4 reasons to synchronize your phone with your PC
Think about how much you do—or could do—with your phone. Beyond calls, texts, and IMs, people increasingly use their phones as their primary digital camera. And mobile versions of productivity software let us work on documents and spreadsheets without even needing a laptop.
So here's the question: If you already have everything on your phone, why sync it with your PC? Well, because if you have everything on your phone, you’re probably going to want it elsewhere—and you sure don’t want to lose it.
Regularly syncing your phone with your PC means you'll have what you need where you need it.
1.Don't let your calendar, email, and contacts get mixed up
Being able to use your smartphone to manage your time, read email, and store contact info is awesome. Having them all get out of sync with the stuff on your PC can be a nightmare. Which of Pam's office phone numbers is the right one? What happened to the email you got from Kevin? And did you change that doctor’s appointment from 10 to 11—or was it the other way around?
Clearly, if you're tracking vital info on your phone, you need to keep it coordinated with the info on your PC or you'll drive yourself nuts. No need to keep it on your to-do list, though. Once you’ve set up syncing, your phone and PC harmonize automatically.
If you’re using Windows Phone 7, here's a good place to start learning how to sync your calendar, contacts, and email. Plus, this wizard shows you how to sync your Microsoft Outlook mail, and this FAQ can help with your calendar.
Using Windows Mobile 6.5 (AKA Windows Mobile)? Here’s an overview of what you can do and support info for setting up your phone.
Now you can do work on your phone while riding the bus or sitting in a coffee shop—you don't always have to fire up your laptop. With Office Mobile, you can work on Microsoft Word, Excel, and OneNote docs anytime you like. Synchronize your files using SkyDrive, and you're always up to date.
If you’re using Windows Phone 6.5, you can download a free Office Mobile upgrade for qualified phones. If Office Mobile is not pre-installed on your phone, you don't have to get a new phone. You can just purchase Office Mobile separately from Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
3. Hang on to your photos
Since you're generally more likely to have your phone handy than your digital camera, some of your best snapshots are probably on your phone. How about that great shot you caught of your kid hitting a home run? You may have sent it to grandma on the spot, but if you want to have that photo years from now, it’s a good idea to drop it onto your PC where you can back it up for safekeeping.
With Windows Phone 7, you can automatically upload photos to SkyDrive and from there download them to your PC. Or you can sync photos the same way you do music, using Zune sync software. Plus, if you have a Facebook account, you can automatically sync photos between your phone and Facebook, making this fast and easy way to share photos an equally fast and easy way to help protect them.
If your phone uses Windows Phone 6.5, you can sync your photos using ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center.
4. Protect your stuff against loss or theft
Here's a question for you. What's easier to lose: Your phone or your PC? Yeah, scary isn't it?
Although replacing a lost or stolen phone isn't exactly fun, it's a job you can take care of in a few hours. If you haven't kept your phone synced with your PC, replacing the email, contact information, pictures, music, and documents from your phone could take days—if you can do it at all. Syncing is clearly a more pleasant option than digging through old emails looking for the contacts you lost or the photos you emailed. If you emailed them...
Want more peace of mind? Try the My Windows Phone service. It's free. My Windows Phone backs up the contents of your Windows Phone—contacts, calendars, photos, text messages, documents, and more—to the My Phone website for password-protected access and retrieval from any PC with an Internet connection. A bonus: After you’ve synced your phone’s contents to My Phone, you can search your text messages from the My Phone site. With My Phone, you can also easily send photos to social networking sites—from your phone—and even locate your phone if you lose it.
Not using Windows Phone 7? There’s a My Windows Phone service for Windows 6.5 too.
With so much riding on your phone these days, take the time now to learn how to sync, and you’ll quite likely save that time—not to mention priceless information—down the road.
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