When Someone Dies ...

[Blu Kreme]

What do you do with their digital life? Delete it? Archive it? Leave it alone and let it disappear into oblivion?

Need some advice on this.

[quirkmanly]

Originally Posted by Blu Kreme

What do you do with their digital life? Delete it? Archive it? Leave it alone and let it disappear into oblivion?

Need some advice on this.

Not too sure (thankfully). I think keeping the poignant "items" for posterity would be a nice thing to do. I guess a disc full of emails, webpages, images would be the modern equivalent of box of photos, souvenirs and keepsakes.

[Blu Kreme]

How would one go about saving hotmail emails to disc?

[quexos]

Originally Posted by Blu Kreme

What do you do with their digital life? Delete it? Archive it? Leave it alone and let it disappear into oblivion?

Need some advice on this.

We are all destined (whether we like it or not) to disappear into an eventual oblivion so keeping the digital stuff of a deceased will only postpone the inevitable I think

[Spankey]

Good question. Not sure if I have the answer. My Dad died in March and since I took care of his computers, I knew his passwords. He had a lot of email from friends while he was in the hospital, including ones on the night he died. They are all in his Hotmail account, and have yet decided if I should respond to them or not.

My Dad also got a new computer for Christmas and was setting up his accounts, etc. He almost died the first week of January and was only a home for 2 weeks between then and the day he actually did pass away. I deleted the profile on that computer. Mostly because there was no personal info on their and having the name visible to my Mom would have been a bad reminder.

So, it is up to you. Think about those who should see what this person may have left behind, and what that person would have wanted others to see. Part of me sees those things as great memories of a person's life.

[Blu Kreme]

Yeah. I know we are all destined to die, but that does not mean we need to be wiped out forever as if we never existed. Then again, you have to let go.

Question is, where do you draw the line?

This was not anyone close to me, but it was my boss that I had known and worked for - for 10 years. He was not your typical boss. Not evil or demanding. Easy going guy, helped him move, helped him with some personal issues and so on.

Nobody else has access to this information except for me. His personal stuff and his business stuff. Even have access to the business bank account. He never removed me when I left the business a few months back.

Might give the hotmail account over to his fiance and let her decide.

[jw]

Yeah. I know we are all destined to die,

Hopefully it didnt take 4 years of college to figure that out

[Blu Kreme]

Originally Posted by jwbbud

Hopefully it didnt take 4 years of college to figure that out

Nah, I learned that in pre-school.

[U4K61]

I would like to think that we all added somethng to this world besides our carbon footprint, so yea, it would be a nice gesture if someone saved our digital life for posterity.

[WriteSimply]

Archive it and give it to his fiance and the lead family member. You don't have to decide how his digital life will be handled. In this case, if you want to keep a copy for yourself, you can. You don't have to read it at all.


fuad

[Clark Kent]

I've seen on a couple of different forums a family member will log in as the deceased member (or on their account) to give the details of the passing. Sometimes it turns out really nice as other members give tributes to the deceased.