From 1389fdb82d65eea1b0c6eb75ff6bb6b4938f158d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: James Richardson Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 16:52:21 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] updates --- blog/entry/de-google-your-life.mdwn | 69 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 69 insertions(+) create mode 100644 blog/entry/de-google-your-life.mdwn diff --git a/blog/entry/de-google-your-life.mdwn b/blog/entry/de-google-your-life.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5449d51 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/entry/de-google-your-life.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,69 @@ +[[!meta title="De-Google Your Life"]] +[[!meta date="2016-11-13 16:12:20"]] +# De-Google Your Life +I've been consciously been trying to de-google my life for quite some +time, with various levels of success. I really don't like the idea of +having my personal information owned by some other company. It is +extremely difficult to not have personal information gathered by +various companies, sometimes even stolen. Lately, I've been more aware +of such things and I see cameras everywhere, and by everywhere I mean +everywhere. Last night at Wal-mart, I found my daughter in the makeup +aisle, where there were two cameras monitoring each aisle for my +**safety**. I guess they don't care so much about safety elsewhere in +the store. We stopped by the drive through at McDonald's[^hatemickyd], +there was a camera staring me in the eye. **sheez** + +It's just not google, it's everywhere. My major medical insurance +company offers a benefit where they supply diabetic meters and testing +supplies for *free*. Guess what it's not free, you pay in kind with +personal data. My wife has one of these gizmos. She hasn't checked her +blood sugar in a while; They send her a card in the mail saying if she +checks her sugar within the next 7 days they will send her a $20 +Amazon gift card. I would venture to guess that the insurance company +gets more than $20 from Amazon to offset the cost of the card. Wonder +who else the insurance company sells personal information to? But I +digress, this is about controlling what information medical insurance +companies have and what they do with it, it's about Google and what +information they collect. + +So I've decided not to use Google anymore, how am I doing this? Well +not as well as I would like. Let's start with services for which I no +longer depend on Google. + +## Email +That was a big one. Fortunately, I've been using email in my +jamestechnotes.com domain for a very long time. I initially was just +forwarding it to my gmail account. Google still gets to see, read, +analyze, and whatever else they wished to do with my email. + +I've went through a couple of paid hosting providers, the latest one +was rackspace. I don't think rackspace was reading my emails, but it +was on their servers. I also found it very limiting. I could only have +5 emails and only in a single domain without paying more. I now self +host my email on +a +[linode vps](https://www.linode.com/?r=f73183a235860e45d0509eac3eb2660c885e69dd), +for the same price I was paying rackspace. For my out of band email I +use [riseup.net](https://riseup.net). + +As of [[!date "2016-11-13 16:45:00]] I consider my email to be +de-googled. + +## Calendar +I've stopped using Google calendar, even without a good replacement. I +have exchange at $WORK, don't have choice, and just use emacs' +[org-mode](http://orgmode.org) for non work things. I know there are +other things out there. + +## Google+ +I've setup +a +[GNU Social](https://gnu.io/social/) [site](https://social.jamestechnotes.com) which +suffices for my uses. I've long since left facebook, twitter, and +their ilk. + + +[[!tag ]] + +[^hatemickyd]: Not that I like McDonald's, but the wife wanted a Diet + Coke or apple pie or some such thing. -- 2.11.4.GIT