iPhone Saves the Day

I've always loved my iPhone, but I was particularly happy to have it this past weekend. 

I was in my cousin's wedding on Saturday and after the ceremony, the wedding party was taking pictures on the altar at the front of the church. While we were busy smiling for the photographer, someone came into the back of the church and stole two of the bridesmaids purses, with a cell phone, credit cards, and cash inside. 

Immediately, I dialed 911 and explained what had happened. A police officer met us within minutes and asked some questions. I then realized we could try to use "Find My iPhone" to track where the phone was. The location was determined and the search was on. I stood with the officer and continued to update the location while the police officer updated the rest of his team on the robber's whereabouts. They ended up tracking down the vehicle and finding the purses. The robber ditched the iPhone at a gas station, and we used Find My iPhone to set off an alarm and found it on a shelf in the store.

The two bridesmaids ended up getting their belongings back within an hour or so, and we all couldn't have been happier.  We proceeded to walk into the wedding reception to the song, "Bad Boys," and ended up with a crazy story to tell. Thankfully, it worked out for the best and we didn't let the terrible act ruin the day!

TGFT (Thank Goodness For Technology)

• Do you have a story where Find My iPhone came in handy for you?
• In what instances have you used it?

I look forward to reading your responses!

-LM

Another Way to Spring Clean

Today marks the first day of Spring, so the annual “Spring Cleaning” begins! When I hear cleaning, I think: Vacuum, Garbage bags, Windex, Mop, Soapy water. But our list of Spring Cleaning items will not have you reaching for any of those! Since many people now look on Pinterest for the best way to clean a microwave or creative ways to organize your closet before actually doing it, we thought it would be appropriate to have a list of Spring Cleaning items related to Social Media and Technology.

Facebook

Do you ever scroll through your Newsfeed and think, “Who on earth is this person?” That’s a sure sign that you need some Facebook Friend Spring Cleaning. Go through your list of “Friends” and unfriend those who you really don’t know (trust me, everybody has them!) If you have never spoken with one of your Facebook friends in person, there is a good chance you do not need to see what they are eating for lunch every day or what their new car looks like. But don’t worry, when you unfriend someone they will not be notified, but you will be removed from their friends list as well. Also, depending on where you work or play, you may want to consider cleaning out your Facebook pictures, too….. Need I say more?

Mobile Device

Look through your contacts and weed out those people who you never call or text. If you haven’t contacted them in a couple years, delete! It will save you time in the long run and save up some space for downloading another version of Angry Birds. Speaking of apps, if you have only used the app once, delete it! (Ahh, doesn’t that feel good?) If you’re an Apple user, here’s a tip. When you remove an app through one of your devices or through the Apps screen in iTunes, it does not delete the application off of your computer. In order to permanently delete from your hard drive you need to delete it through the iTunes library.

Email

We all have been there… Looking for one email but can’t find it amongst the hundreds of others. It’s very advantageous to create email folders. If you’re a Microsoft Outlook user, it is super easy to create folders and to organize emails. If you click File, then Manage Rules & Alerts, you can create rules that send emails into a specified folder based on words in the subject line or body of the email, the email recipients, etc.

Docs

It is smart to save some of your documents for a few years, especially business documents. You never know when you will need it, right? But if you haven’t looked at the folder or document since 2007, it’s time to dump it in the recycle bin! Sort all of your folders or docs by date, and you will be surprised by all the “trash” you have saved up in there.

Do you have any other social/tech related "cleans" you'd like to share? We'd love to hear!

Let the deleting begin!

Lindsay Moore

Project Director