“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” — Bernard Meltzer
Greetings!
I have several tidbits to share this month.
First: The City of North Bend has been informed by the United States Postal Service that, out of an abundance of caution, the North Bend Post Office is temporarily closed due to a potential asbestos issue.
While regular mail delivery continues, those who have PO Boxes in North Bend will need to go to the Coos Bay Office to pick up mail. I understand the precaution and I understand the inconvenience, which is why I am offering: If you would like to receive bills and statements via email, please let me know. Drop a note in with your payment, call or email me, and I will get you setup for email delivery.
Second: If AI annoys you, this is for you. Firefox now allows you to toggle AI control on or off.
Open Firefox and click on the Hamburger Menu in the top right corner. Look for AI Controls in the Left Pane and follow your heart concerning blocking or unblocking AI enhancements!
Need to download Firefox? Get it here: https://www.firefox.com/en-US/
Third: I took a call from another unhappy Gmail user. They were unable to get into their account because they forgot the password. If you are using Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Live Mail, Outlook Mail, or any other “free” email service, PLEASE, go into the settings and fill in the recovery contact information! Google will provide you with step-by-step directions for your particular service when you search “how to turn on password recovery for Gmail/yahoo/live?”
If you have already configured recovery methods, this would be a good time to verify they are still correct. I can not describe the anguish that happens when people come to the realization that the phone number configured for recovery has been defunct for several years. This takes five minutes, friend. Do it now while you are thinking about it.
Fourth: An interesting commentary from Kim Komando concerning your “free” Gmail account:
Synopsis: April 1, 2004. Google announced free email with one gigabyte of storage. Tech reporters laughed hard. The Guardian called it “an elaborate April Fools’ prank.” Others called it “financially insane.”
An engineer, Paul Buchheit, built the first working version as a side project on Google’s company time. It took the rest of the industry a decade to catch up. Today, 1.8 billion people use it. Including me and almost certainly you.
Here’s what nobody tells you about that free storage. Google didn’t give it to you to be generous.
Before Gmail, everyone deleted emails to save space. Google realized if you never have to delete, you never will. And if you never delete, they own a permanent, searchable archive of your entire life. Every receipt. Every argument. Every doctor’s appointment. That’s not a conspiracy theory.
By giving you infinite space, you’d never clean out the data they needed to build a precise profile of your buying habits. That’s the business model.
You are the product my friend! If you are tired of being the product, contact me. There are other options!
Stay Safe,
Janet
Happy Easter!!
