If you ever lose your Blackberry ....

A few things I learned from the lost Blackberry incident:

1. Your phone provider can likely easily turn off, then turn back on, your access. Can also let you know if any calls, data transmissions, text messages exist since you last used it (but not what they say);

2. If they say they have Saturday delivery of a replacement device, don't believe them. Saturday means Monday;

3. According to the rep I spoke with, common locations for missing Blackberries (besides the obvious) include: the washer/dryer, at the very bottom of the sheets (as if fell off mattress but caught by tucked in sheet), the top of the car, behind the headboard (again, don't want to ask why everyone is taking their phone to bed);

4. If your phone is found with moisture from being outside (like mine) the phone provider and Blackberry won't give advice to fix it. Using Google, the only advice I could find is taking out the battery then using a blowdryer, and/or putting it in rice to absorb the water. Didn't want to see if microwave rice or Rice a Roni count as "rice"; so used a blowdryer on a cool setting - figuring heat would be bad and if works like defrost, needed cool air. It worked. Maybe the moisture would have gone away on its own anyway, but didn't wait to find out;

5. My phone number on the screen didn't show up since the phone never turned off; but email address did so man who found it emailed me;

6. Had 300 email messages that could have been read by anyone who found it (that appeared before I disabled it). Nothing exciting in there - BUT able to read them before activating my service. Another sign to watch what's in email.

photo: zdnet.com