Ah, the lazy days of summer when we vacation, day dream and forget to back up our PDAs and smartphones. MobileTechReview.com and Sprite Software area ready to come to your rescue: we're giving away 5 copies of Sprite Backup. This is one of our must-have applications that can back up everything on your Windows Mobile device, or just the data you select. It has automatic scheduled backups, self-extracting backups, encryption and more.
To enter, all you have to do is post a reply to this thread with your "I shoulda backed up or worst data loss story". We'll select 5 winners who will recieve their choice of one registered copy of Sprite Backup for Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC or Smartphone, Sprite Backup for Windows Mobile 2003/2003SE Pocket PC or MS Smartphone version. So if you've got a Windows Mobile 2003 or Windows Mobile 5 PPC or Smartphone, we've got you covered. Sorry Palm users, Sprite doesn't offer a Palm OS version.
The contest will end this Friday, June 30th at 9pm Central time. It's open to everyone in the world (no country restrictions). Good luck and we're looking forward to reading your entries!
Note: Im assuming because it's software, and because there's no "US citizens only" note, that its a download and even foriegn readers like me could win? Nonetheless, here's my entry.
It was a cold, winters morning, and I had woken to the beeping of my dear iPAQ h2210, who had gotten me up on time for months and months. I reached over and slid the stylus out of the silo, tapping vaguely where the "Dismiss" icon was. Took me a few goes, but soon the black tip found its target, and the beeping ceased. Rolling back over, I fell into slumber once more. Ten minutes later, my secondary alarm clock howled in rage at my sleepiness. Slapping the screeching off, I decided it was time to rise.
So, the normal regime starts. I get downstairs, pour a coffee, sit down and sip from the hot black caffeinated beverage as I do some leisure browsing on the web. 3.5" web browsing with no real screen rotation isn't great, but it works. Normal web check-out, scanning MTR and several other sites for reviews, news, previews, and such like. That day, there was nothing highly exciting happening in the world of technology.
Finishing my coffee, I decided to have breakfast early. I put my trusty handheld into my pocket, and got to my sleepy feet. And thats when it happened: my PDA, who I had entrusted with keeping my life organised, slipped back onto the chair, and came to a balance, just on the edge of the cushion. I turned, my eyes bulging with hysterical shock. The little device tipped forwards and hit the floor two feet below.
At first, the damage didnt seem too bad. The device was lying somewhat crookedly on the floor, with the screen off, but thankfully intact. I lifted the maimed computer in my hand, and pressed the power button. Nothing. The stylus came out, held by shaky digits, and the soft reset switch was triggered. Nothing still. My breath came in short gasps. With a rolling wave of regret and terror, I realised that it had been weeks, nay, months since my last backup.
Looking more closely, I noticed the battery compartment hanging precariously onto the fixing by a single, half-bent hinge. I pulled it out with a yank. I saw the problem; my life's organizer had fallen almost perfectly flat onto the back, and the battery door had paid the price. For some obscure reason the device itself was unharmed, but the door was destroyed and the device would not power on. I replaced the battery and tried the power switch, to no avail. I now realise that I could have solved the problem in a single motion: put the thing on charge until a new door arrived. Alas, in the heat of the moment, I could not think of it, and the poor thing's power drained from it's memory chip.
The door arrived a few days later. A hard reset had occured. And for an inexplicably horrible reason, activesync would not accept syncing back the data. To this day I am not sure why it did this unimaginable deed.
The moral of the story: Just. Do. Your. Backups.
-------------------- My PDA History:
palm m100 > iPAQ h2210 > benQ P50 > MDA Pro
Next PDA: dunno... must have VGA, 624mhz, and a keyboard.
Have you ever found that your PocketPC was acting up in a way that absolutely drove you mad? Have you ever become obsessed with trying to solve the problem so that your device would work the way you knew it supposed to? In what becomes an insane lust to get your device back into proper operating order, have you ever thought to yourself, "you know a hard reset will definitely fix this problem -- I'll be able to start with a clean slate?" And then did you press the right button combination to hard reset your device, accepted the reset, and THEN realized that you didn't back anything up or perform a last-minute sync to get your data on your PC?
Yep, that's happened to me. I became so fixated on making my Jornada return to the way I knew it should operate that I didn't think to back it up first. I lost most of a work day getting back on my feet.
A while ago, someone was asking me if you can remove the Programs item from the Start Menu on Windows Mobile - foolishly, I experimented on my iPaq 1940 by trying to delete the folder \Windows\Start Menu\Programs\. Fortunately, my iPaq gave me an error message and didn't want to do it - not so fortunately, it apparently deleted all the contents of the folder before it stopped.
This left me completely unable to run any programs - they were all removed from my Start Menu and from my Programs screen, included File Explorer. I shoulda backed up!
Oh, wait, I did back up. I ended up mounting the iPaq on my computer and copying GSFinder to \Windows\Startup\. Then I did a soft reset and initiated a Restore operation.
Oh, wait, again... I work here.
-------------------- Chief iPod Correspondent
Senior Time Waster
Extreme Moderator
Moderate Extremist
Captain of the Planet Express
Assistant Jedi Librarian
--------------------
And sometimes it's just as simple as human error. If you play a lot of games on your PPC you will know that once in a while you will need to hard reset it. Don't know why, but it helps get the speed and memory back on the device. So any sane person would back up their data before hard reset and then get the data back from the back up. But if you forgot that you hadn't backed up the data because you've done this so many times and you've gotten sloppy, then after a hard reset what do you have? Nothing! OK, you might still have the data from 6 months ago, but a lot of things have changed in 6 months including the data on your PPC.
What's better than a human's memory? Scheduled back ups for your PPC so that you, as human, make an error again, you will have last week's data instead of 6 months old one.
Have you ever left your PDA somewhere you just can't find? No? Well, I'm the only one then, with very gifted skill of hiding things in plain sight.
Before the days of everyone backing up their PDAs, I had one. Remember the Toshiba e330? I had a huge sofa and it hides elephants. When my PDA fell behind the back pillow, I was asleep. So we turned the house upside down and sideways to find it. No luck. A month later something else fell through the same gap I was awake and chased after the object but hit something else: my Toshia! Needless to say everyone was wiped out and I had to start from scratch. But at least I found it eventually unlike those poor souls who left them at the airports or taxi cabs.
Thanks to all who entered our contest, and well, each of you is a winner! We had 5 copies to give away and 5 entrants (it looks like everyone was too busy posting in our win a Treo contest!). Sprite software will contact each of the lucky winners directly to find out which version of Sprite Backup you need and to give you a registration code.
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