[PLUG] Need new mobile phone; Treos no longer supported

[tom]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2019 19:06:28 -0800
John Jason Jordan <johnxj at gmx.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Feb 2019 14:40:25 -0800 (PST)
> Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> dijo:
> 
> >Yesterday, after 18 years using a Treo 700p, I lost my phone ...
> 
> Another story about my trials and tribulations with phones:
> 
> Sometime about 2010 I had been doing yard work on the front yard, with
> my little truckie sitting in the driveway. I came to the point where I
> needed to go to Home Depot, a few miles north of me, so I jumped in
> and took off. When I got to Home Depot, there was no phone in my
> pocket. Some expletives followed, and then I got back in the truck
> and returned home. On the way I remembered that I had placed the
> phone on the hood of Mr Truckie. More expletives. As I approached my
> house I paused a lot to scour the streets that I had traversed,
> hoping to find the phone. Alas, I came up empty handed.
> 
> But all was not necessarily lost. As soon as I pulled in the driveway
> I went into the house and sat down at my computer. I pulled up the web
> site for Where's My Droid, an application that I had installed on the
> phone, registering my phone on their site. I logged in, and a few
> minutes later a piece of a Portland map popped up, with a big red
> arrow pointing to where my phone was located. I zoomed in and it was
> in the middle of the street ... but wait ... it was moving! I
> thought, 'I'll just watch until it stops somewhere.' After 15-20
> minutes or so it stopped. And I was stunned. It was in the front yard
> of a rental house that I owned. 
> 
> To make a long story short, some people had found the phone,
> undamaged, checked my contacts, and called the first one on the list,
> who was the tenant in that house. They had driven there and handed it
> over to him. Of course, I immediately got back in the truck and drove
> to the house, where the tenant was playing with his kids in the front
> yard. There followed an amusing conversation where I had to
> explain why some strangers had pulled up and handed him my
> phone. 
> 
> All's well that ends well. But since you just lost a phone, as soon as
> you get a replacement, install Where's My Droid or a competitor. It
> saved my stupid butt. And please do not ask how I managed to drive
> down the road without seeing the phone in front of my eyes on the
> hood. _______________________________________________
> PLUG mailing list
> PLUG at pdxlinux.org
> http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

It is worth keeping in mind the privacy implications of such a service.
The company behind the Find My Droid program also has access to
everywhere you are or have been with historical archives. That can be
extremely sensitive information.

It is possible to achieve the same functionality without compromising
privacy. If you have a Nextcloud account (can be selfhosted) there is
an extension called PhoneTrack. It allows your Nextcloud instance to
have an API for loggers. If you use an application like Ulogger or
something similar you can send your location data to yourself and store
it in a database you control without disclosing that info to any third
parties unless you wish to.

-- 
 __________________ 
< My NOSE is NUMB! >
 ------------------ 
\
 \
   /\   /\   
  //\\_//\\     ____
  \_     _/    /   /
   / * * \    /^^^]
   \_\O/_/    [   ]
    /   \_    [   /
    \     \_  /  /
     [ [ /  \/ _/
    _[ [ \  /_/