Month: June 2018

The Great Facebook Purge of 2018

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With the news in April about a 3rd party company stealing tons of Facebook user data is in the headlines it envouge to delete Facebook accounts.  For me I have limited my Facebook exposure for years.  I deleted my account once a in 2013 and started over with no content.  I have also limited what goes onto the platform.  Prior to deleting my account i looked for a way to purge en mass content.  Facebook suprise doesn’t make it easy for you to do that.  That was why i deleted my account in the first place.

Early last year I stopped looking at and updating Facebook.  Late last year I came back for specific reasons I wrote about here.  Those reasons still are valid so I do not want to go as far as deleting my Facebook account however I have little trust in their motives to collect so much data about me or their ability to safeguard that data.

Instead of deleting my account I found a script that sort of worked to remove content or hide content from the past 6 months. It scrubbed posts, likes, etc.  It is perfect for my use.  It should have worked for my entire timeline however i had issues with it. Thankfully I have been very sparce on my usage of Facebook over the years so cleaning up manually was not too bad. For anyone who used it every day for years may not be able to do the same thing.

What I am now left with is simply posts from my blog that are public on the internet. A few group discussions i took part in and mainly birthday posts from people. What I am not able to get rid of easily is tags of me in posts. I had to settle for manually hiding them from my timeline.

For many what i did in an hour or two would not be possible without significant effort due to the volume o content people post and the fact that Facebook does not let you easily get rid of stuff.

Always Blame The Tools, OK Seriously Do Not Do That

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I wrote previously about my motivations or lack of motivations on writing.  With all that I wrote being true an added issue was recently writing was just harder to do.  I do a lot of my writing by dictating to Siri.  Previously to that i was using Dragon Anywhere and Dragon Dictate by Nuance to dictate.

Since I write when i have a spare moment that often is when i am away from my computer.  That means I leveraged Siri a lot.  I wrote about why I went with Siri vs Dragon Anywhere.  For a while before i wrote that post I was really not using Dragon on my phone.  Siri was working great so I couldn’t justify the costs.  I am not sure if it is my location (London wireless is as good or better than NY) or issues with the newer IOS versions however Siri isn’t as good as it was when I wrote that post.

Around mid May I decided to sign up for the Dragon Anywhere trial again.  I was able to blast out the bulk of what would be my first blog post really quick.  I was also able to write a detailed journal entry for the day I downloaded the app.  That was enough for me to be happy to pick up the subscription again (for now).  In the end i could have just used the dam dictation software I pay for on my Mac.  It is much less convinenentq than having it on my phone.  It happens to be better to use.  Just not that much better to make me sit down at a computer worth my while.

With the real or perceived obstacle of not being able to dictate out and about removed I am hopeful I can continue my fledgling writing/dictating streak.

Facebook Fail

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Apparently I have been posting new blog entries for a few weeks now and no one can see them.  Oddly I see them and they say viewable by friends however they do not show up.  There goes the fancy way of posting from WordPress to FB.  I am back to the old school way.

What I Did Last Night

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To remember my dad last night I found a bottle of Godiva Liquor and M and I had a glass of it while watching an old MASH episode.

My dad was the person who turned me onto the chocolate liquor and he loved MASH so I thought that was appropriate.

I Miss You Dad…

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Today is my dads birthday. He would be 75 today. I am assuming this day will get easier over time, however it’s not today. I miss you dad. I will randomly think of you most days.  I have to try not to cry.

I am grateful my kids think of you and talk about you.  They know when they bring you up, that I will cry.  They ask if I will and I of course say yes.  I hope they remember you as much as they do now in a few years!  They say they dream about you.  That makes me smile and cry at the same time.

You are still loved and missed very much.