There is no point in crying over spilled milk.

Hey can you give me your office phone number; Sure. Wait a moment let me see it from my phone's contacts book.

The above conversation clearly says we are now more dependent on our gadgets(mobile phones for that matter)for storing Phone numbers than our flesh weighing 1.2kgs. Your contacts' information including Mobile, Office, Residence phone number, e-mail address, house address etc., can be stored on a Mobile phone and no one would disagree with me that these days people don't even bother to carry a contact book, why should one carry that? if a phone can store umpteen contacts with ease.

So what is this "no point in Crying over spilled milk" if you haven't guessed by this time its BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP. People store contacts on their phones but seldom they take a backup of it. All mobile manufacturers do provide facility to connect the device to a compatible PC to take back up of conatcts, messages, calender entries, Notes etc. So how do you take a backup of all these? what are the ways through which one can do it?, let me tell you some.

1. SIM card: Yes, don't under-estimate this small piece of plastic. SIM cards can store some good number of contacts, depending on its capacity, an 8K capacity SIM card can store upto 100 contacts, now SIM cards(GSM) are coming with 16k capacity so you have room for storing 200 contacts on to it. A 3G sim card, like the one i have from BSNL, is a 32k SIM card and the numbers double. Always, copy all your phone contacts to your SIM memory too, this would be helpful in occasions where you may need to swap SIM cards to phones, so if your contacts are stored on it simply you can copy them on to the current phone in no time.

                  

Some downsides of SIM card storage are,

• Only the phone number can be stored and not any additional information.
• If you lose your phone or the SIM card your have to say goodbye to your contacts.
• Storage numbers are dependent on its size hence you can't store more number of contacts.

2. PC-suite or PC-studio or PC-sync:  Now comes the Mobile manufacturers' part in backing-up your information, as stated earlier they provide an application which can be installed on to your PC/MAC and by connecting your phone through an USB cable/Bluetooth connection. Starting from basic entry level phones to high-end smartphones can be connected to a computer for this purpose. Go and search your phone box, if you haven't thrown it yet, which would have come with a CD containing the application. Installation isn't that difficult, inserting the CD to your PC would guide you with the procedures of how to do it.

 Advantages of using this backup service are,

• All your data including Contacts, Calender entries, Notes, Bookmarks etc are backed-up.
• Connection to the PC can be done via both USB cable and Bluetooth(provided the phone has Bluetooth).
• If your phone's display fails you can still view and take print-out of your contents.
• Your data is easily accessible and can be retrieved at any time when you want.

Some downsides are,

• If you lose your data cable, and if your phone don't have Bluetooth, then its difficult to further take backup or to retireve it.
• You still depend on your computer for things to happen.

3. Online services: Use your e-mail provider's address book, take some time to update all your contacts' phone number, e-mail address etc. this serves for good purpose incase your phone is stolen /lost,  you can even export all your contacts in a .csv format excel sheet. I use the one such as this and my phone has good integeration to that service. 

Downsides are,

• An Internet connection is needed and you can't view details offline.
• Still you need to search for a computer to backup and get your information.

4. Memory card: Mobile devices, even basic ones(not very basic though), comes with memory card facility(atleast 2Gb) and they can be used to take backup of your data on the phone. It still depends on the phone manufacturer to give such a facility and AFAIK all major manufacturers do provide this facility.

Advantages of using this,

• Everything on your phone, including contacts, calender entries, notes, bookmarks, is backed up on the memory card.
• Restoring the backup is an easy task, with a touch of a button, as the card is always inserted on the Phone.
• No need to depend on a PC to restore your contents.

Downsides,

• If your Memory card gets corrupted you need to depend on the file recovery softwares to get your data.
• If your lose your  Memory card, you lose your data too.

5. Service provider: Some service providers have Mobile phone backup service like this one, contact your provider for such a service. If, none of the above mentioned methods are working and if your data is sensitive enough that it shouldn't be known to others this backup service helps but be ready to cough down the amount your SP demands as this is a premium service.

6. Third-Party applications:

Note: This is applicable only for phones running on a dedicated Mobile OS(Smartphones).

There are number of third-party vendors with security applications supporting multiple Mobile OS platforms, yes, indeed applications aren't free but you get  your bucks worth for it. They provide advanced level security and features, having used one personally(got a promotional free one with license, so didn't pay for it) i was very much satisfied with the features and functionality, you can set password for your Messages, Gallery, e-mail applications on your phone.

If you are a Symbian-Nokia smartphone user check the Ovi store

                    Windows Mobile user user check the Windows Marketplace

                    Google's Andriod smartphone user check Andriod market

                    Balckberry User check BB app world 

I am not a Smartphone user where do i go?. All feature phones("non-smartphones") support Java you can search for Java applications, you can find some free here getjar.

There are six ways which i found, though i use only three on a regular basis, there are many available, if you are using any other way than mentioned above please let me know and put it across in your comments i would be interested in trying it. Always backup your data with more than one source/method there is nothing which is secure and trust-worthy in this case.

If you find any difficulites, I am glad to help in this regard. So, have you started to backup, do it now if you feel intimidated by my post.  Happy backing-up, good luck.