Cloud Storage Pain

Moving hundreds of gigs of files is a huge pain

Before I committed to pCloud and another lengthy process of getting my files there, I asked them a few questions about some forum posts I’d seen. A few people said their files were deleted or accounts closed because of “DMCA compliance.” So, I looked that up and apparently it has something to do with copyright infringements. They directed me to their terms of service, but it was not overly specific. I imagine this probably pertains to all cloud storage, but I’m trying to be thorough since I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to this shit and should.

Because of all this bullshit, I decided to take the extra precaution of buying another Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD drive. I bought one about three years ago on Amazon, and it’s been great. I found my previous order and ordered the same thing except from Best Buy. They even matched Amazon’s price. Plus, I was able to pick it up the same day at my local Best Buy.

My plan is to keep identical files on pCloud and this drive. Once a month, I will sync them because I plan on deleting and consolidating as much as I can of these files. I am trying very hard to keep my digital storage minimized and organized. Otherwise, it’s just not very useful and I have to wonder why I’m keeping it all.

I honestly would just use the Sandisk drive, but then all the files (of which there are currently only one copy) would be destroyed in a physical disaster at my home. I’m all about redundancy for certain things.

At least getting the files onto pCloud has been much better than Sync. In fact, I wanted to download a folder of my files from Sync in my web browser. You can’t. You can only download single files from the web browser. *screams expletives*. I had to re-install their desktop app to be able to download the folder.

The next test will be syncing pCloud with my external drive to see how long that takes and how well it works. Unfortunately, I see that pCloud shows the last modified date of my files as the date I uploaded them, but I’m hoping the original date of the file is still intact. (They’re not. This is why I’m glad most of my photos are in folders marked with the month and year.) I feel like that date information should be an unchanging part of the file. Grrrrr.

💩 Capitalist Bullshit

Domain Names

I think GoDaddy has simply given up on even pretending to offer customer support. I can’t get their website to open in DuckDuckGo. In Chrome, I can only get the support chat button to appear in incognito mode, and last week it wouldn’t do a thing when I clicked on it. I even messaged them on Facebook, and they were incredibly unhelpful (and kind of rude). I’ve had enough.

When I had contacted their support a few days earlier, I was told my issue would be escalated, but the person didn’t take my name or account number. Usually there is some kind of verification before they will even talk to you. Needless to say, my issue was not escalated, and I was never contacted. Also, the person I chatted with was so poorly trained that she copied and pasted her instructions as a CSA to me in the chat (telling her how to escalate my issue). And, to boot, she didn’t even follow the instructions she shared with me! It’s not even funny anymore how poor the service is. And I squarely blame GoDaddy, not the agents.

I did some research online and decided to move all my domains to Porkbun. Yes, it’s called Porkbun. They are out of Oregon and seem to be run by normal, decent folks who aren’t even close to being billionaires. They got some good reviews on Reddit. (It’s amazing how much I use Reddit for recommendations and problem-solving these days. It used to be very fringe but is now very mainstream.)

Porkbun’s pricing is cheaper than GoDaddy and includes privacy for every domain. Unless they literally hurl expletives at me, their customer service cannot be worse than GoDaddy, and I’m guessing it’s much better.

So, that’s one less bit of money I’m giving to billionaires.

Honestly, something feels off about GoDaddy right now. If you can move your domains, I would seriously consider doing that sooner than later.

🦩 Everyday Adventures

Self Care

I added a recurring task to Taskito: Give my feet some love every Sunday with a lavender epsom soak. I’ve done it two weeks in a row now, and it was the best idea ever. As we get older, I know our feet need more love, and I walk an absolute ton. My feet definitely take a beating, and I’m so grateful that they are healthy and strong.

What’s something you could add to your daily or weekly routine to give your body some extra love?

New Glasses

I got new glasses, and they're absolutely adorable. I am very particular about frames, and it's been so hard to find the kind I like. Styles change, but MY style doesn't change, so it's sometimes impossible to find what I want.

The reason I got new glasses right now is because my old glasses were destroying my posture. Let me explain.

My old glasses were bigger than any glasses I'd ever had because that’s the best frame I could get from my optometrist at the time. Every other pair I’d ever owned were small like my new ones. Before having the bigger ones, I would look underneath my glasses to read so I never took them off. With the big ones, however, I had to take them off to read my phone or a paper and then would forget to put them back on. That resulted in me hunching over to stare closely at my monitor for long periods.

That’s not a problem anymore, but there was an adjustment I had to make with my new glasses. The prescription was a tiny bit stronger… and I could no longer see my monitor clearly!

Oh dear.

Fortunately, with a bit of rearranging of my desktop, I got my monitor far enough away so it's all clear now. Plus, I like the extra space it's given me on my desk.

Prescriptions

Photo by James Yarema on Unsplash

Per my last post, I decided to try to acquire a few extra packages of my one prescription (Nurtec) that would cost $1000 without insurance. I'm allowed eight pills per month, but I don't use eight, so I'm going to try to religiously order a new pack every 30 days for a few months. That way, I can stash a few packages in case there's some interruption due to availability, delivery, or cost. The best part about the preparations I am making right now is that nothing is lost. I'll use these eventually even if nothing terrible happens.

I've been stocking up on non-perishables, and they're all things I use. So nothing will go to waste. I'll just have a few extra in case I can't get them temporarily.

I'm from rural Vermont, and this was the way we lived because it was hard to get stuff, especially in the winter. You just always had extra. I live in 500 sq ft. but I have plenty of space to have a few additional things on hand.

We know from the pandemic that circumstances can change quickly and make it hard to obtain things.

Think about the things you’d miss if you ran out of them. Can you stock up a little? (Don’t go crazy, though. We don’t need ourselves to be the cause of shortages.)

⏰️ Currently

🌞 Enjoying some unexpectedly lovely days with windows open.

😭 Fighting perimenopause weight gain. Ugh.

📚 Enjoying the book “We Have Never Been Woke” by Musa Al-Gharbi