The only thing worse than breaking your precious device is losing all the information it contains! Contacts, calendars, photos, music… so much personal information is contained in our mobile devices. So when something happens to your precious phone, it’s not always the device itself that you’re attached to as much as the data that’s on it. We keep so much of our lives on our phones, they are our connection to the world, and losing all your data can be a major headache.
You can save yourself some grief by following a few best practices for data recovery to keep your information safe and available in the event that something happens to your phone, tablet, or laptop.
Sync Your Devices
You can sync your apple or android devices to make all your information accessible from all your devices. Apple allows you to sync your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch using iTunes. Using iCloud for your Apple devices ensures that you will have access to all your documents, calendars, contacts, photos, and music no matter what happens to your device. Whether you’re on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC, getting started with iCloud is simple. For new Apple devices, there’s a setup assistant built right in. And for everything else setup takes just a few quick steps, follow the link to learn how to set up iCloud.
There are also syncing options from Google & Windows. Having your devices synced is extremely convenient, not only in the worst case scenario where something has happened to one of your devices but also when you happen to forget one at home.
Perform Regular Backups
Keeping a backup ensures you will have access to your data regardless of what happens, sometimes the damage to your device is beyond repair and having a backup of your data protects your information. Backups let you transfer data from your last device to your new one.
Just ask yourself these questions:
- How many numbers in your contact list do you know by heart?
- Do you use your personal phone for work?
- Do you carry important data and files on it?
- Does your mobile device act as a personal agenda as well?
- What would you do without your appointments and calendar?
Keeping those questions in mind we want to stress the importance of REGULAR backups if you don’t want to lose any of your current information. Apple allows you to backup using iCloud or iTunes. Backing up with iCloud is largely automated and can be done wirelessly over a Wi-Fi connection (though, you can’t use 3G to back up with iCloud) in about five minutes. Follow the link here to learn how to backup using iCloud or iTunes.
If you’re an Android fan, Google can go a long way to back up your data. Like Apple, Google automatically backs up a significant portion of user data to the cloud with the user’s permission. You can also manually transfer music, pictures and videos from your Android phone straight to your PC via cable. Windows will mount your phone as an external hard drive, while Mac users will have to download Android FileTransfer first.
There are many other program and app options for backups, so every user should be able to find something suitable for them.
Keep your devices up to date
You know that little notification you keep getting telling you to update? Yeah, you should just go ahead and do that. We’re not sure why so many people seem to neglect this piece of mobile device maintenance. Why is it so important to update your device?
Security vulnerabilities both on our smartphones and computers seem to occur on a regular basis. Last year it was Heartbleed, and more recently the FREAKsecurity flaw had everyone in a panic. The only way to combat issues such as these is to keep your software current, updating apps and operating systems as soon as updates are released — especially after a security issue has been identified. Software updates are crucial step in keeping your private information private.
Updating your apps helps eliminate any potential vulnerabilities and also enables you to take advantage of the latest and greatest features in apps you love. Luckily, most device manufacturers make the app update process painless by allowing users to set apps to auto-update in the background. It’s always a good idea to make sure you have important files (music, pictures, documents, etc.) backed up, before applying an update. Eradicating bugs and vulnerabilities is the goal of updates, but things don’t always go as planned. See why we mentioned regular backups?
If you follow these simple tips then you will be less likely to have a life ruining experience should you sustain damage to your device. If all this seems like a lot and you don’t quite understand, we are here to help! You can contact us for an appointment and we will gladly walk through some of these processes.
