Spam, Spam, Endless Spam….

It is just me, or is email spam getting worse? Last week, I noticed that I received a couple of hundred spam messages every day. It might have been especially bad because of Christmas, with vendors desperately trying to part you from your money. Of course, a few recent data breaches may also be to blame. But regardless of the cause, it seems to be getting out of hand.

Though it seems like a losing battle, there are some things you can do to minimize the amount of spam that you receive. One thing I do is have a fake “throwaway” email address that I use for those sites that require registration. It’s an address I never check and only use it in those instances where I don’t want to give out my actual email. I believe Apple’s iCloud mail now has an option to generate fake email addresses as well. If your provider doesn’t, then consider creating a new email address with one of the free services, such as Google.

Another thing you want to do is never respond to a spam message, and that includes unsubscribing (according to “spam experts”). All this does is let the spammer know that they’re sending to a valid email address, resulting in only more spam. As an alternative, add the user’s address/domain to your email client’s spam filter list. Most email programs offer the ability to add addresses of spammers to a spam list which then automatically moves any messages received from that address to the spam folder. That means you never see them — unless you check your spam folder.

My favorite method for eliminating spam — or at least my exposure to it — is using mail filters. What this does, is performs an action on a message that meets specific criteria. For instance, if a message subject contains a particular word or phrase, you can have your email program automatically delete the message or move it into your spam folder for you to verify later. I have a bunch of words and phrases that I use to filter my messages. Whenever an incoming message contains any of these phrases, it’s moved to my spam folder, and I never see it. Here are a few that I use (and I’m constantly adding to the list):

Sale
Bargain
Free
Last Chance
One Day Left
Black Friday
Cyber Monday
Time’s Running Out
Hurry
Deals

You can also use filters to automatically delete messages from specific senders so that they never show up in your inbox. Using filters, spam lists, and fake email addresses, I actually never see the majority of spam sent to me.

So though you’ll probably never eliminate spam entirely (I get a couple every day that manage to sneak in), using a few methods, you can significantly reduce the number of sales/phishing messages you receive.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was reevaluating all of my monthly subscriptions, including my cloud services. I’ve been meaning to combine my cloud accounts for some time now, as it was becoming challenging finding my files as I often could not remember on which cloud drive they were located. It was getting to the point where I was spending way too much time trying to find my stuff. It was time to make some changes.

The Dilemma

Once I sat down and took a look at my infrastructure, I realized how out of control it had gotten. For example, I had files scattered over the following services:

• iCloud Drive – This is Apple’s cloud service which I used for those apps which sync with iCloud such as Ulysses. I also use this for files I create using Apple’s work apps (Numbers, Pages, and Keynote. Cost: $1.99/month
• OneDrive – I receive 1 TB of free space on OneDrive because I’m a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber. On here, I only store files that I access with the iOS versions of Microsoft Office. This has proven the most unreliable (and most annoying) of all services. Cost: Free with Office 365
• Google Drive – I have a family account on which I share space with my spouse. This is used to sync our Google Photos. I also stored files that I didn’t need to access all that often. Cost: $99/year
• Sync.com – I used this as my main cloud service, on which I stored the majority of my files. I loved how secure they are and the fact that they’re located in Canada. Unfortunately, some of my favorite iOS apps were unable to sync with them. Cost: $129/year (for 3TB).
• Dropbox: I had the free account, which I only used to sync those apps which didn’t work with other services. For instance, Scrivener only syncs with Dropbox — well, to be truthful, it does sync with others, but the author of Scrivener strongly advises against it). Likewise, the iOS version of Scrivener only syncs with Dropbox (and does it quite clunkily, I might add). I left Dropbox several years back because I wasn’t too happy about certain privacy-averse members of their board of directors. I wasn’t sure if I trusted their privacy policies.

The Result

With all that being said, you might be surprised that I decided to go with Dropbox at the end of the day. I was kind of surprised too. One of the main reasons for this was that I use the iOS Scrivener app almost daily (it’s my main long-form writing app that I use to write my novels), and the only service that Scrivener safely syncs with is Dropbox. Additionally, I have some other iOS apps that will only sync properly with Dropbox, so there’s that as well. Thus, Dropbox seems to be the service that most apps use as their preferential syncing service.

As for my other services, I downsized my Google Drive subscription to 200 gigs for $29 per year, which is more than enough space for my and my spouse’s photos. Any other non-photo files were moved to Dropbox. Then, I completely got rid of Sync.com and moved all those cloud files to Dropbox. Even though I was paying for 3 TB of space on Sync.com, I was using way less than 1 TB, which worked perfectly with a Dropbox subscription. I kept the iCloud Drive service active, given that I use it to sync all of my Apple photos, and it’s relatively inexpensive. Given that OneDrive is free with my Microsoft 365 account, I didn’t make any changes there — I don’t really use that account for much anyway.

But…what about security?

I mentioned that I wasn’t too keen on Dropbox’s privacy record, which is still true. I’m not sure that I completely trust them with my data. However, most people I’ve talked to seem happy with them and trust them. But I took the extra step in encrypting most of the files I’ve stored on Dropbox — the sensitive ones anyway. While I have a wickedly long and difficult password as well as two-factor authentication enabled, I feel confident that with the extra step of encrypting my files, my data is as safe as it can be. That’s not to say that I won’t reevaluate down the road, but I’m content with my decisions for now.

I’ve always hated commercials. Even as a little kid, I use to leave the room whenever a commercial came on television. Eventually, I stopped watching television entirely. But, of course, this was before the days of ad-free cable television. I still never watch commercial television. Hell, I’m not even sure if my TV picks up those channels.

I’m not sure what’s at the bottom of the disdain for ads. I think it’s the fact that someone is deliberately trying to manipulate me into buying their shit. Advertisers try to make us feel guilty for not buying their gadgets, envious of others who have it, or make us feel somehow less than a person because we don’t bite. Advertisers are masters at making us feel like crap about ourselves: we’re too fat, too poor, our house isn’t clean enough, we own the wrong car, the wrong computer, the wrong phone, on and on. Advertising has always struck me as being sleazy and manipulative. It’s funny — whenever I’m exported to an advert of any kind, I instinctively put myself on the defensive, bringing down a mental wall. That is to say, I consciously fight back against their manipulations.

Every now and then, when I’m out of town, I’ll turn on the hotel room television and attempt to watch a show or a movie. Probably within 20 minutes (often less than that), I’m desperately scrambling for the remote to turn it off. Whenever I watch a program with commercials, it’s pure torture for me. It’s as if I’m deliberately torturing myself for no reason. I begin to get involved in a show, sucked into the story when wham! I’m asked if I’ve talked to my doctor about hemorrhoids. For the next couple of minutes, it’s ad after ad: life insurance, viagra, accident attorneys, funeral parlors, athletes foot spray, etc. With relief, we return to our programming, only for it to be interrupted again 6 minutes later. And on and on it goes. It doesn’t take me long to put the torture to an end and turn off the damn set.

I’m the same way with ads in other areas of my life as well. I don’t listen to ad-based radio, and when browsing the web, I use several ad-blockers on my browser (without it, it’s almost nearly impossible to navigate a website.) If a website slaps me with a pop-up, I immediately leave and never come back. No matter what the medium, whether it be television, radio, or websites, I find ads to be manipulative and insulting. Always have.

Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with ads. This is all me and most people aren’t bothered by them at all. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people and go out of my way to avoid them. The little television that I do watch is only through ad-free streaming networks like Netflix and HBO Max. I find my sanity is much better because of it.

Of course, being an author, this opinion puts me at odds with my business, given that I’m a business person who needs customers. Marketing has always been challenging for me. I never want to appear to be too “in-your-face,” too insulting to people, or too sleazy. I maintain this website and occasionally mention my books on Twitter and sometimes on Facebook, being careful not to turn my feed into an ad machine. It certainly is a difficult balance, trying to figure out how to advertise effectively yet non-sleazily while still getting the word out about my books.

I guess I’m still trying to figure it out. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

When I use to teach technical training courses, I used to tell my students, “There are two types of people: those who backup and those who wish they had.” This is the voice of experience talking here. Early on in my computing days, I lost data due to faulty backups or no backups. Since then, my backup procedure has evolved quite a bit and consists of several steps.

1. Local Backup. Each week, I backup my computer’s hard drive as well as my external drives using a backup program called Carbon Copy Cloner (SuperDupe is also another excellent app). I have two external drives that I use regularly, one for my data files and one for my media that is part of the backup. I have two different backup versions, which I alternate each week (weekly 1 & weekly 2). So thus, I have six drives total for my backup: two for my hard drive, 2 for my data files, and 2 for my media files, all of which I alternate.
2. Time Machine. I have a Mac, so I always have a Time Machine drive. What this does, is backs up continuously throughout the day, so I pretty much always have a recent backup of the data on my Mac. I used to alternate Time Machine drives as well each week but have subsequently reduced it to only one drive.
3. Sync.com This is the primary cloud service that I use. It’s similar to Dropbox and Box in that it synchronizes your data continuously to the cloud. I have my Sync.com folder stored on an external drive, and it also gets backed up each week when I do my Carbon Copy Cloner backup (see #1).
4. Dropbox. I also use the free version of Dropbox. My main reason for using this is because it’s the only thing that works with Scrivener, my main writing application. Given that I switched back and forth between the Mac desktop app and the iPad version, I need to keep Scrivener around to ensure that syncing is smooth and I don’t end up losing any data.
5. AWS. Okay, so this is totally optional. I also have an Amazon AWS account where I store my super-important files that are essential for running my business. AWS is a cloud storage solution as opposed to the likes of Sync.com or Dropbox, which are cloud sync solutions. The difference is that if you delete or change a file from your Sync.com folder, that file is deleted from the cloud. With services like AWS, files are not synced to your computer. Instead, you upload to their cloud servers, where they’ll stay until you delete them yourself.

So that is my backup solution. It might seem a tad confusing at first glance, but it’s really simple. One local backup, an always-on Time Machine backup, automatic sync to the cloud, and extra storage for my super-important files. Some people take the local backup to the next level by storing their backup drives off-site, such as at another person’s house or in the trunk of their car. I don’t do this, figuring that my system is relatively foolproof as is.

I do recommend storing at least one full version of all your data off-site or in the cloud, should your home ever face a natural disaster such as a flood or a fire, or if there’s ever a break-in and your drives get stolen.