Pre- mobiles and internet time, question for those who knew it

[ColinJ]

I sent an email to a friend in the early days when it was still a novelty to receive one.

She got it two months later...

My older sister is still like that. She is an absolute technophobe who gets her husband to check her emails for her but that tends to be about once a month!

She still uses a notebook for telephone numbers. It is really painful to watch her looking up the numbers every time she phones somebody, and then typing them in. I put the 10 most dialled numbers into the contacts lists onto her mobile and landline phone but she won't use them directly. I have showed her multiple times how to do it - Menu, Contacts, Name, Dial - but she insists that it is too complicated and refuses to do it!

 

[raleighnut]

My older sister is still like that. She is an absolute technophobe who gets her husband to check her emails for her but that tends to be about once a month!

She still uses a notebook for telephone numbers. It is really painful to watch her looking up the numbers every time she phones somebody, and then typing them in. I put the 10 most dialled numbers into the contacts lists onto her mobile and landline phone but she won't use them directly. I have showed her multiple times how to do it - Menu, Contacts, Name, Dial - but she insists that it is too complicated and refuses to do it!

good for her

 

[Starchivore]

My older sister is still like that. She is an absolute technophobe who gets her husband to check her emails for her but that tends to be about once a month!

She still uses a notebook for telephone numbers. It is really painful to watch her looking up the numbers every time she phones somebody, and then typing them in. I put the 10 most dialled numbers into the contacts lists onto her mobile and landline phone but she won't use them directly. I have showed her multiple times how to do it - Menu, Contacts, Name, Dial - but she insists that it is too complicated and refuses to do it!

I actually only know my mobile and my parents landline off by heart, due to phones storing contacts.

I feel I should really learn my girlfriend's and parents' mobile numbers, for actual emergencies...

 

[raleighnut]

I actually only know my mobile and my parents landline off by heart, due to phones storing contacts.

I feel I should really learn my girlfriend's and parents' mobile numbers, for actual emergencies...

Wait til your phone goes wrong or (heaven forfend) you lose it, if you haven't got the numbers written down (known as a hard copy these days) you're farked.

 

[Tim Hall]

Wait til your phone goes wrong or (heaven forfend) you lose it, if you haven't got the numbers written down (known as a hard copy these days) you're farked.

Google contacts is your friend.

 

[Starchivore]

Wait til your phone goes wrong or (heaven forfend) you lose it, if you haven't got the numbers written down (known as a hard copy these days) you're farked.

yeah that's what I'm thinking

 

[jefmcg]

yeah that's what I'm thinking

If you have all you numbers in a book and you lose that, you are lost. If you have them on your phone and backed up to the cloud, it would be nearly impossible to lose them.

 

[swee'pea99]

If you have all you numbers in a book and you lose that, you are lost. If you have them on your phone and backed up to the cloud, it would be nearly impossible to lose them.

Long as you can remember your password..

 

[raleighnut]

Long as you can remember your password..

 

[jefmcg]

Long as you can remember your password..

That's backed up, too.

(I've got all my passwords stored at lastpass.com and a family member can get access to it if I die or am incapacitated so I could use that method to recover the password if I somehow forget it)

 

[classic33]

I actually only know my mobile and my parents landline off by heart, due to phones storing contacts.

I feel I should really learn my girlfriend's and parents' mobile numbers, for actual emergencies...

Should the battery die at the wrong moment, you've had it!

There's those who've had more than one mobile number this year I can't keep up with. I know my own mobile numbers, including my BTCellnet number.

 

[classic33]

That's backed up, too.

(I've got all my passwords stored at lastpass.com and a family member can get access to it if I die or am incapacitated so I could use that method to recover the password if I somehow forget it)

How does that work then? And what's to stop them saying you're either, in order to get the passwords.

 

[jefmcg]

How does that work then? And what's to stop them saying you're either, in order to get the passwords.

There's a user configurable wait period before they get access. So if I am not incapacitated, I can decline the request.

Edit: I am actually making this more complicated than it needs to be. My home computer as well as my phone is synced to my google account. So to lose all my contacts, I would have lose my phone, my home computer, the back up disk of my home computer, my remote backup and my google password. Any event that could lead to that would probably mean losing my contacts were the least of my worries.

 

[HF2300]

I hope your Google password is really strong...

 

[ColinJ]

I hope your Google password is really strong...

That's what strikes me about any system that stores all of your private data - if somebody manages to hack that system then you have lost everything in one hit!