In the past week, I have spent way too many hours trying to get industrial hardware from different vendors to talk to one another.
In my specific situation, we are using a nice little touch-screen display with plentiful digital IO. It has built-in Ethernet and can talk via a host of protocols. Unfortunately, one of those protocols is not the kind I need for my other device.
I have steadily been making headway on purging unneeded accounts across the web over the past few months.
However, to my surprise, my birthday illustrated just how far I have to go. Why? Because that’s the day that many websites and forums like to send you a ‘happy birthday’ alert e-mail.
In just one day, I found over a half-dozen new accounts that I didn’t even know existed, including:
All of these accounts are dead — some never lived in the first place. However, they all link back to me in some way. Again, none of this is anything I’d be personally concerned about but why have it out there unless its serving a purpose?
It’s no secret that we are but a single Google search from prying eyes. It’s alarming how easy it is to search for people on the internet. Likewise, it’s pretty alarming how much information exists about us (see: me) on the internet, as well.
In fact, it’s not too difficult to create an entire profile of someone (see: me) with just a handful of searches. Common user names, posts on forums, and the like all help flesh out a person’s digital identity and, if that person isn’t careful, it can make for a pretty gross picture.
So it has been a solid two years since my website, derekheiser.com, has been anything but a money-grab for a deviant domain-squatter. When I realized it was expired and free for me to register again (at no cost, thanks to dreamhost; take that no-good, ransoming polish guy!), I had to sit and think about whether it was even worth it for me to create a new web presence.