The Orange Place of Rich

Originally this was going to be an article about backing up mobile phone and using these techniques to not only backup your phone but to provide productivity tools for small and medium enterprises. (SMEs)

This turned out to be a very large article so I decided to separate these articles into.

Technical – Backing up your mobile phone

And

Technical – Blackberry on the cheap, OTA for the rest of us.

So click on read more to see why and how to back up data on a mobile phone :-).

It surprises me the amount of people who still do not plan in case their mobile phone is lost or stolen. Sure there is insurance to replace the handset but it's not just the unit itself but the data on the phone, usually the only copy you have of your contacts.

So I'm hoping to cover ways of backing up your phone in this article.

I will mention various makes and models of phones in this article. These aren't endorsements but feel free to use these mentions to help decide your next mobile phone or data plan.

So the first suggestion on backing up your phone. Unlike 10 years ago most phones these days can connect to a PC, you even get a data cable and software with the phone. Assuming you have a PC because you are reading this article one of the easiest ways to make a backup is to install the phones software on your PC, plug the phone into the computer and let it sync your contacts and appointments up. If your phone software interfaces with outlook this is even better. Providing your next phone can also sync with outlook you can transfer numbers easily.

Now the above falls over in some cases if your running an Operating System other than windows on your PC. Some phones are Linux or Mac compatible. (Like certain Palm/iPhone/Windows based mobiles).

The above now gives you a backup as good as your last sync. This won't cover any data entered into your mobile since the last sync or if you can't be bothered to sync. What then?

Over the Air sync. Over the air is used by many companies to live sync calendars and contacts. This technology allows users to sync contacts and appointments using your mobile data connection. (And even email in certain scenarios). This can be scheduled or “pushed” so the sync is done automatically.

If your only responsible for backing up your own handset then a free option is using myFunambol and SyncML.

Mobile phones, especially Sony Ericssons have had SyncML capability built in for years, myFunambol provides you with a free account to so you can syncronise your contact and appointments with their service. Funambol can also supply free clients for those with PDA phones. (Blackberry's, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android, etc). If you have SyncML capability on your next phone as well it is very easy to copy your contacts to the new handset.

Over the air sync uses your mobile data connection, therefore if you don't have a data plan you may be charged for sync-ing. The amount you will be charged will be dependent on your call plan, the amount of data you synchronise and how often you sync.

I'm hoping to expand on this subject in about 2 weeks where I will supply examples on how SME's can get the “Blackberry” benefits very cheaply. (Blackberry Enterprise Server and groupware/email products that traditionally interface with BES can be rather expensive for an SME).

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