Harnessing "Smartness" of "Smartphone"

Smartphone has become an integral part of our lives. We all use it for making phone calls and interacting with friends over Facebook and WhatsApp. Some play games, watch YouTube videos, and also use it to access popular applications, such as Google Maps, Flipkart, IRCTC, emails etc. But the most powerful utility of smartphone is organising data, and able to access it at ones will. We all follow different methods of managing data, and ability to pull that out in time is all that makes the difference. The note describe how to harness the power of smartphones and use it as an effective personal organiser.

Using smartphone to manage user data might appear trivial but it is not, as effective data management need to have some uncompromising features. These are - fastest user accessibility, highest security, and ability to support incremental update (without the need to copy the full data set again in case you are syncing it with the primary - could be either in the cloud and or in the PC, and the process of copying the full set in the phone will be very time consuming and frustrating).

Fastest user accessibility will require the data to be locally present, and not in the cloud. Accessing data from the cloud is slow and unreliable (one may not be always have Internet connection). That raises issues with security, as losing phones can be fatal. Hence, data stored locally in the phone should never be in "clear text" form. It should always be encrypted with a client side encryption application. The risk is highest in android phone, which have removal memory cards and the level of security can be much more challenging to manage due significantly more flexibility of sharing data between application. Recently an article pointed out that it is possible to extract erased data even in factory reset phones.

Many client side encryption application are available. I find "BoxCryptor" app most effective in encrypting data stored in phone. The paid version has more flexibility and does "file-name" encryption too. BoxCryptor works both for Android and IOS. The app for android is more powerful as it is capable of offline feature and supports encryption and decryption of locally stored data. The IOS version of the app is very limiting and does not support offline feature. Hence, for IOS one needs to follow a totally different strategy. For IOS one can use "Good Reader" for storing data offline. "Good Reader" is the best application that I have ever come across, it is analogous to "Swiss Knife" and has lot of PDF management and editing features (these are so powerful that you might not even find it any desktop software. IOS version of the application support finger print "Touch ID", which provides fast access to file without compromising security. One of the most powerful feature of "Good Reader" is it search algorithm. It's integration with the IOS system is so good that files get pulled out in a fraction of a second.

The important problem that one needs to deal with storing data offline in phones is the need for incremental updates. Many cloud storage services have this built in feature, more so when you are using android, but for IOS this is a bit challenging. In case of android apps are available to update Dropbox stored data to get incrementally updated, and you can secure the Dropbox using a client side encryption software (for example BoxCryptor). Now as earlier described, BoxCryptor can easily deal with standalone offline data stored in an android phone. In case of IOS, one needs to use the Good Reader's WiFi sync capability to incrementally sync data from PC to IPhone. The best incrementally sync PC software that one might try using is Good Sync. Though it is a paid software, but it is very powerful and reliable. In order do the sync process work seamlessly, one needs to disable the DHCP capability of the local WIFI network, and assign static IP address. This will prevent the user to change the IP address in the PC client every time we trigger the sync process to move data from PC to IPhone.

Organizing and accessing data can truly harness the "smartness" of "smartphones" and make it much powerful and usable device for individuals. This can not only increased business and personal productively, but keep information always available at one's finger tips. As it is the phone that we carry with us always - even when we are out at leisure, the need to access data can be unplanned and sudden. Organizing data and ability to access it at will (without compromising security and safety) increases confidence, and enables on to be top of business and personal life.