Ask Leo! #526 – Pictures not Showing, When Pages Were Written, Microsoft Update, Time to Unsubscribe and more…

I'm skeptical of the cloud. First, I have a slightly different definition of 'the cloud' than Leo does: I consider 'the cloud' to be online storage providers. I use other terms for sites that provide online services and such [and so, for me, my email does *not* go through "the cloud" -- it traverses the internet and lands on a local server. Yes, if you use gmail or Yahoo mail, they store your email in their "clouds", so *those* emails are in the cloud; mine aren't.

My view is that you shouldn't leave anything in the cloud that you wouldn't put on thumb drives and give to random people on the street. So for me, that means that I'll only put two kinds of things in the cloud: really public things and well-encrypted [by me!] things. One thing that has changed that I don't think Leo mentions was the NSLs -- basically the law enforcement folk can take *ANYTHING* you store in "the cloud". Keep all your email in the cloud? and a college roommate from 20 yrs ago does something nasty.... and you'll have law enforcement poring over ALL of your emails [and everything else you've stored in "the cloud"... and you won't know until they decide they see something suspicious and come knocking on your door. You trade the convenience of multi-platform email access for a HUGE amount of security/privacy exposure. I keep all of my email stored on my PC at home where it will take an actual warrant [involving probable cause and a judge and such] to get it looked at, rather than the whim of the FBI. I'm not paranoid, I just think that they have WAY too much power to surveil us as it is and storing your life's story in "the cloud" only makes it lots easier for them.

Another consideration is to abandon the 'free' services -- read the terms of service for the free services and you'll see that you're not promised very much. Your data could disappear tomorrow and you'd have no recourse. If you 'delete' files, they're under no actual/contractual obligation to delete them. [and so if you're carrying on a hot extramarital affair using your gmail account, note that when the subpoena appears LOTS more than you thought might show up in court].. I'd rather pay a [surprisingly] small amount for email service and online-storage sevice to get an actual *contractual* relationship that spells out, and is enforceable, as to what services you're getting.

"What if" (like me) your computer came with Windows pre-installed, and you have no other copy?

Also, IF one does have "the original" which you re-install after re-formatting, won't the computer spend the next fortnight downloading (again) all those upgrades ? Is there a way to avoid that, for those of us who only have a limited download budget?

Image backups solve both of these scenarios.

a) take an image backup of your new machine. Save that. REstore to that in case you ever need to restore to factory settings.

b) Take periodic image backups. Restore to the most recent and appropriate, depending on the reason for needing to do something. Updates pick up where that left of.

When you restore - to a factory install, or to a backup image - updates do indeed pick up where that image or backup left off. Still, it's WAY better than not being able to reinstall at all, and STILL doesn't require buying a new machine.

The biggest problem with unsubscribing is with institutions that ask you to reply to unsubscribe, rather than provide a link. I use different email aliases for each institution (including AskLeo) that are receive-only which are forwarded to my primary email account. Therefore if I I reply to unsubscribe it comes from my primary account, not the original alias, which is pointless!

I've not run into many of these any more. The ones that annoy me are the ones where you click a link and then you have to type your email address in again to confirm. Not only is that annoying (they know who they sent the email to, and thus they know who clicked the link), but I think it's also against the CAN-SPAM legislation.