay.
Turn on your devices location services on. Most of the time, the moment you realize your device is gone, the culprit is still within searching distance. Most mobile phones have a “Find my phone feature” that locates your device through GPS tracking system. Although it takes a lot of battery resources, having the ability to track down your lost phone through your other devices or friends devices will outweigh to need to charge all the time.
Whether you lost your mobile phone or it got stolen from you, the effect is the same. And just like a true disaster, the damage done to your life is relative to how you’ve prepared for it. Hopefully, you’ve done your preparations well and will be back on our feet in no time. Otherwise, we say to you “I told you so.”
