When the realisation dawns on you that all your contacts, pictures and emails are gone, it can be devastating. Admit it, our phones are an integral part of our lives. Personally, I can't even remember what life was like before the BlackBerry phone. But it is not the phone that is so important, it's the information contained within that is truly part of the fabric of our lives.

Yet, we treat our phone with such scant regard. We leave them at the bank, the restaurant and our friends' house. We keep them out in the open and thieves steal them. We simply forget where they are. Fortunately for us, technology can find our phones for us.

BlackBerry Protect is the latest software offer that allows us to 'wipe, lock and locate' our precious smartphones. This announcement follows on the heels of similar software from iPhone (find my iPhone) and Windows (my phone).

Let's forget the technical stuff and go to the cool stuff instead. You download an application on your phone and your personal computer (PC)/Mac and start it up. If you loose your phone, go to your PC and 'locate' it on a map. Yup, the PC will display the actual physical location of the phone on an easy -to -read map.

Great, so you've found out that you left the phone at the office. You call the office and ask them to search for it, but no luck - it's on silent. No problem. Using your PC, you can override the silent/vibrate setting and make it ring 'loud'.

Now, we're cookin'. They've found your phone, but don't know what to do with it. No problem! send them a custom message which will display on the screen, whether or not the phone is locked. "Hey, I'll give you a reward, if you give me back my phone!".

Oh oh, we've hit a snag, the person with the phone is a thief, worse, your phone isn't password protected, they have access to all those pictures you don't anyone else to see! Scandalous, no? No. You can in fact 'wipe' the phone from your PC and they have nothing more than a useless shell of a phone; a paper weight!

Nothing this good is without drawbacks. So in every case, the phone has to be on and connected via 3G or WiFi. Ok, logical. The Find My iPhone only works with a MobileMe, which has a US$99 annual subscription, but the others are free.

Sure, there are some third-party applications that can do the same job, but I am a firm believer that software designed for your phone makes life simpler 'cause its easier to fix problems. Sadly, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 users will have to wait a few months to make it happen, but iPhone users - rest assured that their data is safe.

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