This is debatable. Certainly having your data on a host provider makes
you beholden to the quality of their systems, but the bigger players
these days have their act together and their risk (and yours)
distributed fairly well through backups and remote locations.
Don't be so quick to believe that!
I'm writing this reponse from a t-mobile sidekick. Fall of 2009, the
entire sidekick network crashed, and all the data was lost - no backups,
no redundancy.
The company in charge was Microsoft itself. Techs had to do a partial
recovery from the actual crashed hard drive. I lost a fair amount of
data that month.
You never know. The better question is probably ... How easy is it to
backup myself?
Sp
On Thu, 23 Sep 2010 5:17 pm, Alan Snyder wrote:
On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 4:29 PM, James E. LaBarre
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 09/23/2010 04:06 PM, Alan Snyder wrote:
Inline...
On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 3:38 PM, James E.
LaBarre<[email protected]>
wrote:
Now that my PalmOS-based Sony Clie has decided it doesn't want to
charge
up
anymore, I'm looking at some usable replacement for it's PIM
capabilities.
As I have no intention of buying into the so-called "smartphone"
morass,
Why not? Just curious.
1: The grossly-expensive costs of the data plans, the
grossly-expensive
costs of the hardware (either paid up front or hidden in a multi-year
phone
contract)
Well, yes the phones are certainly pricey or subsidized and tied to a
pricey contract. For people who need a phone anyway, this makes sense
to piggy-back PIM functionality (along with mp3-player, browser,
email, etc). Nowadays its probably next to impossible to find just a
PIM organizer with USB or bluetooth for syncing.
2: being beholden to an outside party to maintain your *own* data.
It's one
of the major concerns in open-source vs proprietary software and
systems, it
should also be our foremost concern with phones & the like.
This is debatable. Certainly having your data on a host provider makes
you beholden to the quality of their systems, but the bigger players
these days have their act together and their risk (and yours)
distributed fairly well through backups and remote locations.
Furthermore, there's really nothing to stop you from taking your data
and going elsewhere, right? If you're not happy with your data vendor,
download your data, and close your account. Find another host you'll
be happy with. I do agree from the legal perspective that 'ownership'
here is rather dubious and non-trivial, but in most cases you can get
your data back when you need it.
3: data security. if you want to use your portable device for
personal
information, you have to be concerned about attacks over the wire or
on the
provider's servers.
True. But with every technology comes risk. At some point you have to
trust a 3rd party with _something_ that's private to you. I mean, you
are using email (and gmail nonetheless!) ;)
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Oct 6 - Creating Browser Extensions for Firefox and Chrome
Nov 3 - Open Source Hardware: Bugs, Beagles and Beyond
Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Oct 6 - Creating Browser Extensions for Firefox and Chrome
Nov 3 - Open Source Hardware: Bugs, Beagles and Beyond
Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment
------------------------------------
Sean Phelan (sent by mobile phone)
http://www.sqcn.com
http://www.VIRTUssist.com
(321)698-7987
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Oct 6 - Creating Browser Extensions for Firefox and Chrome
Nov 3 - Open Source Hardware: Bugs, Beagles and Beyond
Dec 1 - IBM's Open Client Deployment
