How to Backup Your Smart Phone 85
Lucas123 writes "According to a Computerworld story there will be 8 million cell phones/smart phones lost this year. The site describes how to easily back up data on handhelds. The piece also addresses the future of these technologies: 'In Dulaney's opinion, traditional USB syncing "will die." Gartner is telling its corporate customers they should hasten this process by not permitting their employees to sync to their PCs. He explains this by saying that individual end users can create distributed computing and security problems because they are poor data administrators. Moreover, he adds, PCs are not necessarily more reliable than cell phones. Drake gives a qualified endorsement of wireless e-mail as the master application for backing up and syncing data, saying the technology is fine for dedicated e-mail environments but insufficient for corporate environments that require a vast array of wireless applications.'"
yeah thats just want i want (Score:3, Insightful)
"Oh you want to leave, I'm sorry but our backups failed and your data is gone..."
"Oh you decided to stay, guess what, we've found that backup...."
Re:Blame the users (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blame the users (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but the biggest reason that corporate IT departments don't respect users is because users ask them to do things that are impossible.
User: "I want a way to buck up my data onto an unsecured machine securely."
IT: "There's no product on the market to do that, or if there is, you wont pay for it."
User: "It's all your fault!"
Re:No longer an issue (Score:4, Insightful)
So you want to sync a 1 or 2-gig phone card? 2 gigabytes = 16 gigabits. That's a LOT of $$$.
I'll stick to my USB cable - fast, easy to use under linux - no special drivers needed.
Re:Blame the users (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, it's also true that past a certain point it's impossible for software or administrators to completely correct the failings of stupid, lazy, or irresponsible users.
Encouraging users (or anyone) to shoulder a little responsibility isn't always a bad thing.
cell phone companies would love to kill USB....... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blame the users (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blame the users (Score:3, Insightful)
Just look at the VA stolen laptop last year.. One employee was careless and took things home he shouldn't have, the laptop got stolen, and how much time and money did the VA have to spend fixing that little goof, along with the PR issues.. While many will argue that the laptop should have been secured, and encrypted, and had a big red button that will cause it to self destruct, the simpler, much more cost effective solution for many companies is to say "no."
I think that many of these problems would be solved if the users had better communication with IT.. One of my Pet Peeves is users coming in with a solution, instead of a problem.. IE, "We need X", instead of saying "We would like to something that will enable use to do Y because of Z". Then we can point them to several different ways to accomplish Y that will work within our requirements..