DOZENS OF MY friends are rightfully worried about the prospect of their Blackberries going dark.¹ They have way too much of their lives totally wrapped up in one technology. And when shit happens, they are without a paddle. Better to have a shortlist scribbled on a pen or a synchlist on some other device. I snapped my synching technology while typing this blog item. My life synchs from my phone to the Sony Clié through a text file reminder system. Much of that text also resides in a paper journal as longer bits of copy that tracks ideas from eureka moments through research and out onto meeting notes that migrate onto the phone and Clié. Just like my audible stuff. If my spoken NotesToSelf are really important, they get synched to the iPod. More likely, recently discovered music goes to both players.
You can rest well only when you know there's a good back-up done and dusted. It's a good operating principle that gives your life an element of continuity when your phone falls into water² or when your organiser gets shut down due to a patent infringement.
¹Ian Austen -- "Bye Bye Blackberry"
²John Collins -- "Testing the Waters" in Computers in Business, December 2005.
